ful purposes; and a more improving one has been raised up and led into predominance in its stead. BABYLON was the other most important civilized state founded by the family of Ham. Nimrod is declared to have begun his kingdom there,* and as he was the son of Cush, who settled in Ethiopia, and nephew of the brother who began the Egyptian population, he must have gone from one of these countries to the Euphrates, and this corresponds with the Egyptian tradition on this subject.† Babylon became one of the most distinguished cities in the ancient world. Its territory was peculiarly rich and fertile from the irrigations of the Euphrates; but from the effect of the watery inundations, its name, like the Latin one of Paris, furnished a synonyme for mud.§ With the renown of Babylon you are familiar. It was proverbially declared to be one of the great wonders of the world, and this makes the circumstance more impressive to us, that when in the height of its grandeur, that total extirpation of it was predicted, which has been so completely fulfilled, that its exact site has been a subject of modern geographical debate.|| was an important aid to the mental progress of the world, that it also had and used a symbolical writing in characters of its own, which bear the marks of an alphabetical kind. No books have been yet found in it, because its literature has long since utterly perished. But those numerous inscriptions called arrow-headed, from their prevailing form, appear on some of the remains of Persepolis, and on the It *Gen. x. 10. The Greek translators insert Babylon here as the meaning of the Hebrew Babel. Micah speaks of Nimrod's country as contiguous to Assyria. "They shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof."-v. 6. This was, that "Belus, son of Neptune and Libya, led an Egyptian colony to Babylon, and, settling on the Euphrates, instituted a priesthood like that of Egypt, who in the same manner observed the stars."-Diod. 1. i. 17. Pausanias says of Belus, that he was an Egyptian, son of Libya.-Messen. p. 261. "Babylon, the head of the Chaldean nation, obtained the highest celebrity through the whole world."-Pliny, 1. vi. c. 30. Suidas has transmitted the expression "Babuλas, mud," vi. p. 524, like Lutetia. || Isaiah's prophecies on it were, "I will make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water. I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts."-xiv. 23. "It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; but wild beasts of the desert shall lie there."-xiii. 20. 1. bricks or tiles which are occasionally found in the heaps of rubbish that abound upon the station, which Babylon has been described to have occupied.* Her sages contributed to the advancement of astronomy by their observations of the planetary motions, and had most probably influential and interesting connexions with India by their celebrated river, and the Persian Gulf into which it flows. They were important instruments of Providence in their brief day of imperial power; but that they were utterly unfit to be a leading and lasting empire in the world, is sufficiently evident from one only of their popular customs; and this was, that every female should be degraded, in the beginning of her mature life, in the temple of their chief divinity.‡ It appears to me not unlikely that Hindostan, or some parts of its southern peninsula, derived a considerable portion of its population and attainments from these branches of the Ham family. The intercourse is certain; many similarities exist between them, and the ancestral kinship highly probable; though the subject is too remote and obscure to admit of any thing much beyond the conjectural possibility.( *The latest account that I have seen of these characters on the bricks is, that the arrow-head inscriptions of Babylon appear to be chiefly composed of symbols, and to consist of astronomical and genealogical records and monthly calendars. The tiles were thought to contain the maker's name; but the editor of the Morning Watch infers from his examinations, that the Babylonian bricks consist, for the most part, of monthly calen dars or almanacs, each involving a series of either 30 or 35 numerical characters; the former having reference to common months of 30 days and the latter to the twelfth or intercalary month, to which five days were added. We The characters consist of a series of seven characters answering to the planetary days of the week, which are found repeated in each calendar until the monthly number is completed.-Morning Watch, No. 15. must leave it to the farther examination of others to decide whether these ingenious conjectures are well founded. Of these bricks and inscriptions, Pliny says, "Epigenes, a very respectable authority, teaches that the Babylonians had observations on the stars for 720 years inscribed on baked tiles."-Pliny. 1. vii. c. 57. †The Babylonians computed their day from sunrise; the Athenians from sunset; the Romans, like ourselves, from midnight.-Censorinus, p. 132, 4. They applied their starry observations to astrological predictions.--Cicero. Div. 1. iii. When Alexander took Babylon, Callisthenes found observations on the stars there for the 1903 years preceding.Simpl. de Cœlo. 1. ii. They referred earthquakes to the action of the stars. Pliny, ii. c. 81. Herod. 1. i. c. 199. "The Arabians divide the country of the Hindoos, which the Turks and Persians called Hindostan, into two parts, Hind and Sind. The word But it is clear from the preceding facts, and from whatever else is known of all these early civilized nations, that none of these were fit to be the permanent empires or standards of mankind, either mentally or morally. Each had defects that would have vitiated more than it would have improved, in proportion as it predominated; and therefore another race of people was gradually raised up under their tuition, to whom the great cause of human civilization and progression was next intrusted; and who, acquiring all that their predecessors could teach, dropped what was most objectionable and pernicious in their institutions, opinions, and habits; and purifying it from these, added great intellectual beauties and riches of their own production. By these means they advanced human nature to a higher degree of excellence