was consequently needful to obtain the royal permission for a stranger to visit her, even though he came professionally. We can hardly reckon among Babylonian professions that of the poet. It is true that a sort of poet-laureate existed at the court, and that we hear of a piece of land being given by the King to one of them for some verses which he had composed in honor of the sovereign. But poetry was not a separate profession, and the poet must be included in the class of scribes, or among those educated country gentlemen who possessed estates of their own. He was, however, fully appreciated in Babylonia. The names of the chief poets of the country were never forgotten, and the poems they had written passed through edition after edition down to the later days of Babylonian history. Sin-liqi-unnini, the author of the “Epic of Gilgames,” Nis-Sin, the author of the “Adventures of Etana,” and many others, never passed out of literary remembrance. There was a large reading public, and the literary language of Babylonia changed but little from century to century. It was otherwise with the musicians. They formed a class to themselves, though whether as a trade or as a profession it is difficult to say. We must, however, distinguish between the composer and the performer. The latter was frequently a slave or captive, and occupied but an humble place in society. He is frequently depicted in the Assyrian bas-reliefs, and in one instance is represented as wearing a cap of great height and shaped like a fish. Musical instruments were numerous and various. We find among them drums and tambourines, trumpets and horns, lyres and guitars, harps and zithers, pipes and cymbals. Even the speaking-trumpet was employed. In a sculpture which represents the transport of a colossal bull from the quarries of Balad to the palace of Sennacherib, an overseer is made to stand on the body of the bull and issue orders through a trumpet to the workmen. Besides single musicians, there were bands of performers, and at times the music was accompanied by dancing or by clapping the hands. The bands were under the conduct of leaders, who kept time with a double rod. In one instance the Assyrian artist has represented three captives playing on a lyre, an interesting illustration of the complaint of the Jewish exiles in Babylonia that their conquerors required from them “a song.”