which the descriptions bear the most unequivocal marks; as in almost all of them we merely see the different parts of known animals, united by an unbridled imagination and in contradiction to every established law of nature. Learned men may attempt to decipher the mystic knowledge connected under the form of the Sphinx of Thebes, the Pegasus of Thessaly, the Minotaur of Crete, or the Chimæra of Epirus; but it would be folly seriously to expect to find such monsters in nature. We might as well endeavour to find the animals of Daniel, or the beasts of the Apocalypse, in some hitherto unexplored recesses of the globe. Neither can we look for the mythological animals of the Persians,-such as the Martichore, or destroyer of men, having a head on the body of a lion and the tail of a scorpion; the Griffin, or guardian of hidden treasures, half-eagle and half-lion; or the Cartazonon, or wild ass, armed with a long horn on its forehead. Ctesias, who reports these as actual living animals, has been looked upon by some as an inventor of fables; whereas he only attributes real existence to hieroglyphical representations. The fables of men with tails, the natural apron of the Hottentot women, of the supposed natural deficiency of beard in the Americans, together with syrens, centaurs, &c. can only be excused by the simple easy credulity of our ancestors. The fables of pigmies may have been credited through the custom of exhibiting in the same sculpture, in bas-relief, men of very different heights; of making kings and conquerors gigantic, while their subjects and vassals are represented as only a fourth or fifth part of their size. THE SPHINX. The wide diffusion of this mystical figure seems to indicate that it had some more profound and general signification than the overflow of the Nile. Modern writers mostly reject this interpretation, even in Egypt, and consider it emblematic of the kingly power. Layard, in his first work on Nineveh, suggests that it was more probably an emblem of the Supreme Deity. It is an error to say that the Egyptian Sphinx combined the head of a virgin with the body of a lion. This was the later Greek sphinx, after the primitive idea of its mystical meaning had been lost. "The Egyptian sphinx was invariably male," and united the body of a lion with the head of a man, surmounted by a serpent (Wilkinson's Ancient Egypt, 2d series, vol. i. p. 146; and Faber's Mysteries of the Cabiri, vol. i. p. 209). This triformed monster occurs in many other countries besides Egypt, viz. in Assyria, with the head of a man, the body of a lion or bull, and the wings of a bird or of a seraph--the flyingserpent. In Persia and Etruria the same (Chardin's Travels, and Dennis's Etruria, vol. i. p. 51). In Lycia, as the woman, lioness, and seraph (Fellowes's Lycia, and sculptures in the Lycian room in the British Museum). It also occurs among ancient Chinese religious emblems (Kaempfer's Japan, vol. i. p. 182); likewise in India (Maurice's Indian Antiquities, vol. iv. p. 750); and may be seen in the paintings of the ancient Mexicans. Its invariable triple form exhibits the primitive idea of the threefold nature of the Godhead-an idea whose universal diffusion indicates an origin of the most remote (probably antediluvian) antiquity. The globe with wings and serpents, also very widely diffused, seems to represent the same idea, and to be only a variation of the symbolic figure. SECRET OF THE ALCHEMISTS. The pretended secret of the Alchemists was their transmutation of the baser metals into gold, which they occasionally exhibited to keep the dupes who supplied them with money in good spirits. This they performed in various ways. Sometimes they made use of crucibles with a false bottom: at the real bottom they put a quantity of gold or silver, which was covered by powdered crucible, mixed with gum or wax; then the material being put into a crucible, and the heat applied, the false bottom disappeared; and at the end of the process the gold or silver was found at the bottom of the crucible. Sometimes they made a hole in a piece of charcoal, filled it with oxide of gold or silver, and stopped up the hole with wax; or they stirred the mixture in the crucible with hollow rods, containing oxide of gold or silver within, and the end closed with wax. By these means the gold or silver wanted was introduced during the operation, and considered as its product. Sometimes they used solutions of silver in nitric acid, or of gold in aqua-regia, or of amalgam of gold or silver; which, being adroitly introduced, furnished the desired quantity of metal. A common exhibition was to dip nails into a liquid, and take them out half-converted into gold; these nails were one-half gold and one-half iron, and the gold was covered with something to conceal its colour which the liquid was capable of removing. Sometimes they used metallic rods, one-half gold and the other silver; the gold was whitened with mercury, and being dipped into the transmuting liquid and heated, the mercury was dissipated and the gold appeared. Lord Bacon compares the Alchemists to the young men who carefully digged and re-digged their father's field in search of a treasure which they never found; but whose labour was amply repaid by the fertility imparted to the soil which they turned up with other intentions. Domestic Manners. SPINSTER. FOR the first time in the annals of archæology, the early implements of spinning and weaving were met with in the graves of the Alemanni, at Oberflacht, in Suabia, discovered in 1846. Among these were found spindle-pins; but the distaff did not appear. Here were also the perforated rounds of stone, which were probably affixed to the ends of the spindles to cause them to revolve more rapidly by their weight, obedient to the twirl of the industrious housewife. This manual operation, so indispensable in early times, furnished the jurisprudence of Germany and England with a term to distinguish the female-line, fusus; and a memento of its former importance still remains in the appellation of spinster. Alfred, in his will, speaks of his male and female descendants by the terms of the spear-side and spindle-side; and the German jurisprudents still divide families into male and female by the titles of schwertmagen, sword-members, and spill or spindelmagen, spindle-members. Hence spears in graves are as significant as spindles and spindle-heads. The term spinster, in law, is the common title by which a woman without rank or distinction is designated; or the general term for a girl or maiden woman. "If a gentlewoman be termed spinster, she may abate the writ."