The Express.
London, England, 1851-04-05 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Niaereh asd Perp.,poli.t. By W. S. VA", M.A.
Third Edition. Hall, Virtue, sad Co.
The English are called a preeminently practical
people. The not iv curiously interpreted; at one
time it is our boast, at another it is made a ground
of reproach, but it perpetually recurs; it is reflected !
not only in our great material achievements, in rail-
roads and manufactures, but in the public and politi- I
cal institutions of the country: in the form of the con- !
stitution: and in the national representation. It WWI
before a public like this—a " nation of shop-
keepers." as Bonaparte phrased it—that an unknown
and modest voung man came forward to speak of
what relics iie had found of a city buried above two :
thousand years ago in the solitude and do-'
solution of the desert. Instead of turning away ;
disgusted ut the name of a town which could neither I
send raw material nor open its markets f`o the ma-
nuthetund article. the "shopkeepers" with one eon- I
sent turned to their informant with mingled curio-
sity and respect, felt grateful for news from a long- I
lost world, though only connected with it by a corn-
mon humanity, and gave its discoverer a place
among the most illustrious of their countrymen.
Austen Henry Layard is a name hnuourea and I
cherished in our families, and Nineveh and Nimnual •
have lavvane household words. In one year the
British public has paid to two booksellers for Win, I
motion about the ancient Assyrians and their works'
more than 2o,issq. But the interest felt here in ;
theso ancient people cannot be estimated by refer-1
ewe to what ha. ken paid. Lecturers, preachers, I
and lierintlical writers have found the most attrac-
tive thellll, and illustrations on the same subject, and
the last great seheme of popular literature which has
been announced optna with a new exposition of
"Nineveh, the Buried City of the East."

Theme am fuels which those who fear lest our
habits of ardent activity should eat out our souls,
will do well to take to heart. England has bury,
healthy, and pent rous svmpathies yet, and these are
cxpnaed, not emnaped:hv the development of those
faculties which skim and fu,himi the hard material

What are the specific objective causes which have
given popularity to researches carried on in the
remote Nlcsorpidnitiian desert' Doubtless the basic
elentent it. the intent ht ui to thole intestiitu-
ti 111 l i.e the light they promise to shed upon the
mute• of ancient society. I.ayard. Botta. and 'taw-
Limon, bola• to ;ttlil a page to the history of man-
kind, m restoriug the lost annals of Assy-
ria. Happily Englund contains a large public
ready to elatt-r with 301.01 into such a liberal and gene-
rous entetprise. It is true, we are not in the habit
of Atoning our convent in these matters by rushing
tie govennut...t unit asking the parliament, which can
hardly make up its mind to provide the seuntiest in-
tellectual lanai fur our own poor, to vote mom). for
our intellectual luxuries. Ilut our nunwrous tiocictits
fir the pcmnotion of valuable, though unmarketable
infornustion, prove that in our own wa)• we can and
do maintain the honour of our country in the depart-
ment of learn d researeh.

But if th,: learned classes have honour to bestow,
they cannot confer fume ; they nay pronumue the
merits of a euntliclute. hut they cannot render hint
popular. 't he lurgast proportion of tilt blltet4s of the
works on Nincrt h is not ot present so much due to
tea• ecutrul aji et of itmuit) the place of Assyria
in tea• histisy itm•ieut society -We to certain exter-
nal n Wants of that sulijimt, and also to some peculi-
arities in tea• yin:rm.-tams, under which the general
iuynin• has been introduced to public notice.
(ha• of the nutty external relutimut of the sub-
ject is its bearing upon s velours: history, and espc-
eiall♦ upon tea• customs of the nations by which the
children of Israel were surroundtsl. Niutroud, the
fouoder of Nineveh, is a seripturul character of WWI!
intemst. 'I he date of the city carries us buck tee the
age befoit• .‘broliam. who migrated from its imme-
diate neighbourhood. Hen• Jonah prophesied, and
hither was many u Jemish captive ltd. wont in-
timute relatiots of the Jewish people were with the
Assyriuns: their languages wen• cognate, and when-
er the former forsook the worship of the true God,
it bras to tea• idols worshipped in Assyria that
they turned. %Viten eltatnrillion and the French
savmw aidarl by our own tiouug. began to untuvel
the mysttn•i:s of Egypt. u thim.and hopes were chi...!
risked that at leagth a light would shine on the
many doulttlul ICSSSIgt.,, in the micred records of the
Jews, but their hopes have ended in disappointment.'
In fact. not 0 ithstimiling a residence of tour hundred
emirs in Egyp: Israel came out much ns it had entered. ,
mn•mblunctsof the two nations were not greater
Hunt must always subsist hetwi co eastern people.
With Assyria it is dilfcrcut. Temples. sculpture,'
customs, eve is ri ligi,ms symbols, ls•:u• a striking mu-
tual likeness in both countries. The monuments of

its.yriu are ithedrating the Kaervil literature of the
llebrewo, which, in turn. is throwing a light on the
unrolling of At..‘rian remains. To quote but one in-
stant et there is mason to believe that that my:ste-
rime. abject of I,4nelitish idolatry, the Grove, is at
length diiwtoeted in the tree-like symbol. situ in
several of the Ninny/ad marbly," now in the British
Mme um.

