Palmyra is commonly imagined to be the "Tadmor in the desert," of holy writ, 2 Chron. viii. 4, which was built by Solomon: indeed it is so named by the neighbouring tribes to this day. It is certain however that all the remains of this famous city which time has spared to our view are of the latest style of Greek architecture; whereas a city built by Solomon would almost certainly partake of the peculiar solidity of Egyptian work, from his connexion with that country through Pharaoh's daughter. Indeed, beyond the name, in which vague tradition may have erred, we have no unimpeachable evidence that Palmyra is the Tadmor of King Solomon: the situation and the style are both against the supposition; and the word Tadmor, being derived from the Hebrew name for palm-tree, is equally applicable to Petra, or more accurately, to any city erected on an oasis covered with date-trees in the midst of the desert. It is submitted, that Solomon could not have raised such a Palmyra as its ruins sample to us, and also, that he, if any one, was likely to have left some record of his building, some solid architectural proof which should stand to our day. Perhaps we must look for the Tadmor of the scriptures nearer to Hamath than Palmyra is; although indeed Josephus

(Ant. viii. 6,) would seem to favour the common opinion.

Zenobia flourished about the middle of the third century A. D. She was in many respects a most uncommon personage, and her patriotism, learning, and beauty, her feminine modesty and reckless courage, are fully and credibly recorded in the pages of history. She was subdued, might against right, by the warlike emperor Aurelian, and was forced to walk at his triumph in fetters of gold: however, the conqueror in some degree extenuated the guilt of his invasion by conferring large grants upon the dethroned empress, and enabling her to live at Rome in splendid captivity until her death.

The present appearance of Palmyra, and Balbec, which are about one hundred and thirty miles apart, is represented to be analogous to that of the ancient sites of the once majestic cities in Upper Egypt; groves of the most stately columns, and sculptured masses of the finest architecture, rising out of a sea of sand. Doubtless, there was a time when Syria, Egypt and many now sterile parts of Judæa were luxuriant in fertility, and swarming with abundant population. But those nations were rejected; the heaven over them became brass, the earth beneath like iron, the land became powder and dust, and that which had blossomed like the rose, was blighted into desert.

K

COLOM B A.

MOURNFULLY breaks the north wave on thy shore Silent Iona, and the mocking blast

Sweeps sternly o'er thy relics of the past, The stricken cross, the desecrated tomb

Of abbots, and barbarian kings of yore:

Thee from the blight of death's encircling gloom Colomba saved, and to thy cloisters grey

In pious zeal for God, and love for man,
Of mighty truth led on the conquering van,
And largely pour'd fair learning's hallow'd ray
On night's dark deep,—an isolated star
The Pharos of those arctic Cyclades

That lighted to her rocky nest from far

Mercy's white dove, faint flutterer o'er the seas.

Colomba, who has been canonized by the Romish church, from which however he differed in some essential particulars, flourished in the sixth century of our era. He was a native of Ireland, but the opposition which his zeal for religion and morals met with in that unhappy country, (a country even in those early times, the natural home of poverty, discord and oppression,) so entirely alienated him from it, that in the spirit of Paul at Corinth casting off the Jews, and thenceforth turning to the Gentiles, (Acts, xviii. 6,) he "left his native soil with deep resentment, and vowed never to live within sight of that hated island." Accordingly, after rejecting the island of Oronsay, solely for its too near propinquity, he settled, at the invitation of a certain Bridius, on the more northern isle of Huy, which has been ever since called by the name of Icolmkill, or Iona; names signifying respectively in Celtic and Hebrew the same as the Latin word Columba, "dove;" a beautifully poetic name for that other" ultima Thule," the distant western outpost of Learning. The feeling of Colomba against persecuting Ireland has been remarkably perpetuated to our day by the local name still given to a cairn-crowned hill on the island, which, whatever be its orthography, is pronounced

Carnan-col-reh-Ireum, or "the mound of the back to

Ireland."

The diocese of Iona formerly extended to all the neighbouring isles, which were called respectively Norder, and Soder, or Northern and Southern: the bishopric of Sodor and Man has, with the jurisdiction of the South, perpetuated the name, although probably few persons are aware of its origin or meaning.

Dr. Johnson, who certainly was not liable to enthusiasm, and least of all in matters pertaining to our brethren north of the Tweed, exclaims, " That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona;" and it is certainly a thrilling sight, after having indulged the feelings of natural religion in the giant cave of Staffa, surrounded by its thousand columns, and stunned by the deafening waters which break fearfully beneath you, to go a few miles further over that cheerless sea, and amidst the grey desolate quire, the moss-grown walls, the neglected royal tombs, the broken crucifixes, the departed memories of Ioną to rise to the sublimer contemplation of truths revealed.

Probably it was mainly due to the influence of Colomba, that the lamp of learning shone for a few short years on the inhospitable shores of Iceland: for at one time the university of Iona was a chief seat of sanctity and science; its basaltic soil was hallowed by more than three hundred stone crosses; and the