SHARPE'S LONDON MAGAZINE. CÆSAREA. FROM Alexandria to Tyre and Sidon, the coast of Palestine was always deficient in safe roads and harbours, as is indeed the whole of Syria, so that the English fleet, when on the last expedition against Acre, very narrowly escaped destruction. The port of Jaffa is suited only for small barks; larger vessels keep the offing, and even in landing there is great danger in passing the rocky reefs, if the weather is at all stormy; witness the melancholy accident that not long since occurred to a boat-load of British officers. The shores of the bay of Acre are lined with wrecks. It may be supposed that a cruize along such a coast, in a crazy Arab bark, is not altogether agreeable; yet nine travellers out of ten are tempted to adopt this plan of going from Beyrout to Jaffa, as the nearest way to the Holy City. This was the case with myself, and I had besides the additional object of seeing the ruins of Cæsarea, the splendid sea-port built by Herod the Great, to encourage the commerce of Judea, by affording a secure shelter to vessels that would otherwise have sought more distant havens. I had expressly stipulated in taking my passage, that I should be landed there, to examine the remains at leisure. We ran past Tyre and Sidon, and on the second morning, having passed the very remarkable remains of Athlete, or Castel Pellegrino, as the sun rose behind the mountains of Samaria, were off the shapeless ruins of Cæsarea. No part of the coast is now more desolate and without inhabitant; and the dreary and blood-curdling howling of the jackal is the only sound that breaks the stillness of these forsaken plains; yet this was once among the richest parts of Palestine, the seashore even in the times of the Crusaders was studded with strong castles and towns, and the interior abounds in the sites of ancient cities. The origin of Cæsarea is thus described by Josephus: "There was a certain place by the sea-side, formerly called Strato's Tower, which Herod looked upon as conveniently situated for the erection of a city. He drew his model, set people to work upon it, and finished it. The buildings were all of marble; private houses as well as palaces; but his master-piece was the port, which he made as large as the Piræus (at Athens), and a safe station against all winds and weathers, to say nothing of other conveniences. This work was the more wonderful, because all the materials for it were brought thither at a prodigious expense from afar off. This city stands in Phoenicia, upon the pass to Egypt, between Joppa and Dora, VOL. VII. two wretched sea-towns, where there is no riding in the harbour with a S.W. wind, for it beats so furiously upon the shore, that merchantmen are forced to keep off at sea many times for fear of being driven on the reefs. To encounter these difficulties, Herod ordered a mole to be made in the shape of a half-moon, and large enough to contain a royal navy. He directed, also, prodigious stones to be let down there in twenty fathom water-stones fifty feet long, and eighteen broad, and nine deep, some greater, some less. This mole was two hundred feet in extent, the one half of it to break the setting of the sea, the other half served for the foundation of a stone wall, fortified with turrets, the largest and the fairest of them called by the name of the Tower of Drusus, from Drusus the son-in-law of Augustus, who died young. There were several arched vaults also that served for seamen's cabins, likewise a quay or landing-place, with a large walk upon it around the port, as a place of pleasure to take the air in. This port opens to the northward, the clearest quarter of the heavens. On the left hand of the entrance was a turret erected upon a large platform, with a sloping bank to shoot off the washing of the sea; and on the right hand were two stone pillars over against the tower, of equal height. The houses about the port were all uniformly built, of the most excellent sort of marble. Upon a mount in the middle stood a temple dedicated to Cæsar, which was of great use to the mariners as a sea-mark, and contained two statues, of Rome and of Cæsar, and hence the city took the name of Cæsarea. The contrivance of the vaults and sewers was admirable. Herod built also a stone theatre, and on the south side of the harbour an amphitheatre, with a noble sea-view. In short, he spared neither labour nor expense, and in twelve years this work was brought to perfection.".... "It was finished," says Josephus, (speaking of the city,) "in the tenth year from its foundation, the twenty-eighth of Herod's reign, and in the Olympiad 192. Its dedication was celebrated with all the splendour and magnificence imaginable; masters procured from all parts, and the best that could be gotten too, in all exercises, such