tent to remain within the precinct of her On hope that conscious innocence supplied, The Saint or Patriot to the world that heals Nor is it by a party that his due praise should be rendered: his claim for reverence is upon every one of those who believe that the English Church, as she is, has shown a marked and providential adaptation to the character of the English nation; that she is the associate and in no small degree the guide of its destinies, and has along with it a great part assigned to her in acting, for good we trust and for peace, upon the future fortunes of Christendom and of the her continuous life as the peculiar witness, and her ordinances as the main channel, of communion with their Lord, her discipline over soul and body as the needful counterpart of those condescensions whereby, in the various forms of art, she uses the power of pleasure over the natural sense, and, even in the awful acts of worship, gives free scope to joy. Not to mention that the very discussion of these changes would put view which we may term utilitarian, would Scotland in a fury, their introduction, in a do nothing for the true religious life that undoubtedly and warmly breathes in Scottish Presbyterianism, but would tend to formality, dryness, and corruption. They would be as a fable without its moral, as a lock without its key, as the bright colours of the kaleidoscope which present no meaning; nay, they would exhibit a positive and repulsive incongruity, as pointed architecture for a factory, or as a crown upon the head of President Cass. They would give us a travestied, not an enlarged Presbyterianism. But we need have no quarworld. rel on this subject. These are prescripIn conclusion, it is not not without sur-tions which the patient will certainly throw prise that we find the Duke of Argyll re- out of window, perhaps before the doctor commending to his countrymen and co- has turned his back. We shall not for religionists the observance of Saints' days, some considerable time see Knox added to the commemoration of particular periods of St. John nor Melvill to St. Andrew in the our Lord's career at periodical times, and Calendar, nor will the three-legged stool of the partial use of a Liturgy. Of course we Janet Geddes (p. 306)-which the Duke concur in his æsthetic view of these sub- of Argyll seems likely to bring again into jects, and honour his freedom from the com- requisition-emulate, during our day or mon prejudices regarding them: we also his, the wheel of St. Catherine or the gridadmire the language in which he has ex-iron of St. Lawrence. pressed his manful protest. But we wonder he should suggest, or allow it to be supposed that he suggests, measures like these as fit for practical adoption in Scotland. The supposed offence of Laud was, that he checked with so much tenacity the dilapidation of an ancient ritual system. It would surely have been a real one if, instead of keeping in their places the props which sustained the building, he had WE opened Mr. Layard's volumes, eager laboured to place them where there was no to resume our researches into the antiquibuilding to sustain. The observance of ties of those almost pre-historic cities, holy seasons, the application of art in mu-Nineveh and her vassals, which seem to sic, or in architecture, or otherwise, to have surrounded her on nearly every side; the service of religion, the employment of to assist in the disinterment of the palaces liturgical forms, if they are to produce any of the mythic Nimrod, Ninus, and Semiragood, imply and require the very system of mis, which had perished from the face of Christian teaching which the Duke of the earth before the days of the later HeArgyll honestly, but, as we think, errone-brew prophets, and which, after a slumber ously, repudiates, and under which men of between 2000 and 3000 years, are for the view the Church as a mother, her history first time brought again to light in the nineas their school, her definitions as the great bulwarks of the faith revealed in Scripture, * Wordsworth, Eccl. Sonnets. ART. IV.-Nineveh and its Remains. By Austen Henry Layard, Esq., D.C.L. 2 vols. London, 1848. teenth century. Our interest had been deepened by the sight of the few specimens of Mr. Layard's treasures which had then been placed in the British Museum; still more by the Khorsabad sculptures sent plicity of his narrative; by an extraordinary to Paris by Monsieur Botta. Till within familiarity with the habits and manners of the last two months only the smaller bas- these wild tribes, which might seem almost reliefs from Nimroud had reached England. intuitive; but is, we soon perceive, the Since that time a second portion has arrived, result of long and intimate acquaintance, including the black marble obelisk. These and perfect command of the language. No articles, by the negligence or unwarrantable one has shown in an equal degree the curiosity (we are unwilling to use stronger power of adapting himself at once and comterms) of persons at Bombay, have suffered pletely, without surrendering the acknowconsiderable damage, though by no means ledged superiority of the Frank, to the ordito the extent represented in