renown, according to the meaning of those terms at the present period of our history. The famed city of Tyre resisted the great king of Babylon thirteen years; and afterwards resisted a greater king than he. Sidon was a city of no small fame for its temples, gardens, and other mighty works; though all comprised in very narrow compass: for it does not appear that either was more than two or three miles in circumference. We know nothing of their laws and government: in religion they differed little from their neighbours. Descended from Canaan, they must have sometime known the God of Abraham-but either he was forgotten, or conjoined with various other deities of earth and heaven in their idolatrous worship. The names of Baal and Astarte are rather general than proper names, and do not designate a single deity: Astarte, queen of heaven, was probably the moon. Whatever they were, these deities had abundance of priests and prophets, since there were four hundred and fifty priests of Baal at Jezebel's table only. They were accustomed to offer burnt-offerings and sacrifices to these gods, and danced and skipped as if in frenzy round their altars, cutting themselves with knives and lancets; in times of extraordinary calamity not hesitating to immolate to these dreaded lords whatever they most fondly loved. To these were added the most profane and unhallowed rites to Adonis, whose fabulous story it is not worth our while to tell. The world was already old enough to have reached the grossest excess to which human wickedness can be carried. We have cause to be amazed indeed at the forbearance and endurance of Him, who for the fulfilment of his own most merciful and eternal purpose, beheld and suffered it.

The Phoenicians are said to have been learned and scientific-perhaps their excellence was rather in manual arts, and useful inventions. The great source of their wealth was a famous purple dye, extracted from a fish caught abundantly on their shores, and perhaps there

only-and there it is either no longer existing or no longer known. They were famous too for the manufacture of glass, from the sand of their shores. This is the first mention we have made of glass, which is considered, with probability, to have been invented by the Phoenicians, though we cannot say at what period. The weaving of fine linen is also named as their invention, and it is certain they early excelled in it. The cedar and other valuable woods with which they so abundantly supplied their neighbours, were cut, no doubt, in the forests of Lebanon that bounded their territories. Commerce and navigation were the great boast of the Phoenicians, and that in which they surpassed all other nations of their time. As the result of this, their towns were the resort of strangers; and various places on the shores of the Mediterranean were colonized from their small domains. Our readers cannot but be acquainted with the story of Dido or Eliza, who flying from the tyranny of her brother Pygmalion, king of Tyre, founded the illustrious city of Carthage, on the shores of Africa. This, and the founding of various other colonies, was previous to the time of Nebuchadnezzar: Phoenice must have been very populous, to send forth so many wanderers from her narrow limits. Tyre and Sidon were much the subject of prophecy in the Holy Scriptures, and the successes of Nebuchadnezzar against them were exactly foretold but though taken, they were not held by the Assyrians, and recovered for a time their wealth and fame.

SYRIA.

The boundaries and dimensions of this kingdom have varied at different periods-as the contemporary of the nations of which we have spoken, we may describe it as bounded by the Mediterranean on the West, extending thence about three hundred miles to the river Euphrates and Mesopotamia on the East: to the South lay Phoenice, Palestine, and Arabia, whence it extended to Mount

Taurus on the north, in length between three hundred and four hundred miles. The Hebrew and original name was Aram, from Aram, the son of Shem, which marks the antiquity of the settlement.

We hear of Syria very early in Sacred History, and throughout it very frequent mention of the kings of Hamath, Zobah, Geshur, and Damascus, all comprised within the limits of Syria: but for more than the Scripture tells us we must seek in vain-every ancient writer tells a different story, and gives us an altered list of kings. They were the frequent and inveterate enemies of the Israelites, sometimes successful, sometimes defeated, as when, under their king Ben-hadad, they fled before the arms of Ahab, B.C. 908. We have no more of the history of Syria than its beginning and its end, with the slight notices taken of it in the history of Israel. One after another the states into which it was divided, were taken possession of by the Assyrian, its greater neighbour-till in the year B.C. 740, Damascus, the last, fell into the hands of Tiglath-pilesar, king of Babylon; and thus ended the Syrian empire.

