well as the temple-palaces, to tell their tale to modern times: but no such linear mounds or mural embankments appear to exist. While therefore there is evidence sufficient to believe that Nineveh was an "exceeding great city," fit residence for such splendid despots as Sennacherib, Pul, Sargon, and Tiglath Pileser, we are forced to the conclusion that the accounts given, by the Greek historians at least, of the walls and defences of Nineveh, are gross exaggerations, if not pure fables.

The explorations in Babylon were not attended with discoveries either so numerous or important as those of Nineveh. Of the present condition of those ruins the following passage is both eloquent and picturesque :-

"The mound of Babel is the first great ruin seen on approaching Babylon from the north. Beyond it long lines of palms hem in the Euphrates, which now winds through the midst of the ancient city. To the vast mound of Babel succeed long undulating heaps of earth, bricks, and pottery. A solitary mass of brick-work, rising from the summit of the largest mound, marks the remains known to the Arabs as the Mujelibé,' or the overturned. Other shapeless heaps of rubbish cover for many an acre the face of the land. The lofty banks of ancient canals fret the country like natural ridges of hills. Some have long been choked with sand; others still carry the waters of the river to distant villages and palm-groves. On all sides fragments of glass, marble, pottery, and inscribed brick are mingled with the peculiar nitrous and blanched soil, which, bred from the remains of ancient habitations, checks or destroys vegetation, and renders the site of Babylon a naked and hideous waste. Owls start from the scanty thickets, and the foul jackal skulks through the furrows. Truly the glory of kingdoms, and the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, is as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. Wild beasts of the desert lie there; and their houses are full of doleful creatures; and owls dwell there, and satyrs dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces:' for her day has come."-P. 413.

During Mr. Layard's stay at this place, excavations were made in different parts of the ruins, but nothing of importance was reached. Confused heaps of ruins, and standing masonry, with enormous accumulations of rubbish above them, were all that met the spade of his Jebour explorers. Scarcely a detached figure in stone, or a solitary tablet, was dug out of the vast heaps. No sculptures or inscribed slabs-the panelling of the walls of palaces and temples, as in Nineveh-were found. That such was the case is somewhat remarkable, considering the acknowledged richness and splendour of this ancient city, "the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency;" but some future explorer, aided by more favourable circumstances, may possibly yet reap a harvest of antiquarian discovery, equal to anything which Nineveh has afforded. Far down in the depths of those stupendous mounds are palace-chambers and festal-halls, where oriental art and wealth once displayed their glittering magnificence, and where royalty

strutted its brief hour, decked in its purple and pride. On almost all the bricks found among these ruins are inscriptions in the cuneiform character; but they simply record the building of the city by "Nabukudurruchur, the son of Nabubaluchun."

Babylon, in magnificence and extent, was the wonder of the ancient world. The descriptions which have come down to us through Herodotus and other historians, make so large a draft upon our faith, that credulity itself staggers under the amount, and protests the claim. Its stupendous walls rising up three hundred and fifty feet-an enormous superfluity of altitude-its hanging gardens of equal elevation, reared by Nebuchadnezzar in the mere wantonness of power, to emulate the height of the hills of Media, and gratify the rural taste of his queen; the prodigious artificial lake near by, one hundred and sixty miles in circuit, and thirty-five feet deep, constructed to receive the superfluous waters of the Euphrates in seasons of flood, and capacious enough to float all the navies in the world; and the Temple of Belus, according to Herodotus "a furlong in height," on whose level summit was an observatory still higher, constructed for the convenience of Babylonish astronomers:

these are works the glowing descriptions of which, as they have come down to us from the old historians, never fail to excite the amazement where they do not provoke the scepticism of mankind. If works such as these were not purely fabulous, they were at least colossal exaggerations. How such accounts could have been transmitted as sober history, we are unable to conceive, unless the evidences of Assyrian or Babylonian power were so impressive and overpowering as to excite unduly the imagination, and, like the mirage of the desert, cause the writers from whom these descriptions come to see what never existed, or greatly to exaggerate what did.

