Illustrations," introduces their various hypotheses on that subject, and proves their failure. He sums up his account thus,-"Could not He who made the sea divide it?" By the same rule, it may be asked, Could not He who made the mind prepare it to receive the truth?

Our reverend author also speaks of the magnificent ruins of Baalbec, which he terms one of the most striking monuments of antiquity. In alluding to these ruins, it has been the fashion among the universal depredators of Biblical history, to rob Solomon of his undoubted claim to those fine remains, by ascribing their merits to the Romans. La Trobe quotes from a recent traveller of integrity, whose account affords strong proofs of their being the real remains of King Solomon's buildings; for which reason,as it is always pleasant to me to remove, as far as may be, that contumely which the learned in these days cast upon the ancient Hebrews, viz. that they were an ignorant and uncultivated race,-I have great pleasure in transcribing a few lines on the subject of those splendid ruins.

He says" A late traveller asserts he has seen nothing in Italy equal to it. It is built of a compact primitive limestone; the pillars, of which there are four on each side, and eight at the extremities, are above sixty feet in height, composed of three pieces joined together by a square piece of iron, fitted in sockets in the centre. They are crowned by a noble architrave and beautifully carved cornice. The peristyle is covered by an arched roof of stone, cut in patterns, with medallions in high relief of mythological subjects, admirably executed. The door-way leading into the body of the temple is twenty-one feet in width; the mouldings and other ornaments are the richest I ever beheld. The entire dimensions are one hundred and ninety-two feet in length, by ninety-six in breadth.'" 43

La Trobe likewise refers to 'Maundrell's Journey,' p. 186, where he speaks of "a large piece of the old wall, or Tepißoλos, which encompassed περίβολος,

these structures:

a wall made of monstrous

43 Three Weeks in Palestine, pp. 135, 136."

great stones,—a curiosity, which a man had need be well assured of his credit, before he ventures to relate, lest he should be thought to strain the privilege of a traveller too far. Three

of these stones we took pains to measure, and found them to extend sixty-one yards in length. That which added to the wonder was, that these stones were lifted up into the wall more than twenty feet from the ground.' Though these three, lying consecutively in the same course of the building, are by far the largest, yet it is stated, the very least of the blocks of stone of which this gigantic platform is composed, 'would excite astonishment, were they met with elsewhere." "

La Trobe observes that "Dr. Richardson, when speaking of these large stones, says, They are cut with a bevelled edge, exactly like the cutting of the stones in the subterranean columns of the Haram Shereef in Jerusalem, which is of Jewish workmanship. Indeed, the similarity of the workmanship struck me forcibly, and I am disposed to refer them both to the same people,

The stones are

and nearly to the same era. compact limestone, which is the common stone of the country; and the soil of age with which they are covered, compared with the other parts of the building, would warrant our referring them to the remote period of eight-and-twenty hundred years, the era of Solomon, king of Israel, who built Hamath and Tadmor in the desert.' 44 'It may possibly be,' suggests the author of Three Weeks in Palestine, that these are the remains of the house of the forest of Lebanon, described, 1 Kings vii., as formed of costly stones, according to the measures of hewed stones, sawed

45

with saws within and without; even from the foundation to the coping, and so on the outside towards the great court; and the foundation was of costly stones, stones of ten cubits, and stones of eight cubits. Though these measures fall far short of the dimensions of the larger stones, they would very well tally with those of the generality

44" Richardson's Travels, ii. 503, 504."

45 Sawed within and without,”— alluding to the bevelled edges.

of the larger blocks of which the surrounding wall is composed.' 46

Fearing lest the above should be thought a solitary instance of these splendid ruins being attributed to king Solomon, I will quote from another author, of undoubted talent and integrity.

Captain C. Colville Frankland, in his work entitled "Travels to and from Constantinople, in 1827 and 1828," made his tour as follows : -"From Vienna, through Hungary, Transylvania, Wallachia, Bulgaria, and Roumelia, to Constantinople; and from that city to the capital of Austria, by the Dardanelles, Tenedos, the Plains of Troy, Smyrna, Napoli di Romania, Athens, Syria, Cyprus, Alexandria," &c.

In the course of this extensive tour, the author must doubtless have seen a variety of celebrated buildings and various styles of architecture.

Captain Frankland, in the strain of all other travellers who have visited the incomparable

46 Three Weeks in Palestine, p. 139."