investment of nearly forty days, the Holy City was taken by storm on the 15th day of July. Some of the frightful scenes which then ensued I have already had occasion to describe.'

After order was restored and the city purified, one of the first cares of the Christian warriors was to establish churches according to the Latin rites and constitution. It was also not long, before convents of Latin monks and nuns sprung up in Jerusalem and in various parts of the country; and thus the mass of foreign tradition, of which the oriental church had long laid the foundation, was now built up and decorated anew, by the fresher zeal and lore of their western brethren.

The Christians retained possession of Jerusalem for eight and eighty years; until it was again wrested from their hands by Saladin in A. D. 1187. During this long period they appear to have erected several churches and many convents. Of the latter few if any traces remain; of the former, save one or two ruins, the church of the Holy Sepulchre is the only memorial that survives in the Holy City, to attest the power or even the existence of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem. The crusaders found the buildings connected with the Sepulchre as they had been completed in A. D. 1048; a round church with an open dome over the Sepulchre itself, and a small separate chapel covering Calvary and the other sacred places. These edifices were regarded by the crusaders as too contracted; and they accordingly erected over and in connection with them a stately temple, enclosing the whole of the sacred precincts; the walls and general form of which probably remain unto the present day. The grand entrance then, apparently, as now, was

1) See above, Vol. I. p. 441, seq.

from the South.'-To the southward of this church, the site of the hospital or palace of the Knights of St. John continues to this day unoccupied, an open field in the heart of the city; where the foundations and a few broken arches alone remain to testify of its former solidity and splendour.

Of the conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin, the subsequent demolition of the walls, the two successive surrenders of it by treaty to the Christians, and its varying fortunes until it finally reverted to the Muhammedans in A. D. 1244, I have already spoken, in tracing the changes which have taken place in the walls of the city. In that year the forces of the Sultan Nijm ed-Dîn Eyûb of Egypt, the seventh of the Eyubite dynasty established by Saladin, took possession of the Holy City, after the defeat of the combined forces of the Christians and Syrian Muslims at Gaza. From that time onwards Jerusalem appears to have sunk in political and military importance; and its name scarcely occurs in the slight histories we have of the two successive Memlûk dynasties, the Baharites and the Circassians or Borgites, who reigned over Egypt and the greater part of Syria during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.3 In all their wars in Syria, the nature of the country led the great and frequent military expeditions between Egypt and Damascus to take the route along the coast and the adjacent plains; and rarely did a Sultan turn aside to visit the neglected sanctuary in the mountains. The pilgrims and travellers who found their way to Jerusalem

The

1) Will. Tyr. VIII. 3. time when this edifice was erected is not mentioned; but it appears to have been after A. D. 1103; for Saewulf, who visited Jerusalem in that year, speaks only of the former church, which some held to be the work of Justinian! p. 260.

2) See above, Vol. I. p. 469, seq. 3) Deguignes Hist. des Huns, Tom. IV. lib. 21, 22.

4) Two visits of the Borgite Sultan Sheikh Mahmûd or Abu enNusr, are recorded in A. D. 1414 and 1417. Deguignes Hist. des Huns, Tom. IV. pp. 310, 313.

during this long period, make no mention of its immediate masters, nor of any military changes.

In A. D. 1517, Jerusalem with the rest of Syria and Egypt passed under the sway of the Ottoman Sultan Selim I; who paid a hasty visit to the Holy City from Damascus after his return from Egypt.1 From that time until our own days, Palestine and Syria have continued to form part and parcel of the Ottoman empire. During this period Jerusalem has been subjected to few vicissitudes; and its history is barren of incident. Suleimân, the successor of Selim, erected its new walls in A. D. 1542; and so recently as A. D. 1808, the church of the Holy Sepulchre was partially consumed by conflagration. A fire which commenced in the Armenian chapel on the 12th of October, destroyed the great dome, the Greek chapel, and various other parts, as well as many of the marble columns. The edifice was rebuilt by the Greeks; and after twelve months of labour and an enormous expense, was completed in September A. D. 1810. The funds were collected from the contributions of Christians in various countries. The stranger who now visits this imposing temple, remarks no obvious traces of its recent desolation.2

In A. D. 1832, Syria became subject to the dominion of Muhammed Aly, the present Pasha of Egypt; and the Holy City opened its gates to the victor without a siege. During the insurrection in the districts of Jerusalem and Nâbulus in A. D. 1834, the Fellâhîn seized upon Jerusalem, and held possession of it for a time; but under the stern energy of the Egyptian government, order was soon restored, and the

1) v. Hammer Gesch. des Osmanische Reiches Bd. II. S. 526.

