Note 115 — NO. XVII.—BABYLON.

Isaiah xiii. 19, 22; xiv. 23, 24.—It has been well observed by Bishop Newton, that it must afford all readers of an exalted taste and generous sentiments, a very sensible pleasure to hear the prophets exulting over such tyrants and oppressors as the kings of Assyria. "In the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah," continues he, "there is an Epinikion, or a triumphant ode upon the fall of Babylon. It represents the infernal mansions as moved, and the ghosts of deceased tyrants as rising to meet the king of Babylon, and congratulate his coming among them."—"It is really admirable for the severest strokes of irony as well as for the sublimest strains of poetry. The Greek poet Alcæus, who is celebrated for his hatred to tyrants, and whose odes were animated with the spirit of liberty no less than with the spirit of poetry, we may presume to say, never wrote any thing comparable to it."