they call the place Nineveh; but the Nineveh of Assyria was certainly at Mosul : Out of that land went forth Ashur and builded Nineveh.'" The epoch of Urukh, the earliest king of whom cuneiform record has been found, certainly approaches very closely upon the epoch of the general deluge, taking the calculations in Dr. Hales's tables, from the remotest, namely, the Septuagint, B.C. 3246, down to the most modern, the Vulgar Jewish, B.C. 2104. But disregarding this novel theory, founded upon such slender data as the discovery of old Urukh's name, and which name may yet be found also in some Babylonian mound, and the equally ingenious identification of the temple of the Seven Spheres at Borsippr with the "Tongue Tower" by Dr. Oppert, we are still inclined to identify, till better evidence is produced, the traditional mound of Babel, where possibly the oldest temple of the Babylonian chief deity was raised, and was, as at Borsippr, renovated by Nebuchadnezzar with the first attempt at terraced structures. Nor are we the more prepared to admit the identity of Niffar with Calneh, from the discovery of the cuneiform name of that primeval site at that place. Sir Henry Rawlinson said he had before found the same name at Kadwalla, near Bagdad, and it may still be found elsewhere. But Nipar is mentioned with Sipur, Borsippr, and Babel, as cities embellished by Sargon in the inscriptions, and it is not likely that, if the name of the place had been Calneh or Chalneh, that it would have been called Nipar by the Assyrian king. We must, on the contrary, presume that with Babel, Sipur, (Sifairah,) Borsippr, (Birs Nimrud,) Erech or Urukh, (Warka,) and Accad, (Akka Kuf,) Nipar has also preserved its olden name, (Niffar). It is, however, on the great tract of sandy soil, interspersed with marsh formerly watered by the Chaldean Nile, and now by the Yusufiyya Canal and its branches, which lie between the Affaij depression and that of the Shat-el-Hai, that the great mass of Chaldean mounds are congregated. "I know of nothing more exciting or impressive than the first sight of one of those great Chaldean piles looming in solitary grandeur from the surrounding plains and marshes. A thousand thoughts and surmises concerning its past eventful history and origin-its gradual rise the gazer and rapid fall-naturally present themselves to the mind of the spectator. The hazy atmosphere of early morning is peculiarly favorable to considerations and impressions of this character, and the gray mist intervening between parts to it a dreamy existence. This fairy-like and the object of his reflections, imeffect is further heightened by mirage, which strangely and fantastically magnifies its form, elevating it from the ground, and causing it to to dance and quiver in the rarified air. No wonder, therefore, that the beholder is lost in pleasing doubt as to the actual reality of the apparition before him.” Among these are Bismiyya, still unexplored, Phara, in the country of the Beni Rechab, abounding in small antiques, such as signet-cylinders, rude bronzes, and. figures carved in stone, and whence Mr. Loftus obtained a very interesting Egyp tian amulet. The ruins of Hammam-a series of low undulations around a grand central tower, whose base having fallen away, has given to it the appearance of a gigantic mushroom, and near which were found-a rare thing in Chaldea - the fragments of a statue, the head of which is supposed to be in the possesion of Captain Lynch, C.B.I.N.; and as the frag ments of this body now lie in the vaults of the British Museum, it is a pity they were not, with the head, all put together. We should then have, at all events, one specimen of a Chaldean divinity to set beside the many Assyrian. Within sight of Hammam, about six miles distance, rises another lofty and imposing pile, called Tel Ede, or Yede. It is in the country of the Madan, or pastoral Arabs, under the Muntifij. This mound is a huge artificial mass of solid sand, 90 feet high and 2500 feet in circumference, but out of which nothing could be obtained. Of all the ruins of Central Chaldea, by far the most extensive and important are those of Erech, or Urukh, now called Warka. Of the three great edifices which rise conspicuously from the surface of the ruins, that called Buwariyya is not only the most central, but the most lofty and ancient. At first sight it appears to be a cone, but further examination proves it to be a tower, 200 feet square, built entirely of sun-dried bricks. On excavating at its basement there was discovered, on the centre of each side, a massive buttress of peculiar construction, erected for the purpose of supporting the main edifice, which appears from the brick legends to have been a temple dedicated to "Sin," or "the precisely what would be necessary if, as Moon," by Urukh, the oldest known Mr. Loftus believes, each chamber were Chaldean monarch. covered with a brick arch. He conceives Mr. Fergusson's restoration, as seen at the Crystal Palace, founded upon the notion that the Assyrians had recourse to columns in preference to all other modes of building, to be completely erroneous. But by far the most interesting structure at Warka is that called Wuswas. It is contained in a spacious walled quadrangle, which includes a space of more than seven and a half acres. The most important and conspicuous portion of this