than it had previously reached, and than it could have attained from either an Ethiopian, Egyptian, Phenician, Babylonian, or Indian sovereignty,I mean the Grecian populations. These interesting people did not imbibe or perpetuate the animal worship, the animal transmigration of the soul, the incestuous marriages, the polygamy, or the belief that the gods lived in animal bodies, which Egypt was so attached to. Nor did they admit, but on the contrary, resisted and abolished, the dreadful practice of human sacrifice and child-burning of the Phenicians. The Babylonian law of depraving their females at the outset of life, was also avoided, and condemned as a shameful institution. These improvements, and the substitution of their superior Jupiter, to the gloomy and blood-stained Saturn or Kronos, we know that they effected; and these are enough to prove what a great stretch of progression in human nature was attained, by causing the Greek mind to be educated by their, at first, more civilized teachers, and afterward to rise so high above them, in the improvements to which they subsequently advanced.* Sind signifies, properly, the Indus, and is extended to designate all the country on this side of the river westward, and beyond it on the east. The oriental geographers say, that eastward of the country of Sind lies that of Hind. They apply the name of Hind to all the regions of India up to and beyond the Ganges, from its source to its mouth. They call Turk Hind what our geography names Indo-Scythia, comprising Cabul and Turkisthan."-D'Herb. Bibl. p. 804. * That Babylon contributed to form the Grecian mind as well as the It is interesting to contemplate the gradual training and formation of the Grecian people to this elevating destiny, but this is too large a subject to be part of a letter like the present. It is manifest that the colonies of Cecrops at Athens, Danaus at Argos, and Cadmus at Thebes, already noticed, were the nurses and instructers of their intellectual childhood, for the simple facts recorded on the Parian Marbles as to Athens, show us in what a rude state these foreign teachers found their uncultivated pupils, even in this celebrated place-the great refiner and metropolis of the ancient human intellect. I will shortly notice these, as they indicate from what an humble condition it was the will of Providence that she should ascend to her appointed glory; by what little steps her first improvements were made, and how completely the process appears to have been under his guidance. For may we not justly say, that by him alone a soil more fit for olive than for corn, and a general country other nations we may infer from one fact noticed by Herodotus: "The Grecians learned the Pole and the Gnomon, and the twelve parts of the day, from the Babylonians."-Her. 1. i. c. 109. * 1318 years before the inscription was made, or 1582 before the Christian era, Cecrops was at Athens, and 1257, Hellen, the son of Deucalion, reigned in Phthiots, from whom the Grecians were called Hellenes; and Amphictyon, at Athens. 1255. Cadmus came to Thebes. 1252. Lacedemon and Eurotas governed in Laconia. 1247. Danaus came to Greece in his ship of 50 oars. 1242. Phryx first invented musical pipes, and first sang the melody called Phrygian. 1168. Minos reigned in Crete, and the Idoi Dactyle found out iron in Mount Ida. 1145. Ceres came to Athens and sowed corn, and sent it to other regions by Triptolemus. 1142. Triptolemus first sowed corn at Eleusinia. 1135. Orpheus sang, and went after Proserpine and in search of Ceres. 1031. The Athenians had a dearth of corn, and were compelled to submit to the laws which Minos imposed. 995. Theseus formed the twelve towns into one city, Athens; and established its republic. 954 The Trojan war.-Parian Chron. 1. 8. Thus corn was not sowed at Athens till 173 years after Cecrops, nor iron found out in Greece but a few years earlier; nor was it till Theseus united the twelve little towns into one city like the seven hills into one Rome, that Athens attained a decided superiority. At this period we find from Thucydides, that piracy was the general habit of the nation, as among our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. Yet from such beginnings the intellectual Athens emerged into the finest state of the ancient mind and to undying fame. nearly as mountainous as those regions where barbaric life has been most continuous, were yet made the homes of the most illustrious and meritorious people who had appeared on our earthly surface, before our Divine Legislator began the new era of wisdom, virtue, hope, and happiness to his human race, which is becoming brighter over all the globe, and which may be expected to be in due time everywhere, to use our Addison's words, "Profuse or bliss, and pregnant with delight." Such rational anticipations of this result appear to me to be visible all around, that I rejoice that I have lived long enough to discern them, and only regret that, at my advanced period of life, I cannot expect to witness the meridian splendour which, as time rolls on, its circuits will spread over our terrestrial hemisphere. Summer clouds and summer storms may attend the glowing rays; but these will be transient, and only augment the effulgence and diversify its fertilizing efficacy-Eσoεraι 'Hμap.* LETTER XXVI. Cursory Review of the Abrahamic Nations of the World-The Edomites -Arabians-Midianites-And Others. MY DEAR SON, THE populations which originated from Abraham have been so important to the world, that they deserve a distinct notice from the historical student. Abraham, like Solomon, has been always a personage of much celebrity among the oriental nations, and especially with those who are connected with Mesopotamia, and with the Arabian stock.† It was declared that he should be the * All that Greece possessed and had so richly multiplied, refined, and expanded, became the property of the Roman mind in the future stage of human progression, with those additional improvements, which this allconquering people largely added to it, before their period of decline began. The progression of mind and manners from their fall to our own happy day, is too obvious to every one for me here to delineate. Berosus notices him."In the tenth generation after the flood, there |