witnessed the first dispersion of mankind, shall itself be witnessed by the latest generation, even as now it stands, desolate for ever, an indestructible monument of human pride and folly, and of divine judgment and truth. The greatest of the ruins, as once of the edifices of Babylon, is rolled down into a vast, indiscriminate, cloven, confounded, useless, and blasted mass, from which fragments might be hurled with as little injury to the ruined heap, as from a bare and rocky mountain's side. Such is the triumph of the word of the living God over the proudest of the temples of Baal.

Merodach is broken in pieces. Merodach was a name or a title common to the princes and kings of Babylon, of which, in the brief scriptural references to their history, two instances are recorded, viz. Merodach-Baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, who exercised the office of government, and EvilMerodach, who lived in the days of Jeremiah. From Merodach being here associated with Bel, or the temple of Belus, and from the similarity of their judgments, the one bowed down and confounded, and the other broken in pieces,—it may reasonably be inferred that some other famous Babylonian building is here also denoted; while, at the same time, the express identity of the name with that of the kings of Babylon, and even with Evil-Merodach, then residing there, it may with equal reason be inferred that, under the name of Merodach, the palace is spoken of by the prophet. And next to the idolatrous temple, as the seat of false worship which corrupted and destroyed the nations, it may well be imagined that the royal residence of the despot who oppressed the people of Israel, and made the earth to tremble, would be selected as the marked object of the righteous judgments of God. And secondary only to the Birs Nimrood, in the greatness of its ruins, is the Mujelibé,

or Makloube, generally understood and described by travellers as the remains of the chief palaces of Babylon.

The palace of the king of Babylon almost vied with the great temple of their God. And there is now some controversy, in which of the principal mountainous heaps the one or the other lies buried. But the utter desolation of both leaves no room for any debate on the question,-which of the twain is bowed down and confounded, and which of them is broken in pieces.

The two palaces, or castles, of Babylon were strongly fortified. And the larger was surrounded by three walls of great extent. When the city was suddenly taken by Demetrius, he seized on one of the castles by surprise, and displaced its garrison by seven thousand of his own troops, whom he stationed within it." Of the other he could not make himself master. Their extent and strength, at a period of three hundred years after the delivery of the prophecy, are thus sufficiently demonstrated. The solidity of the structure of the greater, as well as of the lesser palace, might have warranted the belief of its unbroken durability for ages. And never was there a building whose splendour and magnificence were in greater contrast to its present desolation. The vestiges of the walls which surrounded it are still to be seen, and serve with other circumstances to identify it with the Mujelibé, as the name Merodach is identified with the palace. It is broken in pieces, and hence its name Mujelibé, signifying overturned, or turned upside down. Its circumference is about half a mile; its height one hundred and forty feet. But it is " of confusion, none of its members being distinguish

t Diodor. Sic. lib. ii. Herod. lib. i. cap. clxxxi.

u Plutarch's Life of Demetrius.

a mass

able." The existence of chambers, passages, and cellars, of different forms and sizes, and built of different materials, has been fully ascertained. It is the receptacle of wild beasts, and full of doleful creatures : wild beasts cry in the desolate houses, and dragons in the pleasant palaces; "venomous reptiles being very numerous throughout the ruins."z "All the sides are worn into furrows by the weather, and in some places where several channels of rain have united together, these furrows are of great depth, and penetrate a considerable way into the mound.”a "The sides of the ruin exhibit hollows worn partly by the weather." brought down to the grave, to the sides of the PIT.

It is

They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms? Narrowly to look on and to consider even the view of the Mujelibé, is to see what the palace of Babylon, in which kings, proud as "Lucifer," boasted of exalting themselves above the "stars of God," has now become, and how, cut down to the ground, it is broken in pieces.c

p.

274.

Ꮓ

× Della Valle. Buckingham's Travels, vol. ii. p. 273. y lbid. Mignan's Travels, p. 168. a Rich's Memoir, p. 29. b Mignan's Travels, p. 167. c By the kindness of Sir Robert Ker Porter's family, in his absence abroad, the author was presented with the original drawings of the Birs Nimrood and Mujelibé, for engravings, as here inserted. His Travels in Persia, Babylonia, &c. contain four views of each, which shew how, on every side, they are bowed down and broken in pieces. Small engravings of them are also inserted in Mines de l'Orient Vienne; in Rich's Memoirs on the Ruins of Babylon, and in Mr. Buckingham's Travels. There is a view of each in Captain Mignan's Travels. The curious reader may contrast the Mujelibé with Martin's splendid picture of "Belshazzar's Feast." The place, no longer a palace, is the same. Every child is familiar with the common picture of the temple of Belus, the ancient magnificence of which could not

"On pacing over the loose stones and fragments of brick-work which lay scattered through the immense fabric, and surveying the sublimity of the ruins," says Captain Mignan, "I naturally recurred to the time when these walls stood proudly in their original splendour,-when the halls were the scenes of festive magnificence, and when they resounded to the voices of those whom death has long since swept from the earth. This very pile was once the seat of luxury and vice; now abandoned to decay, and exhibiting a melancholy instance of the retribution of heaven. It stands alone ;-the solitary habitation of the goat-herd marks not the forsaken site." Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols; the worms are spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.

like an

Thou art cast out of thy grave abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcass trodden under feet. "Several deep excavations have been made in different places, into the sides of the Mujelibé; some probably by the wearing of the seasons; but many others have been dug by the rapacity of the Turks, tearing up its bowels in search of hidden treasure,' -as if the palace of Babylon were cast out of its grave. "Several penetrate very far into the body of the structure," till it has become as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword. "And some, it is likely, have never yet been explored, the wild beasts of the desert literally keeping guard over them."e

well be exaggerated, any more than the faintest resemblance to it could be recognised in what it now is--the Birs Nimrood.

d Mignan's Travels, pp. 172, 173.

Sir R. K. Porter's Travels, vol. ii. p. 342.