There is but one life, if life it may be called, which seems to me to be God-forsaken; it is the life that is idle or selfish. Those few words express more than one might think, but their meaning has been set to sweeter music than I can command by Leigh Hunt in the story of Abou Ben Adhem, with which I close this book:

'Abou Ben Adhem-may his tribe increase!—
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw amid the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold;
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the vision in the room he said,

"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head,
And with a voice made of all sweet accord,
Replied, "The names of them that love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said, "I pray thee, then,
"Write me as one who loves his fellow men."

The angel wrote and vanished. The next night
He came again with a great wakening light;
He showed the names whom love of God had blest,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.'

APPENDIX.

NOTE A, page 22.

ON THE LIKENESS BETWEEN CERTAIN CHALDEAN AND JEWISH LEGENDS.

The resemblance between some of these legends has been shown at pp. 22, 71, but the most remarkable and interesting illustration appears while this book is passing through the press. Among the tablets brought from Assyria by Mr George Smith, who, it will be remembered, was first sent there at the expense of the spirited proprietors of the Daily Telegraph, are a series of fragments which, joined to some smaller pieces in the British Museum collection, give 'the history of the world from the Creation down to some period after the fall of man.' Pending the issue of a promised full translation of the legends, which will be eagerly awaited, their accomplished and unwearying discoverer has announced his success in a letter to the Daily Telegraph, 4th March 1875, wherein he gives the following brief account of the contents of the tablets:

'Whatever the primitive account may have been from which the earlier part of the Book of Genesis was copied, it is evident that the brief narration given in the Pentateuch omits a number of incidents and explanations—for instance, as to the origin of evil, the fall of the angels, the wickedness of the serpent, &c. Such points as these are included in the

Cuneiform narrative; but of course I can say little about them until I prepare full translations of the legends.

'The narrative on the Assyrian tablets commences with a description of the period before the world was created, when there existed a chaos or confusion. The desolate and empty state of the universe and the generation by chaos of monsters are vividly given. The chaos is presided over by a female power named Tisalat and Tiamat, corresponding to the Thalatth of Berosus; but as it proceeds the Assyrian account agrees rather with the Bible than with the short account from Berosus. We are told, in the inscriptions, of the fall of the celestial being who appears to correspond to Satan. In his ambition he raises his hand against the sanctuary of the God of heaven, and the description of him is really magnificent. He is represented riding in a chariot through celestial space, surrounded by the storms, with the lightning playing before him, and wielding a thunderbolt as a weapon.

"This rebellion leads to a war in heaven and the conquest of the powers of evil, the gods in due course creating the universe in stages, as in the Mosaic narrative, surveying each step of the work and pronouncing it good. The divine work culminates in the creation of man, who is made upright and free from evil, and endowed by the gods with the noble faculty of speech.

'The Deity then delivers a long address to the newly-created being, instructing him in all his duties and privileges, and pointing out the glory of his state. But this condition of blessing does not last long before man, yielding to temptation, falls; and the Deity then pronounces upon him a terrible curse, invoking on his head all the evils which have since afflicted humanity. These last details are, as I have before stated, upon the fragment which I excavated during my first journey to Assyria, and the discovery of this single relic in

my opinion increases many times over the value of The Daily Telegraph collection.

'I have at present recovered no more of the story, and am not yet in a position to give the full translations and details; but I hope during the spring to find time to search over the collection of smaller fragments of tablets, and to light upon any smaller parts of the legends which may have escaped me. There will arise, besides, a number of important questions as to the date and origin of the legends, their comparison with the Biblical narrative, and as to how far they may supplement the Mosaic account.'

In a valuable contribution to the Academy, 20th March 1875, Mr Sayce shows that the Phoenician legends form, as it were, the link between the Chaldean and the Hebrew so far as the so-called Elohistic portion of Genesis is concerned : this being especially noticeable in the legend of the Creation and the sacrifice of Isaac (upon which cf. Haug's 'AitareyaBrahmana;' Max Müller's Anct. Sans. Lit. 408-17; Gubernati's Zool. Mythol., I. 69; and the Greek myth of Agamemnon and Iphigenia). Mr Sayce also explains the very close resemblance between the Babylonian and Jewish legends of the garden of Eden, the Deluge, and the Tower of Babel, the Phoenician analogies failing us here altogether. But the whole subject is still in its infancy, and, as Prof. de Gubernati remarks, “when we shall be able to bring into Semitic studies the same liberty of scientific criticism which is conceded to Aryan studies, we shall have a Semitic mythology; for the present, faith, a natural sense of repugnance to abandon the beloved superstitions of our credulous childhood, and more than all, a less honourable sentiment of terror for the opinion of the world, have restrained men of study from examining Jewish history and tradition with entire impartiality and severity of judgment.' (Vol. II. 410, 412.)

R