Lebanon," and Solomon's royal palace, were different buildings; but we are unable to discover any satisfactory grounds for this opinion. It was designed not merely for a residence, but as a place where public business might be commodiously transacted, and, in particular, the administration of justice, which engaged no small portion of the time and attention of the Hebrew kings. The main building was, therefore, sufficiently spacious to contain the great numbers of people who came together to hear their causes determined. It was a hundred cubits long, fifty broad, and thirty high, supported by quadrangular pillars of cedar. The walls were of polished stones; and the fabric rose in three stories, each with rows of windows symmetrically arranged. It seems that the palace built for the principal wife, the daughter of Pharaoh, was not a separate building, as some readers of the scriptural account apprehend, but, as a knowledge of the arrangements in eastern palaces would lead one to expect, an interior pile of building, complete in itself, but adjoining to and connected with the king's palace. In fact, these descriptions can never be understood, unless we realise the true idea of an oriental

palace, which is that of a number of open courts one within another, each surrounded on two or more sides with buildings, and all inclosed within an outer wall, and together forming the royal court. The outermost quadrangle contains the public apartments, in which alone the king is seen by his subjects, and where he holds his courts, gives audiences, and administers justice. The interior courts beyond this contain the actual residence of the king and of his wives and concubines-forming what is now called the harem. It is difficult to point out any analogy to this arrangement in our own country; Hampton Court, and other old palaces, supply some indications of a similar arrangement. But the difference is still very great, the several courts being more spacious, and the buildings they contain more independent of each other than is usually seen in such palaces.

In these oriental palaces, the public buildings-including the hall of audience and of justice-are always in the outer court. There is, indeed, a feeling that, to insure easiness of access for suitors to the royal presence, the court of justice should be held at, or as near as possible to, the gate. In common cases, and

in the provinces, justice was administered at the gates of towns; but in the metropolis-at least in those matters that came before the king -causes were heard by him at or near the gate of the palace. Hence we read of Solomon's "porch of judgment," which was not, as some have supposed, a separate building, but the front part of the palace. It reminds one of "the gate of judgment" in the Moorish palace, the Alhambra, at Granada in Spain. This palace, indeed, taken on the whole, supplies more materials in illustration of, and for comparison with, Solomon's buildings than any other edifice in Europe-and quite as much so as any in Asia. Besides these buildings, Solomon extended the town wall, so as to include the hill now occupied by the temple, within the circuit of the city, which he further strengthened and adorned; and because the hill of Zion, on which the palace stood, was separated from "the mountain of the house" by a valley of considerable depth, he facilitated the approach to the latter by a causeway, the traces of which remain to this day. This causeway was a work of so much magnificence, or of such excellent art, that it is mentioned among the works of Solomon which attracted the particular admira

tion of the queen of Sheba, 1 Kings x. 5. It is also said that this king "built Millo," 1 Kings ix. 15. What this Millo was, has perplexed inquiry. It owed not its foundation to Solomon, but was rebuilt or restored by him; for we read of it before, immediately after the taking of the fortress by David, who is said to have "built round about from Millo and inward." 2 Sam. v. 9; 1 Chron. xi. 8. The word signifies "fulness;" and is most generally supposed to denote a mound or rampart, so called as being filled in with stones and earth; although others make it, on the contrary, a trench filled with water. Being an important and distinguished feature of a fortress, it came in popular language to signify the fortress itself, as in Judges ix. 6; where "the house of Millo" plainly denotes the acra, or citadel, of Shechem. In Jerusalem, it probably denoted, in the most limited sense, that particular part of the citadel called the ramparts, or mound inside the wall. Those who have lived in fortified towns will know how usual it is, even now, and in this country, to use the term "ramparts" as equivalent with "citadel"-a part for the whole, in such phrases"I am going to the ramparts," "I have been upon the ramparts," etc. Those writers who

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attempt to combine a number of the different interpretations by reference to a number of circumstances which existed together at Jerusalem, forget that the name Millo was used also in Shechem, where the same combination of circumstances did not exist.

Jerusalem was at the height of its glory and greatness during the reign of Solomon. In the time of his father, it had been the metropolis of the whole nation, but not also the religious metropolis-the seat of the Divine King-and, as such, the place to which the whole people resorted three times in every year. In the time of Solomon, it was both. After him it was neither. In his time, it not only enjoyed these distinctions, but was the seat of a really powerful and wealthy kingdom; and into it flowed the wealth which arose from the commercial and other enterprises of the king, whose wisdom and magnificence attracted the attention of foreign potentates, who in their own persons, or by their ambassadors, journeyed from far to pay their respects to so renowned a king, as well as to hear the outpourings of his wisdom, and to behold his curious and magnificent works. These left behind them costly gifts, and the products of distant lands; and the