The religion. reference of Assyrian research, then,
is one of it- 14 lations, which would be sure to com-
mand a large share of attention iu Englund. Other]
aspects, not so generally commanded, but not less
striking, me presented by the Assyrian monuments
to the sculptor and architect ; these, too, have been
toniestly studied, and sonic of our hest artists have
applied them-rives to assign to Assyrian art its
in ancient civilisation.
But the beet which more than all besides has
tended to make Nineveh and its relics a popular
subject is yet to be mentioned. In the great text-
book of Assyrian research, the archasological loge is
interleaved with a narrative rivalling the excitement
of romance. Mr. Layard has drawn largely upon
that fund of sympathy with adventure and ishieve-
meld which. sieve Defoe, has never failed a good
writer. The nerve, patients., tact. and off-luind eta-
ratter of the adventurer were just what Englishmer
were nurvioadmire. Withoutdroppinghischaracteroil
a gentleman and man of business, Mr. Layard
ettieted in a few months a work which any professed
antiquary might envy. Alone and with scanty
means he plunged into the desert• among barbarous
prowling tribes. BY these he managed to make him-
self both loved suet feared ; he appeased their fana-
ticism. restrained their depredations, and by their
aid earned off a whole museum of sculptured monu-
ments. The merely subjective hopes, fears. diffi-
culties, disappointments, and triumphs of Mr.
Liquid. of themselves, form a story which would
secure attention to any object with which its inci-
dents were assisiuted. The scene and its accessories
too, were attractive. The wild Arab tribes, now
'hog like au army acniss the desert to fresh pas-
tures, and now spreading out their black tents far as •
the eve could reach over the plain : the caravans, the
hunting ptu ties. and all the tree pursuits of taistoral
life mingled with the story which described the dis-
covery of u hidden world. The crafty and avaricious
Parka appears. to Ix• outwitted; the powerful robber
sheik, to be seized in the midst of his tribe and cur-
ried off until restoration has been duly made. It is
because to learned research Mr. Layard brought a
sailor's ardour. a soldier's courage and fortitude, and
a merchant's coolness and system. that he has sue-
eroded at once in Assyria and in England.
In the present work, Mr. Vaux, who is one of the
scholarly assistants in the antiquity department of
the British Museum. has endeavoured to combine the I
severe) results of the discoveries of Niebuhr, her I
Porter, Airier, and Rich, and to bring down to the
present time the intinsnation which has been col-
lected by Luynrel and Botta. His volume is therefore
a digest of much valuable information, otherwise scat-
teredthrough many storecandexpensivevolumes. The
aim is not to give a specific and detailed narrative of
individual adventure, nor yet, on the other hand, to
supersede the separate perusal of any of the many
authorities from which it his been compiled, but to
state simply what has been accomplished. Ancient
history recovered monuments, and cuneiform inscrip-
tions combine to illustrate dm narrative of ancient
Assyria, which is neatly connected with the subse-
quent course of events on the Tigris.
None of the contents of this volume are more
worthy of attention than those which contain the
history of the interpretation of the cuneiform writing
of the Assyrian inscriptions.
About the beginning of the present century, an
unknown scholar studying at the university of Bonn
was bold enough to attempt, without the advantages

of Oriental learning, to extract the hidden meaning
of an inscription copied by Niebuhr from a monu-
ment at Persepolis. Men of the most powerful in-
, telleet were just applying themselves to discover a ,
!phonetic language in the hieroglyphics of Egypt.'
with what gicat results is at this time of day suffi-
ciently known. But the Rosetta stone discovered in
, Egypt contained a Greek manuscript of the hiero-
glyphical sentences. Plutarch had dissected the Pan-
, theon, and given the names of the gods; and Manetho
had classifiedthe dynasties, and transmitted
„ the names of the kings. Without these helps the
meaning of the signs might have remained a mystery
to this day. No such aid awaited the young German.
The inscription upon which he commenced his la-
hours was written in three lauguugt what they were
was doubt fu ; whether either was aknown tongue con-
cealed under this curious alphabet wasuncertain. The
first step, then, was to find out what sounds were
represented by these signs, before inquiring what those
sounds night signify when ascertained. AU this has
been dune; and with so much certainty, that
Major Rawlinson at Bagdad, and Professor
Lassen at Bonn, sit down to interpret the same
passage, and furnish readings only just discre—
pant enough to show that they have not acted in •
concert. Now, if this be but un accidental coinci-
dence ; if by assuming that certain unknown signs
are the equivalents of ctrtain known letters, exactly
, the names which we might expect come out from the
process; if the right letters always occur at the right
part of the words, and are found in other words coin-
' posed of the saute elements ; lastly, if all that is found
in these inscriptions when interpreted agrees with
history, and only van, s to make it fuller and more
exact—then we have au accumulation of probabilities
in favour of the MIUM:11(113 of the principle of inter-
pretation which tanwit be rejected without shaking
the very foundations of evidence.
Among the most interesting points concerning
which the inscriptions nay be expected to enlighten
us, are the localities of the very. ancient Assyriun
cities whose names are preserved in Scripture. Mr.
Vaux says, speaking of