Although this is mere poetry, yet, according as it does with a classical tradition of the discovery of iron by a volcanic eruption of mount Ida in Greece, we may safely indulge the belief that some similar chance first revealed iron as a useful metal to mortals. And thus with almost every art; man has involuntarily stumbled upon a knowledge of some simple fact, which was the foundation of future perfections.

Immediately after the flood, sacred and profane history and tradition unite in their testimony relative to the arts, and we can proceed with more certainty with their combined and mutually corroborating aid.

As soon as Noah disembarked upon the summit of Arrarat, he immediately erected an altar for sacrifice and thanksgiving. This altar was rough unhewn stones, and is the first example of postdiluvian monumental architecture. And here we will make the distinction of classes which characterize architecture, and which in future we intend to pursue separately, namely: MONUMENTAL, SACRED, and DOMESTIC.

The altar of Noah was not the first one erected, for we read that Cain and Abel both sacrificed, by which an altar is implied. Josephus also asserts, that the children of Seth, a son of Adam, born when the latter was one hundred and thirty years old, erected two pillars, one of brick, the other of stone, and engraved astronomical symbols upon them. This, if true,

proves two things; first, that at that very early period, monumental architecture very nearly resembled examples of it executed centuries after the flood; and secondly, that astronomy was known and cultivated as a science. With the

subsidence of the flood we may commence our history founded upon undoubted facts, and we will first trace the progress of monumental and sacred architecture in connexion from that period.

The altar of Noah was as truly a specimen of this class of structures, erected as it was in commemoration of a great deliverance, as the sky-piercing obelisk with its myriads of engraved symbols. The monumental and sacred are so nearly allied, that it is difficult to draw a line of demarcation between them, for the monumental stone was often made the sacrificial altar. And it is easy to conceive the direct progress from such primitive places of adoration, to the magnificent temple. First a single stone is erected, then others are placed around it as a pavement to prevent the earth from becoming soddened with the blood of the victim, and lastly, other upright stones are placed around the original one by pious hands. Such simple monumentssuch feeble progress toward the columnar style of temple or altar building, are found in many parts of Ireland and England, where the Druids performed their religious rites with all the primeval simplicity of the children of Noah. The piles at Stonehenge, and the round towers of Ireland, were probably erected for the same purpose that similar monuments were among the ancient Hebrews, the people of Iran or Persia, the Arabs, and the Chinese. We find it recorded that the patriarch Jacob, after his vision of the ladder that reached to heaven, set up the stone he had used for a pillow as a commemorative monument, and consecrated it by pouring oil upon it. Even at the present day, such a custom is prevalent in the East, especially in Persia, where the

veneration.

traveller often meets with a consecrated pile of stones, which are ever regarded as sacred. Indeed the ancient Persians often set up such stones as symbols of deity, for they deemed it impious to represent Omnipotence in the form of animated nature. Even the Greeks, who were well acquainted with art, and were fond of making representations of their numerous gods, held such primitive monuments in the highest Pausanias says that in his time. near Pheræ, thirty blocks of stone were to be seen, consecrated to thirty gods, who were the earliest objects of adoration in Greece. Love, the Graces, and the various passions, had no other representatives than these symbols, when Greece was but a colony; and even in the time of Titus, a period when the sun of Grecian glory had passed the splendor of its meridian in the time of Pericles, Venus was still at Paphos but a simple pyramidal stone. In Rome, upon the plateaus of central Asia, the island of Japan, and even in Egypt, such monuments have been seen as objects of veneration. These are specimens of monumental architecture in its incip ient state.

In less than two centuries after the flood, architecture was cultivated in Chaldea, Persia, Egypt, China, and Phoenicia. About one hundred and fifty years after the period of the del uge, the descendants of Noah having become numerous, found it necessary to disperse in various directions, but before doing so, they resolved to unite in common in building a great city, and in raising a tower of an immense height, as a signal and a point of union." They said, "Let us build a city, and a tower

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whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad ;" thus expressing a desire to perpetuate their names by a monument that should endure for all ages of time. How they were punished for their ambition, the Bible reader well knows.

Babylon was the name of the city which was then built, and Nimrod was at that time the chief ruler of the people. He was an enterprising prince, and in rapid succession built several other thriving cities in Chaldea. Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, was founded by Ninus, and became one of the most eminent cities, next to Babylon, of antiquity. In the time of Jonah, eight hundred and sixty years before Christ, it contained one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants. About the same period, the city of ancient Troy was founded by Scamander, and Egyptian Thebes by Mizraim, the son of Ham, who led a colony into Egypt, and laid the foundation of that kingdom.

About fifteen hundred years B. C., Athens was founded by Cecrops, and Mycena, Sicyon, Argos, and other cities, now blotted from existence, were built by the Cyclops. The ruins of these latter cities present little else than piles of huge rough stones, forming colossal walls and temples, without any regard to architectural beauty of design. Many have supposed that this people, whom Homer describes as living in caves among the mountains, without government other than the patriarchal one exercised by heads of families-a giant race-were the excavators of those remarkable temples of the Hiudoos at Elephanta, Ellora, and Salsette. The erection of the immense rocks at Stonehenge,

England, has also been attributed to them; but these conjectures are probably all untrue.

Babylon was the most splendid of all the cities of antiquity. According to Pliny, it was sixty miles in circumference, its walls were two hundred feet high, and fifty feet thick; and at the time that he visited it, (about the fortieth year of our era,) the temple of Belus was still standing. Herodotus says that it had a hundred gates of brass, and that besides the temple of Belus, or Nimrod, erected by his son Ninus, it contained many other magnificent structures of a monumental and sacred character. Ninus spent a vast amount of treasure in erecting this temple in honour of his father, and in otherwise adorning the city. He caused his parent to be worshipped by the people, and erected a brazen statue of Jupiter Belus in the temple. This is the same idol known in Scripture by the name of Baal.

Semiramis, the wife of Ninus, completed the walls and other great works of Babylon which her husband commenced. These walls were covered inside and out with hieroglyphics and sculpture, and were reckoned one of the seven wonders of the world.* She also erected another magnificent temple to Jupiter Belus, and adorned it with statues of Belus, herself, and some of her principal warriors. Three statues of gold were erected on the summit of the temple of Belus, representing Jupiter, Juno, and Rhea. Other similar works of grandeur were erected by this earliest of female sovereigns;

* Of the style of these walls, the reader may get a tolerably correct idea by referring to the cut of an ancient Babylonian coin, given in the second part of this work.