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Of several ancient ways of writing this name, the θεδμορ of the Alexandrian copy comes nearest to the pronunciation of the present Arabs. Wood.

I have adopted this pronunciation, as more poetical than Tedmor or Tadmor.

At the time when the East trembled at the name of Sapor, he received a present not unworthy of the greatest kings; a long train of camels, laden with the most rare and valuable merchandises. The rich offering was accompanied by an epistle, respectful but not servile, from Odenathus, one of the noblest and most opulent senators of Palmyra. “Who is this Odenathus” (said the haughty victor, and he commanded that the presents should be cast into the Euphrates), “that he thus insolently presumes to write to his lord? If he entertain a hope of mitigating his punishment, let him fall prostrate before the foot of our throne, with his hands bound behind his back. Should he hesitate, swift destruction shall be poured on his head, on his whole race, and on his country.” The desperate extremity to which the Palmyrenian was reduced, called into action all the latent powers of his soul. He met Sapor; but he met him in arms. Infusing his own spirit into a little army, collected from the villages of Syria, and the tents of the desert, he hovered round the Persian host, harassed their retreat, carried off part of the treasure, and, what was dearer than any treasure, several of the women of the Great King, who was at last obliged to repass the Euphrates, with some marks of haste and confusion. By this exploit, Odenathus laid the foundation of his future fame and fortunes. The majesty of Rome, oppressed by a Persian, was protected by a Syrian or Arab of Palmyra. Gibbon.

Longinus.

Aurelian had no sooner secured the person and provinces of Tetricus, than he turned his arms against Zenobia, the celebrated queen of Palmyra and the East. Modern Europe has produced several illustrious women who have sustained with glory the weight of empire, nor is our own age destitute of such distinguished characters. But Zenobia is perhaps the only female, whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by the climate and manners of Asia. She claimed her descent from the Macedonian kings of Egypt, equalled in beauty her ancestor Cleopatra, and far surpassed that princess in chastity and valour. Zenobia was esteemed the most lovely, as well as the most heroic of her sex. She was of a dark complexion (for in speaking of a lady these trifles become important). Her teeth were of a pearly whiteness, and her large black eyes sparkled with uncommon fire, tempered by the most attractive sweetness. Her voice was strong and harmonious. Her manly understanding was strengthened and adorned by study. She was not ignorant of the Latin tongue, but possessed in equal perfection the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages. She had drawn up for her own use an epitome of oriental history, and familiarly compared the beauties of Homer and Plato, under the tuition of the sublime Longinus. Gibbon.

If we add to this her uncommon strength, and consider her excessive military fatigues, for she used no carriage, generally rode, and often marched on foot three or four miles with her army; and if we at the same time suppose her haranguing her soldiers, which she used to do in a helmet, and often with her arms bare, it will give us an idea of that severe character of masculine beauty, which puts one more in mind of Minerva than Venus. Wood.

Zenobia's general.

The following is the letter of Aurelian above alluded to:

... Aurelianus Augustus Ceionio Basso: Non oportet ulterius progredi militum gladios, jam satis Palmyrenorum cæsum atque occisum est. Mulieribus non pepercimus, infantes occidimus, senes jugulavimus, rusticos interemimus, cui terras, cui urbem, deinceps relinquemus? Parcendum est iis qui remanserunt. Credimus enim paucos tam multorum suppliciis esse correctos. Templum sanè solis, quod apud Palmyram aquilifer legionis tertiæ cum vexilliferis et draconario cornicinibus atque liticinibus diripuerunt, ad eam formam volo, quæ fuit, reddi. Habes trecentas auri libras Zenobiæ capsulis: habes argenti mille octingenta pondo e Palmyrenorum bonis: habes gemmas regias. Ex his omnibus fac cohonestari templum: mihi et diis immortalibus gratissimum feceris. Ego ad Senatum scribam, petens ut mittet pontificem, qui dedicet templum.

Architecture more especially lavished her ornaments, and displayed her magnificence, in the temple of the sun, the tutelar deity of Palmyra. The square court which enclosed it was six hundred and seventy-nine feet each way, and a double range of columns extended all round the inside. In the middle of the vacant space, the temple presents another front of forty-seven feet by one hundred and twenty-four in depth, and around it runs a peristyle of one hundred and forty columns. Volney.

Balbec, the Heliopolis of the Greeks and Romans.

Let clouds rest on the hills, spirits fly, and travellers fear. Let the winds of the woods arise, the sounding storms descend. Roar streams, and windows flap, and green-winged meteors fly; rise the pale moon from behind her hills, or enclose her head in clouds; night is alike to me, blue, stormy, or gloomy the sky. Night flies before the beam, when it is poured on the hill. The young day returns from his clouds, but we return no more.

Where are our chiefs of old? Where our kings of mighty name? The fields of their battles are silent; scarce their mossy tombs remain. We shall also be forgotten. This lofty house shall fall. Our sons shall not behold the ruins in grass. They shall ask of the aged, “Where stood the walls of our fathers?”—See the beautiful little poem of The Bards in the notes on Ossian's Croma.

Raise, ye bards, said the mighty Fingal, the praise of unhappy Moina. Call her ghost, with your songs, to our hills; that she may rest with the fair of Morven, the sun-beams of other days, and the delight of heroes of old. I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they were desolate. The fire had resounded in the halls: the voice of the people was heard no more. The stream of Clutha was removed from its place, by the fall of the walls. The thistle shook, there, its lonely head: the moss whistled to the wind. The fox looked out from the windows, the rank grass of the wall waved round his head. Desolate is the dwelling of Moina, silence is in the house of her fathers. Raise the song of mourning, oh bards, over the land of strangers. They have but fallen before us: for, one day, we must fall. Why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days? Thou lookest from thy towers to-day; yet a few years, and the blast of the desert comes; it howls in thy empty court, and whistles round thy half-worn shield. Ossian.

