This dephumation occurred in the year before Christ 830: when, at the close of the second Cuthic dynasty, the mighty Assyrian Empire fell asunder by intestine discord and by the defection of its constituent provinces ; the two most eminent of which, Media and Persia, emerging from the chaos of revolutionary violence, soon established themselves, under the Arbacidan and Pishdadian dynasties, as powerful and independent kingdoms'. Thus were the feathers plucked out of the wings of the flying lion : and, not very long afterward, he experienced, as a whole, an additional weakening by the temporary separation of his two wings or the two dominant kingdoms of Babel and Ashur. In the year before Christ 747, where the Canon of Ptolemy commences, the Empire was divided into the two kingdoms of Assyria and Babylon under TiglathPileser and Nabonassar; though the latter appears to have been dependent upon the former, much in the same manner probably as the Western Roman Empire after the time of Theodosius was dependent upon the Eastern. The wings of the lion were now completely plucked : and he no longer, as formerly, soared over Asia, the undisputed lord of the ascendant.

3. Daniel, however, soon beheld a new change in the posture and condition of the lion. Though

Quod autem evulsæ sunt alæ ejus, id est, leænæ sive aquilæ : cætera regna significat, quibus prius imperabat, et volitabat in mundo. Hieron. Comment, in loc.

he failed to recover his lost plumage Media and Persia, for Shalmaneser's brief subjugation of the former could not be noticed in the grand lineaments of the hieroglyphic: yet he raised himself up from the ground, and stood erect upon his feet in a rampant or threatening attitude.

This state of the lion commenced in the year before Christ 681; when the two wings were reunited under the warlike and powerful Asaraddinus or Esar-haddon, and when by their aid he was enabled to stand erect though not enabled to soar into the air. After that time, when once the feeble reign of the effeminate Chiniladanus or Sarac or Sardanapalus was past, the lion became more and more rampant under the two Nebuchadnezzars, father and son; till at length he was made the greatest state of Asia, though, from the circumstance of his never recovering his lost feathers Media and Persia, he was incapacitated from taking his flight above the earth itself 1.

4. The last peculiarity, which Daniel noticed in the Babylonian lion, was, that a man's heart was given to him.

This circumstance, from its very nature, could not have been seen by the prophet: but it must have been communicated to him by the voice, which afterward commanded the bear to arise and devour much flesh. The fact was a remarkable one: for the lion, it seems, retained his bestial aspect and

1 See

my Origin of Pagan Idol. book vi, chap. ii.

constitution, so as still to remain a lion ; but yet the heart of a man was given to him.

I take it, that the matter thus described relates to the personal history of the greatest and almost the last of the Babylonian princes. When Nebuchadnezzar was driven to madness during the period of those seven times, which represented the seven prophetic times of the metallic statue's moral insanity, it was said of him; Let his heart be changed from man's heart, and let a beasť s heart be given unto him. Hence, when he recovered his reason, he went through a directly opposite process : his heart was changed from a beast's heart, and there was given to him the heart of a man. The consequence, however, of this extraordinary visitation was no less moral than intellectual. Nebuchadnezzar, though the head of an idolatrous. Empire, became a faithful worshipper of the one true God : and, as he died about a year after his restoration from madness, we have sufficient ground for reasonably believing that he departed in peace and favour with the Most High. An event of this. nature might, to a worldly historian, appear trivial : but God judges not, as man judges. In his eyes, the conversion of an idolatrous prince was worthy of especial notice. Accordingly, while a whole chapter of the short book of Daniel is devoted to the narrative of this event; the same event is introduced into the hieroglyphic of the lion, as the last remarkable circumstance, in regular chronological succession, by which he should be characterised.

The lion, as an Empire, ceased not to be a lion: but, in the person of his great sovereign Nebuchadnezzar, the heart of a man was given unto him1.

- II. The second wild beast, we are told, resembled a bear. In its attitude, it was raised up or elevated on one side it had three projecting tusks in its mouth between its teeth: and the command, which it received, to arise and devour much flesh, indicates no common ferocity and tyrannical oppressiveness.

Here, again, commentators are unanimous in pronouncing the bear to be the evident symbol of the Medo-Persian Empire: but I doubt, whether the detail of the hieroglyphic has hitherto been quite satisfactorily elucidated.

The bear, we must observe, is a compound symbol, representing a compound Empire or an Empire made up of two originally distinct and independent kingdoms. Hence, while the bear himself typifies the whole Medo-Persian Empire, the several characterised parts of him must relate partly to the kingdom of Media and partly to the kingdom of Persia.

1. On this obvious principle, the two sides of the bear represent the two dominant kingdoms, which formed by their junction the nucleus or main body of the Medo-Persian Empire: the more elevated side, like the loftier horn of the ram in a subsequent

See Hieron. Comment. in loc.