tuation among sepulchres, will tally better with the carnage nd skeletons of the place of execution, than with the usual circumstances of a quiet and orderly burial-ground. When, therefore, the monks of Jerusalem pretend to shew, within the same narrow building, both Calvary and the sepulchre, we have reason to suspect, that one at least is apocryphat; and a little consideration will evince that Calvary was, of the two, the spot least likely to be identified in the days of Helena.

A place polluted by frequent executions was not one which the Jewish converts would frequent with pleasure; and it is probable that they would regard with horror, rather than reverence, the scene which recalled their Master's sufferings, where the guilt of their nation was consummated, and the ruin of their city sealed. The cross, which was a scandal to their countrymen, could not be otherwise than painful to themselves, and they would feel no anxiety to preserve the memory of a place with which they themselves were but too familiar. The place itself, distinguished by no monument, would only be recollected so long as it was the usual scene of executions, and could hardly be distinguished after the taking of Jerusalem by Titus, and those cruelties which pallisaded the ditch with crosses, and converted the whole circuit of the town into one vast Golgotha. But the case is widely different with the sepulchre of Christ, to preserve and honour which the prejudices of Jews and Greeks united; both of whom, from former habits, would be led to decorate the tomb of a prophet, and scatter flowers in honour of a departed friend, and whose preachers would appeal, with irresistible authority, to that empty vault which was the proof of their Lord's resurrection. The Christians did not honour, that we know of, the scene where their nrartyrs died; but we know at how early a period they began to venerate the places of their interment, and those who were enticed into idolatry beside the urns of Babylas or Thecla, would surely not behold with indifference a tomb so renowned as that of the Messiah. Nor was it only its superior sanctity which would preserve its memory. As the private property of an opulent Christian family, it would be secured from pollution or injury; and the tomb itself was no hereabouts,' which tradition was to settle, but an object too visible, and too definite either to be overlooked or mistaken. While a single Christian survived in the town, it could never cease to be known and venerated; and it certainly will require a considerable weight of argument to induce us to believe, that while the tombs of Ajax, of Achilles, of Eneas, of Theron, are ascertained by satisfactory tradition, a sepulchre of a date so much more recent, and of so much more forcible interest should have been allowed to sink into obscurity, or have been supplanted by a spurious and imperfect copy.—

But

But as Dr. Clarke has shewn that the present appearance of the sepulchre is at variance with the accounts in the Gospel, and the general character of Jewish tombs, it remains for us to examine whether the alterations of time, together with those ascribed to the bad taste and unfortunate zeal of Helena, can have been sufficient to produce this difference. His reasons for incredulity are as follow:-The tomb of Christ was in a garden without the walls of Jerusalem; the structure which at present bears its name is in the heart of, at least, the modern city, and Dr. Clarke is unwilling to believe that the ancient limits can have been so much circumscribed to the north as to exclude its site. Further, the original sepulchre was undoubtedly a cave, the present offers no such apparance, being an insulated pile, constructed or cased with distinct abs of marble. That both these arguments, however, are inconehsive will appear, we think, to Dr. Clarke himself. From a testimony which will shortly be produced, it is certain that, whether probable or not, the ancient limits of the city did exclude the present sepulchre; and that this last, defaced and altered as it is, may be really the place where the Lord lay,' is likely from the following circumstances. Forty yards, or thereabouts, from the upper end of the sepulchre the natural rock is visible; and in the place which the priests call Calvary, it is at least as high as the top of the sepulchre itself. The rock then may have extended as far as the present entrance; and though the entrance itself is hewn into form, and cased with marble, the adytum yet offers proof that it is not factitious. It is a trapezium of seven feet by six, neither at right angles to its own entrance, nor to the aisle of the church which conducts to it, and in no respect conformable to the external plan of the tomb. This last is arranged in a workmanlike manner, with its frontal immediately opposite the principal nave, and in the same style with the rest of the church. It is shaped something like a horse-shoe, and its walls, measured from this outer horseshoe to the inner trapezium, vary from five to eight feet in thickness, a sufficient space to admit of uo inconsiderable density of rock, between the outer and inner coating of marble. This, however, does not apply to the antichamber of which the frontal, at least, is probably factitious: and where that indenture in the marble is found which induced Dr. Clarke to believe that the whole thickness of the wall was composed of the same costly substance. Now these circumstances afford, we apprehend, no inconsiderable grounds for supposing with Pococke, that it is indeed a grotto above ground: the irregularity of the shape, the difference between the external and internal plan; the thickness of the walls, so needless, if they are throughout of masonry, all favour this opinion; nor is the task ascribed to Helena's workmen of insulating this rock, from

that

the world in one view the history of sepulchral architecture, and the progress of art and superstition from the stele to the soros, and from the soros to the temple. That the rudiments of idolatry may be found in the honours paid to departed heroes, and that the classical Nog is only an expanded cenotaph, is a truth, which, though susceptible of the most satisfactory proof, has been hitherto very imperfectly investigated; nor has even Spencer himself observed what light may thus be thrown on many of the Mosaic institutions, or the care with which the light and lofty palace of the living God, at Jerusalem, was distinguished by its proportions, ornaments and furniture, from the dark and ponderous tombs of the Egyptian divinities.

