It might have remained to perpetuate these facts to remote ages, but for an earthquake, which laid it prostrate on the ground, about sixty-six years after its erection. This misfortune, as may well be supposed, was not limited to the Colossus. The city, and indeed the whole island, was so injured by it, that the image was never reared again. Large contributions were, however, given towards this object through all the cities of Greece. But the inhabitants of Rhodes appropriated them to their own use, under the pretext that the oracle of Apollo was unwilling to have the statue again erected. It is not improbable that they had by this time lost their ambition, and that they found the restoration of the image a more difficult undertaking than its first formation. It, therefore, remained for many centuries in the position to which the earthquake had reduced it. About nine hundred years after its overthrow, the Saracens, who were then in possession of the city, sold it to a Jew of Edessa, who broke it up, and loaded nine hundred camels with the metal, the worth of which was estimated at thirty-six thousand pounds sterling.

The inhabitants of Rhodes were famous among the classic writers, for their incantations, soothsayings, and similar superstitions. They also obtained a high celebrity for many excellent and useful arts, among which are mentioned the smelting of iron, and other metals, the casting of statues, &c. They were also cultivators of the fine arts. But their highest renown has arisen from the laws of maritime intercourse among commercial nations, which are said to have been adopted in their own day by all Greece, to have been thence introduced into the Roman code, and from that people have descended to modern nations, and form at the present time the basis of maritime and commercial regulations among the nations of Europe.

It is highly probable that so renowned and commercial an island was early visited by Christian missionaries. St. Paul touched at it in his journey from Ephesus to Jerusalem, mentioned Acts xxi. 1. His stay was, probably, too short to admit of intercourse with any Christian brethren who might be there. But it is certain that on the same journey he met with disciples at many adjacent places evidently inferior to Rhodes. Whatever was its situation at this early period, as to the blessing of Christian instruction, of this we are sure, that it soon became the seat of a Christian church. It was the residence of an archbishop; and when the Saracens took it, in the seventh century, it contained a professedly Christian population. The knights of the order of St. John were here established under a grand-master, who had a palace in Rhodes before that order was settled at Malta. It is stated by some authors, that the knights of Jerusalem recovered it from the Saracens in 1309, but that it was recaptured by the Turks, who still continue in possession of it. The Greeks, its original inhabitants, are now restricted to the miserable suburbs, with all other Christians; Jews and Turks alone dwell in the city. The palace of the grand-master of the knights is still shown, though greatly dilapidated by time and the poverty of the people. Niebuhr visited it, and states that "it contains many noble old buildings, some of which are decorated with the armorial bearings of some of the most ancient families in Europe. The Turks neglect the fortifications, although they might know their importance from having besieged the island so long before they could make themselves masters of it."-Travels, vol. p. 26.

There is reason to hope that the modern version of the Greek Bible has already found an entrance into their ancient city, and that it will prove a light to the oppressed and degraded Greeks.

MAY MUSIC.

"The time of the singing of birds is come."-CAnt.

LITTLE minstrel of the spring,
Rest awhile thy fluttering wing,
Come and teach me how to sing!
I would wake the harp of love,
I would all its sweetness prove,
Come and teach the wires to move!
Whence hast thou that balmy note
Which in melody doth float,
Bearing with it to the ear

Thoughts of love in sounds as clear
As if every silver tone

Had some meaning of its own?
Flutterer! rest thy weary wing,
Come and teach me how to sing.

Swiftly on the minstrel passed,
Nor a look behind him cast;
Yet as sighed the evening breeze
Through the scarcely budding trees,
Lighter than the wild bee's wing
Came a gentle murmuring;

Fair and beautiful they shine,-
Mirth and song may well be thine !
Yet time steals these joys away,
So beneath noon's fervid ray,
From morn's glittering coronal,
One by one the dewdrops fall.

And on nature's face I look
As upon an open book;

Earth, and sea, and sky are there,

Lovely, glorious, and fair:

Spring in green unsullied robe

Clothes this bright and beauteous globe;

Summer sees that mantle fair,

And 'broiders many a flow'ret there;
Golden Autumn next appears,

And a varied hue it wears;

Then by snowy Winter's hand,

Robed in white the mountains stand:

Thus the seasons pass away,

All are fair, but none may stay;—
Years are fleeting; time shall be
When the earth, the sky, the sea,
All their times and seasons o'er,
Shall be beautiful no more:
Yet a voice is heard from heaven,

And a glorious hope is given;
They who trust that mighty word

Shall behold a world restored;

They, redeemed and saved, shall view

Heaven and earth created new.