The Express.
London, England, 1851-01-03 00:00:00

DR. LAYARD AND NINEVEH.

trees Bentley's Niecelimey for tannery.)
When "Nineveh and its Remains" was published
•wo years sae, the very title of the work was certain to excite
the utmost estriaity, bat the disclosures contained in it fat
xceeded ell the imagination could have seemived. That a
toy, originally built, as we are informed la the Scriptures
u (0-nes v.ll and 12 verses) by one of the early descendants
M Noah—a city, which for countless, or at leas* unknown,
ogre, had vanished from the face of the earth, so that not one
memorial or authentic record of the maanere aid amass ef
nee iabahitants bad been preserved—thst ancient Nioineb
*mild have been, as it were, galled up to pass before the
eyes of the mortal' of the oiastoenth century, was an event
calcified to b. get the miaow interest and utonishmeot.
That so marvellous a work should have been perforate 1 by
tne enterprise, perseveranc-, and vides of a single unas-
sisted rasa, was ant the least au:pride' circumstance in the
matter.
Thu cat? of Nineveh was the metropolis of the great Assy-
rian emirate, and there is abundant evidence to prove that it
was once the largest and most populous city in the world.
Whether Niue, the build• r, or restart r, of that vast city,
completed It before or after the overthrow of Zoreaster, , is
uncertain. It is speed fey all profane writers, and coi.firmed
by the Scripture., that it exosaded all others in Snot' and
megofioence ; for it was in circumference four hundred and
'linty stadia, or feileogs (sixty miles), the walls being a
buodred feet high, and so broad that threes chariots might be
driven abreast on the ramparts. These walls were adorned
' with fifteen busked towers, oath two hundred feet high.
But this city, built is the plains of Assyria, on the banks
I of the river Tidria sad in the region of Eden, waa founded
has before the time of Nthua, and, ancient Melodize re-
pay was galled Casepsor, until Nom amplified it aud gave
it the sass of Nineveh.
This Caspar, then, must have been founded by Mahar,
who, as we learn from 0 nesis, went forth from the land of
Shiner and built Nineveh. Nothing more concerning it,
however, is told in the sacred writings till tie time of the
prophet Jonah, who describes it se an "e• eroding great
city of throe days' journey." He also indicates is immense
yotpolation, saying that it contained " more than aix sure,
thouland persons that could not discern between their right
hand and their left hand." Suopoeing one.eizth of the inha-
bitants of Nineveh to have been in this deplorable ante of
ignorance, we have a population more than seven hundred
thousand in number.
The preaching of the prophet Jonah caused the people of
Nineveh to repent, and accordingly the city wss soared for a
time: yet shortly afterwards Nahum wu commanded to de-
dare the burden of Nineveh, to proclaim the city's destruc-
sittn, and to moons's, the downf al of the Muria* empire.
This prophet speaks of it us a city with many strongholds,
and malty gates with here; that bad multiplied her mer-
chants ahoy* the 'tan of heaven; whose inbehitants and
princes were 1101110,0161 as the lo.usts ; and who's store and
jitney of pleasant furniture was endless.
The destruction of the city, in the year n.c. 606, by the
ennbiaed armies of Crouton ling of Penis, and Naloopo.
!war, who wee, so Dr. Layard thinks, the Assyrian governor
of Babylon, fa:tilled this prediction to the very letter. Nine-
veh was laid waste: she was indeed " made a desolation, and
dry like a wildentess."
We learn from Dlodorna Sieulus that the city wudeatroyed
partly by water and partly by fire, and that many talent. of
gold and silver rescued from the flames were carried to
Ecbatan. Lutists of Sansosata. who &twain about aD.
led, informs us that N. h had perisheo utterly—that not
a vestige of the eity remained, and that oven the place where
it stooe was no longer known.
We aka it for granted that all our readers, !having in-
'Petted the extraordinary sculptures now in the British
Museum, or wen drawings from thene,and having forme:
a due estimate of the obligations this country lies under to
the discoverer, will have been anxious, long since, to know
something of that remarkable person, and such information
we are happy to be enabled, in part at but, to communicate.
Since the time of Lucian nearly seventeen centuries have
elapsed, and the name of Nineveh, until lately, alone re.
main,d. Its very rats were no longer on the face of the
land, and in this ago of science and inquiry no anti
Tartan before Dr. La and ever seriously bethought himself
art seeking out the Nineveh and Babylon of Holy Writ,
and of searching for the buried palaces of the Anyrun
monarchy. True it is, that the ooti.o of travellers in Aayria
hen been attracted long ago to huge mounds, apparently
composed of earth and rubbish, and that it was conjectured
thet these wen the remains of the stupendous solids's,
Nineveh and Babylon. A nun of brickwork, vitrified end
rather out of the aggregated rubbish of centuries, was believed
to Ise the remains of the tower of Babel.
The temple of Bela, according to Hersdotus, end some
mounds in the seighbaithood, were supposed to be the
hanging gardens and marvellous structures attributed to
Semiramis, the wife of Nicene, who built Babylon ; bet IL,
&acuity of reaching those localities, while it reeked the
iatenst of the satiquariaa, prevented the traveller from
visiting them.
Greater certhalty was awakened by the presumed site of
Nineveh than of Babylon. S, viral Ben had noticed
the numerate mounds on the lett bank of the Tigris, oppo-
site the modern city of Wool, and what tradition bed called
the tomb of Jonah, on the top of one of the mounds, gave a
tartan probability to the coojecture that it indicated the site
of Nineveh ; but it is to Dr. Layard that we arc indebted for
o koooledge of that important feet, 6:Alarmed as it is by the
extraordinary remains he her forwarded to this country
The Layartis are descended from a distioguishtd
named Raymond, long settled in the south of France, who
clam, d *Malty with the Raymond', sovereign Counts of
Toulouse; were among the Guilts, supporters of the reformed
religits in that country; and ',pound the those of the perse-
cuted Albigenses. The Rsymonds, nevertheless, continued
to receive honours and grants from successive sovereigns of
France, intermarrying with the noblest families, until the
massacre of the Hugaenota, In 1872, when two of the
brothers fell victims in that terrible slaughter, whilst a third
(the heir) succeeded in effecting his escape into Holland.
The immediate ancestor of the existing branch of the
Raymonds, or rather Layarde, came over to this country
with William Prince of Orange, mid held a high command
wider that protestant prises at the battle of the 134 et,
From that period the family definitively settled in ED glaniL
Having already embraced the pro:obtain faith, Raymond wee
content for its sake to give up his a/wary, and relinquish his
property in Frain; want d by the revccatiwn of the
edict at Nantes, he dropped his patrimonial name, sad
assumed that of Leytted, probably the name of on estate, as
one of the family was authequently tolled Raymond de
Lvov's; destroying at the same time every document
which, preserved and transmitted to his descendants, might
tempt any one of them to return to catholicism, and enable
him to recover the estates in France.
This, the last of the Reyntoods, wee the grandfather of
Dr. Leveed, the late Dean of Bristol, and of his two bro-
thers, both generals in the English army.
The wood son of the Dean of Bristol, Henry Peter John,
held for many yeas a high civil appointment in Ceylon, was
a maw of great abilities sad varied acquiremenu, and was
the father of Austen Hairy Layard, the subject of our present
memoir, who was born at Paris, during a temporary visit of
his parents to that metropolis, on the 6th March, 1817.
The early youth of Ltyerd was pealed at Florence.
Familiar with the language of Italy, it is no wonder that
OS glorious literature of that runny subsequently solicited
hie attention ; or that, born with a love of the fine arts, his
taste should have been ennobled and purified by a con-
templation of the glorious models of sculpture and paintifig
in which Florence abnunds. Was It here that he acquired
that command over his pencil, which to sfiorwards forged
infinitely serviceable to him amid the ruins of Nimriud ?
Tit faculty was afterwards fully excited " by the appalling
sight of slabs with the noblest sculptures and 'he finest in-
ecriptione, crumbing into dust before his eyes. No draughts-
man bed bees provided to help him : and had he not instantly
determined to arrest by the quickness of his eye and the
magic of his pencil thew fleeting forme, which were about
to aisaopear for over, many of the finest remains of ancient
art would have been irrecoverably lost."
Layard returned from Italy to hie cativo country for oda.
0111q00. That being completed, he devoted himself to the
',tidy of the law, which, however, proved little attractive to
him. Pope, paying an elegant compliment to the accom-
plished Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield, exclainu—
How sweeten Ovid wets in Surrey lost!
For ear part, we should not greatly grieve if we knew
tba, even a *scowl Murfl4d wesUat in a Layard.
About the age 0(18, L• cod's travels in Italy, Ramie, and
other anturies, suited In him a Moog passion for sill
more extended adventure, which, accompanied by an ardent
esire for knowledge, and an energy which "knew not
what it was to intermit," (Waded him upon abandoning his
profession, and settling in the East, where he had family

