170 



the discoveries hitherto made, they are as nothing to those which 

 remain to be explored, for, as an eminent writer* observes — 

 " The whole of the history, and almost all the literature of the age 

 of Nebuchadnezzar, now lies buried in Babylon." 



From an artistic point of view, these discoveries are equally 

 important, if only from the light they cast on the schools which 

 followed. For it is now evident that marvellous as were the 

 triumphs of Greek Art in their sublime conceptions of the beautiful, 

 we are enabled to trace their origin in Architecture to the pre- 

 existent schools of Assyria and Egypt. "These two stand, and 

 probably will remain the primitive styles of the human race."t 



It is not within the scope of this lecture to go deeply into the 

 records of Chaldean superstition, but we know that it must have 

 been built mainly upon cruelty, and owed its power to its means 

 of inspiring awe and terror. Human sacrifices to the gods were 

 the means of averting divine wrath, and the aid of science was 

 invoked by the priesthood to rivet the fetters of their influence. 

 It was a great pastoral country, and the shepherds watching their 

 flocks by night along the vast valley of the Euphrates, became 

 familiar with every aspect and change of those starry constellations, 

 which rolled their silent wheels above their heads, and learned to 

 read their fate therein. Lucky and unlucky signs and symbols 

 came to rule the most trivial and common-place events of their 

 lives. Can we wonder at this when we consider the revelations 

 which are made at the present day of learned societies and a free 

 press, amongst ourselves. The Gipsy Fortune-teller on the race- 

 course does not find her dupes only amongst the poor and ignorant 

 when she practices, or professes to practice an art which she claims 

 to inherit by direct descent from the very people of whom I now 

 speak ; and every newspaper will show that no class of society can 

 yet claim exemption from the charge of weakness and credulity. 

 It is to the Assyrians that we may trace the invention of the fable 

 and the allegory, for the earliest known works of this kind are 

 amongst recent Assyrian discoveries. These inventions in litera- 

 ture are closely allied to the tales of Genii, the oriental ancestors 

 * Layard. + Ferguson's Hand-Book of Architecture. 



I 



