ascending the Tygris and Euphrates, they awakened the activity of the
Assyrians, Medes, Chaldeans, and Persians; and that wealth, according
to the use or abuse of it, raised or reversed by turns their domination.
Hence sprung the magnificence of Persepolis, whose columns you
still perceive; of Ecbatana, whose sevenfold wall is destroyed; of
Babylon,**** now leveled with the earth; of Nineveh, of which scarce
the name remains; of Thapsacus, of Anatho, of Gerra, and of desolated
Palmyra. O names for ever glorious! fields of renown! countries of
never-dying memory! what sublime lessons doth your aspect offer! what
profound truths are written on the surface of your soil! remembrances of
times past, return into my mind! places, witnesses of the life of man in
so many different ages, retrace for me the revolutions of his fortune!
say, what were their springs and secret causes! say, from what sources
he derived success and disgrace! unveil to himself the causes of his
evils! correct him by the spectacle of his errors! teach him the wisdom
which belongeth to him, and let the experience of past ages become a
means of instruction, and a germ of happiness to present and future
generations.

* In the new Encyclopedia 3rd vol. Antiquities is published
a memoir, respecting the chronology of the twelve ages
anterior to the passing of Xerxes into Greece, in which I
conceive myself to have proved that upper Egypt formerly
composed a distinct kingdom known to the Hebrews by the name
of Kous and to which the appellation of Ethiopia was
specially given. This kingdom preserved its independence to
the time of Psammeticus; at which period, being united to
the Lower Egypt, it lost its name of Ethiopia, which
thenceforth was bestowed upon the nations of Nubia and upon
the different tribes of blacks, including Thebes, their