"They call it," says Sir R. Ker Porter, "'Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency. The lady of kingdoms, given to pleasure, that dwelleth carelessly, and sayeth in her heart, I am, and there is none else beside me!' But now, in the same expressive language, we may say, 'She sits as a widow on the ground. There is no more a throne for thee, O daughter of the Chaldeans!' And for the abundance of the country, it has vanished as clean away as if 'the besom of desolation' had, indeed, swept it from north to south; the whole land, from the outskirts of Bagdad to the farthest stretch of the sight, lying a melancholy corpse."
Round the Birs are traces of ruins to a considerable extent; and near the town of Hillah there are several remarkable places; but as they do not bear any very particular relation to Babylon, we here close our account, entirely agreeing with Mr. Rich, that it is evident, from what remains of that celebrated city, and even from the most favourable account handed down to us, that the public edifices which adorned it were remarkable more for vastness of dimensions than elegance of design, and solidity of fabric than beauty of execution.
Though Babylon has universally been considered as the largest city that ever existed on the earth, there are some and even very good reasons to believe, that it was never so large as Nineveh. "It was intended, indeed," says one of the historians, "that Babylon should have exceeded Nineveh in every thing; but Nebuchadnezzar did not live long enough, nor the Babylonish empire last long enough, to finish the scheme that had been drawn of it." The houses were not contiguous, but all built with a void space on each side between house and house, so that the larger part was not built upon. The houses of Nineveh, however, were contiguous. Nineveh, also, had a greater population; for, in the time of Jonah, it had one hundred and twenty thousand souls, "who could nor did not know their right hand from their left." That is, one hundred and twenty thousand infants[133]. But though Nineveh was the oldest city and the largest, Babylon has in all subsequent ages enjoyed the greatest celebrity[134].
BALBEC.
NO. XVIII.—BALBEC.
Those ruined shrines and towers, that seem
The relics of a splendid dream;
Amid whose fairy loveliness
Nought but the lapwing's cry is heard;
Nought seen but (when the shadows, flitting
Fast from the moon, unsheath its gleam)
Some purple-winged Sultana[135] sitting
Upon a column motionless,
And glittering like an idol bird.
* * * * *
But nought can charm the luckless Peri;
Her soul is sad—her wings are weary—
Joyless she sees the sun go down
On that great temple, once her own[136];
Whose lonely columns stand sublime,
Flinging their shadows from on high,
Like dials, which the wizard, Time,
Had raised to count his ages by.
These lines lead us to some beautiful observations by Sir John Malcolm:—