222 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
of Adrian, emperor of Rome, after the death of his 
favourite Antinous, endeavoured to persuade him that 
the young man was metamorphosed into a lotos flower ; 
but the emperor created a temple to his memory, and 
wished it to be believed that he had been changed into 
a constellation. The plant is poetically described in the 
“Heetopades,” as “ The cooling flower, which is oppressed 
by the appearance of day, and afraid of the stars ;” *—in 
allusion to the circumstances of its spreading its flowers 
only in the night. There is a beautiful passage in the 
“ Sacontala ” in reference to the palmistry of the Brah¬ 
min priests. “What!” exclaims a prophetic Brahmin, 
“ the very palm of his hand bears the mark of empire, 
and, while he thus eagerly extends it, shows its lines 
of exquisite net-work, and grows like a lotos expanded at 
early dawn, when the ruddy splendour of its petals hides 
all other tints in obscurity.” f 
“ This is the sublime, the hallowed symbol, that eter¬ 
nally occurs in Oriental mythology; and in truth, not 
without substantial reason, for it is itself a lovely pro¬ 
digy; it contains a treasure of physical instruction, and 
affords to the enraptured botanist exhaustless matter 
of amusement and contemplation. No wonder, there¬ 
fore, that the philosophizing sons of Mizriam adorned 
their majestic structures with the spreading tendrils of 
this vegetable, and made the ample expanding vase 
that crowns its lofty stem the capital of the most beau¬ 
tiful columns.” J 
The onion was held in similar esteem as a religious 
* “Heetopades,” p. 282. + “ Sacontala,” p. 89. 
J “Maurice’s Indian Antiquities,” p. 527. 
