"the great diverfion and pleasure of the beholders. In the middle of "the city she built a temple to Jupiter, whom the Babylonians call "Belus. Upon the top fhe placed three ftatues, of beaten gold, of

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Jupiter, Juno, and Rhea. That of Jupiter ftood upright, in the posture as if he were walking. He was forty feet in height, and "weighed a thousand Babylonish talents. The ftatue of Rhea was of the fame weight, fitting on a golden throne, having two "lions standing on either fide, one at her knees, and near to them two exceeding great ferpents of filver, weighing thirty talents apiece. "Here likewife the image of Juno ftood upright, and weighed eight "hundred talents, grasping a ferpent by the head in her right hand, "and holding a fceptre, adorned with precious stones, in her left."

DIODORUS SICULUS, tranflated by BooтH, b. ii. ch. 1.

Such are the wonders of early art which Diodorus has recorded as the works of Semiramis, on the authority of Ctefias, a native of Cnidos, who became the favourite physician of a Persian monarch, Artaxerxes Mnemon, and in that fituation had better opportunities of acquiring historical information concerning the antiquities of Afia, than his countrymen in general poffeffed. Of Ctefias's extenfive writings only a few fragments remain, which are printed as a fupplement to Herodotus, in the best editions of that hiftorian. The credit of Ctefias has been severely attacked, both by ancient and modern writers; but M. Freret vindicates his veracity in several particulars, like a very able advocate, in more than one of his elaborate differtations on points of ancient history, inserted in the Memoirs of the French Academy. The kind of credit that we may rationally give to the curious description that I have cited, seems to be very candidly afcertained by the Abbé Guasco, who thinks that although works of fuch magnificence were hardly executed at a period fo early as that affigned to Semiramis, yet it is probable that such actually appeared in Babylon in later ages, but before art had made

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any confiderable progress in Greece or in Ægypt. Quelque exagerée qu'on a raison de croire la description que fait Ctefias des monumens "de l'art ftatuaire qui ornoient les palais et le temple, pretendus bâtis par l'ancienne Semiramis, quelqu' anachronisme que l'on fuppofe à "jufte titre, dans les époques données par cet auteur fabuleux à ces monumens: il n'en refulte pas moins que cet art avoit déjà fait de grands progrès en Afie durant les anciennes monarchies de Ninive, et "de Babylone; car aucun art ne produit de grands monumens toutà-coup, et ce n'eft que fucceffivement qu'il atteint certains degrès de perfection. Donc quoique les ftatues de Belus, de Semiramis, de "Ninus, avec tout le brillant cortege et appareil, qui les accompa"gnoient, ne fuffent pas des productions d'une époque fi reculée, mais "des monumens pofterieurs, executés fous quelqu'un de leurs fuc"ceffeurs du même nom, qui voulut immortalifer par là les fondateurs "de leurs monarchies, il n'eft pas moins conftant, que ces monumens "furpaffoient en elegance et peut-être en antiquité, les premiers que "l'on connoiffe dans la Greee, et peut-être même ceux d'Egypte : ils "font tout au moins des indicés que l'on s'étoit déjà exercé depuis long"tems dans ces fortes d'ouvrages."

The fame respectable author observes that Jofephus and Herodotus attribute, with more reason, these embellishments of Babylon to Nebuchodonofor, and Nitocris his wife; and that their account is confirmed by what the prophet Daniel has faid concerning the ftatues of gold and filver which adorned the temples of that city. He adds, that Affyria had more than one Semiramis : "Parceque ce nom n'étant qu'une expreffion generique compofée de plufieurs titres de dignité felon le genre et la tournure ordinaire de la langue orientale, il fût commun " à plusieurs reines d'Affyrie."-De l'Ufage des Statues, p. 87.

Several statues of Semiramis are commemorated by antient authors, Lucian speaks of one standing by the temple of the Syrian goddess, and

195 pointing to the mansion of the divinity, as if to acknowledge her own paft offence in having arrogated to herself the honours due only to Juno. Valerius Maximus has defcribed another, not lefs remarkable, in which the Affyrian queen was reprefented with her treffes in a state of diforder, and thus fignifying the rapidity with which she is said to have hurried from her toilet to fupprefs a revolt in Babylon *. Let me add, on the authority of Ælian, that Semiramis was as much celebrated for her beauty, as for her talents and power †.

NOTE VI. Ver. 94.

And bold Semiramis berfelf a dream.