as musicians, wrestlers, swordsmen, and the like, to contend for the prizes. They had their horse-races also, and shows of wild beasts, with all other spectacles and entertainments then in vogue, either at Rome or elsewhere. This solemnity was instituted in honour of Casar, under the appellation of Certamen 'quinquennale, and the ceremony to be exhibited every fifth year." Such was the superb scaport which Herod built, not only as a monument of his public-spirited muni B ficence, but in the hope that it might long remain | took place which led to a final rupture with Rome. in the proud possession of his race. We need Its situation as a port had drawn thither a great not dwell here upon the awful domestic tragedy, number of Syrian Greeks and other strangers; and the in which this passionate and unhappy monarch be- pagan monuments with which it had been decorated came the executioner of the best members of his by Herod, seemed in their eyes to give it the appearown family, and the destroyer of his own hopes of ance of a Gentile city. Thus they contended fiercely the permanency of his line. The disputes of his for pre-eminence with the Jews, who, from its having descendants were terminated at no distant period by been built by a monarch of their fallen kingdom, on the the sway of Rome. site moreover of an old Jewish town, regarded themselves as its principal and ruling inhabitants; or at least contended for an equality of privileges. But the struggle was unequal, the soldiery encouraged the Greeks— the feud increased daily, and the utmost influence of the moderate of both sides was found unavailing to quell it. The Roman governor, Felix, was compelled to banish the factious from the city, and upon the refusal of many to depart, he caused them to be put death. Commissioners were sent from both parties to plead the cause before Cæsar, who decided in favour of the Greeks. Upon this their insolence knew no bounds, and the Jews were driven to despair. Herod Agrippa, his successor, and the last monarch of the Jews, had reigned, in dependence upon the Roman power, three years over Palestine, when he ordered a splendid festival at Cæsarea in honour of the Emperor Claudius. "Upon the second day of this festival," says Josephus, "Agrippa went early in the morning to the theatre in a silver stuff so wonderfully rich and curious, that as the beams of the rising sun struck upon it, the eyes were dazzled by the reflection; the sparkling of the light seemed to have something divine in it, that moved the spectators at the same time with veneration and awe. Insomuch that a fawning crew of parasites cried him up as a God; beseeching him, in form, to forgive them the sins of their ignorance, when they took him only for flesh and blood, for now they were convinced of an excellency in his nature that was more than human. This impious flattery he repelled not, but while in the full vanity of this contemplation, he beheld an owl above him seated on a rope, a presage of evil to him, as it had been before of good fortune. For immediately he was seized with a fearful agony, in which he exclaimed to his friends, Behold your God condemned to die, and prove his flatterers a company of profligate liars, and to convince the world that he is not immortal. But God's will be done! In the life that I have led, I have had no reason to envy the happiness of any prince under heaven, but I must still be aspiring to be greater and greater. His pains increasing, he retired into the palace; the news flew over Cæsarea, and all the people, covering themselves with sackcloth, joined in prayers and tears for Agrippa's recovery. The king in the mean time, looking down from his apartment near the top of the palace, could not forbear weeping at the sight of the mourners that lay below prostrate on the pavement. On the fifth day after the commencement of his illness, he expired." After the death of Agrippa, his son being too young to bear the burden of sovereignty, Judæa became a Roman province, and was governed by Roman officers. The total loss of their independence, and their subjection to pagan masters, profoundly irritated the unsocial and turbulent Jews; and the Gentile population, especially the Greeks, with whom they were confounded, inflamed by their bitter insults the wounded spirit of the fallen people. The Roman soldiery regarded them with such insolent contempt, that to avoid collision between his troops and the more turbulent zealots of Jerusalem, the Roman prætor generally resided at Cæsarea. It was there that the events At this crisis, "nothing was wanting," says Milman, "to fill the measure of calamity, but the nomination of a new governor like Gessius Florus. Without compunction and without shame, as crafty as he was cruel, he laid deliberate schemes of iniquity, by