"Be merry, man, and tak not sair in mind The wavering of this wretched world of sorrow; And with thy neighbours gladly lend and borrow; For oft with wise men it has been said aforow, Make thee gude cheer of it that God thee sends, These verses are from Sir Walter Raleigh's "Country Recreations :" "Heart-tearing cares and quiv'ring fears, Anxious sighs, untimely tears, Fly, fly to courts, Fly to fond worldling's sports; Where strained sardonic smiles are glozing still, Where mirth's but mummery, And sorrows only real be. Blest silent groves! O may ye be For ever mirth's best nursery! May pure contents For ever pitch their tents Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains, And peace still slumber by these purling fountains, Which we may every year Find, when we come a-fishing here." Here we have Spenser, his verse stript of allegory, unbefitting such sincere divulgement of personal experience : "Full little knowest thou that hast not tried, To lose good days that might be better spent, To spend, to give, to want, to be undone !" 407 Sir Henry Wotton indites the following "Farewell to the Vanities of the World : "— "Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles; And torture free-born minds; embroider'd trains And blood allied to greatness, is alone Inherited, not purchased, nor our own; Fame, honour, beauty, state, train, blood, and birth, Early English literature, especially poetic literature, is a perfect paradise of sweets, excelling by far the literature of the eras of Pericles, Augustus, Leo the Tenth, and Louis Quatorze, full of richest nourishment and the most refreshing beauties; its excellencies obvious, but standing the test of prolonged and renewed acquaintance; its careful study one of the most enchanting and delightful of those literary pursuits which give dignity to leisure, and to over-tasked industry its most refining recreation. J. M. LION-HUNT IN ASSYRIA IN OLDEN TIMES. COLONEL Sir Henry Rawlinson and Mr. Vaux of the British Museum, have laid before learned men and the public, since Botta and Layard first enlightened them, many intensely interesting objects from Nineveh and Babylon. None are of greater interest, perhaps, than the large octagonal cylinders of that ancient monarch, Tiglath-pileser I., found at Khalah-Shergat, believed, on good evidence, to be one of the towns alluded to in Scripture (Gen. x. 11, 12), a very ancient place, from which Mr. Layard procured a few remains, now in the Museum with the rest of his magnificent collection. Here that monarch reigned 1120 years before Christ, that is to say, nearly 3000 years ago, at, or about, the time when Samson was smiting the Philistines. In the same case at the British Museum, we have seen four cylinders, excavated at Muque-hur by Mr. Taylor, and presented by that gentleman, who obtained them at the very place whence Abraham came,-that "Ur of the Chaldees" mentioned in Gen. xi. 31. These cylinders contain an account of the restoration of temples by Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, and on them is the name of his son BELSHAZzar (Daniel, v. 1, 30). Near them are two cylinders, covered, like the others, with cuneiform characters, deposited by Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel, iv. 1, &c.), and excavated from the ruins of the celebrated "Birs-i-Nimrud," Borsippa-a castle close to Babylon, rebuilt by the great monarch, "who promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego in the province of Babylon." (Daniel, iii. 30.) Borsippa has been called "the Tower of Babel ;" and it is just possible that it may have been founded on the ruins of that "daring work" of ungodly men, referred to in the 11th chapter of Genesis. There will shortly be brought to this country* many sculptures procured by our excellent friend Mr. Loftus, "together with the inscriptions from Sennacherib's bulls, recording his wars with Hezekiah." A great authority on Babylonian and Assyrian antiquity has communicated, to the "Literary Gazette" for May 10, 1856, an account of a statue of the Babylonian god Nebo, now in the Museum, and executed, in a soft free stone, "by a sculptor of Kalakh (the Calah of Gen. x. 12, and the true original name of the mound called Nimrud), dedicated by him to his lord Phalukha, king of Assyria, and to his lady, Sammuramit, queen of the palace," -the celebrated Semiramis of history; so that, as Mr. Vaux truly observes ("Monthly Review," 1856, p. 315), we have here the "genuine ancient form of the name of one of the most remarkable ladies of antiquity, Semiramis, and this, too, no longer under the fabulous guise, which, owing to the Greek and Roman writers, she has so long worn; so far from this, she appears as a real historical personage, the wife of a king of Nineveh, about whose name, date, and lineage, there can be now scarcely more doubt than about Edward IV. or Henry VIII." This Phalukha is the ruler mentioned by the name of Pul, in 2 Kings, xv. 19, who is called Phalokh in the corresponding passage of the Septuagint, in 1 Chron. v. 26, to whom Menahem, king of Israel, gave "a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand;" which sum the king of Samaria exacted from the "mighty men of wealth, of each man fifty shekels of silver," when Pul "turned back and stayed not there in the land," as recorded so graphically in 2 Kings, xv. 20. This statue is now against a column, behind the great Egyptian head in the Great Central Saloon of the Museum-where it was placed May 16, 1856. * See "Monthly Review," No. 5, for May 1856, p. 310; an article written by one possessing the best information on such matters. On the same day the scaffolding was taken down, and on Saturday, the 17th May, the head of another great Assyrian monarch, recorded in the Bible, was exposed to the public view. The head and bust of Tiglath-pileser II., the king of that name who reigned about 740 years before Christ, and whose history, so far as it was connected with the Jews, is given in 2 Kings, xvi. 7, 10, and 2 Chronicles, xxviii. 16, 21. It is placed close to the entrance of the Kouyunjik Gallery, and is inserted in the wall near the head of the great roaring lion, which once stood at the side of a doorway to the small temple of Nimroud. The slab is 3 feet 4 inches high, and about 3 feet 6 broad, and its base is about 9 feet from the floor. We fancy that Tiglath-pileser has a ferocious look, at least compared with Sennacherib as displayed in the adjoining room. The name is in an inscription on the attendant behind him. Referring the reader to the chapters quoted, it may be well to remark how striking it is, that the king, whom king Ahaz went to visit at Damascus, should have his portrait displayed at this very time, more than 2500 years since it was sculptured. That "king of Assyria" came to Ahaz, when summoned, and took Damascus and killed Rezin, one of the enemies of Ahaz; but he "distressed" the king of Israel, and "strengthened him not" (2 Chron. xxviii. 20). King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet him (2 Kings, xvi. 10), and saw there "an altar,"-" the fashion" and "pattern" of which, "according to all the workmanship thereof," he "sent to Urijah the priest." This compliant priest built the idolatrous altar, "against king Ahaz came from Damascus," and assisted him in his sacrifices to the "gods of the kings of Assyria,"-" but," as the sacred historian records (2 Chron. xxviii. 23), "they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel." In this generation, as in that, it is well for ministers and people, for kings and subjects, to beware of the |