hold to be dislodged by such struggles as his unhappy
victim is capable of making. In no Assyrian drawing is the massiveness
and strength of the king of beasts more powerfully rendered than in
this favorite group, which the Persian sculptors repeated without the
slightest change from generation to generation. The contour of the lion,
his vast muscular development, and his fierce countenance are really
admirable, and the bold presentation of the face in full, instead of in
profile, is beyond the ordinary powers of Oriental artists.

Drawings of bulls and lions in rows, where each animal is the exact
counterpart of all the others, are found upon the friezes of some of the
tombs, and upon the representations of canopies over the royal throne.
These drawings are fairly spirited, but have not any extraordinary
merit. They reproduce forms well known in Assyria. A figure of a sitting
lion seems also to have been introduced occasionally on the facades of
staircases, occurring in the central compartment of the parapet-wall at
top. These figures, in no case, remain complete; but enough is left
to show distinctly what the attitude was, and this appears not to have
resembled very closely any common Assyrian type. [PLATE LVII., Fig. 1.]

[Illustration: PLATE LVII.]

The Persian gem-engravings have considerable merit, and need not fear a
comparison with those of any other Oriental nation. They occur upon
hard stones of many different kinds, as cornelian, onyx, rock-crystal,
sapphirine, sardonyx, chalcedony, etc., and are executed for the most
part with great skill and delicacy. The designs which they embody are in
general of a mythological character; but sometimes scenes of real life
occur upon them, and then the drawing is often good, and almost
always spirited. In proof of this, the reader may be referred to the
hunting-scenes already given, which are derived wholly from this source,
as well as to the gems figured [PLATE LVI., Fig. 3], one of which is
certainly, and the other almost certainly, of Persian workmanship. In
the former we see the king, not struggling with a mythological lion but
engaged apparently in the actual chase of the king of beasts Two lions
have been roused from their lairs, and the monarch hastily places an
arrow on the string, anxious to despatch one of his foes before the
other can come to close quarters The eagerness of the hunter and the
spirit and boldness of the animals are well represented. In the