Babylon is Benjamin of Tudela, a Jew, who lived in the twelfth century. In this Itinerary, which was written almost 700 years ago, he asserts, that ancient Babylon is now laid waste, but some ruins are still to be seen of Nebuchadnezzar's palace, and “ men fear to enter there, on account of the serpents and scorpions which are in the midst of it."* Texeira, a Portuguese, in the description of his travels from India to Italy, affirms, that "of this great and famous city, there is nothing but only a few vestiges remaining, nor in the whole region is any place less frequented."+ A German traveller, whose name was Rauwolf, passed that way in the year of our Lord 1574, and his account of the ruins of this famous city is as follows: "The village of Elugo now lieth on the place where formerly old Babylon, the metropolis of Chaldæa, was situated. The harbour is a quarter of a league's distance from it, where people go ashore in order to proceed by land to the celebrated city of Bagdat, which is a day and a half's journey from hence eastward on the Tigris. This country is so dry and barren, that it cannot be tilled, and so bare that I could never have believed that this powerful city, once the most stately and renowned in all the world, and situated in the pleasant and fruitful country of Shinar, could have ever stood there, if I had not known it by its situation and many antiquities of great beauty, which are still standing hereabout in great desolation. First by the old bridge which was laid over the Euphrates, whereof there are some pieces and arches still remaining, built of burnt brick, and so strong that it is admirable.-Just before the village of Elugo is the hill whereon the castle stood, and the ruins of its fortifications are still visible, though demolished and uninhabited. Behind it and pretty near to it, did stand the tower of Babylon.-It is still to be seen, and is half a league in diameter; but so ruinous, so low, and so full of venomous creatures, which lodge in holes made by them in the rubbish, than no one durst approach nearer to it than within halt a league, except during two months in the winter, when these animals never stir out of their holes. There is one sort particularly, which the inhabitants, in the language of the country, which is Eoque homines ingredi verentur, propter serpentes et scorpiones, qui sunt in medio ejus.-Benjamin, Itin. p. 76. Bocharti Phaleg. lib 4, cap. 15, col 234. Vitringa in lesaiam, cap. 13, p. 421, vol. 1. Prideaux Connect. part 1, book 8, anno 293. Ptolemy Soter, 12. Calmet's Dict. in Babylon. [Translated in the text.] Hujus nihil nisi pauca supersunt vestigia; nec in tota regione locus ullus est minus frequens-Cap. 5. Bochart, ibid. et Prideaux. [Translated in the text.] Persian, call Eglo, the poison whereof is very searching: they are larger than our lizards."* A noble Roman, Petrus Vallensis (Della Valle,) was at Bagdat in the year 1616, and went to see the ruins, as they are thought, of ancient Babylon: and he informs us, "that in the middle of a vast and level plain, about a quarter of a league from Euphrates, which in that place runs westward, appears a heap of ruined buildings, like a huge mountain, the materials of which are so confounded together, that one knows not what to make of it.--Its situation and form correspond with that pyramid which Strabo calls the tower of Belus; and is in all likelihood the tower of Nimrod in Babylon, or Babel, as that place is still called.-There appear no marks of ruins, without the compass of that huge mass, to convince one so great a city as Babylon had ever stood there: all one discovers within fifty or sixty paces of it, being only the remains, here and there, of some foundations of buildings; and the country round about it so flat and level, that one can hardly believe it should be chosen for the situation of so great and noble a city as Babylon, or that there were ever any remarkable buildings on it: but for my part I am astonished there appears so much as there does, considering it is at least four thousand years since that city was built, and that Diodorus Siculus tells us, it was reduced almost to nothing in his time."+ Tavernier, who is a very celebrated traveller, relates, that “at the parting of the Tigris, which is but à little way from Bagdat, there is the foundation of a city, which may seem to have been a large league in compass. There are some of the walls yet standing, upon which six coaches may go abreast: they are made or burnt bricks, ten foot square, and three thick. The chronicles of the country say here stood the ancient Babylon." Tavernier, no doubt, saw the same ruins as Benjamin the Jew, and Rauwolf, and Peter della Valle did; but he thought them not to be the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's palace or of the tower of Babel. He adopts the opinions of the Arabs, and conceives them to be rather the remains of some tower built by one of their princes for a beacon to assemble * Calmet's Dict. in Babylon, and Prideaux as before, and Ray's edition of these Travels in English, part 2, chap. 7. † Vid. Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, part 2, epist. 17. cap. 13, ver. 20. Vitring. Comment. ibid. p. 421. vol. 1. hap. 2, sect. 4, note N. t Tavernier in Harris, vol. 2, book 2, chap. 5. Clerici Comment. in Esaiam, his subjects in time of war: and this, in all probability, was the truth of the matter. Mr. Salmon's observation is just and pertinent: "What is as strange as any thing that is related of Babylon is, that we cannot learn either by ancient writers or modern travellers, where this famous city stood; only in general, that it was situated in the province of Chaldæa, upon the river Euphrates considerably above the place where it is united with the Tigris. Travellers have guessed from the great ruins they have discovered in several parts of this country, that in this or that place Babylon once stood but when we come to examine nicely the places they mention, we only learn that they are certainly in the wrong, and have mistaken the ruins of Seleucia, or some other great town."