PREFACE. xi

continually introduced on the sculptured walls; and by them .
was a wheel, the appearance of which ‘was as a wheel
in the middle of a wheel’ (Ezekiel i.) May not this wheel
have been the winged circle or globe, which, hovering -
above the heads of the kings, typifies the Supreme Deity
of the Assyrians P””

Compare these descriptions with the following lines, in
Mr. Salt’s account of the imagery on the walls of the Egyp-
tian temples :—

“ And of such mystic fancies, in the range
Of those deep cavern’d sepulchres are found
The wildest images, unheard of, strange,
Striking, ancouth, odd, picturesque, profound,
That ever puzzled antiquarian’s brain ;
Prisoners of different nations, bound and slain,
Genii with heads of birds, hawka, ibis, drakes,
Of lions, foxes, cats, fish, frogs, and snakes,
Bulls, rams, and monkeys, hippopotami,
With knife in paw, suspended from the sky ;
Vast scarabei, globes by hands upheld,
From chaos springing, ’mid an endless field
Of forms grotesque—the sphynx, the crocodile,
And other reptiles from the alime of Nile.”