with uncommon cruelty (as he himself confesses in a letter extant in Vopiscus), and delivered it to the pillage of his soldiers.-Philosophical Trans actions. St. 9. L. 6. Nor beauteous youth nor helpless age. The following is the letter of Aurelian above alluded to:...... Aurelianus Augustus Ceionio Basso: Non oportet ulterius progredi militum gladios, jam satis Palmyrenorum cæsum atque occisum est. Mulieribus non pepercimus, infantes occidimus, senes jugulavimus, rusticos interemimus, cui terras, cui urbem, deinceps relinquemus? Parcendum est iis qui remanserunt. Credimus enim paucos tam multorum suppliciis esse correctos. Templum sanè solis, quod apud Palmyram aquilifer legionis tertiæ cum vexilliferis et draconario cornicinibus atque liticinibus diripuerunt, ad eam formam volo, quæ fuit, reddi. Habes trecentas auri libras Zenobia capsulis: habes argenti mille octingenta pondo e Palmyrenorum bonis: habes gemmas regias. Ex his omnibus fac cohonestari templum: mihi et diis immortalibus gratissimum feceris. Ego ad Senatum scribam, petens ut mittet pontificem, qui dedicet templum. St. 12. L. 1. In yon proud fané. Architecture more especially lavished her ornaments, and displayed her magnificence, in the temple of the sun, the tutelar deity of Palmyra. The square court which enclosed it was six hundred and seventynine feet each way, and a double range of columns extended all round the inside. In the middle of the vacant space, the temple presents another front of forty-seven feet by one hundred and twenty-four in depth, and around it runs a peristyle of one hundred and forty columns.-VOLNEY. St. 16. L. 1. Woe to thy numbers fierce and rude. make a noise like the noise of the seas, and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters! The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters; but GoD shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind. ISAIAH, C. xvii. St. 21. L. 4. The queen of cities. Babylon. St. 21. L. 10. Oh City of the Sun! Balbec, the HELIOPOLIS of the Greeks and Romans. St. 23. L. 4. Again the sun-beams gild the plain. Let clouds rest on the hills, spirits fly, and tra vellers fear. Let the winds of the woods arise, the sounding storms descend. Roar streams, and windows flap, and green-winged meteors fly; rise the pale moon from behind her hills, or enclose her head in clouds; night is alike to me, blue, stormy, or gloomy the sky. Night flies before the beam, when it is poured on the hill. The young day returns from his clouds, but we return no more. Where are our chiefs of old? Where our kings of mighty name? The fields of their battles are silent; scarce their mossy tombs remain. We shall also be forgotten. This lofty house shall fall. Our sons shall not behold the ruins in grass. They shall ask of the aged, "Where stood the walls of our fa thers?"-See the beautiful little poem of THE BARDS in the notes on OsSIAN'S CROMA. Raise, ye bards, said the mighty FINGAL, the praise of unhappy MOINA. Call her ghost, with your songs, to our hills; that she may rest with the fair of MORVEN, the sun-beams of other days, and the delight of heroes of old. I have seen the walls of BALCLUTHA, but they were desolate. The fire had resounded in the halls: the voice of the people was heard no more. The stream of CLUTHA was removed from its place, by the fall of the walls. The thistle shook, there, its lonely head: the moss whistled to the wind. The fox looked out from the windows, the rank grass of the wall waved round his head. Desolate is the dwelling of MOINA, silence is in the house of her fathers. Raise the song of mourning, oh bards, over the land of strangers. They have but fallen before us: for, one day, we must fall. Why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days? Thou lookest from thy towers to-day; yet a few years, and the blast of the desert comes; it howls in thy empty court, and whistles round thy half-worn shield.-OSSIAN. |