* Mr. Hanway, going to give an account of the siege of Bagdat by Nadir Shah, prefaceth it in this manner: "Before we enter upon any circumstance relating to the siege of Bagdat, it may afford some light to the subject, to give a short account of this famous. city, in the neighbourhood of which formerly stood the metropolis of one of the most ancient and most potent monarchies in the world. The place is generally called Bagdat or Bagdad, though some writers preserve the ancient name of Babylon. The reason of thus confounding these two cities is, that the Tigris and Eu phrates, forming one common stream before they disembogue into the Persian Gulf, are not unfrequently mentioned as one and the same river. It is certain that the present Bagdat is situated on the Tigris, but the ancient Babylon, according to all historians, sacred and profane, was on the Euphrates. The ruins of the latter, which geographical writers place about fifteen leagues to the south of Bagdat, are now so much effaced, that there are hardly any vestiges of them to point out the situation. In the time of the emperor Theodosius, there was only a great park remaining, in which the kings of Persia bred wild beasts for the amusement of hunting."+ By these accounts we see, how punctually time hath fulfilled the predictions of the prophets concerning Babylon. When it was converted into a chase for wild beasts to feed and breed there, then were exactly accomplished the words of the prophets, that the wild beasts of the desert, with the wild beasts of the island, should dwell there, and cry in their desolate house.' One part of the * Salmon's Modern History, vol. 1, Present State of the Turkish Empire, chap. 11. Hanway's Travels, vol. 4, part 3, chap, 10, p. 78. country was overflowed by the river's having been turned out of 'ts course and never restored again to its former channel, and thence became boggy and marshy, so that it might literally be said to be 'a possession for the bittern and pools of water.' Another part is described as dry and naked, and barren of every thing, so that hereby was also fulfilled another prophecy, which seemed in some measure to contradict the former: Her cities are a desolation, a dry land and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.' The place thereabout is represented as overrun with serpents, scorpions, and all sorts of venomous and unclean creatures, so that their houses are full of doleful creatures, and dragons cry in their present palaces; and Babylon is become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment and a hissing, without an inhabitant.' For all these reasons 'neither can the Arabian pitch his tent there, neither can the shepherds make their folds there.' And when we find that modern travellers cannot now certainly discover the spot of ground, whereon this renowed city was once situated, we may very properly say, 'How is Babylon become a desolation among the nations! Every purpose of the Lord hath he preformed against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a desolation without an inhabitant;' and the expression is no less true than sublime, that the Lord of hosts hath swept it with the besom of destruction.' ་ How wonderful are such predictions compared with the event, and what a convincing argument of the truth and divinity of the holy scriptures! Well might God allege this as a memorable instance of his prescience, and challenge all the false gods, and their votaries, to produce the like: Who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the Lord? and there is no God else besides me, a just God and a Saviour, there is none beside me; Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure,'-Is. xlv. 21; xlvi. 10. And indeed where can you find a similar instance but in scripture, from the beginning of the world to this day? At the same time it must afford all readers, of an exalted taste and generous sentiments, all the friends and lovers of liberty, a very sensible pleasure to hear the prophets exulting over such ty rants and oppressors as the kings of Assyria. In the 14th chapter of Isaiah there is an Epinikion, or a triumphant ode upon the fall of Babylon. It represents the infernal mansions as moved, and the ghosts of deceased tyrants as rising to meet the king of Babylon, and congratulate his coming among them. It is really admirable for the severest strokes of irony, as well as for the sublimest strains of poetry. The Greek poet Alcæus,* who is celebrated for his hatred to tyrants, and whose odes were animated with the spirit of liberty no less than with the spirit of poetry, we may presume to say, never wrote any thing comparable to it. The late worthy professor of poetry at Oxford hath eminently distinguished it in his lectures upon the sacred poesy of the Hebrews,† and hath given it the character that it justly deserves, of one of the most spirited, most sublime, and most perfect compositions of the lyric kind, superior to any of the productions of Greece or of Rome: and he hath not only illustrated it with a useful commentary, but hath also copied the beauties of thegreat ori ginal in an excellent Latin Alcaic ode, which if the learned reader hath not yet seen, he will be not a little pleased with the perusal of it. Another excellent hand, Mr. Mason, hath likewise imitated it in an English ode, with which I hope he will one time or other oblige the public.‡ But not only in this particular, but in the general, the scriptures though often perverted to the purposes of tyranny, are yet in their own nature calculated to promote the civil as well as the religious liberties of mankind. True religion, and virtue, and liberty are more nearly related, and more intimately connected with each other. than people commonly consider. It is very true, as St. Paul saith, that where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,'—2 Cor. iii. 17 or as our Saviour himself expresseth it, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make ye free,'-John viii. 31, 32. * Hor. Od. II. xiii. 26.-Et te sonantem plenius aureo, Alcæc, plectro, &c. But when Alcæus tunes the strain To deeds of war, and tyrants slain, &c.-FRANCIS. Quintil. Instit. Orat. lib. 1, cap. 1. Alcæus in parte operis aureo plectro merito donatur, qua tyrannos insectatur, &c. [Alcæus in a part of the work, where he inveighs against tyrants, is justly presented with a golden bow, &c.] + Lowth Prælec. XIII. p. 120, &c.-Viget per totum spiritus liber, excelsus, vereque divinus; neque deest quidquam ad summam hujusce Odæ sublimitatem absoluta pulchritudine cumulandam: cui, ut planè dicam quod sentio, nihil habet Græca aut Romana poesis simile secundum. [A free, lofty, and truly divine spirit breathes through the whole; nor is there any beauty wanting to increase the sublimity of this Ode; which, if I were candidly to express what I think, has no equal in Greek or Roman poetry, nor indeed is there any ode that approaches closely upon it.] Prælec. XXVIII. p. 277 &c. 'Mr. Mason hath since published this, with some other Odes, in 1750. |