the public nary life of the Asiatic. Mr. Layard, withjournals. Some of the smaller ones, parti- out effort, teaches us more, and in a more cularly those of glass, having been careless- light and picturesque manner, even than ly repacked, were found broken to atoms; D'Arvieux; he seems as trustworthy, some, including the most valuable speci- though far more lively and dramatic than mens (these are Mr. Layard's words), Burckhardt. It is hardly too much to say were missing, it is to be hoped not purloin- that the history of the excavations and reed by some over-tempted collector. Mean- velations, of his management of the Turktime the larger and more massive pieces ish rulers, of the wild chiefs whom the inare still reposing on the mud-beach of Bas- telligence of his strange proceedings brought We trust that, even in those econo- around him, of the labouring Arabs and mic days, means will be found to transport Chaldeans whom he employed in his works, them immediately to England, with positive and the removal of the sculptures, with orders to treat them with greater respect at their embarkation on the Tigris, is as interBombay. These (the huge lion and bull) esting as the discoveries themselves; while we expect to turn out by far the most re- during the necessary suspension of his toil markable and characteristic specimens of among the ruins, we are content to follow Assyrian art. We judge by those at Paris, him into the villages of Mohammedans, where there are some, especially one colos- Nestorian Christians, and Devil-worshipsal figure, which, though temporarily stow-pers, as if these were the sole or primary ed away in a small room on the ground objects of his travels. floor in the Louvre, impressed us with a strange gigantic majesty, a daringness of conception, which was in no way debased by the barbaric rudeness of the execution, and on the other hand enhanced by its singular symbolic attributes. It is that kind of statue which it takes away one's breathable Asiatic mind; how has he learned to to gaze upon. sora. Mr. Layard must excuse us if we acknowledge that he has irresistibly awakened our curiosity as to his own early history. How is it that a young Englishman has gained this peculiar power of ruling and wielding for his own purposes the intract be firm and resolute, yielding and conciliaWe found, therefore, not without some tory, always at the right time; to be liberal slight feeling of disappointment, or rather of where he should be, and to withhold his impatience, that although we were speedily to bounty when demanded by a powerful macommence our operations in disinterring these rauder under the civil name of a gift; to mysterious palaces, we were to be inter-resist the temptation of courting mistimed rupted by the negotiations, and intrigues, or misplaced popularity, yet to attach to and difficulties, which embarrassed all Mr. himself all whose attachment could be valuLayard's proceedings; and then, before able or useful; to parry deceit by courteous much had been accomplished, carried away phrases, to out-hyperbolise oriental flattery to accompany Mr. Layard in excursions in without any of the meanness of falsethe neighbourhood, and indeed to some dis- hood; to show that he fully understood tance from the scene of his labours; we these trickeries of oriental adulation-withwere to wander among the wild tribes of out giving offence; quietly to maintain and various manners, and still more various enforce respect for European, for English creeds, which people the districts to the truth, honesty, and justice; to be the friend west and north-west of the Tigris. But our of the oppressed without being the declared impatience rapidly disappeared in such stir- enemy of the oppressor? All this implies ring and amusing companionship. We found a large experience, as well as a happy in Mr. Layard, not merely an industrious and aptitude for assuming foreign habits-long persevering discoverer in this new field of usage as well as intuitive sagacity. We antiquities, but an eastern traveller, distin- are inclined therefore to think that if Mr. guished, we may say, beyond almost all Layard had chosen to begin the history of his others, by the freshness, vigour, and sim-adventures some time before the first notion of making researches on the Assyrian plains had dawned upon his mind (in 1839-40), at all events before he commenced his actual operations in 1845, he might have given us some features of Asiatic life in other quarters, not less curious, original, and instructive than those which transpire in the course of his present proceedings. His papers on the sites of certain ancient cities in the Journal of the Geographical Society, show that he has travelled far and seen much beyond the course of the Tigris; and passages in the present work occasionally betray that the wandering tribes now introduced to our knowledge, are not the first with whom Mr. Layard has lived on intimate terms, with whom he has thrown off all but the open and honourable character of the Frank, and kept up that acknowledged intellectual superiority, which, when not insolently or arbitrarily proclaimed, is sure to meet with its proper