The first king that reigned in Nineveh, after the death of Sardanapalus, is called in Scripture Tiglath-Pileser[25]; the second Salmanaser, in whose reign, Tobit, with Anna his wife, and his son Tobias, was carried captive into Assyria, where he became one of Salmanaser’s principal officers. That king having died after a reign of fourteen years, he was succeeded by his son Sennacherib; he, whose army was cut off in one night before the walls of Jerusalem. He had laid siege to that city some time before, but had marched against Egypt, which country having subdued, he once more sat down before the sacred city: “And it came to pass, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and four score and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses[26].” After so terrible a blow, the pretended king of kings, as he presumed to call himself, “this triumpher over nations, and conqueror of gods,” returned to his own country, where “it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch, his god, that he was struck by his two sons[27], who smote him with the sword: and Esarhaddon, his youngest son, reigned in his stead[28].” The destruction that fell upon his army, has been thus described by a celebrated poet of modern times. THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. I. “The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. II. “Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen; Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. III. “For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still. IV. “And there lay the steed, with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. V. “And there lay the rider distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail; And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. VI. “And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail; And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.”