ascertain their general purport, and thus gain much valuable information. A passage might be remembered in the book of Ezra where the Jews, having been disturbed in building the Temple, prayed that search might be made in the house of records for the edict of Cyrus permitting them to return to Jerusalem. The chamber recently found there might be presumed to be the house of records of the Assyrian kings, where copies of the royal edicts were duly deposited. When these tablets have been examined and deciphered, I believe that we shall have a better acquaintance with the history, the religion, the philosophy, and the jurisprudence of Assyria, 1500 years before the Christian era, than we have of Greece or Rome during any period of their respective histories." Besides the gigantic figures of which we have copied engravings in the preceding pages, Dr. Layard has sent to the British Museum a large number of other sculptures, some of which are still more interesting for the light they reflect upon ancient Assyrian history. For these, as for the Grecian marbles and Egyptian antiquities, a special gallery is being fitted up. [Illustration: JONATHAN SWIFT.] DEAN SWIFT'S CHARACTER AND HIS AMOURS. The name of Swift is one of the most familiar in English history. Of the twenty octavo volumes in which his works are printed, only a part of one volume is read; but this part of a volume is read by everybody, and admired by everybody, though singularly enough not one in a thousand ever thinks of its real import, or appreciates it for what are and what were meant to be its highest excellences. As the author of "Gulliver's Travels," Swift is a subject of general interest; and this interest is deepened, but scarcely diffused, by the chain of enigmas which has puzzled so many of his biographers. The most popular life of Dean Swift is Mr. Roscoe's, but since that was written several works have appeared, either upon his whole history or in elucidation of particular portions of it: one of which was a careful investigation and discussion of his madness, published about two years ago. In the last number of _The International_ we mentioned the curious novel of "Stella and Vanessa," in which a Frenchman has this year essayed his defense against the common judgment in the matter of his amours, and we copy in the following pages an article from the London _Times_, which was suggested by this performance.