the widely scattered heaps and mounds of brick, inscribed with the cuneal characters of Babylon, attest the existence and vast circumference of the mighty capital, of whose dimensions no European city, but the Asiatic cities only, can furnish an adequate idea. This Babylonish tower has been in every age a figure of the heaven-aspiring edifice of lordly arrogance, which sooner or later is sure to be struck down and scattered afar by the arm of the divine Nemesis; and in Holy Writ itself, the Babylon giddied by the intoxicating cup of ambition, drunk with the blood of nations, is a mighty historical emblem, applicable to every age from the earliest to the latest times, of the mad, people-destroying career of a Pagan pride. Here did the evil commence, although the first Assyrian empire had no very extensive influence on the nations westward, and although the real epoch of universal conquest dates from the Persian Cyrus. Yet the ancient Babylon contrived to maintain her power, for, as has so often been exemplified in history, she, by the moral contagion of her voluptuous manners, conquered her conquerors, who abandoned the gods of their ancestors, to embrace the sensual nature-worship of the Babylonians. In the new monarchy founded by Cyrus, the Persians (now the ruling nation) were closely united and politically, at least, incorporated with the once more powerful Medes. Yet their race and language were originally very different, and even at a later period we can still observe some traces of mutual jealousy in a change of dynasty, or the forcible dethronement of the prince. The institute of the Magi, which Cyrus established in his new Persian empire, served outwardly at least, to cement this union; for the Magi were of the Median race, and their sacred zend-books were not composed in the Persian language, but in two distinct dialects of Media, if one indeed were not rather Bactrian. The Magi were not so much an hereditary sacerdotal caste, as an order or association divided into various and successive ranks and grades, such as existed in the Mysteries--the grade of apprenticeship--that of mastership--that of perfect mastership. Foreigners could not easily gain admission into this sacerdotal order; and it was only at the express solicitation of the King of Persia, at whose court he resided, that this extraordinary favour was accorded to Themistocles. Whether the old Persian doctrine and _system of light_[62] did not undergo material alterations in the hands of its Median restorer, Zoroaster; or whether this doctrine were preserved in all its purity by the order of the Magi, may well be questioned. It is certain at least that that primitive veneration of nature is found completely disfigured and corrupted in the small existing remnant of the sect of Guebers or fire-worshippers.