therefore, to think that the city was actually figured in such a way as to be recognisable by the exiles whom the prophet addressed, and to whom the actual site was familiar. This might be done by means of engraving or indenting-or perhaps by color, for traces of color have been found upon the bricks of the Assyrian palaces. Either way, the representation of a town would have been no difficult process, according to the mode followed by the Assyrian artists, who have left us many representations of towns in their sculptures. It was only needful to define the site in a rough way, and to mark out upon the conspicuous points one or two of the remarkable buildings. An engraving copied by Dr. Kitto shows how this might be done. Indeed, there is some reason to suppose that it is an Assyrian representation of Jerusalem; and if so, it is quite within the range of probability that we see in it a fac-simile of the portraiture of Jerusalem which appeared upon the tile of Ezekiel; for it may easily be supposed that when ordered to portray that city, the prophet would do so after the fashion of those acknowledged representations of it, so easy to copy, which he had seen on the walls of the Assyrian palaces. We say "had seen" advisedly; for there is much evidence in various allusions to be found in his prophecy, that he had seen and noticed with particular attention the "chambers of imagery” in these regal abodes; and if so, he must have regarded with especial interest any representations of Jerusalem which may have been found in them.

In regard to the probability of this sculpture being intended to represent Jerusalem, there can be no better authority than Mr. Bonomi, who is well acquainted with that eity, and has studied its topography and antiquities. Speaking of this sculpture in his recent work on Nineveh and its Palaces, he says: "The sculpture represents a fortified city, built upon a considerable elevation, opposite to which is a still higher craggy hill, surmounted by a castellated tower, from the base of which a narrow stream flows down into the valley that separates the two hills. It is especially to be observed that olive trees are growing upon both the hills, but more particularly on the one upon the summit of which is the tower; and that on the hill of the city is a walk, or road, about half way up, below which,

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and at the side of the stream, is a row of tombs, or inferior houses. The relative situation of these objects exactly resembles the position of similar objects visible on approaching Jerusalem from the East. On our left we have Mount Moriah and the high wall of the temple; at our feet the brook Kedron, and the tombs of the valley of Jehoshaphat, or some inferior buildings at the base of Mount Moriah; and on our left the Mount of Olives. The chief objection to this interpretation, is the circumstance of the stream taking its rise in the Mount of Olives a topographical inaccuracy, however, that might easily be pardoned in the Assyrian artist, if time and the Arabs had but spared us the other friezes to assist us in interpreting this relievo, and the other significant decorations of the chamber."--Kitto's Daily Bible Illustrations.

PRECEPTIVE BIOGRAPHY.

ROBERT BOYLE.

A valued friend has reminded us, with reference to the Memoirs furnished from time to time in this Magazine, that all biography is preceptive; and that therefore the use of such an expression is gratuitous and uncalled for. The assertion has certainly some truth in it; but it has likewise some error. All lives, as well as all observations and experiences, are full of teachings; but all biographies are not so written as to convey practical or profitable instruction to the reader. We have before us at this moment a Biographical Dictionary, extending over a dozen octavo volumes, one half of the lives in which contain not a particle of really useful knowledge, nor are suggestive of a single valuable idea. To our minds, no writing of the kind deserves to be regarded as preceptive, that does not enter into the philosophy of a man's mind and motives, analysing all the features and phases of an idea or an action with reference to the circumstances, objective and subjective, that call it forth. There is very little of "precept," for example, in the Life of an individual when it only tells us where he was born and brought up, at what college he graduated, who he married, where he lived, when he died, and what family he left behind him. Nor would the narrative be much improved if it wound up with a

long list of the bare titles of his essays, papers, and dissertations, in some long-defunct periodical. But a man of philosophic mind could weave, perhaps, out of these barren hints, a work the world would not willingly let die. A thorough acquaintance with his writings might shew that they contained the seeds and germs of original or magnificent ideas, to the development of which all subsequent generations were more or less indebted. He might learn, perhaps, that these ideas were generated by a combination of incidents, under certain conditions, which might probably in other cases be similarly brought about and produce corresponding results-thus getting at the philosophy of a Thought which was eventually to turn the world up side down. He might, so to speak, show how the man was made by what course of observation, of reading, of thought, of experience, of outward circumstances, he became what he was, and how his mental, moral, and visible or outward, lives acted and re-acted on each other. If these statements require illustration, we cannot do better than refer our readers to Mr. Binney's admirable lecture on Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton--to our minds the most perfect specimen we have met with of what we understand by the term "Preceptive Biography."