cAsnexiiiiso.
la the summer of 1839, with a friend for a oompanion, Dr.
Layard left Boglend. Travening Germany, they passed
through Dalmatia into 11..steteegro, whirs Dr. Layard was
induced to stay for • brief pen. d having engaged to aid •
young and energetic chief in titillate); and otherwise Un-
moving the condition of his brave but Kent batman sub-
jeerts. From Montenegro the friends made their way as they
best mall through Albania and Rottman, an enterprise in
which tisey encountered many adventures, and finally, and
at the end of the year, arrived by Adrianople at Constant!.
prude. We are informed that Dr. Layard proceeded to
Baghdad and into Syria; bat we have no means of following
his to.tsteps with accuracy or oertain'y during this period of
his wandering and eventful life. At this time his friend
quilted his, and new he was left to pursue his course alone.
We earnestly hope that some day—and that not a distant
one—Dr. Layard will give to the world an account of the
extraordinary adventures which betel him, when the eager
wish to acquire knowledge which he desired to exertiee for
the profit and benefit of his fellow creatures, curled him
alto strange and many lands. If other men have acquired
• larger experience of diversified life, few have encountered
and surmounted greater difficulties; and none have ever
engaged themselves to the attainment of a nobler object.
Wanderlust In the Desert, he was hi quently attacked sod
plundered by wild Arabs, and was constantly in peril. Now
he =iota be found settling disputed points of geography, or
Peeking historical remain—now making his way as a
Bairn over wilds hitherto nntrodden by the (cot of Euro-
peans, cr sojourning with the barbarous Bactyari in their
mountains, civilising and teaching the people; and, hating