d
improvement upon the works of former times. The advance in animal forms,
traceable in the sculptures of Tiglath-Pileser II., continues: and the
drawing of horses' heads, in particular, leaves little to desire.

After reigning gloriously over Assyria for seventeen years, and for the
last five of them over Babylonia also, Sargon died, leaving his crown to
the most celebrated of all the Assyrian Monarchs, his son Sennacherib,
who began to reign B.C. 705. The long notices which we possess of this
monarch in the books of the Old Testament, his intimate connection with
the Jews, the fact that he was the object of a preternatural exhibition
of the Divine displeasure, and the remarkable circumstance that this
miraculous interposition appears under a thin disguise in the records of
the Greeks, have always attached an interest to his name which the kings
of this remote period and distant region very rarely awaken. It has also
happened, curiously enough, that the recent Mesopotamian researches have
tended to give to Sennacherib a special prominence over other Assyrian
monarchs, more particularly in this country, our great excavator having
devoted his chief efforts to the disinterment of a palace of this king's
construction, which has supplied to our National Collection almost
one-half of its treasures. The result is, that while the other
sovereigns who bore sway in Assyria are generally either wholly unknown,
or float before the mind's eye as dim and shadowy forms, Sennacherib
stands out to our apprehension as a living and breathing man, the
impersonation of all that pride and greatness which we assign to the
Ninevite kings, the living embodiment of Assyrian haughtiness, Assyrian
violence, and Assyrian power. The task of setting forth the life and
actions of this prince, which the course of the history now imposes on
its compiler, if increased in interest, is augmented also in difficulty,
by the grandeur of the ideal figure which has possession of men's minds.

The reign of Sennacherib lasted twenty-four years, from B.C. 705 to B.C.
681. The materials which we possess for his history consist of a record
written in his fifteenth year, describing his military expeditions and
his buildings up to that time; of the Scriptural notices to which
reference has already been made; of some fragments of Polyhistor
preserved by Eusebius; and of the well-known passage of Herodotus which
contains a mention of his name. From these documents we s