homage. We read, for instance (p. 89), after the description of a large tribe breaking up when migrating to new pastures:-The scene caused in me feelings of melancholy, for it recalled many hours, perhaps unprofitably, though certainly happily spent ; and many friends, some who now sighed in captivity for the joyous freedom which those wandering hordes enjoyed; others who had perished in its defence." In another place (p. 168) we find old habits, either of throwing the jerid, or of mingling in more serious frays, making him forget his dignity, and join in this mimic war with his own attendants and some Kurdish horsemen.' We notice these things as explaining as well as guaranteeing the truth, and so justifying our perfect reliance on the account of the mastery which Mr. Layard acquired over the Arab mind. These hours, if our readers are disposed to appreciate as highly as we do the value of his Assyrian discoveries, were not spent unprofitably, because, by the experience which they gave, by the skill thus acquired, Mr. Layard has been able to achieve what few Europeans under the same circumstances could have achieved-to persuade these unruly children of the desert to labour hard and with the utmost cheerfulness in his and in cur service, and all for their own good. He made them feel at once that they were engaged in the service of an employer, whose object was not to wring the utmost toil out of their weary frames, and then wrest away the price of their labours: that it was his purpose, besides the fair payment of their wages, to promote in every manner their happiness and improvement. whatever Mr. Layard may by and by be encouraged to give us of the details of his own earlier life in the East, content, meantime, with taking him up at the period to which these volumes distinctly refer. A former journey into the regions about the Tigris had awakened in his mind the strongest desire to make researches among the vast and mysterious mounds, those barrows it might seem of great cities, which rose in so many quarters, and which appeared not to have been violated by the scrutinizing hand of man for centuries beyond centuries. He had already surveyed the remains of more modern nations, on whom nevertheless we are accustomed to look as of remote antiquity. The emotions kindled by the strong contrast between the aspect of Grecian ruins and that of the shapeless sepulchres of the eastern cities, are described in the following impressive passage : Were the traveller to cross the Euphrates to seek for such ruins in Mesopotamia and Chaldæa as he had left behind him in Asia Minor or Syria, his search would be vain. The grace ful column rising above the thick foliage of the myrtle, the ilex, and the oleander; the gradines and overlooking the dark blue waters of a lakeof the amphitheatre covering the gentle slope, like bay; the richly-carved cornice or capital half hidden by the luxuriant herbage; are replaced by the stern shapeless mound rising like a hill from the scorched plain, the fragments of pottery, and the stupendous mass of brickwork occasionally laid bare by the winter rains. He where, in his mind's eye, he can rebuild the temhas left the land where nature is still lovely, would have made a more grateful impression ple or the theatre, half doubting whether they upon the senses than the ruin before him. He is now at a loss to give any form to the rude heaps upon which he is gazing. Those of whose works they are the remains, unlike the Roman and the Greek, have left no visible traces of their civilisation, or of their arts: their influence has long since passed away. The more he conjectures the more vague the results appear. The scene around is worthy of the ruin he is contemplating; desolation meets desolation: a feeling of awe succeeds to wonder; for there is nothing to relieve the mind, to lead to hope, or These huge to tell of what has gone by. mounds of Assyria made a deeper impression upon me, gave rise to more serious thought and more earnest reflection than the temples of Balbec or the theatres of Ionia.'-vol. i. pp. 6, 7. The success of M. Botta in his researches at Khorsabad, detailed in the 158th Number of our journal, roused still further the generous emulation of Mr. Layard. But he must have continued to brood over the vain yearnings of his antiquarian ambition, and to suppress his baffled curiosity, had it not happened that the English ambassador at We must, however, wait patiently for Constantinople observed and apprehended tive-the objects discovered from time to time, neither valuable nor exciting to further toil. M. Botta had totally failed in his attempts in that quarter. But Mr. Layard's interest had been already powerfully directed to another quarter, to Nimroud, at about five hours' distance by the winding river. the energetic character and abilities of his, opposite Mosul, had long been called by young countryman, and entirely at his own tradition the site of Nineveh. But all exhazard placed funds at his disposal which cavations there had been nearly unproducwould enable him at least to carry on to some extent these tempting researches. Mr. Layard gratefully and properly recalls to the remembrance of the country, the great debt of gratitude which it owes to that accomplished minister, for proceeding in many instances far beyond the bonds of his commission-for being ever ready to risk his private resources, in order to secure for England such treasures as the marbles of Halicarnassus--and now the remains of a city which had perished perhaps long before Halicarnassus was in being. The whole affair attests strongly the generosity, influence, and prudence of Sir Stratford Canning-and shows how well the British Court is repre sented at the Ottoman Porte. 