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covery; yet two of them died under the physician's hands, whilst the third recovered." In September 1803, Matthew Lovat, an Italian lunatic, labouring under that peculiar form of insanity which prompts to suicide, attempted to crucify himself, but was prevented from accomplishing his purpose by several people, who came upon him just as he was driving the nail into his right foot. He was more successful in a second attempt of this kind, which took place at Venice in July 1805, when he was fortysix years of age. About eight o'clock in the morning he was observed by the people who passed in the street fixed to a cross, with the exception of his right hand, which hung loosely by his side. The cross was enclosed in a net of small cords, and suspended by ropes from a beam in his chamber; out of the window of which-having a low parapet -he had contrived, after nailing himself to the cross, to throw the whole apparatus. He had also crowned himself with thorns, two or three of which pierced the skin of his forehead; had transfixed his hands and feet with three long and sharp nails; and inflicted, two inches below the left hypocondrium, a wound with a cobbler's knife, which did not, however, injure any of the internal parts. As soon as he was perceived, some humane people ran up stairs, disengaged him from the cross, and put him to bed. In the course of the day he was removed to an hospital, where he was carefully treated, and early in August all his wounds were completely cured.

During the reign of Rome the severity of crucifixion was considerably mitigated in Palestine, through the influence of the Jews. Before sunset the legs of the crucified were broken in order to accelerate their death; and though this was a cruel deed, still it was a considerable mitigation of suffering, inasmuch as it greatly shortened the time of its endurance.

During the sufferer's suspension on the cross, a guard was kept in waiting to prevent any of his friends from taking him down and carrying him away. After the expiry of life, however, should any of his friends solicit his body for burial, it was commonly granted. Of both these features we have a well-known exemplification in the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. A powerful Roman guard was kept in watch during the time he and the two malefactors were suspended on the cross. What occurred in the case of the thieves we are not informed; but the body of the Saviour was granted to Joseph of Arimathea, who solicited it from Pilate for burial.

The agreement of the scriptural account of our Lord's crucifixion with the foregoing description of the practice, gathered from other sources than the Bible, is no mean proof of the truth of the evangelic narrative. The only point of discrepancy that strikes one is the shortness of the time he lived upon the cross. This is to be accounted for from the intense mental agony which, from various causes, he was made to endure.

NINEVEH AND ITS REMAINS.

WHAT a sad and solemn thing is the history of humanity, and what sad and solemn thoughts are inspired by a review of the monuments which men have left behind them! Man emerges from a dark and dim antiquity; he increases in numbers and power; builds great cities, and towers, and "palaces and piles stupendous, of which the very ruins are tremendous;" he advances in arts and sciences; loves, labours, legislates, hates, fights, and dies, and passes into oblivion. We look to the east, and at the extreme of the vista of history, we perceive primeval society founded upon the social principle, linked together by principles of reciprocity and common necessity, and we also perceive its disruption and destruction through national egotism and war. From the first dawn of social aggregation till to-day, the student of history can trace the same influences, and the same spirit triumphant, and the soul grows cold and sad at the spectacle. Millions of men, multiplied by millions, have thought, and toiled, and fought, and struggled to solve this awful problem of society, and still the war of principles and ideas, and the deadlier war of conditions, continues. The world is in the throes and agonies of transition; and these are not the pains of to-day, but the hereditary agonies of his

tory. As truly as we preserve the perfect and identical form of the first man individually, so do we preserve the ideas and the antagonisms of the first society. Man is hurrying after man through an unknown yet long-trodden maze, and whither he goes who can tell? What wonderful changes the places of this old world of ours have seen! what strange mutations have taken place in the forms of human life, on the same spots of earth! History is a mystery which has sprung from a curtained past of Cimmerian darkness, and which winds on like some dark river beneath a bosky shade. We hear its sound, and see it flash out into the visible now and again, but still its course is mysterious and unto mystery. A new chapter of the world's history has been partially deciphered and restored by Mr Layard, and the plain of Shinar has been reclaimed from an uncertain topography, and Assyrian civilisation restored from an oblivious interment.

Mr Layard was travelling in Mesopotamia in 1839, and, like every intelligent traveller, was struck with the contrast which the country presented now, to its appearance during the time when the mighty nations, which he could idealise into grandeur and glory, from the scanty references of sacred and profane history, used to inhabit its borders. He looked at the great artificial mounds, and listened to the traditions of the people, and he felt strange longings come over him to explore the buried history of Assyria. In 1842, he returned

through this interesting country, and found that M. Botta, an enterprising Frenchman, had been engaged in exploring the mound of Kouyunjik, and that he had dug up some fragmentary relics of a long-perished people. In 1845, his representations induced the liberal and enlightened Sir Stratford Canning, then ambassador at Constantinople, to offer to defray the expenses of excavating the mounds of earth, supposed to enclose the ruins of Nineveh, or some other great Assyrian city, and Mr Layard, accordingly, returned with joy to the desert to commence his experiments.

Mr Layard had to begin his labours with the utmost caution and secresy, in order to avoid the positive interdict of the bigoted and jealous Cadi and Mufti of Mosul, as well as the underhand machinations of people who were the representatives of the most polished and polite nation in the world. The most conciliatory behaviour and inoffensive procedure were insufficient to protect our British explorer from the ignorant prejudices of the Mussulmans, the plots of Europeans, the prowling visits of Arabs, and the caprice of the Turkish ruler of Mosul, so that frequent interruptions took · place during the progress of the digging. With the characteristic firmness of his nation, however, he pursued his darling object, and the results of his labours have been as wonderful as satisfactory. He employed Kurds, Arabs, and Chaldeans; and digging into the great mounds which stand on the Assyrian plain, and are clothed with verdure, and