now fulfilled all the aspiring hopes of the king's early and vast ambition, and had made him this bead of gold.

The brief duration of this mighty empire which Nebuchadnezzar had erected, the prophet tacitly insinuates, for there was no necessity for a precise expression of that circumstance; and says, that "after him," that is, after the empire at present existing,* there should arise another kingdom, inferior to his, and which in the vision was represented by the BREAST and two arms of silver, and by all interpreters is understood of the Persian empire, erected by Cyrus the Persian and Darius the Mede, the two arms of the image. The Persian empire, after having extended its unwieldy dominion over one hundred and twenty provinces, and threatening the liberties of Greece, was in its turn overthrown (in revenge of the quarrel) by the MACEDONIAN or Grecian empire, under the rising

* It ended in his grandson Belshazzar, about twenty three years after the king's death.-See Prideaux's Connect part 1. book ii.-Newton on the Prophecies, vol, i. p. 410.

fortunes of Alexander the Great. This is represented in the vision by the BELLY and thighs of brass. And the astonishing rapidity and extent of Alexander's conquests are intimated in the concise remark, "which shall bear rule over all the earth."-Alexander, not contented with the flattering title of conqueror of the world, is reported to have wept for another world to conquer. *

"And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron; for as much as iron breaketh in pieces, and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.” Descending thus down the stream of time we are come at length into the iron age, and to

Alexander achieved all this in the short space of about twelve years, and pushed his conquests by sea and land to regions of the earth, until then deemed inaccessible and uninhabitable. The inferior metal of brass, the emblem of this empire, seems to allude to the popular and very ancient notion of the four ages of the world, represented by these four metals, of which there is so frequent mention in the poets, from the time of Hesiod, who was as ancient as Moses. There is a peculiar proprie ty in applying it to the well booted Greeks, of whose brazen arms, &c. we have such an everlasting ring in Homer.

the description of the last great monarchy, which for its super-eminent strength and destructive ferocity, to the nations which resisted its invincible arms, in the period of its rising greatness, and the time of its state and undiminished power, is typified by the lower parts of the image, or its LEGS of solid iron. Even to a proverb iron is commonly deemed the hardest of all metals, and as such is the material of which all instruments designed to break and subdue every thing else, are formed. It is therefore an admirably well chosen emblem of that truly resistless and iron force of the roman legions by which all the preceding empires of Assyria, Persia, and Greece, and the several nations of which they had all been composed were to be broke into pieces, and subjected to the proud dominion of ROME, the mistress of the world.

We have now had a continued, though con-cise description of the GREAT IMAGE, as far as the four metals, (of which it had been composed) continue unaltered from their original purity. What follows is the most remarkable

to its

and most difficult part of the story, as it carries on the history of the IRON or roman empire very last stage, and exhibits it as existing under great and very surprising changes, yet still as a continuation of the same image, and of the same LEGS, which began in solid iron, but terminate in extremities of a baser and compounded material.

As far down as the lower parts of the image even till we descend near to the feet, it had been composed of strong and beautiful materials, though not all of equal beauty or strength, yet such as might be imagined capable of the necessary cohesion for the construction of a statue. But descending still further down towards the feet, we find the composition so altered, debased, and weakened, that large indulgence for the prophetic licence must be granted before we can conceive a possibility of a pon derous statue being so feebly supported. But it is the allegory we have to attend to, and not the mechanical construction of the imaginary statue, which for the purpose of a prophetic emblem is very artificially and wonderfully

constructed, by that master workman who has the first and the last state of all things, ever present to his view.

"And whereas thou sawest the FEET AND TOES part of potter's clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided, but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the TOES of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken," (or brittle,)—the weak combination of these ill cohering materials in the FEET, and the division into ten toes, here expressly mentioned, and further enlarged upon and explained afterwards in a subsequent vision, intimates changes in the state of the ROMAN EMPIRE of very impor tant consequence, since in this brief account that is given of the whole, so wonderful and minute a circumstantiality is insisted upon in this interesting part,

The division of the Roman empire into two parts, the eastern and western empires, by