From Jerusalem Dr. Clarke proceeded to Bethlehem and Jaffa, à journey often performed, and on which the present tour affords but little additional information. As if wearied with the scepticism which he displayed as to the antiquities of Jerusalem at Bethlehem, he swallows entire, and with much composure, the utterly prepos terous fable of the cave of the nativity, and flatters himself that he has discovered the identical well, of whose water a draught was procured for David by the swords and blood of some of his bravest followers. Of this event, it is needless to say, he presents a very pleasing and animated picture; but he gives also a very whimsical specimen of his own peculiar mode of reasoning, when he adduces a text describing the infirmity of David on his deathbed, as a proof that he was old and stricken in years,' at the siege of Bethlehem, when he could not be much more than forty years of age. If, Dr. Clarke (which may heaven grant!) should live to be an aged man, he would surely be a preposterous biographer who should confound the venerable infirmities of the hoary Professor of mineralogy, with the youthful vigour of the Russian traveller; or who should represent him as scaling Casdaghy with the grey hair which some thirty years afterwards adorned him.

But even this strange inaccuracy is tenfold surpassed by the marvellous voyage which, in p. 642, he has assigned to the prophet Jonah, whom he makes to have embarked at Joppa for Nineveh! Now as Nineveh, according to most geographers, is at least seven hundred miles from any sea; and as to pass from the Mediterranean to the mouth of the Euphrates would require the circumnavigation of all Africa and Arabia, we were, we confess, not a little surprised that a learned traveller should have conceived such a voyage probable, till we recollected the strange imperfection attributed by the Doctor to all our modern maps, and the inestimable advantage enjoyed by those who, when they write geographically,' have recourse, like the ancients, to the result of their own prac

tical observations.' With Eschylus for his pilot, Dr. Clarke himself may possibly have made the voyage; but before we give up Ptolemy and D'Anville, it may be worth our while to notice that Jonah himself contemplated such a course as little as any modern hydrographer, and that Tarshish, or Tartessus, not Nineveh, was the port for which he embarked.

This is not the only circumstance in which Dr. Clarke's observations on Joppa and its history will be found to differ from the general opinion of the world. With a liberality which merits all possible praise, and a confidence which only needs a better foundation than the inquiries of a single evening, (for such was the duration of his residence in Jaffa,) he decides on the falsehood of the accusaon brought against Buonaparte, of having massacred in cold blood the greater part of the garrison of this town. This is a question, indeed, which like every other question of the sort, has been swelled by the voice of party on either side beyond its natural importance, since, in the sea of blood with which the world has been lately deluged, the slaughter of a few Turks, more or less, can hardly be supposed to swell the tide; nor is the engrained character of the Duke of Enghein's murderer susceptible of any deeper dye from a massacre for which he had the colourable pretext that the victims had broken their parole. Of the fact itself, however, we have not the smallest doubt: it is perfectly consistent with Buonaparte's general character; it accords in particular with the policy which, to strike a terror in Egypt, a few months before refused quarter to the garrison of Alexandria; and it is positively confirmed by the testimony of all inquirers except Dr. Clarke and his companions. What is, indeed, after all, the amount of their ground for disbelief? They remained a few hours in Jaffa, and heard nothing of the matter! and this negative testimony, which, if it proves any thing, proves that Dr. Clarke and Captain Culverhouse were incompetent to form any judgment at all on the subject, is opposed to the authority of those British officers who were off the coast of Syria at the very period of the French invasion; and of those others, among whom may be mentioned General Koehler, (not Kleber, as Dr. Clarke calls him) Sir Charles Holloway, Sir R. Fletcher, Major Leake, and Captain Lacy, who many of them remained above six months at Jaffa; of Mr. Morier and Dr. Wittman, who, from their situation in the Grand Vizier's army, and the knowledge of the Turkish language possessed by the former, were peculiarly qualified to arrive at a certainty of the truth; and of Sir Robert Wilson, who assures us that the French officers employed in the expedition did not think proper to deny the charge—a fact, which we can corroborate from our own knowledge.

That

That Signor Damiani may have omitted to add to his tale of sufferings a single circumstance, which, however revolting to European manners, would not appear so striking to one who had for many years resided in the Levant, does not appear to us a point of the weight which Dr. Clarke ascribes to it; we know, however, on the best authority, that the good old consul has never expressed any doubt of the massacre to subsequent travellers; and that the horrible circumstances mentioned by Mr. Morier were, at a period somewhat anterior to Dr. Clarke's visit, in the mouths of all Jaffa, and the subject of constant conversation both among Turkish and European officers. After all, the horrors of Buonaparte's Syrian campaign are hardly worth the mention, when compared with those to which Judæa, in former ages, or Spain has been in latter times exposed; and the butcheries of Titus and Vespasian must seek a parallel, not at Jaffa, but at Zaragoza, Valencia, or Gerona. From Jaffa Dr. Clarke embarks in a boat laden with fruit, a commodity for which its environs are celebrated; and, passing by the ruins of Cæsarea, rejoins the Romulus at

Acre.

We have now gone through two of these massive quartos, and have not, to the best of our knowledge, omitted any circumstances in either which have required our strictures or the author's correction. Dr. Clarke himself, indeed, will probably be not unwilling to confess that none of his faults at least have escaped our notice; but he will be much mistaken if he apprehends that the incisions which we have made have proceeded from any but a friendly motive, and from a national anxiety to render, as perfect as possible, a work in which, from its bulk, and from the share of public attention which it has attracted, the national reputation is in no trifling degree concerned. Of the former volume some of the faults are avoided in this which we have now reviewed; and a little less confidence in first impressions, and a little more attention to the rules of logic may produce a third, we trust, more perfect than either, and which may maintain the pre-eminence hitherto held by English travellers over those of every other nation. To the learning and industry of Shaw or Pococke, his claims, indeed, can hardly be supported; but in proportion as his authority is less severe, his descriptions are more graphical, and he differs from the tourists of an earlier day as the mirror differs from the lake; the last has greater depth, but surrounding objects are reflected with more liveliness from the surface of the former.

ART.