paints this tragic history in very lively colours.

and bravest of all the Greeks in the Trojan war, had been plunged when an infant, by Thetis, into the river Ulysses, king of Ithaca, married Styx, by which every part of his body Penelope, and pretended to be insane became invulnerable, excepting the when called upon to go against the heel held by her hand; and to prevent Trojans. Sowing salt on the sea-shore, his going against Troy, his mother sent he yoked a horse and a bull together, him in female attire to the court of and began to plough; but Palamedes Lycomedes, king of Scyros. Ulysses, discovered the trick, by placing the however, visited Scyros in the garb of hero's infant son, Telemachus, before a merchant, and offering both jewels the plough, whereon Ulysses changed and arms to the ladies of the palace, its track. For his services at Troy, he Achilles chose the arms, and thus dis- was rewarded with the arms of covered himself. He went to the war, Achilles; and after passing through but soon quarrelled with Agamemnon innumerable perils on his return to respecting the captive Briseis. After Ithaca, travels which occupied some a considerable period he was recon-years, he found Penelope almost in ciled, and revenged the death of his dear friend Patroclus by killing Hector, Priam's son, and dragging his body, tied to his chariot, three times round the walls of Troy. Paris avenged this indignity to his brother by wounding Achilles in his vulnerable heel, of which wound he died.

despair as to his safety. She had been assured he was dead; and had agreed to take a new husband out of a host of suitors, when a piece of tapestry she had in hand should be completed; but each night she undid the labours of the previous day. Ulysses fell by the hand of his own son Telegonus, who slew him ignorantly. The adventures of Telemachus are recorded in the excellent work of Fenelon ; while his own exploits are handed down to all posterity in the Odyssey.

The son of Achilles, Neoptolemus, was sent for, on the death of his father, upon the declaration of Calchas that Troy could not be taken without his aid. He was the first to enter the wooden horse, and when the city was Eneas, son of Anchises and the taken, exercised the greatest barbarity goddess Venus, married Creusa, on Priam's family, slaughtering that daughter of Priam, king of Troy, by sovereign, without regard to the sanc-whom he had Ascanius. He behaved tity of his place of refuge. He slew Astyanax, the son of Hector, and had Andromache, the widow of Hector, awarded to him as his captive. With her and Helenus, son of Priam, he departed for Greece, and founded a new kingdom in Epirus. He married Andromache, as well as Hermione, the daughter of Menelaus, although the latter had been promised by her father to Orestes. Hermione, in the absence of Neoptolemus at Delphi, tried to murder Andromache, but, failing in her attempt, escaped with Orestes, son of Agamemnon, to Sparta; and Orestes is said to have then hastened to Delphi, and with his own hand to have slain his rival at the altar.

The Andromache of Racine

with great valour during the Grecian siege; and when Troy was in flames, carried away upon his shoulders his father Anchises, and the statues of his household gods, leading Ascanius by the hand, and leaving Creusa to follow; but he never saw her more. Setting sail (according to Virgil) for the land of which the oracle had announced that he should be king, he was wrecked on the coast of Africa, and kindly received by Dido, queen of Carthage, who wished to marry him. But he pursued his course, and after a voyage of no less than seven years, in which he underwent incredible hardships, he landed in Italy, and was welcomed by Latinus, king of the country. That monarch had promised

A

his beautiful daughter Lavinia to Memnon, king of Egypt, who, Turnus, a neighbouring sovereign; during the Trojan war, assisted Priam but Æneas being pleased with her, he his uncle with 10,000 troops. resolved on bestowing her upon him, statue was erected to his memory and a war between the Rutuli and La-near the Nile, which every morning tins ensued, wherein Turnus was slain. at sunrise uttered a melodious sound. Eneas then espoused Lavinia, in The figure, which is of a colossal size, whose honour he built Lavinium, and still exists, and is in a sitting posture succeeded his father-in-law as king of on the plain of Thebes. Mr. Wilkinthe Latins. son, a recent traveller, ascended to its lap, and discovered therein a stone, which, on being struck with a hammer, emitted a metallic sound, insomuch that those below thought it proceeded from brass. The traveller also observed a square space cut in the block behind, as if to admit a person, who might thus be concealed from the most scrutinous observer in the plain below. Strabo observed that the sound seemed to be occasioned by a blow. Cambyses silenced the head for a time, but the priests continued, for lucre's sake, to keep up the delusion some centuries after.