In the reputed extent of Babylon we experience the same difficulty as in the case of Nineveh. It is described as lying in an exact square, each side being fifteen miles, and its superficial area being therefore two hundred and twenty-five square miles-a surface to be built over as a city, or even enclosed with substantial fortifications, utterly incredible. The difficulty may, perhaps, be surmounted by adopting a like hypothesis as in the case of Nineveh; but according to the observation of Layard and other travellers, no traces of this stupendous wall are found, to afford a basis for conjecture. If a vast line of fortifications, with gates and equi-distant towers of so enormous dimensions, once existed, it is incredible that the face of the country at the present day should furnish not even a trace. But no trace is there. Evidences of mural fortifications on the left bank of the river do indeed exist; but they correspond with the

descriptions neither in form nor in extent. Instead of a square, we find two sides of a trapezoid; and, instead of fifteen miles, an extent of not more than three. On the right bank of the river, if ever such ruins were found, the changes in its channel have long since swept them away. It is evident that these enclosures could never have embraced all of this mighty city. For miles around, low heaps of ruins and scattered embankments are seen. "By imagining," says Mr. Layard, "a square large enough to include the smaller mounds scattered over the plains, from Mohawill to below Hillah on one side of the river, and the Birs Nimroud, at its south-western angle, on the other, the site of a city of the dimensions attributed to Babylon might be satisfactorily determined;" but then it is clear that the outer wall and ditch so minutely described by Herodotus never existed.

But we are drawing out these discussions to a point quite beyond our original intentions, and must therefore bring them to a close. From what has been said, the intelligent reader will be able to gather the character and value of these antiquarian researches. They present a mass of information of the most interesting and important kind. On many points Scripture history is illustrated, and, on many more, profane. No other archæological labours of these or other times have so thrilled the public mind, or excited so general attention. Hoary antiquity, with its curious records, damp with the reek of forgotten centuries, comes forth from the tomb to hold converse with the living generations, and thrill us with its deeds of renown. The sealed archives of old Assyria unlock their treasures; mysterious inscriptions, in language long since forgotten, are forced by modern sagacity to yield their secrets; and at every step, as we advance, light breaks in upon the lost history of the past. From the sepulchre of hopeless oblivion come unexpected voices, startling the nations by telling of valour, power, learning, art, and the fame of glorious exploits achieved when the world was young, and over which Time had long since rolled his Lethean wave. Greece and Rome, though dating back into the heroic ages quite beyond the reach of authentic history, were modern compared with old Assyria. When Cadmus was planting his colonies, and Romulus pressing the paps of the wolf, the land of Ninus and Semiramis was in the meridian of its political splendour and power. By these wonderful exhumations the dead seem to stand before us. The lapse of so many cen

turies is annihilated; and the times of Nimrod and Asshur, Nitocris and Abraham, leaping the chasm of three thousand years, commune with the present, to correct the fables of history, and declare the magnificence of their civilization, the majesty of their arts, and the splendour of their power.

ART. VIII.-HORACE BINNEY WALLACE.

Obituary. Horace Binney Wallace. Philadelphia. 1853. Pp. 12.

IN the preface to the third volume of M. COMTE'S Système de Politique Positive, just issued in Paris, the following passage occurs:

"Je dois maintenant achever cette préface en déplorant la catastrophe exceptionnelle qui me priva récemment d'un éminent disciple, destiné, sans doute, à devenir l'un des meilleurs appuis du positivisme. En signalant, dans la préface du volume précédent, la digne adhésion d'un noble citoyen de Philadelphie, j'étais loin de prévoir qu'une fatale maladie allait m'enlever l'infortuné Wallace, à l'âge de trente-cinq ans.