The tutelary spirits, that formerly animated the scenes of nature, still continue to adorn the visions of poetry; though they are now felt only as the creatures of imagination, and no longer possess that influence of real existence, which must have imparted many enviable sensations to the mind of the ancient polytheist.

Of all these fabulous beings, the Genii and Nymphs of rivers and fountains received the largest portion of human adoration. In them, an enthusiastic fancy readily discerned the agency of powerful and benevolent spirits, diffusing wealth and fertility over the countries they adorned.—“Rivers are worshipped,” says Maximus Tyrius (Dissertatio VIII. Ει θεοις αγαλματα ιδρυτεον,) “on account of their utility, as the Nile by the Egyptians; or of their beauty, as the Peneus by the Thessalians; or of their magnitude, as the Danube by the Scythians; or of mythological traditions, as the Achelous by the Ætolians; or of particular laws, as the Eurotas by the Spartans; or of religious institutions, as the Ilissus by the Athenians.”—

These local divinities are the soul of classical landscape; and their altars, by the side of every fountain, and in the shade of every grove, are its most interesting and characteristic feature. From innumerable passages that might be cited on this subject, it will be sufficient to call to mind that beautiful description of Homer:

The propriety of this epithet may be questioned. “The vale of Tempe,” says Dr. Gillies, “is adorned by the hand of nature with every object that can gratify the senses or delight the fancy. The gently-flowing Peneus intersects the middle of the plain. Its waters are increased by perennial cascades from the green mountains, and thus rendered of sufficient depth for vessels of considerable burthen. The rocks are every where planted with vines and olives; and the banks of the river, and even the river itself, are overshadowed with lofty forest-trees, which defend those who sail upon it from the sun's meridian ardor.”—He adds in a note: “I know not why Ovid says, Penëus ab imo effusus Pindo spumosis volvitur undis. Ælian, from whom the description in the text is taken, says, that the Peneus flows Δικην ελαιου, smooth as oil.”

Livy's description, which seems to have escaped Dr. G., is singularly contradictory.—Sunt enim Tempe, saltus, etiam si non bello fiat, infestus, transitu difficilis: nam præter angustias per quinque millia, qua exiguum jumento onusto iter est, rupes utrimque ita abscissæ sunt, ut despici vix sine vertigine quadam simul oculorum animique possit. Terret et sonitus et altitudo per mediam vallem fluentis Penei amnis.

The sonitus coincides with the description of Ovid, the altitudo with that of Ælian. It is difficult to reconcile the terms with each other: since altissima quæque flumina minimo sono labuntur.—We may suppose, that the Peneus is a torrent in the upper part of the vale, and gains a smoother course as it proceeds.

Moschus.

Bruce penetrated to the source of the eastern branch of the Nile: that of the western, which is the principal branch, has never yet been visited by any European.

The existence of this forest is attested by Fitzstephen. Some vestiges of it remained in the reign of Henry the Second.

“Amongst our Britons,” says Mr Baxter, as quoted by Mr Davies, Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, p. 617, “even of the present day, Andras is a popular name of the goddess Malen, or the lady, whom the vulgar call Y Vall, that is, Fauna Fatua, and Mam y Drwg, the Devil's dam, or Y Wrach, the old hag. . . . Some regarded her as a flying spectre. . . . That name corresponded not only with Hecate, Bellona, and Enyo, but also with Bona Dea, the great mother of the gods, and the terrestrial Venus. . . . In the fables of the populace, she is styled Y Vad Ddu Hyll, that is, Bona Furva Effera, and on the other hand, Y Vad Velen, that is, Helena, or Bona Flava. . . . Agreeably to an ancient rite, the old Britons cruelly offered human sacrifices to this Andrasta: whence, as Dion relates, our amazon, Vondicca (Boadicea) invoked her with imprecations, previous to her engagement with the Romans. The memory of this goddess, or fury, remains to the present day; for men in a passion growl at each other, Mae rhyw Andras arnochwi: Some Andrasta possesses you.”

Horatius.

The Thames rises in a field called Trewsbury Mead, near the villages of Tarlton and Kemble, in Gloucestershire.

“Whence is the stream of years? whither do they roll along? where have they hid, in mist, their many-colored sides?” Ossian.

Horatius.

Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford and Duke of Ireland, the favorite of Richard the Second, was defeated in the vicinity of Radcote by the Earl of Derby, in the year 1387, and escaped by swimming with his horse across the river.

A small chapel, and a wall, enclosing an ample space, are all now remaining of Godstow Nunnery. A hazel grows near the chapel, the fruit of which is always apparently perfect, but is invariably found to be hollow.

This nunnery derives its chief interest from having been the burial-place of the beautiful Rosamond, who appears, after her death, to have been regarded as a saint.

Dante.

The red cliffs of the isle of Sheppy.

Sanazzaro, in his poem De partu Virginis, has a fine passage on the fallen state of Carthage, which Tasso has imitated in the Gerusalemme Liberata:

This is the favorite argument of the Epicurean poets. Anacreon, Horace, and Menzini, have given it a thousand exquisite turns: but it has never been expressed with more grace and vivacity, than by Redi, in the opening of his incomparable dithyrambic.

I may, perhaps, gratify the English reader, by subjoining a translation of this passage.