great inclosure is a structure on the south-west side, 246 feet long by 174 feet wide, and 80 feet above the plain. On three sides are terraces of different elevations, but the fourth, or south-west, presents a perpendicular façade at one place 23 feet in height. This façade when laid partially bare by Mr. Loftus's labors, afforded a first glimpse of external Babylonian architecture, and exhibited peculiarities so remarkable and original as to attest at once its undoubted antiquity. "Nothing can be more plain, more rude, or, in fact, more unsightly, than the decoration employed upon this front; but it is this very aspect-this very ugliness, which vouches for the originality of the style. It has long been a question whether the column was employed by the Babylonians as an architectural embellishment. The Wuswas façade settles this point beyond dispute. Upon the lower portion of the building are groups of seven half-columns repeated seven times-the rudest perhaps which were ever reared, but built of moulded semicircular bricks, and securely bonded to the wall. The entire absence of cornice, capital, base, or diminution of shaft, so characteristic of other columnar architecture, and the peculiar and original disposition of each group in rows like palm logs, suggest the type from which they sprang. It is only to be compared with the style adopted by aboriginal inhabitants of other countries, and was evidently derived from the construction of wooden edifices. The same arrangement of uniform reeds or shafts, placed side by side, as at Wuswas, occurs in many Egyptian structures, and in the generally of Mexican buildings before the Spanish invasion. It is that which is likely to originate among a rude people before the introduction of the arts." The interior of the same building exhibited courts, with chambers on either side, the arrangement of which resembled, in a remarkable manner, that of the Assyrian palaces, as respected want of uniformity in size and shape, and the position of the doorways at the sides rather than the center of the rooms. The flank walls were thicker or slighter in proportion to the width of the chamber, which would be Among other curious discoveries made at Warka was one of an edifice at once unique in its construction and remarkable for new styles of decorative art. Mr. Loftus had frequently noticed a number of small yellow terra-cotta cones, three inches and a half long, arranged in half circles on the surface of the mound, and he was much perplexed to imagine what they were. They proved to be part of a wall, thirty feet long, entirely composed of these cones imbedded in a cement of mud, mixed with chopped straw. They were fixed horizontally, with their circular bases facing outwards. Some had been dipped in red and black color, and were arranged in various ornamental patterns, such as diamonds, triangles, zigzags, and stripes, "which had a very pleasing effect." It is well known that in ancient Egyptian tombs similar, but much larger cones are found, with hieroglyphs recording the names of the deceased (for they are of a sepulchral character) stamped upon their bases. Mr. Taylor also found them plentifully at the ruins which were upon what was once the "Western Euphrates;" much larger than those at Warka, with cuneiform inscriptions, and sometimes a rim round the edge filled with copper; but this is the only instance where they have been found in sitû. There were also large cones of baked clay found at Warka, but they were disposed separately, and were inscribed with the name of Bel, or Belus, and belonged to some divinity or superior being. Warka turned out, indeed, to be a mine for extraordinary and unheard-of modes of decoration in architecture. Another mound was crowned with a curious building, which had some points of resemblance to the cone-brick structure. Connected with it was a wall, composed entirely of unbaked bricks, and a peculiar species of conical vase, the fragments of which lay strewed on the surface. These vases were arranged horizontally, mouths outward. They varied in size from ten to fifteen inches in length, with a general diameter at the mouth of four inches. The cup, or interior, was only six inches deep, and the conical end solid. "With their conical mouths outward," says Mr. Loftus, "they produced a very strange effectmore striking even than that of the painted cone edifice already described." "It is difficult," the same explorer goes on to say, "to conceive the purpose for which these vases were designed;" but, if Mr. Taylor's views of the nature of the cones is correct, it is not too much to suppose that they were the counterpart of the said cones, and that one edifice was the mausoleum of kings and princes, the other that of queens and princesses; or they may have been temples dedicated to divinities propitiated by the different sexes. It is a remarkable fact, that while the long succession of years during which excavations have been carried on in the mounds of Assyria, not a single instance has been recorded of undoubted Assyrian sepulture, Chaldea is full of them; and every mound is an ancient burial-place from Niffar to Abu Shahrein! Every school-boy knows, that when Alexander was at Babylon, the Macedonian sailed into the marshes to visit the tombs of the kings of Assyria, and that all kinds of mishaps and evil omens befel him on