The boldest enemy to the mortal exiftence of this celebrated queen is the illuftrious mythologist Mr. Bryant, who confidently says, in the fecond volume of his great work, "I have fhewn that there was no "such person as Semiramis :" and again, “I think it is plain that Se"miramis was an emblem, and that the name was a compound of "Sama Ramas, or Ramis, and it fignified the Divine Token, the "Type of Providence; and as a military enfign (for as fuch it was ufed) it may with fome latitude be interpreted the Standard of the "Moft High. It confifted of the figure of a dove, which was probably circled with the iris, as those two emblems were often repre"fented together. All who went under that standard, or who paid

any deference to that emblem, were ftiled Semarim or Samorim."

"Semiramis Affyriorum regina, cum ei circa cultum capitis fui occupatæ nuntiatum effet "Babylonem defeciffe, altera parte crinium adhuc foluta, protinus ad eam expugnandam cu"currit; nec prius decorem capillorum in ordinem, quam tantam urbem in poteftatem "fuam redegit. Quocirca ftatua ejus Babylone pofita eft illo habitu, quo ad ultionem exigendam celeritate præcipiti tetendit." VALERIUS MAXIMUS, lib. 9. c. 3.

+ Σεμίραμιν την Ασσυρίαν άλλοι μεν άλλως άδεσιν, ωραιοτάτη δε εγένετο γυναικων, ει και αφελέστερον έχρητο τω xaλλ. ÆLIAN, Var. Hift. lib. 7. c. 1.

Without robbing this highly respectable writer of the credit he justly derives from having thrown many fatisfactory rays of light on the dove of the ark, it might still perhaps be no very difficult task to establish the existence of one, or of more than one Semiramis, against the suppofition of his annihilating fancy; and should the animated Mr. Morrit amuse himself and his readers in vindicating the life and beauty of Semiramis with the same spirit that he defended the palace of old Priam, against the destroying whirlwind of Mr. Bryant's imagination, I hope the venerable Coryphæus of claffical erudition, who has himself made so free with the arguments and conjectures of the highest literary names, will not feel angrily unwilling to indulge in a fimilar freedom a fpirited and graceful fcholar, of whom we may fay, in the words of Homer, (allowing to his aged antagonist the dignity of a sovereign in Grecian literature,)

πεπνυμενα βαζεις

Αργείων βασιληας, επει κατά μοιραν εειπες.

NOTE VII. Ver. 130.

And guards thy massive monarchs with respect.

Of all the modern writers on early fculpture, M. de Caylus feems to have rendered the most liberal justice to the merit of the Egyptians, in the following remark :

"Le gout pour la folidité les a empêchés de faire faillir aucune partie, "et les a bornés à des attitudes fimples, qui font devenues monotones; et cette monotonie, qui n'étoit peut-être pas un défaut à leurs yeux, "devoit être inévitable, les combinaisons des attitudes étant fort reffer"rées, et l'action étant abfolument retranchée. Cependant il ne faut

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66 pas croire pour cela que leurs artistes aient toujours été depourvûs "d'une forte de fineffe dans les détails. Il eft inutile de pouffer plus "loin cet examen : on conviendra que leurs fculpteurs ont fenti

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et exprimé le grand, et c'est en céci que confifte la premiere et la plus "effentielle partie de l'art, puisqu' elle feule éléve l'esprit du specta66 teur. C'est encore le même defire de faire paffer leurs ouvrages à la posterité, qui leur a fait préférer les bas-reliefs en creux, à ceux qui "font de demi-boffe; ces derniers étant expofés à un plus grand " nombre d'accidens. Enfin, ils ont connu toutes les parties de la sculpture, jusqu'à la gravure des pierres.”—Antiquités, tom.i. p.6. That the Ægyptians delighted in the fculpture of gems we have a pleasing proof in the circumftance recorded by Elian, that the chief of their judges wore round his neck an image of Truth, engraven on a sapphire *.

It is remarkable that Lucian, by birth an Affyrian, and in his youth a fculptor by profeffion, speaks with ferious efteem of the ancient Ægyptians, as distinguished by their meritorious efforts in the infancy of Art.

NOTE VIII. Ver. 140.

For Greece, their Helen! was by Ægypt rear'd.

Paufanias afferts that the figures of ftone on the tomb of Corabus were the most ancient in Greece; and as Corabus lived in the age of Cecrops, who had migrated into that country from Ægypt, it is probable that the Greeks derived from the attendants of this Egyptian,

Δικαςαι δε το αρχαιον παρ Αιγυπτίοις ιερείς ήσαν. Ην δε τέτων αρχών ο πρεσβυτατος, και εδίκαζεν απαντας - Είχε δε και αγαλμα περί τον αυχένα εκ σαπφειρά λιθω, και εκαλείτο το αγαλμα Αληθεια. ELIAN, edit. Perizonii, p. 911.