kingdom to flourish, as the spade when he wielded it, had bestowed fertility on his garden. He rendered his people happy, and justified the choice of Alexander.

The first king of Tyre, of whom we have any certain knowledge, is Abibal, the predecessor of Hiram. The latter is well known by his connexions with Solomon, whom he furnished with wood from Lebanon for the building of the temple at Jerusalem, and for fitting out his fleets.

We are acquainted with little more than the names of the kings, who succeeded to Pygmalion. The latter has left behind him the character of a cruel tyrant, who murdered his brother-in-law to obtain his treasures; which, however, Dido, his widow, concealed from her brother, and carried away in ships. She was accompanied by a number of adventurers, who wandered with her over the waves, and landed on several coasts; whence they carried off provisions and even women. At last, being well received by the inhabitants on the coast of Africa, they founded Carthage.

The Tyrians having excited the jealousy of the neighbouring monarchs, suffered two sieges; one of five, and another of thirteen years, during the reigns of kings but little known; and, at length, a third by Nebuchadnezzar. After an obstinate resistance, they put to sea in their vessels, and abandoned to the conqueror their empty houses, on which he wreaked his vengeance by destroying them.

Tyre at first stood on the shore of the main land. The Tyrians rebuilt it on a small island at a little distance from its former site, and fortified it in such a manner, as to render it almost impregnable. They made trial of a government by magistrates, named suffetes or judges, but afterwards returned to royalty.

Four kings reigned in obscurity. Under the last of these, or during an interregnum, the slaves, who were very numerous at Tyre, murdered their masters; seized on all their riches, and married their widows and daughters. They afterwards resolved to choose themselves a king; but their chiefs, when assembled, not being able to agree in the object of their

choice, determined, that he who should first perceive the rising sun the next morning should be proclaimed king as the most favoured by the gods. It happened that one of them had saved the life of his master, Strato, by whom he had always been treated with humanity, and to him the slave related the result of their deliberation. "No doubt," said Strato, "they will all look towards the east; but do you turn your eyes towards the west; fix them on the highest tower in the most elevated part of the city, and you will first perceive the rays of the sun illuminating its summits." The advice was followed, and succeeded. The slaves were greatly astonished, and conceiving that so much sagacity exceeded the bounds of their ordinary capacity, required their companion to inform them from whom he had learned the expedient. He confessed, that it was from Strato, his master, whom he had preserved, together with his son, in gratitude for the kind treatment he had received from him. Considering Strato as a man, who had been preserved by the particular providence of the gods, they proclaimed him king.

His son succeeded him, and the sceptre passed into the hands of his descendants of whom the last was named Azelmic. During his reign, Alexander came, as he said, to revenge the injury done by the slaves to their masters more than 200 years before. Any pretext is sufficient with a conqueror, bent on war; but he found men whom his victories had not terrified, and who were firmly resolved to defend themselves. That they might remain inflexible in their resolution, and not swerve from it through tenderness, they sent their wives and children to Carthage. Their walls were strong, and well provided with offensive and defensive machines; and they were surrounded by the sea and protected by a fleet.

After a number of unsuccessful assaults, Alexander was convinced that he could employ but one efficacious mode of attack against an island; this was to join it to the main land. He therefore began the laborious work of carrying a mole across the sea. The work advanced so rapidly, that it soon

became necessary to come to a close engagement. In this extremity, there were no means to which the besieged had not recourse. They drove off the assailants with flaming darts, or caught them with long hooks, and dashed them down between the mole and the city. From the top of their walls they poured on them boiling oil, and burning sand, which, entering between the joints of their armour, burnt them alive.