the occasion of that excursion. It is not too much to believe that Chaldea was in olden times the necropolis of Assyria, whither, probably, the dead were conveyed, chiefly by means of boats upon the Tigris and the Euphrates. The whole region of Lower Chaldea abounds, in fact, in sepulchral cities of immense extent; and by far the most important of these is Warka, where the enormous accumulation of human remains proves that it was a peculiarly sacred spot; and, unlike most of the other Chaldean sepulchral cities, it was so esteemed for many centuries. "It is difficult," Mr. Loftus remarks, "to convey any thing like a correct notion of the piles upon piles of human relics which there utterly astound the beholder. Excepting only the triangular space between the three principal ruins, the whole remainder of the platform, the whole space between the walls, and an unknown extent of desert beyond them, are everywhere filled with the bones and sepulchers of the dead. There is probably no other site in the world which can compare with Warka in this respect; even the tombs of ancient Thebes do not contain such an aggregate amount of mortality. From its foundation by Urukh until finally abandoned by the Parthians-a period of probably 2400 years-Warka appears to have been the Persians at the present day convey their a sacred burial-place! In the same manner as dead from the most remote corners of the Shah's dominions, and even from India itself, to the holy shrines of Kerbella and Meshed'Ali, so, doubtless, it was the custom of the ancient people of Babylonia to transport the bones of their deceased relatives and friends to the necropolis of Warka and other sites in the dread solitude of the Chaldean marshes. The two great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, would, like the Nile in Egypt, afford an admirable means of conveying them from a distance, even from the upper plains of Assyria." Nor is the mode of interment much less curious than the extent of the sepulchers. The invention of the potter seems to have been racked in designing new forms of coffins and sarcophagi. There were the large top-shaped vase, known as the Babylonian urn; there was the oval dishcover, beneath which the body lay trussed, like a fowl, with cylinders, inscribed tablets, personal ornaments, jars, and other vessels around; and there were various other forms, but they all sink into insignificance when compared with the glazed earthen slipper-shaped coffins, which appear finally to have superseded all other descriptions. The piles on piles of these coffins are proofs of the successive genera tions by whom this mode of burial was practiced; and, thanks to Mr. Loftus's ingenuity and perseverance, we have now a specimen of this characteristic mode of Chaldean burial in the British Museum. An infinite variety of relics are associated with these coffins either in the inside, or around them in the earth or vault. Among these are ornaments in gold. The Arabs break hundreds every year for the purpose of rifling them. Among these interesting objects were small terra-cotta figures, which were probably household divinities; tablets of unbaked clay, which had been used as a circulating medium, others by private parties; in fact, banksome issued by the king and government, notes and notes of hand in clay, and tablets with bas-reliefs, illustrative of the public and domestic life and manners of the Chaldeans. Tablets of the latter description were more particularly abundant at another great ruin, called Sin Kara, where were the remains of a temple of the Sun, rebuilt, according to the inscriptions, by day, the mosque sacred to the patriarch, Nebuchadnezzar, after that monarch had | Urhoi of the Syrians, Urfah in the present dug in vain amid the ruins of the older temple to recover the ancient idol. Another ruin, called Tel Sifr, where the names of two Chaldean kings, Chammurabi and Shamsu-Iluna, were first met with, was remarkable for the numerous copper articles (whence its name) found there by the Arabs, as also by Mr. Loftus. These included large chaldrons, vases, small dishes, dice-boxes, (?) hammers, chisels, adzes, and hatchets; a large assortment of knives and daggers of various sizes and shapes, rings, fetters, links of a chain, and other objects, all well and skillfully wrought. The conclusion arrived at was, that they were the stock-in-trade of a coppersmith; but the explanation of their connection with a temple or public edifice near which they were discovered, is by no means clear; and it appears more probable that some deity was worshiped at that spot who was supposed to be propitiated by offerings of copper and copper utensils and instruments, as other divinities may have been propitiated by offerings of emblematic cones and vases. It is to be remarked, that while Warka has been long ago identified with Erech and the great mound of Mukaiyir, or Mugeyer, "the place of bitumen," excavated by Mr. Taylor, with the Urchoe, or Orchoe, of the Greeks and Romans, Sir Henry Rawlinson identified Warka with the Ur of the Chaldea till he detected the word Hur on an inscription from Mukaiyir. Mr. Loftus, however, with Mr. Fraser, considers Orchoe to have been more probably a modification of Erech than of Ur. If so, we have no grounds but the newly-discovered inscription of "Hur" for belief in an Ur in Lower Chaldea