which at some distant period he was to reap his harvest of plunder. He pillaged not only individuals but even communities, and seemed to grant a general indemnity for spoliation, if he was only allowed his fair portion of the plunder." Such was the man appointed to maintain equal justice between the rival parties, and to impose awe upon the incorrigibly factious, but by whose partiality, corruption, and weakness combined, the dispute was inflamed to a fatal termination. The immediate cause of the quarrel is recorded by Josephus :-" A certain Greek had a house close to the Synagogue of the Jews, who would have purchased it at any price; but far from listening to their proposals, he so obstructed the passage, as hardly to leave room for a single person to pass by. Some hot-headed young Jews threatened the workmen ; Florus encouraged them to proceed. The old practice of bribery was now tried. Florus took the money (eight talents) from the Jews, and promised them redress, then instantly departed to Sebaste. Next day a spiteful Greek set an earthen vessel, with a sacrifice of birds upon it, before the gate of the Synagogue; at this insult the Jews flew to arms; the Greeks were prepared, and a collision prevented solely by the interference of Jucundus, master of the horse, who being overborne by the Cæsareans, the Jews took away their holy books, and retiring to Narbata, sent thence a deputation to Florus, not forgetting," says the historian, "to let fall a word, though very tenderly, about the eight talents. This being a sore allusion, the governor caused them to be arrested for presuming to remove their laws from the city of Cæsarea. Florus next repaired to Jerusalem, where his oppressive conduct drove the Jews to extremity, and at the instance of Eleazar, a young zealot, the quarrel was brought to a crisis by the refusal to re- remembrance,' and sharpens the sting of a violated ceive the customary sacrifices for Cæsar. conscience. The prince was so moved by the apostle's "The smothered flame now burst forth. On the very reasonings, that, trembling, he caused him to break off day that a Roman garrison in Jerusalem was treache-abruptly, telling him he would hear the rest at some rously butchered by the insurgent Jews, the whole other season. And good reason there was that Felix's Jewish population of Cæsarea was massacred, to the conscience should be sensibly alarmed, being a man number, according to Josephus, of twenty thousand. notoriously infamous for rapine and violence. Tacitus This," he continues, “made the whole nation mad," and tells us of him, that he made his will the law of his the Jews, spreading through the country, made fearful government, practising all manner of cruelty and reprisals on their persecutors. "Moderate and mild- injustice. He was given over to luxury and denatured men before, were now become hard and cruel." bauchery, for the compassing whereof he scrupled not Every passion was let loose, avarice was kindled toge- to violate all laws both of God and man. Whereof ther with revenge, and "robbery was called victory." this very wife Drusilla was a famous instance. For "It was a horrid spectacle to see the streets encum- being married by her brother to Azis, king of the bered with dead bodies of men, women and children, Emisenes, Felix, who had heard of her incomparable unburied, and even uncovered." The whole frame- beauty, by the help of Simon the magician, a Jew of work of society was a prey to convulsions, which were Cyprus, tore her from her husband's arms, and, in but the opening act of that tremendous drama which defiance of all law and right, kept her for his own terminated with the destruction of the Temple and wife. To these qualities he had added bribery and dispersion of the Jewish people. covetousness, and, therefore, frequently sent for St. Paul to discourse with him, expecting that he should have given him a considerable sum for his release; and the rather, probably, because he had heard that St. Paul had lately brought up great sums of money to Jerusalem. But finding no offers made, either by It is refreshing to turn from these scenes of horror, these mutual cruelties of rival nations, which heaped the streets of this new-built city with the slain, and stained the waters of its port with their blood, to the peaceful arrival of Paul of Tarsus. We see him, | after he had escaped from the blind bigotry of his countrymen at Jerusalem, sent down stealthily and by night to Cæsarea, in the custody of a body of soldiers, traversing the mountainous defiles of Bethhoron, and reaching in the morning Antipatris, another city of Herod's creation. Here the foot soldiers returned, and left him to be escorted the rest of the way by the cavalry. On reaching Cæsarea he is kept in "Herod's judgment-hall." "Not many days after, came down Ananias the high-priest, with some others of the Sanhedrim, accompanied by Tertullus the advocate, who, in a speech set off by the insinuating arts of forensic eloquence, charged the apostle, before Felix the governor, with sedition, heresy, and the profanation of the Temple. After St. Paul had replied, Felix commanded him to be kept under guard, yet so that none of his friends should be hindered from visiting him, or performing any office of kindness and friendship to him." And even here, amidst the hostile collisions of Greeks and Jews, lurked, no doubt, a few members of the proscribed sect of the Christians, the objects of their united hatred and contempt. 