"No. II. represents the Human-Headed and Winged Lion--nine feet long, and the same in height; and in purpose and position the same as the preceding, which, however, it does not quite equal in execution. In this relievo we have the same head, with the egg-shaped three-horned head-dress, exactly like that of the bull; but the ear is human, and not that of a lion. The beard and hair of the head are even yet more elaborately curled than the last; but the hair on the legs and sides of the animal represents that shaggy appendage of the animal. Round the loins is a succession of numerous cords, which are drawn into four separate knots; at the extremities are fringes, forming as many distinct tassels. At the end of the tail, the claw--on which we commented in a former article--is distinctly visible. The strength of both animals is admirably and characteristically conveyed. Upon the flat surface of this slab, as in the last, is a cuneiform inscription; twenty lines being between the fore legs, twenty-six in the middle, eighteen between the hind legs, and seventy-one at the back." On the subject of Eastern languages, an understanding of which is necessary to the just apprehension of these inscriptions, that most acute antiquary, Major Rawlinson, remarks: "My own impression is that hundreds of the languages at one time current through Asia are now utterly lost; and it is not, therefore, to be expected that philologists or ethnologists will ever succeed in making out a genealogical table of language, and in affiliating all the various dialects. Coming to the Assyrian and Babylonian languages, we were first made acquainted with them as translations of the Persian and Parthian documents in the trilingual inscriptions of Persia; but lately we have had an enormous amount of historical matter brought to light in tablets of stone written in these languages alone. The languages in question I certainly consider to be Semitic. I doubt whether we could trace at present in any of the buildings or inscriptions of Assyria and Babylonia the original primitive civilization of man--that civilization which took place in the very earliest ages. I am of opinion that civilization first showed itself in Egypt after the immigration of the early tribes from Asia. I think that the human intellect first germinated on the Nile, and that then there was, in a later age, a reflux of civilization from the Nile back to Asia. I am quite satisfied that the system of writing in use on the Tigris and Euphrates was taken from the Nile; but I admit that it was carried to a much higher state of perfection in Assyria than it had ever reached in Egypt. The earliest Assyrian inscriptions were those lately discovered by Mr. Layard in the north-west Palace at Nimroud, being much earlier than anything found at Babylon. Now, the great question is the date of these inscriptions. Mr. Layard himself, when he published his book on Nineveh, believed them to be 2500 years