Page 7

O'ar " Articles " Examined.
pat -their heads, in the British Museum,
if you dare; life-like they are, and lion-
like, beyond anything that sculpture
has done elsewhere, in spite of their
uncompromising material, and the con-
ventional treatment it has made neces-
sary.  Then, the flowers of Egyptian
land and water, reptiles, birds and
beasts,  sometimes  as hieroglyphic
writing, sometimes as religious symbol-
ism, cover walls and columns; nay,
even themselves, their kings and
heroes, their priests and their gods are
enduringly pictured for us to see. Ev-
erywhere is the exhaustless record,
how it was with them. Hunting, and
war, and triumphal procession are
there, and indoor life, and palace and
domestic interiors, and the story of
Egyptian lives from day to day.  And
all this, not only of persons forgotten
to fame or unknown to us, but of the
kings and leaders who appear in sacred
and profane history, their names writ-
ten where every one can read them
who knows "the letters and the
language."
The temptation spoken of above has
come. We have glanced curiously and
lovingly at the Egyptian palace courts.
How can we leave them without ex-
amination and study? How unsatis-
factory are hints and echoes of such a
world as this we are considering!
How much to be desired is opportunity
for careful and minute investigation.
But it cannot be. We have to cross
the sea and the desert, and find a scarce
newer civilization exhumed on the
Euphrates and Tigris.  Scarce newer,
I said, but that is only relatively true.
Between Karnack and Khorsabad
there was time enough elapsed to make
the Assyrians modern in comparison.
But when Xenophon and his ten thou-
sand were on their famous retreat,
they passed over the plain of Nineveh
and knew nothing of the great city
that had then passed away from earth,
while the Egyptian art existed still,
though in a feebler fashion. Can I be
blamed for calling that civilization
scarce newer than the Egyptian?
The architecture of Nineveh and
Babylon has been brought once more
to light by fearless and diligent Eng-
lishmen, during the last forty years.
There was no mountainous solidity
about this Assyrian work. Barbarian
conquerors could only shatter and
deface, and time could only cover with
grass or with heaped sand the palaces
of the Pharaohs; but the great Assyr-
ians cities were laid waste with fire and
sword, were levelled with the ground,
disappeared beneath the heaped up
earth, and were forgotten of men.
These Asiatics, therefore, sought a
different splendor from that created by
their African forerunners and contem-
poraries.  But walk through      the
corriders of the British Museum, and
you will see that the two agreed in one
thing.  They must needs carve and
paint wherever a flat surface could be
found; and set up colossal figures for
gateways and avenues; and repro-
duce everywhere their life and their
surroundings. You have all seen the
slabs at the Historical Society's rooms,
and the engravings of similar sculptures
in Layard's book.   These were the
wainscoting of palace halls, and the
facing of the walls of palace courts.
Around the courts they were high and
thick, having in low relief colossal
figures of divinities and their ministers,
and of kings who built or enlarged
the edifice. Within, and where pro-
tected by roofs, there was a great
variety, single figures, groups, and
whole histories in bas relief, from life
size to miniature, all flat sculpture on
slabs of alabaster embrowned with age,
and looking wonderfully like delicate
drawings in sepia. Here are battles,
the victorious Assyrians pursuing and
slaughtering the discomfited enemy,
birds of prey hovering over the field;
sometimes the flight and pursuit rages
along the river bank, the dead falling,
and the survivors driven into the
water, where are growing the reeds
and lilies as they grow to-day on the
banks of the Tigris, and where are
swimming the ancestors of the fish
that Rich and Layard broiled for their
breakfasts. Here is the siege of a city,
the towers rising on a river bank, the
walls battlemented and crowded with
bowmen and soldiers, who resist vigor-
ously an attack by escalade. Here is
a lion hunt; one lion, pierced by a
dozen javelins, drags his hind legs after
him hopelessly, for one of the spears
has pierced his loins; another is dying,
his head bowed between his fore-legs,
the blood pouring from his mouth;
one attacks the chariot in which sits
the king, they thrust him back with