66 It was not long after this before Drusilla, the wife of Felix, (aJewess, daughter of the elder Herod; and whom Tacitus, by mistaking her for his former wife Drusilla, daughter to Juba, king of Mauritania, makes niece to Anthony and Cleopatra,) came to him to Cæsarea. Felix, Drusilla being present, sent for St. Paul, and gave him leave to discourse of the doctrines of Christianity. St. Paul took occasion to insist upon the obligation to justice and righteousness, to sobriety and chastity, which the laws of Christ lay upon men, urging the severe and impartial account that will be required hereafter,—a discourse wisely adapted by the apostle to Felix's state and temper. But men naturally hate that which brings their sins to their the apostle or his friends, he kept him prisoner for two years together, so long as himself continued procurator of that nation; when, being displaced by Nero, he left St. Paul still in prison, on purpose to gratify the Jews, and engage them to speak better of him after his departure from them. "To him suceeded Portius Festus, in the procuratorship of the province; at whose first coming to Jerusalem the high-priest and Sanhedrim presently began to prefer to him an indictment against St. Paul, desiring that, in order to his trial, he might be sent for up from Cæsarea; designing this pretence that assassins should lie in the way to murder him. "Festus told them that he himself was going shortly to Cæsarea, and that, if they had anything against St. Paul, they should come down thither and accuse him. Accordingly, being come to Cæsarea, the Jews began to renew the charge which they had heretofore brought against St. Paul; of all which he cleared himself. However, as the safest course, he solemnly made his appeal to the Roman emperor, who should judge between them. Whereupon Festus, advising with the Jewish Sanhedrim, received his appeal, and told him he should go to Cæasar. "Some time after, King Agrippa, who succeeded Herod in the tetrarchate of Galilee, and his sister Bernice, came to Cæsarea. To him Festus gave an account of St. Paul, and the great stir and trouble that had been made about him, and how he had appealed to Cæsar. Agrippa was very desirous to see and hear him, and, accordingly, the next day the king and his sister, accompanied by Festus, and other persons of quality, came into the court with a magnificent retinue, where the prisoner was brought forth before him. "Hercupon Agrippa told the apostle he had liberty to make his own defence; to whom, after silence | part of the splendid quay or landing-place mentioned had been enforced, he particularly addressed himself. by Josephus, which Herod built, and which the feet Who knows not that celebrated speech, from which, of Paul must have trodden. It juts out far into the astonished at the fervid eloquence of the apostle, the sea, a truly memorable relic. Upon it, at its junction Roman governor considered Paul to be beside himself; with the shore, stands, ruin upon ruin, a moulderwhile the Jewish king was "almost persuaded to be- ing and half prostrate edifice of Gothic construction, come a Christian ?" a memorial of the times of the Crusades. A solitary Arab was roaming stealthily among the ruins as we landed. "After the conference, it was finally resolved that St. Paul should be sent to Rome; in order whereunto he was, with some other prisoners of note, committed to the charge of Julius, commander of a company belonging to the legion of Augustus. Accompanied by St. Luke, Aristarchus, Trophimus, and some others, in September, A. D. 56, or as others, 57, he went on board a ship of Adramyttium." 