buchadnezzar was the Son of Nabopolasser, and the second king of
Assyria. He was Regent with his father in the Empire 607 years before
the birth of our Lord, and the next year, he raised a powerful army,
marched against Jerusalem, and took Jehoiakim, king of Judah,
prisoner. While making preparations to carry him and his subjects into
captivity, in Babylon, Jehoiakim solemnly promised submission, and
begged the privilege of holding his throne under the sceptre of
Nebuchadnezzar. This favor was granted, and he was permitted to remain
at Jerusalem. Three years after this, he made an unsuccessful attempt
to throw off the Assyrian yoke and regain his former independence.
This brought on the general captivity of the Jewish nation, which
lasted 70 years.

Nebuchadnezzar extended his conquests till he subjugated the
Ethiopians, Arabians, Idumeans, Philistines, Syrians, Persians, Medes,
Assyrians, and nearly all Asia to his sceptre. These splendid
conquests, and being now king of kings, lifted up his heart with
pride, that he caused a golden image to be reared on the plains of
Dura. He issued a royal edict, and commanded the princes and rulers of
all these nations as well as their principal subjects to assemble; and
being assembled, he commanded them to fall down and worship his golden
god. Daniel's companions refused to do this, and were cast into the
fiery furnace.

From this circumstance he was brought to acknowledge a Supreme Being,
and even issued a decree that any one who spoke amiss against the God
of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego should be cut in pieces. But as he
was gazing upon the massy walls of Babylon--a work of gigantic
achievement; as he was surveying, from the height of his palace, the
hanging gardens and lofty towers, (an aerial world!) as he was
admiring his own magnificence, by the sentence of that God whom he had
glorified, he was driven from men, and in the Hebrew style of
expression, is said to have eaten grass like oxen. By this we are to
understand that he was suddenly seized with a disease called by the
Greeks lycanthropy, and which is known among physicians at the present
day by the name of hypochondria. It is a species of madness that
causes persons to run into the fields and streets in the night, and
sometimes to suppose themselves to have the heads of oxen, horses,
dogs, or fancy themselves to be like some other animal, and doomed to
fare like them. And some have imagined themselves to be made of