the women hid what they had within their hands, their hair was torn for so doing;" children were lifted up and dashed upon the floor, to make them forego the morsels which they were eating, and to which they clung with the pertinacity of famine. Some, who crept out into the valleys to pick up wild herbs and roots, or to glean garbage from the verge of the camp, were watched as they came back, and robbed of the sordid spoil. Many sold all their property for a single measure of corn, then shutting themselves into a closet would eat the whole at

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a meal, and die. Every kind feeling,-love, respect, natural affection,-was extinct through the all-absorbing want. Wives would snatch the last morsel from their husbands, children from parents, mothers from children; they would intercept even their own milk from the lips of their pining babes."

Those who were in the enjoyment of any degree of opulence or dignity were the prey of Simon and John: it was enough to accuse them of intending to desert, when they were instantly slain and their property confiscated. The factious captains affected a sort of courtesy in their abominations; he who had been plundered by John being handed over to Simon, and the contrary. They emulated each other in wickedness, and the one would think himself aggrieved if the other surpassed him in any barbarity. The historian delivers it as his solemn verdict," that neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the beginning of the world."

The circumstance of the poor starved wretches creeping forth to gather food, having been reported to Titus, he set ambushes to capture them. Five hundred in a day, and sometimes more, were thus taken, who, with horrible cruelty, were scourged and otherwise tortured, and then crucified in front of the walls. The merciless soldiery even amused themselves by nailing these miserable beings to the crosses in various contorted postures. At length the multitude of those so treated became so great, that " room was wanting for the crosses, and crosses wanting for the persons.' How awful a retribution on that sinful Jerusalem, whose maddened multitudes only seven-and-thirty years before, had been "instant with loud voices, requiring that the Holy One of God should be crucified!" Perhaps among the number thus treated, were some of the very individuals who had then headed the crowds; from whose furious lips had burst forth the cry, "Away with him away with him! Crucify him! crucify him!"

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SIEGE (continued).

A.D. 70.

"A voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled! we

are greatly confounded,

and is entered into our palaces, to the young men from the streets!"

for death is come up into our windows, cut off the children from without, and Jer. ix. 19-21.

Ir was about the end of the month Jyar, when, after seventeen days of hard labour, the Roman embankments were completed. Four enormous banks now frowned upon the city, two near the Antonia, and two others near the High Priest's monument, facing the wall of Zion. But, meanwhile, another

work had been going on from within, of which the assailants little dreamed. For John had excavated a mine beneath the wall of the Antonia, extending it under the banks of that quarter; as his work proceeded, he had supported the ground with beams and uprights, and filled the cavity with faggots besmeared with pitch and sulphur; and now, when the Romans were congratulating themselves on the success of their labours, and trusting that as soon as the engines were brought up, the wall must give way, the Jewish chieftain set fire to his mine. The beams were soon burnt through, and the whole

embankments suddenly fell in with a prodigious noise. The volumes of smoke and dust that arose, for a few minutes concealed the character as well as the extent of the mischief; but the huge mass of flame that presently broke out, as the new materials descended into the fiery cavity, seemed to the astonished Romans the funeral pyre of their fond hopes.

The other two banks were protected by the peculiarities of their situation from a similar stratagem, and on these the military engines were planted, and already began to shake the wall with their heavy blows. But three heroic Jews, each bearing a torch, suddenly rushed out, and breaking through the midst of the enemy, regardless of the javelins that were hurled at them in showers, set fire to these machines. The Romans came thronging to save their engines, but were met by fresh bodies of elated antagonists from the walls. The battle raged fiercely around the flaming engines; the Romans endeavouring to drag them out of the fire, while the gallant Jews held them fast, nor would the heroic Three relinquish their hold of the great battering-ram, though it was now encompassed with flame, and though the iron was become red-hot. Meanwhile the fire had caught hold of the embankments themselves, and was raging with a fury that soon decided the fate of these no less certainly than that of their fellows. The Romans saw the mighty works, which they had constructed with weeks of weary labour, demolished by three famished Jews in an hour; and, depressed and crest

fallen, retired sullenly to their camp. But the Jews, rejoicing in their glorious success, came pouring down from the heights of Zion with an impetuosity that nothing could resist, and actually proceeded so far as to attack the fortifications of the enemy's camp, slaying the guards, who dared not desert their posts, and spreading panic through the host. Titus, who had been at the Antonia, seeking a place for the erection of new embankments, arrived at this crisis, and found his army besieged, and almost taken. Not a moment was to be lost: wheeling round with some chosen troops, he fell upon the flank of the Jews, and prevented the arrival of fresh multitudes from the city. The latter, however, did not flinch, but facing round continued the battle, both in front and rear, with unabated valour and constancy. Having fully succeeded in demolishing the threatening works of the enemy, and spread terror through his camp, they at length made good their retreat within their walls.

Disappointed and baffled, Titus called a council of war to deliberate on measures now to be adopted; when it was determined to build a wall round the whole city, thus cutting off the possibility of its obtaining even the smallest succours from without, and rendering comparatively powerless the impetuous sallies of the garrison from within. To determine was to act; and so energetically did the legions labour at this work, that in three days it was completed, and Jerusalem saw herself inclosed by a wall of five miles in length, bristling with fortress-towers, like a huge serpent that had wound his fatal coil