1 Ascending from the beach, we reach the enclosed site of a town, its every building prostrate, but surrounded with a fosse and a wall of solid construction, which Irby and Mangles regard as Saracenic; and which doubtless enclosed the city which, in the middle ages, succeeded that built by Herod, and was erected from its materials. Little beyond a few scattered fragments were in sight. Beyond these Saracenic walls, in the south, the same travellers found a column of marble, with a Roman inscription of the emperor Septimius Severus, but too much buried to allow a copy to be taken. The Roman remains extend beyond the limits of the above-named walls, and far to the north there are ruins of arches, and of a wall, apparently part of an aqueduct, for supplying the town. Lamartine states, upon what authority I know not, that the walls of Cæsarea were rebuilt by St. Louis. How interesting is it to the imagination to realise the scene of his leaving the soil of Palestine, to which he was destined never to return! We see the splendid city, with its marble houses and votive columns, its temples and its theatres, its port crowded with many-oared vessels, from every part of the Roman empire, from Italy, from Egypt, from the Syrian coast, the provinces, and Asia Minor. We hear the noisy din of various languages; and mark the different physiognomies and splendid costumes of the many subjects of the great Roman empire, who meet upon the crowded quay-some actively engaged in the This coast, with its castles, so famous in the Crulabours of the port, others lingering idly in picturesque sades, the scene of many a warlike encounter between groups beneath the marble colonnades of Herod. The Christian and Saracen, who have piled upon the grand wind is fair-the "ship of Adramyttium" is ready-wrecks of the Jews and Romans the more perishable the passengers hasten on board. Among them, un- monuments of their temporary occupation, will never noticed amidst the busy throng, advances "the poor more "echo with the world's debate." prisoner of Jesus Christ," weak of body, but of spirit indomitable, the intrepid, the noble Paul. A few friends, members of the persecuted yet growing Church of Christ, are around him; with swelling hearts, with tearful eyes, they invoke the blessing of their common Lord upon the departing apostle, grieving the most, like those of Miletus, "lest they should see his face no more." They watch him on board; the sails swell to the southern wind, and the splendid ship, gliding by temples, and columns, and palaces, out of the mouth of the harbour, soon appears a speck upon the blue bosom of the Mediterranean. How changed is now the scene thus hallowed by "There was a day when they were young and proud, And those bleak battlements shall bear no future blow." Yet, so long as time shall spare a single relic to with reverence to the shore hallowed by the cloquence point out the site of Cæsarca, the pilgrim shall repair from Jerusalem, on his last voyage, to bear the tidings of Paul, and to the ruinous mole whence he departed of salvation to the western world. THE CONVENT OF KÖNIGSFELDEN. his parting presence! As I stood upon the solitary SKETCHES AND LEGENDS OF THE ALPS. beach, the low, monotonous roll of the surge was the only sound that broke the mournful stillness. Tower and palace were prostrate-the materials hewn for the city of Herod, and since wrought into the buildings of a later age, themselves fast crumbling, were fallen in huge masses into the sea. The numerous columns which once adorned the port, now scattered on a rocky reef, are heaped with seaweed, and chafed and worn by the breakers of the shipless sea. It is a scene of utter ruin-of forlorn and shapeless desolation. Yet, in the midst of the wreck, and rising above the waves, though portions are submerged, appear solid foundations of Roman masonry; not improbably a (1) Cave. REV. C. B. TAYLER. IN one of the northern cantons of Switzerland, where mountain and torrent, hill and valley, seem to vie with each other in adding to the beauty of the landscape, extends a widely-spread tract of richly wooded and fertile land;-the magnificent ruins of Hapsburg overlook the vale, and the impetuous Aar, rushing from the Alps, after receiving the tributary waters of the Reuss and the Limmat, wends on its majestic way, adorning, whilst it fertilizes, this favoured district. The bold and lofty character of the distant mountain scenery contrasts finely with the gentle undulating foreground; and the mind of the spectator is at one impressed with admiration and with awe. Amongst the many objects which, in this beautiful region, attract the gaze and fix the attention of the traveller, the Convent of Königsfelden claims a high position. Viewed from a distance, the coup d'œil is enchanting; the stately pile-grand even in decaystands out in bold relief from the luxuriant trees that cluster round it; while the sombre hues of the mountains that form the background, give a richer and deeper tone to the picture. The building is in the lightest and richest style of Gothic Architecture;-that style which must in nobility and purity excel all others, because its first principles were dictated to the mind of man by the contemplation of the magnificent works of the Great