The siege lasted seven months. Alexander at last carried the place sword in hand, and entered it an enraged conqueror. He put two thousand of the Tyrians to the sword, and crucified two thousand along the walls. "They are," said he,

a race of slaves, and deserve the disgraceful punishment of slaves." To give an air of justice to a cruelty which was merely the effect of revenge for the losses he had suffered during the siege, he spared the descendants of Strato. What remained of Tyre, Alexander demolished; and built in Egypt the city of Alexandria, which drew to itself much of the trade, that formerly centered in Tyre. The difficulty of subduing Tyre impressed on the mind of Alexander the great advantages which flow from commerce, even in a military point of view; as furnishing superior means of defence and resistance. Counting on a long life, and a succession of conquests, he wished to divert trade from a hostile channel, and to allure it into one likely to be subservient to his views. He died soon after his conquest of Tyre. By that event, Phænicia came under the government of his generals; and continued under them and their successors, the Seleucidæ of Syria, for some centuries. It afterwards fell into the hands of the Arabs; and Tyre, after being taken by Baldwin II. king of Jerusalem, was in 1289, destroyed by the sultan of Egypt, and abandoned never more to rise from its ruins. An excellent account of its situation and modern state may be found in Volney's travels vol. II. It now consists of a small village composed of wretched huts, and containing about 50 or 60 families. The words of Ezekiel, though pronounced two hundred years before the birth of Alexander, are literally fulfilled. "And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise; and they shall break down thy walls,

and destroy thy pleasant houses; and they shall lay thy stones, and thy timber, and thy dust in the midst of the water. And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard. And I will make thee like the top of a rock, thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more." (Ezekiel 26th Chapter, 12th, 13th, and 14th verses.) The late Mr. Bruce, saw this queen of the nations converted into a place for fishers to dry their nets upon. Its harbour, formerly so famous for its shipping, is now almost choaked up.*

OF THE CELTES AND SCYTHIANS.

In the first ages of the postdiluvians, the number and character of the primitive settlers, and their progeny, would vary with climate and local circumstances. Those, who located themselves in southern regions, would be very apt to acquire that indolence and effeminacy, which attaches to the inhabitants of a warm fertile soil. Those, who took up their abode in cold, rugged, mountainous countries, would be under the necessity of making laborious exertions, to obtain a scanty support. Strong bodies, with a capacity to undergo fatigue, and to bear privations, would naturally grow out of their si

*Those who entertain any doubts of the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, are requested to read the 23d chapter of the prophecies of Isaiah and the 26th, 27th and 28th chapters of the prophecies of Ezekiel, delivered 588 years before the Christian æra, or 200 years before the birth of Alexander; and immediately after, read the accounts of the site of ancient Tyre, given by travellers at different periods, down to the end of the eighteenth century; particularly those of Maundrell, Volney and Bruce; and they must believe the Scriptures or disbelieve all history. Whatever may be said against Maun. drell and Bruce, as giving evidence favourable to their own systems of belief, nothing of that kind can be alleged against Volney, as tending to weaken the force of his testimony.

tuation. From that love of ease and power, which is natural to all men, people of the latter description, would be strongly tempted to intrude themselves into the settlements of those of the former. Hence there has been, from the early ages of the world, a disposition to migrate southwardly and westwardly; sometimes, as peaceable settlers, but oftener with equipments for war and conquest. These obvious principles, confirmed by experience, account for the various migrations of nations, and for the general course of the tide of conquest, and the stream of population. Hence, the north has been called the storehouse of nations; and a few primitive settlers, under these circumstances, have frequently branched out in a variety of directions, and one original stock formed several nations. Of this description were the Celtes, a nation of great antiquity, being, as is believed by antiquarians, the descendants of Gomer, the eldest son of Japheth; from whom they were also called Gomerians. On their migration from Phrygia, the residence of their progenitors, they advanced through Thrace, Hungary, Germany, Gaul, and Italy, and spread themselves to the utmost borders of Spain.

In this large European tract, after fixing on a boundary between the Scythians and themselves, they shortly became a most powerful nation, under a regular monarchy, and gave a variety of names to their new possessions. Thus those, who occupied the banks of the Rhine, and advanced thence toward the south and west, as far as the Pyrennees and the German Ocean, gave all that country the name of Gallia and Galatia; those, who inhabited the more northern regions, above the Euxine sea and north of the Danube, were called Cymbrians; and they gave the name of Cymbria Chersonesus to that part of Germany, which is now called Holstein. Mention is made of the Celtes, by ancient geographers, in so many parts of Europe, that Ortelius imagined the name of Celtic to be the proper appellation of that division of the globe, and accordingly drew a map of ancient Europe, with this title, "Europam, sive Celticam, veterem."

Their European territories seem to have extended from the Danube, to the farthest extremities of Spain and Portugal, VOL. II.

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