Keeping these hints in view, we propose devoting the present paper to an analytical memoir of the Honorable ROBERT BOYLE, one of the best men and greatest philosophers of his day. He was the fourteenth child of Richard, Earl of Cork, and was born at Lismore, 25th January, 1626-27. Notwithstanding the nobility of his parentage, he was committed to the care of a country nurse, with instructions to bring him up as hardy as if he had been her own son, for his father, he tells us, "had a perfect aversion for the fondness of those parents, which made them rear their children so nice and tenderly, that a hot sun or a good shower of rain as much endangers them, as if they were made of butter or of sugar." When he was about three years old, he lost his mother, a most accomplished woman. A second misfortune was, that he learned to stutter, by mocking some children of his own age: of which, though no endeavors were spared, he could never be perfectly cured. A third, that in a journey to Dublin, he had like to have been drowned; and

certainly had been, if one of his father's gentlemen had not taken him out of a coach, which in passing a brook, raised by some sudden showers, was overturned and carried away by the stream.

While he continued at home, he was taught to write a very fair hand, and to speak French and Latin, by one of the earl's chaplains, and a Frenchman that he kept in the house. In the year 1635, his father sent him over to England, in order to be educated at Eton School under Sir Henry Wotton, who was the earl of Cork's old friend and acquaintance. Here he soon discovered a force of understanding, which promised great things, and a disposition to cultivate and improve it to the utmost. What made him so passionate a friend to reading was, the accidental perusal of Quintus Curtius. In gratitude to this book, writes his biographer, I have heard him hyperbolically say, that not only he owed more to Quintus Curtius, than Alexander did, but derived more advantages from the history of that great monarch's conquests, than ever he did from the conquests themselves.

Now here is a great fact that no preceptive biographer should pass over unnoticed. A book judiciously placed in the boy's hands, laid the foundation, deeply and lastingly, for all his future greatness. It so whetted the mental appetite, that sheer hunger impelled him to become habitually a reader of the right sort, while the healthy character of the food it led him to select prevented any surfeit, and kept both mind and body in a state of sound and vigorous activity. Books in reality move the world; though the idea is practically laughed down by ninetynine persons out of every hundred. An author is looked at simply as one of those idols that "are nothing in the world," though in point of fact he holds life and death in his grasp. For a book acts just as certainly upon the mind, as food or medicine on the body; and by careful analysis it may be as clearly ascertained in what manner each of its constituents operates for good or evil on the intellectual system. Let our readers then beware, above all things, of bad books, and make themselves master of all sound and healthful reading that comes within their reach.

We seldom meet with any really original men whose younger years have not been chequered with strange providences.

John Newton, and his biographer, Richard Cecil, were both of this class. Our present subject did not soon out-grow them. Whilst he remained at Eton, several extraordinary accidents befel him. The first was, the sudden fall of the chamber where he was in bed: when besides the hazard he run of being crushed to pieces, he would certainly have been choked with the dust, during the time he lay under the rubbish, if he had not had presence of mind enough to have wrapped his head up in the sheet, which gave him an opportunity of breathing without hazard. A little after this he would have been crushed by a starting horse, that rose up suddenly, and threw him backwards, if he had not happily disengaged his feet from the stirrups, and cast himself from his back before he fell. A third accident proceeded from the carelessness of an apothecary's servant; who administered a dangerous medicine by mistake.

He remained at Eton between three and four years, whence he went with his father to his own seat at Stalbridge, in Dorsetshire, where he remained some time under the care of one of his chaplains, who was the clergyman of the place.

In the autumn of 1638, he accompanied his brother, Francis, then newly married, to the Continent, and for some time pursued his studies quietly at Geneva. Whilst at Eton, before he was ten years old, he had suffered from ague, and to divert his thoughts had been injudiciously advised to read romances and other light works, which so unsettled his mind, that he formed the noble resolution of studying the severer branches of mathematics in order "to fix and settle the volatility of his fancy." To many, this crisis might have been the occasion of much evil and sorrow-the turning point in their intellectual history. The mind is so fearfully and wonderfully made, that the moment its equilibrium is destroyed, the whole man is placed in imminent peril. But as in the natural world, the most deleterious elements, when rightly apportioned, make, not only harmless, but useful and even indispensable compounds, so in the mental constitution, those attributes which alone, or in excess, would be likely to lead us astray, are made to serve a good purpose, when duly balanced by the others. If our reading be all of one class, the whole mind is not called into exercise; but it is nevertheless far better to keep its less manageable principles