IVY. 327 



It is recorded that Ptolemy Philopater 

 ordered the figure of a leaf of ivy to be im- 

 printed on the Jews who forsook their religion. 

 When this heathen monarch visited Jerusa- 

 lem, the Jews forcibly prevented his entering 

 their temple ; for which insolence the tyrant 

 determined to extirpate the whole nation, and 

 ordered an immense number of Jews to be 

 exposed in a plain, and trodden under the 

 feet of elephants ; but, by a supernatural 

 instinct, the generous animals turned their 

 fury not on those who had been devoted to 

 death, but upon the Egyptian spectators. This 

 circumstance terrified Philopater, and caused 

 him to behave with more than common kind- 

 ness to a nation that he had so lately devoted 

 to destruction, and on which account, we pre- 

 sume, he upheld their religion. 



It is to be feared that we should be taken 

 for a nation of bacchanalians, were all those 

 who have dissented from the church to dis- 

 tinguish themselves by a sprig of ivy on their 

 forehead. 



We presume that the ancients merely se- 

 lected the ivy, as emblematical of youth and 

 freshness, to represent Bacchus who is thus 

 described by Ovid: 



" Opheltes heard my summons, and with joy 

 Brought to the shore a soft and lovely boy, 



Y 4 



