We cannot dismiss the subject of Agrigentum without reverting to the tyrant Phalaris and his brazen bull. Perillo, a goldsmith, by way of paying his court to Phalaris, a tyrant of Agrigentum, made him a present of a brazen bull of excellent workmanship, hollow within, and so constructed, that the voice of a person shut up in it, sounded exactly like the bellowing of a bull. The artist pointed out to the tyrant what an admirable effect this must produce, were he to shut up a few criminals in it, and make a fire underneath. Phalaris, struck with the horror of this idea, and perhaps curious to try the experiment, told the goldsmith that he himself was the only person worthy of animating his bull, as he must have studied the notes that made it roar to the greatest advantage, and that it would be unjust to deprive him of any part of the honour of the invention. Upon which, he ordered the goldsmith to be shut up, and a great fire to be kindled round the bull, which immediately began to roar, to the admiration and delight of all Agrigentum. Cicero says this bull was carried to Carthage, at the above taking of Agrigentum, and was restored again by Scipio, after the destruction of the former city. Empedocles, the philosopher, born in Agrigentum, has a memorable saying concerning his fellow-citizens: “That the Agrigentines squandered their money as excessively every day, as if they expected not to live till the morrow; and that they built edifices to live in, as if they fancied they should never die.” In the first Punic war, Agrigentum, of which the Carthaginians had made a place of arms, was taken by the Romans, after a siege of seven months,--A.C. 262. Some years after, the Carthaginians retook Agrigentum in a few days, and completely razed it to the ground. It was, however, afterwards rebuilt, and is now called Gergenti. BYZANTIUM. A.C. 408. Byzantium is one of those cities of the world that are so admirably placed with regard to natural advantages, that posterity can never too much admire the policy and discernment of their founders. When we say that the Constantinople with which science and late events have made Englishmen so familiar, is the offspring of Byzantium, if not the city itself, we have no cause to dilate further on that head.