It may indeed be said that the ancient Palestine is not altogether absent from the museums of Europe; for among tens of thousands of samples of the mintages of antiquity, there are found a few coins of the Maccabean times, with their innocent and homely symbols; and in the series of the Imperial coins there are some vouchers for the fact of the overthrow of the Jewish state; there is the woman seated by the palm--the representative of the Judæa Devicta. Need we ask the reason of this absence of sculptured memorials of this one among the nations of antiquity?--The want of sculpture is, in truth, this people’s glory; the absence of the vouchers we might look for is indeed a voucher, attesting the noblest of all distinctions--that of having so long possessed and maintained, a free social polity, and a true theology. If at this time an order were given to remove from the British Museum all memorials of the cruel tyrannies, and of the sensual idolatries of Egypt, and of Assyria, and of Greece, and of Rome--if every article were expelled that gives evidence of the oppressive despotisms, or of the vicious religions of ancient nations, how meagre an exhibition would remain after such a clearance had been effected! It is therefore this people’s glory--a glory unrivalled--that no sculptures are extant to represent it in the museums of Europe! Nevertheless, there are monuments of its history to be found, if we look for them where it is reasonable to make the search; namely, in Palestine itself, and at Jerusalem especially. A few--say five or six--of the principal cities of antiquity, have continued to be inhabited from the very earliest times to this time;--such are--Damascus, Constantinople, Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem. The consequences of this uninterrupted occupation of the same sites, have been--more or less so in each instance--such as these--the preservation of some of the most ancient basement structures; the superposition of the structures of each age, in layers or deposits, resembling the strata of the earth’s crust; the commingling of older materials with the more recent buildings in the mason’s work; and, generally, the creation of a modern town, lifted up, as one might say, upon the head and shoulders of the ancient city. Such cities, in exploring which we find evidence of their having undergone these several conditions, may fitly be called--HISTORICAL CITIES; and from these sources alone--or if there were none else available--we might gather abundant materials, adapted to the purpose of illustrating the _written history_ of nations, and of giving to it the most conclusive confirmations.