furniture, mythological theosophic hints abound: every curve and every figure, every colour and every point, being significant among the Grecian contrivers, and among those from whom they borrowed-the Egyptians. We may

assume that this classic Grecian form of the head-cover or helmet of the Athenian goddess Pallas-Athene, or Minerva, not only originated the well-known Grecian mode of arranging women's hair at the back, but that this style is also the far-off, classic progenitor of its clumsy, inelegant imitation, the modern chignon, which is only an abused copy of the antique. In our deduction (as shown in a previous group of illustrations) of the modern military fur caps-particularly the Grenadier caps of all modern armies, as well as those of other branches of the military service-from that common great original, into which they can be securely traced, the mythic Phrygian cap when red, the Vulcan's pileus when black, we prove the transmission of an inextinguishable important hint in religion.

The following are some of the most significant talismans of the Gnostics:

In fig. 255 we have the representation of the Gnostic Female Power in Nature,-Venus, or Aphrodite, disclosing

VENUS "ATTIRING" OR "ARMING."

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in the beauty, grace, and splendour of the material creation. On the other, or terrible, side of her character, the endowments of Venus, or of the impersonated idea of beauty, change into the alarming; these are the attributes of the

malific feminine elementary genius, born of "darkness" or "matter," whose tremendous countenance, veiled as in the instance of Isis, or masked as in that of the universal mythologic Queen of Beauty, inspires or destroys according to

the angle of contemplation at which she is mythically revealed.

Fig. 256 (A) is the crested "Snake," curved as the symbol of the "Dragon's Tail," traversing from left to right the fields of creation, in which the stars are scattered as "estoiles," or waved serpentining flames,-the mystic

"brood" of the "Great Dragon." The reverse of this amulet (B) presents the "crescent" and "decrescent" moons, placed back to back, with a trace or line, implying that the "Microcosmos," or "Man," is made as between the "Moons." This figure suggests a likeness to the sign of the "Twins," and to that of the February "Fishes."

Fig. 257 is the mythological "Medusa's Head," terrible in her beauty, which transforms the beholder to stone. This direful head is twined around with snakes for hair, and the radii which dart from it are lightning. It is, nevertheless, esteemed one of the most powerful

Fig. 258.

talismans in the Gnostic preservative group, though it expresses nothing (in a strange, contradictory way) but dismay and destruction.

Fig. 258 is referred to in a previous part of our book as fig. 313.

HE natural horns of the Bull or the Cow-both which animals were deified by the Egyptians, and

also by the Indians, who particularly elected the Cow as the object of religious honour-were the models from which originally all the volves and volutes, presenting the figure of curved horns, or the significant suggestion of the thin horns of the crescent or growing moon, were obtained. The representative horns figured largely afterwards in all architecture, and were copied as an important symbol expressive of the second operative power of nature. The Egyptian volutes to the pillars, the Egyptian horns every where apparent, the innumerable spiral radii distinct in all directions, or modified, or interpenetrating the ornamentation of buildings in the East; the Ionic volutes, the Corinthian volutes, which became preeminently pictorial and floral in their treatment in this beautiful order, particularly in the Greek examples (which are, however, very few), the more masculine volves and volutes, or horns, of the Roman solid, majestic columns, the capitals to the ruder and more grotesque of the Indian temples, the fantastic scrolls and crooks abound

ing on the tops of the spiring columns in the Gothic or, more properly to call it, the Romantic architecture called “pointed,”—all have a common ancestor in the horns of the bull, calf, or cow. All these horns are every where devoted in their signification to the Moon. It is in connection with this secondary god or goddess, who is always recognisable through the peculiar appendage of horns,—it is in proximity to this god or goddess, who takes the second place in the general Pantheon, the Sun taking the first,-it is here, in all the illustrations which the mythic theology borrows from architecture, or the science of expressing religious ideas through hieroglyphical forms, that the incoherent horns reiterate, always presenting themselves to recognition, in some form or other, at terminal or at salient points. Thus they become a most important figure, if not the most important figure, in the templar architecture every where,—of India, of Egypt, of Greece, of Rome, even of the Christian periods.

The figure called Nehustan-the mysterious upright set up by Moses in the Wilderness-was a talisman in the form of a serpent coiled around the mystic "Tau." This is a palladium offered for worship, as we have said in several places.

In a previous part of our book, we have brought forward certain reasons for supposing that the origin of the Most Noble Order of the Garter was very different from that usually assigned. The occurrence which gave rise to the formation of the Order, and which explains the adoption of the motto, does not admit of being told, except in far-off, roundabout terms; propriety otherwise would be infringed. We may say no more than that it was a feminine accident, of not quite the character commonly accepted, and not quite so simple as letting fall a garter. But this accident, which brought about the foundation of the exalted Order,—however