makes Semiramis as old as the first Belus; but Herodotus tells us, that she was but five Generations older than the mother of Labynetus:  he represents that the city Ninus was founded by a man of the same name, and Babylon by Semiramis; whereas either Nimrod or Assur founded those and other cities, without giving his own name to any of them:  he makes the Assyrian Empire continue about 1360 years, whereas Herodotus tells us that it lasted only 500 years, and the numbers of Herodotus concerning those ancient times are all of them too long:  he makes Nineveh destroyed by the Medes and Babylonians, three hundred years before the Reign of Astibares and Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed it, and sets down the names of seven or eight feigned Kings of Media, between the destruction of Nineveh and the Reigns of Astibares and Nebuchadnezzar, as if the Empire of the Medes, erected upon the ruins of the Assyrian Empire, had lasted 300 years, whereas it lasted but 72:  and the true Empire of the Assyrians described in Scripture, whose Kings were Pul, Tiglath-pilesar, Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, Asserhadon, &c. he mentions not, tho’ much nearer to his own times; which shews that he was ignorant of the antiquities of the Assyrians.  Yet something of truth there is in the bottom of some of his stories, as there uses to be in Romances; as, that Nineveh was destroyed by the Medes and Babylonians; that Sardanapalus was the last King of the Assyrian Empire; and that Astibares and Astyages were Kings of the Medes:  but he has made all things too ancient, and out of vainglory taken too great a liberty in feigning names and stories to please his reader.

When the Jews were newly returned from the Babylonian captivity, they confessed their Sins in this manner, Now therefore our God, ——­ let not all the trouble seem little before thee that hath come upon us, on our Kings, on our Princes, and on our Priests, and on our Prophets, and on our fathers, and on all thy people, since the time of the Kings of Assyria_, unto this day_; Nehem. ix. 32. that is, since the time of the Kingdom of Assyria, or since the rise of that Empire; and therefore the Assyrian Empire arose when the Kings of Assyria began to afflict the inhabitants of Palestine; which was in the days of Pul:  he and his successors afflicted Israel, and conquered the nations round about them; and upon the ruin of many small and ancient Kingdoms erected their Empire, conquering the Medes as well as other nations:  but of these conquests Ctesias knew not a word, no not so much as the names of the conquerors, or that there was an Assyrian Empire then standing; for he supposes that the Medes Reigned at that time, and that the Assyrian Empire was at an end above 250 years before it began.