Agamemnon, king of Argos, was brother of Menelaus, and son of Plisthenes, who was son of Atreus. As Thyestes, his uncle, usurped the throne on the death of his father, he was assisted to regain it by Tyndarus, king of Sparta, whose daughter, Clytemnestra, he married, when Menelaus married her sister Helen. Agamemnon was elected commander-in-chief of the Grecian forces against Troy; and on his return, after its fall, his wife, assisted by her paramour, murdered him.

Circe, daughter of Sol, was famed as a sorceress. Her subjects banished her for the murder of her husband, the Ruth. A famine occurring in Israel, prince of Colchis, and she fled to Elimelech, a man of Bethlehem, retired Exa; where Ulysses, on returning from with his wife Naomi, and his two sons, Troy, visited her, and saw all his com- into the land of Moab; where his sons panions turned by her potions into married Orphah and Ruth. But after swine, on account of their voluptuous some time he and his sons died; upon conduct. She behaved severely to her which Naomi resolved to return into rival Scylla, daughter of Typhon, on her own country, and desired her account of her attachment to Glaucus, daughters-in-law to remain in Moab, a sea-diety, poisoning the fountain in under the care and protection of their which she bathed; so that she found own relations. Orphah, with great reher body, below the waist, changed luctance and many tears, took leave into frightful monsters which never of her mother, and remained; but Ruth ceased barking. Hereupon she threw clave unto her, saying, Whither thou herself into the sea, and became those goest, I will go; thy people shall be rocks between Italy and Sicily which my people, and thy God, my God.' still send forth from their cavities a Upon their arrival at Bethlehem, Ruth barking sound. Charybdis was an went into the fields of Boaz to glean avaricious woman, whom Jupiter corn for their food. Boaz, though changed into a whirlpool, near Scylla, abounding in riches, was condescendfor stealing the oxen of Hercules. As ing and charitable. Having inquired in former days ships, in attempting to into the family and circumstances of avoid Italian Scylla, often fell a prey Ruth, whom he saw gleaning, he comto Sicilian Charybdis, the line, ' Inci-manded the men to let fall some dat in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdim,' became a proverb, to show that, in our eagerness to avoid one evil, we often fall into a greater.

handfuls in her way, contriving, at the same time, to give her a plentiful provision, without the appearance of giving, and to save her that shame and

confusion, which modest people feel | puted under what judge Ruth lived, upon receiving. Boaz was so charmed some placing her in Ehud's time: but with the honest industry of Ruth, and as she was the great grandmother of her dutiful affection to Naomi, that he David, she may with propriety alone married her; and they had a son called be placed somewhere between the Obed, who was the father of Jesse, commencement and the end of Tola's and grandfather of David, from whom rule. The Lavinia of Thomson's in a direct line the Saviour of the Seasons is a paraphrase of Ruth's world descended. It has been dis- story.

PERIOD THE THIRD.

From the Fall of Troy to the Foundation of Rome in the Reign of Jotharz. 1184 TO 753 B. C.-431 YEARS.

SECTION I.

JAIR, JUDGE OF ISRAEL.

1184 TO 1161-22 YEARS.

Jair. He was born in Gilead, celebrated amongst ancient writers for its costly and medicinal balsam or balm, and judged Israel twenty-two years. He is represented as having thirty sons, who rode on thirty ass-colts, and had each a city under his government, the thirty cities being called collectively Havoth-jair, or the towns of Jair. The Israelites had but few chariots, and seldom rode on horses: the most honourable men were always mounted on asses, which, in the East, are much higher than ours, and beautifully striped, like the zebra kind.

Jephthah. He was a Gileadite, and driven from home by his brethren, because his mother was a woman of base character. When Israel, however, was threatened by the Ammonites, he, being a powerful and warlike man, was called upon by the elders of Gilead to lead the army; and having routed the enemy, and taken twenty of their cities, was acknowledged judge. He had made a rash vow, on going out against the Ammonites, to sacrifice to God whatsoever should come forth of the doors of his house to meet him, if he should return successful. His daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances, and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass when he saw her that he rent

his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me : for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back. It has been matter of dispute whether Jephtha really put her to death, as the words, "who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed," have been by some supposed to mean; but there is ground for thinking he simply devoted her to perpetual virginity, which might be considered sufficient sacrifice in times when every woman looked forward to become the mother of the Messiah.

EMINENT PERSONS.

Evander, king of Arcadia, who, for an accidental murder, was obliged to quit Greece for Italy, established himself in that part where Rome was afterwards built, kindly received Hercules when he returned from the conquest of Geryon, and gave Eneas assistance against the Rutuli. He introduced the Greek alphabet and deities amongst the Italians; and his subjects erected an altar to his memory on mount Aventine.

