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of the Temples of Nineveh, the mind, dispelling its in- 

 stinctive and involuntary awe, recurs at once to their 

 founders. To the men of whom these columns and fi-ag- 

 ments are but the " fossil remains." To seek the moral of 

 the story these monuments enshrine. To ask if these 

 beacons, which now hold lonely watch by the graves of 

 a departed race, by their deserted hearths, by their silent 

 homes, tell of a nobler race than our own ; and enquire if 

 they were of a loftier strain, of a more enduring courage, of 

 a more self-sacrificing spirit than the men of to-day. For 

 the human interest is still above all, and these bleaching 

 skeletons and scattered bones of antique walls bear the 

 burden of a song which can never grow old ; which tells of 

 hearts now cold, once full of passionate desires ; of heads 

 which have long ceased to throb, once not less ardent, 

 restless than our own ; or, it may be, of a people patient, 

 pious, of a more practical faith and a more sublime am- 

 bition. The men who planted these breastworks against 

 the tide of time, who framed these records to outlive their 

 own brief day of sunshine and of shade, chose no mute 

 means of appeal. The hand which framed column and 

 lintel, key-stoue and arch, stretched across the wide abyss 

 of ages, of countries, and of climes, returns a warm and 

 still vital pressure. Like the horn hung at the gate of 

 enchanted castles in fairy tales, it is still potent to renew 

 all grand and glorious memories, to wake the silence 

 into busy life, to people the solitude with men, and, by 

 the pomp and circumstance of antique life, kindle a new 

 and not less generous emulation. 



Who and what were these men ? Under what 

 creed, with what hope, by what inspiration built they 

 so Avisely and so well ; not so much to endm-e, as to be 

 worthy to endure ; not so strong only, but so fitted to 

 the mutations of fortune and of fate ? Were their 

 temples reared by many minds in ujiison ? Whose 



