Legends Of The Past.

death of Louis XIV . the prisoner would be acknowledged , and his daughter sit on the throne of Prance . ¦ HoAvever , their nuptials were performed by a priest of the castle in the dead of night , and all Avere sworn to secrecy . From this union tAvo children AA'ere born . A whisper of this reaching the ears of the minister , the Marquis of LoiiA'ois , the prisoner

was immediately removed to the Bastile for safer keeping , ancl the mother , the priest , ancl the governor disappeared . The children were sent to Corsica , to be brought up in obscurity under the name of their grandfather , Bonpart , which Avas corrupted into Buonaparte . And thus , says the legend , Providence avenged the wrongs of the tAvin brother of Louis XIV , and restored the eldest branch of the Bourbon hue to the throne of France . Will not many of our readers be inclined to say " What next ? "

Assyrian Discoveries.

ASSYRIAN DISCOVERIES .

"ORO . CANON TRISTRAM at the Sheffield Congress read the following interesting - * - ' paper on the Assyrian Tablets , AA'hich Avill Avell repay perusal : — No feAver than twenty-three points in the nan-ative of Genesis are given , Avith some discrepancies , by the tablets . " There is not an incident ( said the Canon ) touched on , from primawal chaos to the call of Abraham , AA'hich is not illustrated ancl confirmed by the utterances of a language Avhich speaks again after a silence of four thousand yearsthough Ave have only just begun to gather a few fragments from its storehouses .

, The ingenuity of a destructive criticism can aA'ail nothing against this . The creation of the cattle of the field , the beasts of the field , ancl the creeping things , occur as in Genesis . We have the Fall . ' The Dragon Tiamat tempted him . The God Ilea heard and Avas angry , because his man had corrupted his purity . ' The curse is , ' May he bo conq itered and at once cut off . ' On a seal two figures are seated by a tree holding out their hands to the fruit , Avhile a serpent stands erect behind one of them . Four rivers

are spoken of as surrounding Gan-dann—i . e ., Gan-Eden , the Garden of Eden , IAVO of them the Tigris and Euphrates . Among the names of the Antediluvians occur Cain , Enoch , Cainan , Lamech , Tubal-Cain , or Bit-lean , the God of fire and melter of metals . The ten generations of Genesis are represented by ten successive kings . The translation of Enoch is placed after the Flood , ancl transferred to Noah . Of the famous Izchibai legend , the Assyrian story of the Flood , I need not speak . TAventy-three points in tlie

narrative ot Genesis are given in the tablets , with some few discrepancies , enough to shoAv that neither narrative Avas copied directly from the other . We have the account of the building of the Tower of Babel , its ' interruption by Divine interposition for man ' s sin . ' God destroyed in the night AA'hat they built in the clay . He scattered them also , ancl made strange their speech , and Babylon AA'as abandoned . ' Then comes the story of Nimrod , identified with the highest probability as the Izdubar of the tablets , for he founded BabelAkkadErecliancl Nipurwhich has been SIIOAVH to be another

, , , , name for the Calneb of Genesis . Mr . Smith Avrites : 'Izdubar forms the centre of the national historical poetry , just as Nimrod is stated to haA'e been in the later traditions . I subsequently found that he agreed exactly in character AA'ith Nimrod ; he was a g iant hunter , according to the cuneiform legends , who contended AA'ith and destroyed the lion , tiger , leopard , and wild bull or buffalo , animals the most formidable in the chase in any country . He ruled first in Babyloniaover the region which from other sources AVO

, kiloAv to haA'e been the centre of Nimrod ' s kingdom . He extended his dominion to the Armenian mountains , the boundary of his late conquests , according to tradition ; and one principal scene , of his exploits and triumphs Avas the city of Erecb , Avhich , according to Genesis , was the second capital of Nimrod . The discovery by Mr . Loftus and identification , of Ur , AA'ith its innumerable inscri ptions , its bricks , stamped with the name of Arioch ( Genesis xiv . 1 ) , and its temples to the moon-god and other idols , bring down