that magnificent columns, portals, and other architectural decorations mark this spot as the site of a splendid palace; while the style of the sculptures and of the inscriptions, many of them in the singleheaded character which is found only at this place, Nineveh, Babylon, Susa, and Ván, proves them to be of a very high antiquity. Mr. Kinneir says they are generally admitted to be the remains of the palace destroyed by Alexander; and the striking resemblance of the building as it exists to the description of it by Diodorus, is, in his opinion, sufficient to remove any doubt that may exist upon the subject. We confess that such is not our impression.

Those who regard the ruins as being the remains of a Persian temple, insist that the sculptured subjects, as well as the style of architecture, resemble in many particulars those of Egypt; among which may be mentioned the figures divided by trees, the sphinxes, the vases and chains, the domes and architraves, the subterranean passages in the tombs, the sarcophagi and urns, and the well, twenty-five feet deep and fifteen square. The sculpture at Persepolis was also painted mostly in blue, a favourite colour with the Egyptians, but sometimes in black and in yellow. For these remarks we are indebted to Mr. Buckingham.

The opinion that these ruins are the remains of the palace, rests not on the authority of all history, but on the assertion merely of Quintus Curtius and Diodorus; and the whole story as to the burning is said to have been copied from a Greek writer named Clitarchus. But, however this may be, certain it is that the city was not destroyed by Alexander, for it was a very important place many centuries after.

Kæmpfer, Hyde, Niebuhr, and St. Croix regard the ruins as those of a palace: Della Valle, Chardin, D'Hancarville, and others as those of a temple. This is a question, however, which many writers regard as being impossible of solution till an alphabet shall have been discovered of the arrow-headed inscriptions.

Though Persepolis long survived the events we have been considering, its inhabitants are said to have regarded with unextinguishable hatred the people by whom they had been conquered; and, as if inspired by those fragments of former glory with which they were surrounded, they maintained a character for pride and courage that was not entirely subdued till several centuries after the Arabians first overran Persia.

Its subsequent history is thus summed up by Mr. Fraser: "It was among the earliest conquests of Ardeshir Babegan; Shepoor II. made it his residence; Yesdigird I. held his court there; and Hoormuz II., who reigned at the close of the sixth century, passed two months every year in it. In the succeeding age, however, it ceased to be a royal residence; for Khoosroo Purveez bestowed its government on one of his favourites; and it was here that the last of the Sassanian kings lay concealed, when called to the throne in 632. Twelve years afterward it capitulated to the Mohammedans; but the people, having slain their foreign governor, were all put to the sword. The city was ultimately destroyed by Sumaneah-u-Dowlan and the fanatical Arabs in 982. Such," concludes Mr. Fraser, "is a sketch of the latter days of Istakhar (the only name by which the city is recognised by the native Persian historians); but the questions, who was its founder, and who raised the mighty fabrics of which the ruins still astonish the traveller, yet remain unanswered."

It has been truly said that we cannot proceed a step in Persia without encountering some monument of the cruelty of conquerors and of the greatness of human vicissitudes. These ruins have been so variously described, that, had not travellers agreed in respect to their latitude and longitude, one would be tempted to suspect they had visited different places. "It is very difficult to give any detailed account:

of the ruins of this celebrated place," says Mr. Buckingham. "There is no temple, as at Thebes, at Palmyra, or at Balbec, sufficiently predominant over all other surrounding objects to attract the chief attention, and furnish of itself sufficient matter for description and observation. Here all consists of broken and detached fragments, extremely numerous, and each worthy of attention, but so scattered and disjointed as to give no perfect idea of the whole. Its principal feature is, that it presents an assemblage of tall, slender, insulated pillars, and separate doorways and sanctuaries, spread over a large platform, elevated, like a fortification, from the level of the surrounding plain."

"The works of different travellers describing these ruins," says Sir William Ouseley, "furnish many instances of extraordinary variation. But this discordance is not peculiar to those who have written accounts of Persepolis. We find that, concerning the same visible and tangible objects, two, three, and even four travellers in other countries have disagreed; all men of considerable ingenuity, and none intending to deceive." He then refers to the following passage in Sir Thomas Herbert's Travels relating to these ruins: "Forasmuch as the remaining figures or images are many and different, and so many as in two days I was there it was impossible I could take the full of what I am assured an expert limner may very well spend twice two months in ere he can make a fancy draught; for, to say the truth, this is a work much fitter for the pencil than the pen; the rather for that I observe how that travellers, taking a view of some rare piece together, from the variety of their fancy usually differ in those observations; so that when they think their notes are exact, they shall pretermit something that a third will light upon."

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Nothing," says Mr. Fraser, "can be more striking than the appearance of the ruins on approach