Architect of the Universe; for who can walk through a forest, or traverse a grove of lofty trees, without being instantly struck with the sublimity and grandeur of the "cathedral aisles of nature :" "The glorious temple, where man feels undaunted men, whom, in the pride of his heart, he loved to designate "a few poor shepherds." Many of his warlike nobles, a splendid retinue, attended their sovereign in this expedition; and amongst the rest John, Duke of Swabia, his nephew and ward, from whom Albert had for some time unjustly withheld his patrimony, and who in consequence harboured a concealed but deadly hatred against his false guardian. The revenge of John, though protracted, was not the less certain and fatal ; by a repetition of the story of his wrongs, he had attached to his side several of the young Austrian nobility, and Herman of Bâlm, and Walter of Eischenbach, vowed to assist him in any attempt he might make for the recovery of his rights. The long sought opportunity at length arrived;-and with the deadliest animosity rankling in his heart, and a vague prospect of speedy revenge animating his actions, the Duke of Swabia and his allies joined the imperial standard. The haughty Albert, who had alike sacrificed friend and foe to his criminal desire of aggrandizing his own family, left Baden at the head of a fine army, and a chosen band of the flower of the Austrian chivalry; but the emperor was alone in the crowd, and amongst all that host there breathed not one, who, for himself alone, would have followed his commander to the battle-field. In splendid but desolate supremacy, Albert led on his troops; and wholly unconscious of the fate that so nearly awaited him, thought but of speedily appeasing the tumult, and of returning triumphantly to his capital. He knew not that the fiat of death had gone forth-that the sword which should The site of the convent is commanding, it being raised on a gentle elevation above a small lake formed by the Aar; and when in the deep stillness of a summer twilight the whole extent of the wood-terminate his mortal career was already unsheathed--embosomed pile, softened by the mellow tint of and that the glorious sun had risen for the last time evening, is reflected in the unruffled bosom of the for him. Heedless of danger he passed along, like the clear waters ;-while the silence is broken only by traveller who walks fearlessly, because in ignorance, the hallowed and melodious sound of the vesper over the slumbering volcano, unmindful of the desolabell-oh! it appears to be a scene too calm, too ting fire that glows beneath his feet, and which may beautiful for earth, and imagination fondly pic-ere long break forth and overwhelm with sudden tures it the abode of purity, and peace, and joy. Who, as they gaze on this scene, so exquisite in its tranquillity, could imagine that its greatest ornament owed its erection to murder, to cruelty, to revenge! yet it is even so-and the fearful tragedy which these pages commemorate, was acted on the spot now crowned by this lofty structure. In the early part of the 14th century, when the imperial sceptre was swayed by Albert I.; and when all Switzerland, excepting only the cantons of Switz, Uri, and Unterwalden, had bent beneath the overwhelming force of Austria; the Swiss in the neighbouring cantons of Bâle, Soleure, and Aargau, whose inborn love of liberty but ill brooked subjec tion to a foreign yoke, rose in arms against their proud oppressor. Albert, who felt that this insurrection, if not immediately quelled, might lead to the emancipation of that land which it had cost so much of the noblest blood of Austria to subjugate, resolved to march thither in person, and by the terror of his presence to awe into submission those destruction the surrounding country. On the first of May, 1309, the emperor and his escort (being detached from the main body of the forces) were crossing the Reuss, near Windisch, when at a given signal the Duke of Swabia rushed forward, and plunged his sword in the neck of Albert, crying out, in a voice hoarse from hatred and suppressed emotion, "Such are the wages of injustice!" His accomplices, Herman and Walter, lent their aid to the sanguinary deed; the former transfixed his sovereign with his lance, while the latter cleaved his skull. The attendants, paralysed at the atrocious crime, neither attempted to assist their master, nor to secure the assassins: but when the latter fled, scared at their own dark deed, they dispersed in consternation to spread the report of the catastrophe. The murdered Albert, forsaken by those who in the sunny days of prosperity had watched his every glance, was left alone to die; and had not a countrywoman providentially passed that way, he would have gone to his long account without one friend to receive |