6 As I descended the Tigris on a raft, I again saw the ruins of Nimroud, and had a better opportunity of examining them. It was evening as we approached the spot. The spring rains had clothed the mound with the richest verdure, and the fertile meadows which stretched around it, were covered with flowers of every hue. Amidst this luxuriant vegetation were partly concealed a few fragments of bricks, pottery, and alabaster, upon which might be traced the well-defined wedges of the cuneiform character. Did not Thus unexpectedly furnished with funds, these remains mark the nature of the ruin, it but through the jealousy of certain parties, might have been confounded with a natural whose proceedings he contrasts with the en- eminence. A long line of consecutive narrow lightened and liberal spirit of M. Botta, mounds, still retaining the appearance of walls obliged to act with great caution and secrecy, a vast quadrangle. The river flowed at some or ramparts, stretched from its base, and formed Mr. Layard lost no time in setting forth on distance from them: its waters, swollen by the his coveted mission. He arrived on the melting of the snows on the Armenian hills, banks of the Trigris in October, 1845. We were broken into a thousand foaming whirlpools do not propose to follow him in every step by an artificial barrier, built across the stream. of his progress. Our design is to notice On the eastern bank the soil had been washed briefly the difficulties which he had to en- away by the current; but a solid mass of macounter, and the opponents with whom he sonry still withstood its impetuosity. The Arab, had to deal, to set him fairly to work, and religious ejaculations as we approached this forwho guided my small raft, gave himself up to then follow him for a time as the Eastern midable cataract, over which we were carried traveller, rather than as the discoverer of with some violence. Once safely through the ancient Nineveh ; and in the later portion of danger, my companion explained to me that this our article to give a summary account of the unusual change in the quiet face of the river extent and value of his discoveries, with was caused by a great dam which had been built some examination of his theories as to the by Nimrod, and that in the autumn, before the winter rains, the huge stones of which it was ancient Assyrian history, its successive em- constructed, squared, and united by cramps of pires and dynasties; to inquire what we iron, were frequently visible above the surface have actually gained for Asiatic history and of the stream. It was, in fact, one of those for the progress of mankind; how far a way monuments of a great people, to be found in all is opened to still further investigations into the rivers of Mesopotamia, which were underthe language, character, habits, civilization taken to ensure a constant supply of water to the innumerable canals, spreading like net-work of the race of Assur; of the great people over the surrounding country, and which, even who preceded the rise and fall of Babylon; in the days of Alexander, were looked upon as who were the first traditionary conquerors the works of an ancient nation. No wonder of Western Asia; who appear at the height that the traditions of the present inhabitants of of power, probably under one of their later the land should assign them to one of the founddynasties in the biblical histories; are de- ers of the human race! The Arab was telling nounced in the fulness of their pride and glory by two at least of the ancient seers of Israel, Isaiah and Nahum ; and described as utterly razed from the earth by another (Ezekiel), probably an eye-witness of their total desolation. The first question with Mr. Layard was the place of his operations; of this he seems to have entertained little doubt. The vast plain of level débris broken by huge mounds, which spreads from the bank of the Tigris me of the connexion between the dam and the city built by Arthur, the lieutenant of Nimrod, its purpose as a causeway for the mighty hunter to cross to the opposite palace, now represented by the mound of Hammum Ali--and of the histories and fate of the kings of a primitive race, still the favourite theme of the inhabitants of the plains of Shinar, when the last glow of twilight faded away, and I fell asleep as we glided onward to Bagdad.'