Quoique nos relations se soient bornées à trois entretiens décisifs, séparés par une correspondance aussi courte que précieuse, elles m'ont permis de juger la perte que fait en lui l'Humanité. D'après un rare concours entre le coeur, l'esprit, et le caractère, il devait puissaminent seconder la difficile transition réservée au dix-neuvième siècle. Exempte de toute affectation, sa culture spéculative, tant esthétique que scientifique, correspondait pleinement à sa belle organisation. Mais ses confidences spontanées m'autorisent à penser, malgré les essais littéraires de sa jeunesse, qu'il se serait surtout illustré par la vie active, dans un pays où les grands citoyens prévalent sur les magistrats. J'ose résumer sa véritable appréciation en le comparant au plus éminent des hommes d'état Américains, quoique l'inégalité du dévelopement et la diversité des situations empêchent de sentir assez les rapprochements, intellectuelles et moraux, entre Wallace et Jefferson."*

This is indeed a rare panegyric. The man who could draw it` out-not to say deserve it-must have had qualities far above the

"In concluding this preface I cannot help deploring the misfortune which has recently deprived me of an eminent disciple-one destined, without doubt, to have become one of the chief pillars of Positivism. When mentioning, in the preface to the second volume of this work, that a distinguished citizen of Philadelphia had given in his adhesion to my principles, I little foresaw that I should so soon have to lament his loss at the early age of thirty-five.

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Though our personal intercourse was limited to three interviews, with intervals of correspondence as short as precious, I yet knew him well enough to be entitled to judge of the loss which Humanity has sustained in his death. In him heart, intellect, and character united in so rare combination and harmony, that he would have aided powerfully in advancing the difficult transition through which the nineteenth century has to pass. Free from all affectation, his culture, both æsthetical and scientific, was in perfect harmony with his fine organization. Although he gave his youth in part to literary efforts, his spontaneous and free communications to me authorize the belief that he would have distinguished himself in active life in a country where the noble citizen is greater even than the officer of state. I do not exaggerate his merits in ranking him as the equal of the greatest American statesmen; and if I name Wallace and Jefferson together, men will fail to recognise the moral and intellectual points of accord between them, only because of the difference between them in development and in public position."

common endowments of humanity. And although HORACE BINNEY WALLACE filled no public station, and shunned rather than sought, during his whole life, everything like notoriety, it is fitting, now that he has passed away, that some permanent record of his virtues and his aims should be made. Moreover, as M. COMTE has given worldwide publicity to the fact of Mr. Wallace's adoption of the Positive doctrines, it is due to his memory to show how far his mind went along with those doctrines, and where it stopped.

Mr. Wallace was born February 26, 1817, in the city of Philadelphia. His father, John Bradford Wallace, was for many years an eminent member of the Pennsylvania bar-a man of large capacities and of fine nature. In a touching tribute to his memory from the hand of one who knew his whole inward and outward life as no other could, we find it beautifully said that the great rules of the gospel were so settled in his mind "that he scarcely deliberated or seemed to pause between degrees of virtue. The purest and the best was the immediate selection of his will, and the impelling power of his conduct. To do good to others, forgetful of himself; to plan with care and pains, and execute with indefatigable fidelity whatever could subserve individual interest, or embody humanity and justice in permanent institutions; to fulfil in its apostolic delineation the entire law of charity, scarce conscious of effort and unmindful of risk: these were among his comprehensive outlines; these, the sterling issues of his opulent stores; and were purchasing for men, wherever he went, the most valuable benefits in morals, in politics, and in religion."

His mother combined rare intellectual gifts with the highest graces of person and manner. Both his parents were members of the Protestant Episcopal Church; and the atmosphere of their abode was that of refined yet thorough Christian piety. The home influences, therefore, under which Mr. Wallace was educated, were of the purest and most elevating class. His academical education was completed in the University of Pennsylvania, where we remember him as one who was held to dwell apart in a world of higher thoughts than those which usually occupy young men of his age.

He chose the law for his profession, and studied it not merely practically, but philosophically. It was not long before the fruits of such devotion to the science from such a mind began to appear. In the brief obituary named at the head of this article, (the author of which is one of the brightest luminaries of the profession.) it is stated that Mr. Wallace "contributed to his profession in notes, or, more properly speaking, in commentaries, upon Mr. Smith's Selec* Unpublished.