The Phoenix. 
467 
Two sparkling eyes : upon her crown, a crest 
Of starrie sprigs (more splendid than the rest) 
A golden doun about her dainty neck, 
Her brest deep purple, and a scarlet back, 
Her wings and train of feathers (mixed fine) 
Of orient azure and incarnadine.” 
(Page 44.) 
The origin of the phoenix fiction has been traced by 
some writers to Herodotus, but that author in his turn 
acknowledges that he knows nothing of the bird, but 
only writes from report or from pictures. An ingenious 
explanation has been given of the myth of the revival of 
the expiring bird from the burning ashes. In Eastern 
countries sacrifices were frequently offered in the open 
air, and cremation was also practised. Vultures and 
other birds of prey, too impatient to wait for the fire to 
subside, may occasionally have flown off with pieces of 
smoking flesh, and have either perished on the funeral 
pile or have set fire to their own nests. There may 
have been some connexion between the supposed ascen¬ 
sion of the purified spirit from the flames and the forms 
of the birds which hovered round the corpse, albeit 
the motive of the latter in their attentions was purely 
carnal. 
Lyly informs us that 44 feathers appeare not on the 
phoenix under seven months” (Prologue to Campaspe). 
But as time appears to have been of little value to this 
bird, perhaps the delay thus occasioned in its path to 
perfection was not of much consequence. 
We learn from Eynes Moryson’s History of Ireland 
(book i. part 2, ch. i.) that in the sixteenth century the 
pope supported the Earl of Tyrone, who was then engaged 
in conflict with the English, and by way of encourage¬ 
ment presented him with a crown of phoenix feathers, 
44 perhaps in imitation of Pope Urban the Third, who sent 
John, the sonne of King Henry the Second, then made 
Lord of Ireland, a little crowne woven of peacocks 
