Of those that began great and ended in a point, there are thousands of examples, for all the Pharaohs and Ptolemies of Egypt, the Caesars of Rome, and the whole herd (if I may such a word to them) of countless princes, monarchs, lords, Medes,
Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and barbarians, all these lineages and lordships have ended in a point and come to nothing, they themselves as well as their founders, for it would be impossible now to find one of their descendants, and, even should we find one, it would be in some lowly and humble condition.
Wars, in ancient time, seemed more to move from east to west; for the Persians,
Assyrians, Arabians, Tartars (which were the invaders) were all eastern people.
Breathing that sea breeze, so much more invigorating and balsamic as the land is approached, contemplating all the power of those preparations she was commissioned to destroy, all the power of that army which she was to combat alone--she, a woman with a few bags of gold--Milady compared herself mentally to Judith, the terrible Jewess, when she penetrated the camp of the
Assyrians and beheld the enormous mass of chariots, horses, men, and arms, which a gesture of her hand was to dissipate like a cloud of smoke.
``Is he not Isaac of York, rich enough to redeem the captivity of the ten tribes of Israel, who were led into
Assyrian bondage?
It may well be conceived, what an unsavory odor such a mass must exhale; worse than an
Assyrian city in the plague, when the living are incompetent to bury the departed.
"The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck" followed; also "The
Assyrian Came Down," and other declama- tory gems.
Whereof hee soon aware, Each perturbation smooth'd with outward calme, Artificer of fraud; and was the first That practisd falshood under saintly shew, Deep malice to conceale, couch't with revenge: Yet not anough had practisd to deceive URIEL once warnd; whose eye pursu'd him down The way he went, and on th'
ASSYRIAN mount Saw him disfigur'd, more then could befall Spirit of happie sort: his gestures fierce He markd and mad demeanour, then alone, As he suppos'd, all unobserv'd, unseen.
He had the face and beard which I associate with an
Assyrian bull; the former florid, the latter so black as almost to have a suspicion of blue, spade-shaped and rippling down over his chest.
And how good it was to turn one's back upon all that vaulted cold, to take Hilda's arm and hurry out of the great door and down the steps into the sunlight among the pigeons--to know that the warm and vital thing within him was still there and had not been snatched away to flush Caesar's lean cheek or to feed the veins of some bearded
Assyrian king.
Yet He at length, time to himself best known, Remembering Abraham, by some wondrous call May bring them back, repentant and sincere, And at their passing cleave the
Assyrian flood, While to their native land with joy they haste, As the Red Sea and Jordan once he cleft, When to the Promised Land their fathers passed.
Blunt moodily, "was written on a half sheet of paper, with his device of an
Assyrian bull at the head.
She repressed her impulse to speak aloud, and rose and wandered about rather aimlessly among the statues until she found herself in another gallery devoted to engraved obelisks and winged
Assyrian bulls, and her emotion took another turn.