rear their graceful height, looking tranquil magnificence--down even to the rude circle of grey stones on the bleak heath! For this inquiry, visible materials are indeed wanting; but does not the Word of Truth supply the general inference, 'The imaginations of man's heart are wicked--he has sought out many inventions--but I will be honored among the generations of men?' Incidental allusion has already been made to the marvellous fabric reared by Solomon, which, if not in grace, in splendor of decoration appears to have exceeded all the erections of the early ages, and is the first of which written notice remains. The descriptions of this building enable us to form a reunion of the arts of Sculpture and Architecture at the commencement of the tenth century before Christ. This date, however, we consider to be at least six hundred years later than the era of any Egyptian monument, not of brick, now extant throughout the whole course of the Nile. In considering, also, the countries whence Solomon obtained workmen, will be remarked the confirmation of the preceding observations on the originating causes of styles in architecture. The hewers of stone, we are informed, were from Egypt; and the solid substructions of the Jewish temple, the massive proportions of the separate parts--resemblances still more striking in Josephus' account of the second edifice--show exactly the same principles and practice as can to this day be traced in the Egyptian structures. From Phoenicia, again, a country abounding in timber, were brought the most skilful 'hewers of wood,' that is, workmen instructed in the arts of the joiner and carpenter, and also, as may be inferred from various descriptions of the ornamental appendages, of the carver or sculptor in wood,--'and the cedar of the house within was carved with open knops and flowers;' again, and 'he made two cherubims of olive tree.' These sculptures, however, might have been finished, and, from the state of art in that country, most probably were the work of artists from Egypt. There can be no doubt that the 'House,' as the magnificent pile is emphatically termed, was of a quadrangular outline, erected upon a solid platform of stone, bearing a strong resemblance to the ancient temples still extant. Indeed, there is, in this respect, a most striking analogy between the dimensions as given in Scripture, and those of the oldest Greek temples, especially of Ægina and Pæstum. This latter we have examined, and, agreeing to the fidelity of the grounds upon which Wilkins has founded his reasonings, in the admirable dissertation on this subject in his preface to the 'Antiquities of Magna Grecia,' we cannot coincide in the final conclusion, that the Greeks borrowed the Doric order from this ancient temple of Solomon. Reference to this subject is hereafter to be made. In the meantime, while facts are fresh in the mind, it must be obvious to the reader, that, since the shell or carcass of the temple of Jerusalem was of