its name from the Dorians; its columns are simple, without pilasters.

715 With golden architrave.

The moulding next above the capital of a column; also, the principal beam of a building. not Babylon.

A city on the Euphrates, built by Nimrod or Belus, the founder of the Assyrian monarchy, and became the capital of that monarchy, under the reign of Semiramis: it had one hundred brazen gates; and its walls, which were cemented with bitumen, and greatly enlarged and embellished by that queen, measured four hundred and eighty stadia in circumference, fifty cubits in thickness, and two hundred in height. It was taken by Cyrus, B. C. 538; after he had drained the waters of the Euphrates into a new channel, and marched his troops by night into the town, through the dried bed; and it is said, that the fate of the extensive capital was unknown to the inhabitants of the distant suburbs till late in the evening. Babylon became famous for the death of Alexander, and for the new empire which was afterwards established there under the Seleucidæ. At present the place were it once stood is unknown to travellers.

718 Nor great Alcairo.

Cairo, the capital of Egypt: Mr. Brown found here the ruins of an edifice which appeared to be the work of the ancient Egyptians, as the figures of Isis and Anubis were conspicuous among the sculptures. And Major Rennell seems to enter

tain no doubt, but that this is the true situation of the once famous temple of Jupiter Ammon.

to inshrine.

To bury. The tower of Belus and Pyramids ofs erapis were designed for the tombs or monuments of the Assyrian or Egyptian kings.

720 Belus or Seraphis, their gods.

721

Belus, one of the most ancient kings of Babylon, about 1800 before the age of Semiramis, was made a god after death, and worshipped, with much ceremony, by the Assyrians and Babylonians. This temple of Belus was the most ancient and most magnificent in the world. It was originally the Tower of Babel, which was converted into a temple. It had lofty towers, and it was enriched, by all the succeeding monarchs, till the age of Xerxes, who, after his unfortunate expedition against Greece, plundered and demolished it. Among the riches it contained, were many statues of massy gold, one of which was forty feet high. Serapis had a magnificent temple to his honour at Memphis, another at Alexandria, and a third at Canopus. The worship of Serapis was introduced at Rome, by the Emperor Antoninus Pius, A. D. 146, and the mysteries celebrated on the sixth of May; but with so much licentiousness, that the senate were soon after obliged to abolish it.

.

when Egypt with Assyria strove.

Egypt, a country in Africa, it is a narrow vale on both sides of the Nile, bounded by ridges of mountains or hills: it is the most considerable part of Africa; and was once the seat, if not the

illustrious heroes. And, in another age, Constantine the Great removed its most splendid ornaments to his new capital. It was universally believed, by the ancients, that Delphi was in the middle of the earth.

518 Or in Dodona.

A town in Thespotia, in Epirus; others say, in Thessaly. There was, in its neighbourhood, an oracle, dedicated to Jupiter. The town and temple of the god was built by Deucalion, after the Deluge.

519 Of Doric land.

A country of Greece, between Phocis, Thessaly, and Acarnania. It received its name from Dorus, the son of Deucalion, who made a settlement there.

520 Fled over Adria.

520

Or Adriaticum mare: a sea, lying between Illyricum and Italy, now called, The Gulf of Venice; first made known to the Greeks by the discoveries of the Phonecians.

Hesperia is derived from Hesper or Vesper, the setting sun: whence the Greeks call Italy, Hesperia.

521 And o'er the Celtic.

534

Celtae: this name, though anciently applied to the inhabitants of Gaul, as well as of Germany and Spain, was particularly given to a part of the Gauls, whose country was called Gallia Celtica. that proud honour claim'd,

Azazel as his right.

Satan's standard bearer.

543 Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.

Chaos, the original confused mass of matter, out of which all things were made: hence Chaos is styled the father of all the gods; from him sprung, Nox or Night; Æther and Hemera, that is, air and day.

550 In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood.

575

A kind of grave and solid music, consisting of slow spondaic time. Doria, a town of Pelopennus, now the Morca, where Thamyris, the musician, challenged the Muses to a trial of skill. that small infantry,

Warr'd on by cranes.

The Pygmæi, a nation of dwarfs, in the extremest parts of India; or, according to others, in Ethiopia. Some authors affirm, that they were no more than one foot high, and that they built their houses with egg shells. Aristotle says that they lived in holes under the earth; and that they came out, in harvest time, with hatchets to cut down the corn, as if to fell a forest. The crane is, of all the migratory birds, the species which undertakes and performs the boldest and most distant journeys: originally a native of the north, it visits all the temperate climes, and even the regions of the south: it is seen in Sweden, in the Orkneys of Scotland, in Padola, in Vilhina, in Lithuania, and in the whole of the North of Europe: in autumn it alights in the low fenny countries, and then hastens to the south; from whence it returns, with the spring, and again penetrates into the northern countries; thus completing its circuit with the round of the

seasons.

Struck with these perpetual migrations, the ancients termed it a bird of Lybia, or the bird of Scythia; since, by turns, they saw it arrive from both extremities of the then known world. Herodotus and Aristotle make Scythia to be the summer abodes of the cranes; and those which halt in Greece really descend from that extensive region. Thessaly is called by Plato, the pasture of the world; where they alight in flocks, and cover all the Cyclodes, Hesiod marks the time of the passage when he says, "that the husbandman should observe the scream of the crane from aloft in the clouds, as the signal to begin ploughing." India and Ethiopia were the countries assigned as its southern residence. Strabo says, that the people of India eat the eggs of cranes, Herodotus, that the Egyptians cover bucklers with their skins: and, to the source of the Nile, the ancients referred the scene of their combats with the Pigmies, a race of little men, says Aristotle, mounted on small horses, who live in caves. Pliny places the country of the Pigmies among the mountains of India, beyond the fountain of the Ganges: he relates that the climate was salubrious, perpetually mild and fanned by the northern breeze. It is reported, he continues, that sitting on the backs of rams and of goats, and armed with bows, the whole nation descends in the spring, and consumes the eggs and young of these birds; and, that this expedition lasts during the space of three months, otherwise it could not resist the invasions of future flocks." In another part of this work he