Accordingly, the first act of Claudius’s government, like the first of Caligula’s, was the presentation of a new kingdom to this favorite of fortune,――Judea being now added to the other countries in his possession, and thus bringing all Palestine into one noble kingdom, beneath his extensive sway. With a dominion comprising all that the policy of his grandfather had been able to attain during a long and active life, he now found himself, at the age of fifty-one, one of the most extraordinary instances of romantic fortune that had ever occurred; and anxious to enjoy something of the solid pleasure of visiting and governing his great and flourishing kingdom, he set sail from Rome, which had been so long to him the scene of such varied fortune, such calamitous poverty and tedious imprisonment,――and now proceeded as the proud king of Palestine, going home in triumph to the throne of his ancestor, supported by the most boundless pledges of imperial favor. The emperor Claudius, though regretting exceedingly the departure of the tried friend whom he had so much reason to love and cherish, yet would not detain him from a happiness so noble and desirable, as that of arranging and ruling his consolidated dominion. Even his departure, however, was made the occasion of new marks of imperial favor; for Claudius gave him letters by which all Roman governors were bound to acknowledge and support him as the rightful sovereign of Palestine. He arrived in Palestine shortly after, and just before the passover, made his appearance in Jerusalem, where he was received with joy and hope by the expecting people, who hailed with open hearts a king whose interests would be identified with theirs, and with the glory of the Jewish name. His high and royal race,――his own personal misfortunes and the unhappy fate of his early-murdered father, as well as his descent from the lamented Mariamne,――his well-known amiability of character, and his regard for the holy Jewish faith, which he had shown by exerting and even risking all his favor with Caligula to prevent, in co-operation with the amiable Petronius, the profanation of the temple as proposed by the erection of the emperor’s statue within it,――all served to throw a most attractive interest around him, and to excite brilliant hopes, which his first acts immediately more than justified. The temple, though now so resplendent with the highest ♦achievements of art, and though so vast in its foundations and dimensions, was still considered as having some deficiencies, so great, that nothing but royal munificence could supply them. The Jews therefore seized the fortunate occasion of the accession of their new and amiable monarch to his throne, to obtain the perfection of a work on which the hearts of the people were so much set, and the completion of which would so highly advance the monarch in the popular favor. The king at once benignantly heard their request, and