Palestine, or, the Holy Land: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time

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From the Earliest Period to the Present Time.
In giving an account of the Holy Land, an author, upon examining his materials, finds himself presented with the choice either of simple history on the one hand, or of mere local description on the other; and the character of his book is of course determined by, the selection which he makes of the first or the second of these departments. The volumes on Palestine hitherto laid before the public will accordingly be found to contain either a bare abridgment of the annals of the Jewish people, or a topographical delineation of the country, the cities, and the towns which they inhabited, from the date of the conquest under Joshua, down to the period of their dispersion by Titus and Adrian. Several able works have recently appeared on each of these subjects, and have been, almost without exception, rewarded with the popularity which is seldom refused to learning, and eloquence. But it occurred to the writer of the following pages, that the expectations of the general reader would be more fully answered were the two plans to be united, and the constitution, the antiquities, the religion, the literature, and even the statistics of, the Hebrews combined with the narrative of their rise and fall in the sacred land bestowed upon their fathers.
In following out this scheme, he has made it his study to leave no source of information unexplored which might supply the means of illustrating the political condition of the Twelve Tribes immediately after they settled on the banks of the Jordan. The principles which entered into the constitution of their commonwealth are extremely interesting, both as they afford a fine example of the progress of society in one of its earliest stages, when the migratory shepherd gradually assumes the habits of the agriculturalist; and also as they confirm the results of experience, in other cases, in regard to the change which usually follows in the form of civil government, and in the concentration of power in the hands of an individual.