-Lord Coke. GOSSIPS. Gossip is from the Anglo-Saxon God-sibbe, "cognatus in Deo." Our Christian ancestors, understanding a spiritual affinity to grow between the parents and such as undertooke for the child at baptism, called each other by the name of God-sib, that is, kin through God; and the child, in like manner, called such his godfathers and godmothers.-Verstegan. LOVERS' PRESENTS. A Ms. in the Harleian Library states: By the civil law, whatever is given, exponsalitia largitate, betwixt them that are promised in marriage, hath a condition (for the most part silent) that it may be had again if marriage ensue not. How ever, this extends only to gloves, rings, bracelets, and such-like small wares. THE TRUE LOVE-KNOT. This emblem is named from the Danish trulofa, fidem do (Lat.), I plight my troth or faith;' a knot among the northern nations being the symbol of love, faith, and friendship, pointing out the indissoluble tie of affection and duty. Sir Thomas Browne, with his usual erudition, says: "The true lover's knot had perhaps its origin from nodus Herculanus, or that which was called after Hercules; his knot resembling the snaky complication in the caduceus, or rod of Hermes, and in which form the zone or woollen girdle of the bride was fastened, as Turnebus observes in his Adversaria. Hence evidently the bride-favours or top-knots at marriages, which were formerly of various colours." MARRIAGE IN THE CHURCH-PORCH. By an old law, before the face of, and at the door of, the church, could the marriage-dower be legally assigned. Chaucer alludes to this custom in his Wife of Bath: "She was a worthy woman all her live, Husbands at the church-dore had she five." THE BRIDE'S VEIL originated in the Anglo-Saxon custom of performing the nuptial ceremony under a square piece of cloth, held at each corner by a tall man over the bridegroom and the bride to conceal her virgin blushes; but if the bride was a widow, the veil was dispensed with. THE BRIDE-CAKE originated in confarreation, or a token of the most firm conjunction between man and wife, with a cake of wheat or barley, from far (Latin), bread or corn. Dr. Moffat tells us that “the English, when the bride comes from church, are wont to cast wheat upon her head." Herrick says, speaking to the bride : "While some repeat Your praise, and bless you, sprinkling you with wheat." In Yorkshire the bride-cake is cut into little square pieces, thrown over the bride and bridegroom's head, then put through the ring nine times, and afterwards laid under pillows at night, to cause young persons to dream of their lovers. ROSEMARY AT WEDDINGS. Rosemary was anciently thought to strengthen the memory. For weddings it was gilded and dipped in scented water. În a curious wedding-sermon (for such were formerly common), by Dr. Hacket, dated 1607, the use of this plant at weddings is thus set forth: "Rosmarinus, the rosemary, is for married men; the which, by name, nature, and continued use, man challengeth as property belonging to himself. It overtoppeth all the flowers in the garden, boasting man's rule. It helpeth the braine, strengtheneth the memorie, and is very medicinable for the head. Ánother property of the rosemary is, it affects the hart. Let this Ros Marinus, this Flower of Men, ensigne of your wisdom, love, and loyaltie, be carried not only in your hands, but in your heads and harts." Dekker thus touchingly alludes to the twofold uses of rosemary, when speaking of a bride who died of the plague on her wedding-day: "Here is a strange alteration for the rosemary that was washt in sweet water to set out the bridall, is now wet in teares to furnish her buriall." Brand tells us that, so late as 1698, the old country use was kept up of decking the bridal-bed with sprigs of rosemary. Rosemary was also common at funerals: "To show their love, the neighbours far and near Followed, with wistful look, the damsel's bier; 66 While dismally the parson walk'd before."-Dirge by Gay. Misson, in his Travels in England, says: When the funeral procession is ready to set out, a servant presents the company with sprigs of rosemary; every one takes a sprig, and carries it in his hand till the body is put into the grave, at which time they all throw in their sprigs after it." ORANGE-BLOSSOMS WORN AT WEDDINGS. The use of these flowers at bridals is said to have been derived from the Saracens, or at least from the East, and they are believed to have been thus employed as emblems of fecundity. THE WEDDING-RING. The supposed heathen origin of our Marriage Ring had wellnigh caused the abolition of it during the Commonwealth by the Puritans: "Others were for abolishing That tool of matrimony, a ring, With which th' unsanctify'd bridegroom Is married only to a thumb (As wise as ringing of a pig, That us'd to break up ground and dig); The bride, to nothing but her will, That nulls the after-marriage still."-Hudibras. MARRIAGE OF COUSINS. There is a popular notion extant that first Cousins may marry, and second Cousins not; and that second Cousins can |