2) Turner's Journal of a Tour in the Levant, Vol. II. p. 165. See

also the general account of the fire drawn up in Italian by the Latin monks, Turner ibid. Appendix, p.

597.

Holy City reverted to its allegiance upon the approach of Ibrahim Pasha with his troops."

II. CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.

The circumstances connected with the discovery of the Holy Sepulchre in the fourth century, and the erection of edifices over and around it under the auspices of Constantine and his mother Helena, have already been detailed. In tracing the further history of the city of Jerusalem, we have also noted some of the changes to which this spot has been exposed. Twice, at least, the church of the Holy Sepulchre appears to have been totally destroyed; once in the seventh and again in the eleventh century; besides the various partial desolations to which it has been subjected. After all the preceding details, topographical and historical, we are now prepared to enter upon the discussion of another question of some interest; I mean the genuineness or probable identity of the site thus ascribed to the Holy Sepulchre.

The place of our Lord's crucifixion, as we are expressly informed, was without the gate of the ancient city, and yet nigh to the city. The Sepulchre, we are likewise told, was nigh at hand, in a garden, in the place where Jesus was crucified." It is not therefore without some feeling of wonder, that a stranger, unacquainted with the circumstances, on arriving in Jerusalem at the present day, is pointed to the place of crucifixion and the sepulchre in the midst of the modern city, and both beneath one roof. This latter

1) See the Report of the Rev. Mr. Thomson, etc. Missionary Herald, 1835, PP. 44-51. Marmont's Voyage, etc. Tom. II, III. Mengin's Hist. de l'Egypte, etc. de l' an 1823 à l'an 1838, Paris 1839, p. 73, seq.

2) See above, p. 12, seq. 3) See above, pp. 34, 43, 46. 4) Heb. xiii. 12. John. xix. 20. The same is also implied in John xix. 17. Matt. xxvii. 32. 5) John xix. 41, 42.

fact, however unexpected, might occasion less surprise; for the sepulchre was nigh to Calvary. But beneath the same roof are further shown the stone on which the body of our Lord was anointed for burial, the fissure in the rock, the holes in which the crosses stood, the spot where the true cross was found by Helena, and various other places said to have been connected with the history of the crucifixion; most of which it must have been difficult to identify even after the lapse of only three centuries; and particularly so at the present day, after the desolations and numerous changes which the whole place has undergone.

The difficulty arising from the present location in the heart of the city, has been felt by many pious minds, from the days of St. Willibald and Jacob de Vitry to our own time; but it has usually been evaded, by assuming that the city was greatly enlarged under Adrian towards the North or West; or, sometimes, that the ancient city occupied a different site.1

The first to take an open stand against the identity of these holy places, was Korte the German bookseller, who visited Jerusalem in A. D. 1738, at the same time with Pococke. While the learned Englishman slightly passes over this topic, entering into no discussion and expressing no opinion, the honest simplicity of the unlearned German led him to lay before his countrymen a plain account of the impression made upon his own mind, and his reasons for distrusting the correctness of the common tradition. Unacquainted

1) St. Willibaldi Hodoepor. ed. Mabillon, p. 375. Jac. de Vitriac. Hist. Hieros. c. 60. Will. de Baldensel, ed. Canis. p. 348. Monconys was not satisfied with this solution; Tom. I. p. 307. Quaresmius disposes of the objections of "nonnullos nebulones occidentales haereticos" in a summary way, but

VOL. II.

9

without making any new suggestion, II. p. 515.-The absurd hypothesis of Dr. Clarke, which transports Zion across the Valley of Hinnom, serves as the fit basis of Buckingham's solution; Travels in Pal. pp. 284, 287.

2) Pococke Descr. of the East, Vol. II. p. 15, seq. fol.