Orestes, son of Agamemnon, slew his mother Clytemnestra, and her paramour Ægisthus, for their murder

of his father. He then fled to the court of his uncle, Strophius, king of Phocis, who educated him with his son Pylades; and the friendship which ensued between the cousins has been regarded as one of the most remarkable in ancient history, each contending at the altar of Diana to die for the other. Orestes killed Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, in the temple of Apollo, for marrying Hermione, who had been promised him by her grandfather; and ultimately gained his father's kingdom of Argos.

the

SECTION III.

SAMSON, JUDGE OF ISRAEL.

1155 to 1135-20 YEARS.

Samson was the son of Manoah, of Dan, and married a Philistine woman contrary to the law. In his way to visit her at Tisimath, a young lion opposed passage of himself and his parents; but he seized the creature, and tore it to pieces. He soon quarrelled with his Philistine friends, and they deprived him of his wife; whereon he set fire to their corn-fields by tying firebrands to the tails of 300 foxes, and sending them into their lands. The men of Judah, however, gave him up bound to the Philistines; but he broke the cords about his arms as if they had been threads, and seizing the jaw-bone of an ass that lay in his way, he slew therewith 1000 of his oppressors, and escaped to Gaza. While here, he found a party again about to entrap him; but in the night he took up the city-gates, with their posts and bars, and carried them to the top of a neighbouring hill. He was at length, however, betrayed to his enemies by Delilah, a woman of Sorek, whom the lords of the Philistines had bribed with a large sum of money. To her, after vast and cunning entreaty, he revealed that his strength would go from him, if his hair were cut off. Upon her depriving him of the seven locks of his head, the party waiting to seize him were enabled to secure him, and instantly put out his eyes, and made him grind a mill in the prison. In a short period after this event, the chief Philistines assembled to offer sacrifice to Dagon, their idol, and to thank him for delivering Samson into their power. The captive was accordingly brought into the temple to make them sport; and having directed the

lad who led him, to place him against the pillars of the building, he prayed secretly to God for a return of his strength, that he might then punish the enemies of Israel. Taking suddenly hold of a pillar with either hand, he cried out "Let me die with the Philistines!" and bowing himself with all his might, the house fell upon himself, the lords, and upon all the people that were therein, burying 3000 persons in its ruin.

EVENT.

The founding of Longa Alba. Ascanius, Eneas's son by Creusa, now called Julius, had succeeded his father as king of the Latins; and having constructed a more commodious city,

which he called Longa Alba, he removed the seat of Lavinium thither, 1152. His descendants reigned at Alba for above 420 years, under fourteen kings, till the age of Numitor.

EMINENT PERSON,

Dorus, son of the king of Phthiotis, | the city Doris; and his people were in Thessaly, went with some compa- called Dorians, an appellation which nions to make a settlement near mount afterwards spread over a third portion Ossa, also in Thessaly. Here he built of Greece.

SECTION IV.

ELI, JUDGE OF ISRAEL.

1135 TO 1120-15 YEARS.

Eli was high priest, and judge over a portion only of the land, forty years; and sole judge, after the death of Samson, for fifteen. He is represented as having loved and honoured God himself, but as not having restrained his sons from wickedness; for which they were allowed to be slain by the Philistines, and the priesthood to pass into another branch of Aaron's family. When news was brought to Eli of the defeat of the people at Ebenezer by the Philistines, with the loss of his two sons Hophni and Phinehas, the sacred ark, and 30,000 men, he fainted; and falling backwards, broke his neck.

EVENTS.

Migration of the Eolians. When | very rare), fled from the peninsula to the Heraclidæ, or descendants of Her- Asia Minor; and, uniting with other cules, began to revolutionize the Pelo- Pelasgi, who had migrated on a simiponnesus, 1124, pouring in upon it lar account, founded the city Æolis, to from Thessaly, where they had long which they soon added nearly thirty resided as exiles, the Eolians, under more towns. The Eolian cities of their king, Æolus (the fabled god of Cuma and Lesbos became, in afterthe winds, because he escaped in times, very famous. ships having sails, which were then

SECTION V.

SAMUEL, JUDGE OF ISRAEL.

1120 TO 1095-25 YEARS.

Samuel was the last of the Israelitish judges, and a prophet also, and was brought up in God's temple at Shiloh, under the especial care of Eli, waiting