at all. For such belief was mainly founded upon the reading of Urchoe and Orchoe. But granting even that there was an Ur in Lower Chaldea, all the links of existing traditions are in favor of the Ur of Abraham being in the north. We have, at the This is only one out of a hundred difficulties-as more especially the supplanting of an aboriginal Semitic race by one of Hamitic descent; the supposition, becase there is a Sythic character in certain cuneiform inscriptions, that these were of African origin; that the Western Ethiopians of Africa had anything at all to do, except in name, with the Eastern Ethiopians of Asia; that the Akkudim were negroes; Erech, Accad, and Calneh, regions, not cities, and Nimrod a people or an expression, and not an individual—– which force themselves upon the mind on perusing these suggestive records. They involve many of the most interesting questions that are connected with the history of the human race. It is not, indeed, too much to say, that nothing like the facts that are to be gleaned from the united researches of Mr. Loftus and Mr. Taylor, illustrated by the readings of Sir Henry Rawlinson, has appeared since the first exhumation of Assyrian relics by Botta and Layard; and if not equal in interest, in an artistic point of view, to the Assyrian sculptures, they certainly exceed them in their early historical importance. VOL. XLI.-NO. I. From Titan. LADIES OF THE REFORMATION-WIFE OF CALVIN.* IDELETTES DE BURES was a lady of good family. Her native place was a small town of Guelderland, in the Netherlands. She was first married to John Störder, who was originally from Liege, but who had taken up his residence at Strasburg, a city, at that time, in point of morality, piety, and intelligence, among the foremost of those in which the Reformed religion had established itself. Both she and her husband were persons of enlightened and ar dent piety and they had connected themselves with that section of the Reformed Church called Anabaptists, whose adherents where then numerous on the continent of Europe. A change was, however, afterward produced upon their religious sentiments. Calvin, after his banishment from Geneva, having become professor of theology in Strasburg by appointment of the council, and at the same time pastor of a congregation of French refugees in that city, they had been drawn by his great fame to attend upon his ministry. Charmed by his eloquence, and convinced by his arguments, they abandoned the peculiar tenets of the party to which they formerly adhered, and embraced his sentiments on the contested points. Störder died of the plague soon after he had become a disciple of the Geneva reformer, living Idelette a widow with several children. In this family Calvin had become intimate, and from what he knew both of Idelette and her husband, of their knowledge and love of the truth, of the simplicity and sanctity of their lives, he entertained for them a very high respect. After Idelette had become a widow, he continued frequently to visit her. But it was not with *Ladies of the Reformation. Memoirs of distinguished Female Characters, belonging to the period of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century. By the Rev. James Anderson, author of "Ladies of the Covenant, etc. Illustrated by James Godwin, George Thomas, etc. Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, and Spain. 8vo, 684 pp. Blackie & Son. her that he first thought of forming a matrimonial connection, when early in the year 1539, being then about thirty years of age, he purposed looking out for a wife, who might help in bearing his burden, However high a place she had gained in his esteem, and though she was still in 'De prime of life, yet her being a widow, and the mother of several children, probably prevented him, in the first instance, from thinking of her. His friends were very desirous of having bim married, and he solicited their advice and assistance in the choice of a wife, telling them the sort of person he wanted. In a letter to Farel, dated May 19, 1539, he says: "Remember what I expect from one who is to be my companion for life. I do not belong to the class of loving fools, who, when once smitten with a fine figure, are ready to expend their affection even on the faults of her whom they have fallen in love with. The only kind of beauty which can win my soul, is a woman who is chaste, not fastidious, economical, patient, and who is likely to interest herself about my health. A young German lady, of noble lineage, and wealthy far above his condition, had been proposed to him by some of his friends. The brother of the lady and his wife, both persons of piety, were, from their high respect for him, very favorable to the alliance. Calvin entered into communication with her, but not without doubts as to whether she was precisely the person suitable for him. He was afraid that she might think too much of her birth and education. He hesitated, too, because she was ignorant of the French language. If they were to be united, he insisted that she should learn French. The lady requested time for deliberation. Upon this, Calvin immediately gave up all intercourse with her, and entered into correspondence with another lady, "who, if she answers her repute," says he, "will bring in personal good qualities, a dowry large enough without any money at all," |