-pp. 7-9. the vast ruins of which were now before us-of Still there seems no doubt from Mr. Layard's subsequent and successful excava- This last phrase has, as will appear, its petion in the mound of Kouyunjik-one of culiar force-it expresses admirably 'tooth the mounds opposite to Mosul-as well as money:'— those made by him at Nimroud, and by M. Botta at Khorsabad, that each or all of these The appearance of his Excellency was not places, and others adjacent or intermediate, prepossessing, but it matched his temper and where the same great mounds appear, were, his reach. He had one eye and one ear; he conduct. Nature had placed hypocrisy beyond if not parts of one vast city, the successive was short and fat, deeply marked with the smalllocalities occupied or comprehended by pox, uncouth in gestures, and harsh in voice. Nineveh under its successive dynasties. As His fame had reached the seat of his government (though unquestionably in a very much more before him. On the road he had revived many extensive period of time) Babylon, Seleucia, good old customs and impositions which the Ctesiphon, Bagdad, succeeded each other on reforming spirit of the age had suffered to fall sites at no considerable distance, so as to be parassi-or a compensation in money, levied into decay. He particularly insisted on dishloosely described as the same city; in like upon all villages in which a man of such rank manner, from that imperial caprice which is entertained, for the wear and tear of his teeth seems almost to be a characteristic of great in masticating the food he condescends to receive eastern sovereigns, each proud of being the from the inhabitants. On entering Mosul he founder of his own capital, the temples or had induced several of the principal aghas who palaces which it is manifest stood on every to their homes; and, having made a formal dishad fled from the town on his approach to return one of these sites, differing as they appa-play of oaths and protestations, cut their throats. rently do in age, and to a certain extent in to show how much his word could be depended the character of their art, may each have upon.'-pp. 19, 20. been the Nineveh of its day, the chief dwelling-place and centre of worship of the Mr. Layard was too prudent to demand kings and of the gods of Assyria; and so no permission at once to commence his operaone of these being absolutely destroyed, but tions, for other reasons rather than any andeserted only, and, if we may so speak, ticipated difficulties on the part of the govgone out of fashion, this aggregate of cities ernor. The Cretan, no doubt, would have this cluster of almost conterminous capi- hugged himself with delight at the facility tals-may have then gone by the proverbial with which he should possess himself of name, the City of Three Days' Journey, the gold and precious marketable treasures just like Thebes of the Hundred Gates; or which the cunning Frank, pretending to be the poetic hyperbole of the Book of Jonah seized with an unaccountable passion for may be taken to the strict letter; and the disinterring old stones, no doubt hoped to Prophet's first day's slow and interrupted discover and to carry off. This view of pilgrimage through the streets may not have Mr. Layard's object was shared by others led him to the palace of the king. In this conjecture, which occurred to us on reading the earlier part of this work, we rejoice to find that we have anticipated the conclusion of Mr. Layard. The hypothesis in fact seems to us the only one that can account| for the vast number of magnificent edifices could scarcely persuade himself that the rewhich unquestionably existed within a cir- searches were limited to mere stones. He carecuit too extensive for a single city, but not fully collected all the scattered fragments of goldfor a capital, which had thus grown up out leaf he could find in the rubbish; and calling me of many cities. aside in a mysterious and confidential fashion, But from the old Assyrian monarchs-produced them wrapped up in a piece of dingy "Wallah! your the Nimrods or the Sardanapali-we must paper. "O, Bey," said he, descend at once to modern Pashas. Mr. books are right, and the Franks know that which is hid from the true believer. Here is the gold, Layard broke ground at Nimroud under un- sure enough, and, please God, we shall find it favourable auspices. The ruling represen-all in a few days. Only don't say anything tative of the Sublime Porte required his about it to those Arabs, for they are asses, and most dexterous management. This worthy cannot hold their tongues. The matter will personage, Mohammed Pasha, was com- come to the ears of the Pasha.' The Sheikh monly known as Keritli Oglu, that is, the son of the Cretan; he seems fully to have answered to the description of that race by the old Greek poet, to whom St. Paul has given the sanction of his authority : Κρῆτες ἄει ψεῦσται, κάκα θήρια, γάστερες ἄργοι. indeed we may say by all. Awad, the Sheik of the Jehesh, who inhabited the village near Nimroud, and was the first, and, from his familiarity with the ruins, the most useful of Mr. Layard's fellow-laborers was much surprised, and equally disappointed, when I generously presented him with the treashereafter discover. He left me, muttering "Yia ures he had collected, and all such as he might Rubbi!" and other pious ejaculations, and lost in conjectures as to the meaning of these strange proceedings.'-p. 30. |