64 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



and gewgaws, Middleton " could not help recollect- 

 ing the picture which old Homer draws of Q. Hecuba 

 of Troy, prostrating herself before the miraculous 

 Image of Pallas," while his wonder at the Loretto 

 image of the " Queen of Heaven " with " a face as 

 black as a Negus " reminds him of the reference in 

 Baruch to the idols black with the " perpetual smoak 

 of lamps and incense.'' In his Hibbert Lectures Pro- 

 fessor Rhys refers to churches dedicated to Notre 

 Dame in virtue of legends of discovery of images of 

 the Virgin on the spot. These were usually of wood, 

 which had turned black in the soil. Such a black 

 " Madonna " was found near Grenoble, in the com- 

 mune of La Zouche. Then, in the titles of the new 

 deities, Middleton correctly sees those of the old. 

 The Queen of Heaven reminds him of Astarte or 

 Mylitta; the Divine Mother of the Magna Mater, 

 the " great mother " of Oriental cults. In other at- 

 tributes of Mary, lineal descendant of Isis, there sur- 

 vive those of Venus, Lucina, Cybele, or Maria. He 

 gives amusing examples of myths and misreadings 

 through which certain " saints " have a place in the 

 Roman Calendar. He apparently knew nothing of the 

 strange confusion by which Buddha appears therein 

 under the title of Saint Josaphat; but he tells how, by 

 misinterpretation of a boundary stone, ProefectusVia- 

 rum, an overseer of highways, became S. Viar; how 

 S. Veronica secured canonization through a blunder 

 over the words Vera Icon : still more droll, how hagi- 

 ology includes both a mountain and a mantle ! 