In this district is the famous Mount Libanus, or Lebanon, where, amid the snows that cover the mountain tops, a few cedars only remain of the forests that must have existed there at the period of this history, since thence were supplied the splendid wood-work of all the boasted edifices of that period. The cities of Heliopolis, now Balbeck and Palmyra, or Tadmor, so famous now in ruins, perhaps were then as famous in their splendour -but as this is mere conjecture, and our business is not with their present state, we refer our readers to the works of modern travellers for the description of these extraordinary ruins; of which the most extraordinary circumstance is the enormous size of the stones which formed the walls of Heliopolis, some of which are remaining sixty feet in length; they were put together without any sort of mortar or cement.

Of the laws of this empire we have no information

probably they were various as its kingdoms and changeable as its destiny. The religion certainly was so, partaking in turn of the various modes of idolatry of its neighbours and conquerors. The amazing number of images of which the vestiges are remaining in their cities, are doubtless the work of different ages, formed for ornament as well as for worship. The temples were numerous and magnificent, and within their inclosures were kept sacred animals, oxen, horses, lions, eagles; and many others, all tamed and harmless. We are told of a pond, too, in which sacred fishes were kept, and in the centre an altar, to which numbers of people were always swimming, and on which incense was always burning, in honour of the great Syrian goddess: who she was does not appear, though we are minutely informed of the rites offered, and the magnificent buildings dedicated to her in Hierapolis. Plutarch mentions that in his time the Syrians were an effeminate people; as they are so still, it is probable they always were so. Their mode of mourning for the dead was by excluding themselves from the light in caves and dens for many days together. The Syriac language is considered by some to have been the parent of all the oriental languages. The written characters are very ancient, (like all other Eastern tongues their alphabet was at first destitute of vowels.) By some the Syrians are supposed to be the inventors of letters, an honour more frequently ascribed to the Phoenicians-but whether due to either we know not. Like their neighbours on the coast, the Syrians excelled much in navigation, and there is no doubt that in all knowledge, science, and skilful arts, they were as much advanced as any part of the world at this time of our history.

MEDIA.

We have now to mention a nation which we believe has not hitherto been noticed in our history of this rapidly increasing world, lying eastward of those already spoken

of, having Assyria as its western boundary, the Caspian Sea on the north, and Persia on the south; on the west lay Parthia and some other kingdoms, of which we must speak hereafter. Media is supposed to derive that appellation from Madai, the son of Japhet, and of course claims to have been a people as early as any one of its boastful neighbours: and if it does not come so early into the notice of the historian, it is perhaps because it lay more distant from the only source of authentic history, the land of Israel.

The history of the Medes, like every other we have essayed to trace, begins in absurd and useless fables: the first we know of it authentically, is as a conquered province of the Assyrian empire, to which it remained in possession till the time of Sardanapalus, when the empire of Assyria became one with that of Babylon, and Media, as we are told by some historians, became independent under its first king, Arbaces. It is hopeless to trace the names that follow, of princes who either did or did not reign, for nothing is certain here. More authentic history informs us that the Medes, having freed themselves from the control of the Assyrians as early as the reign of Sennacherib, chose one Dejoces for their king, who established them as an independent nation, and reared for his seat of government the splendid city of Ecbatan, the rival of Nineveh, and other boasted cities of the East, B.C. 699. He is said to have reigned fifty-three years without any attempt to extend his dominions by warring with his neighbours.

He was succeeded by his son Phraortes, the contemporary of Nebuchadonosor, king of Assyria, with whom he entered into unsuccessful contest, and by whom the short-lived city of Ecbatan was stormed and levelled with the ground.

In the year B.C. 624, Cyaxares came to the throne, the contemporary and ally of the famous Nebuchadnezzar, to whom he married his daughter Amyite. The successes of these allied monarchs, whose dominions