’Nititur in pondus palma, et consurgit in altum: 
    Quoque magis premitur, hoc mage tollit onus.’”

It is in the eighth book of his Symposia that Plutarch states this peculiar property of the palm to resist the oppression of any superincumbent weight, and to rise up against it, whence it was adopted as the symbol of victory.  Cowley also alludes to it in his Davideis.

    “Well did he know how palms by oppression speed
    Victorious, and the victor’s sacred meed.”

[190] “Rosemary was anciently supposed to strengthen the memory, and was not only carried at funerals, but worn at weddings.”—­STEEVENS, Notes on Hamlet, a. iv. s. 5.—­Douce (Illustrations of Shakspeare, i. 345) gives the following old song in reference to this subject:—­

    “Rosemarie is for remembrance
      Betweene us daie and night,
    Wishing that I might always have
      You present in my sight.”

[191] Ste. Croix (Recherches sur les Mysteres, i. 56) says that in the Samothracian Mysteries it was forbidden to put parsley on the table, because, according to the mystagogues, it had been produced by the blood of Cadmillus, slain by his brothers.

[192] “The Hindoos,” says Faber, “represent their mundane lotus, as having four large leaves and four small leaves placed alternately, while from the centre of the flower rises a protuberance.  Now, the circular cup formed by the eight leaves they deem a symbol of the earth, floating on the surface of the ocean, and consisting of four large continents and four intermediate smaller islands; while the centrical protuberance is viewed by them as representing their sacred Mount Menu.”—­Communication to Gent.  Mag. vol. lxxxvi. p. 408.

[193] The erica arborea or tree heath.

[194] Ragon thus alludes to this mystical event:  “Isis found the body of Osiris in the neighborhood of Biblos, and near a tall plant called the erica.  Oppressed with grief, she seated herself on the margin of a fountain, whose waters issued from a rock.  This rock is the small hill mentioned in the ritual; the erica has been replaced by the acacia, and the grief of Isis has been changed for that of the fellow crafts.”—­Cours des Initiations, p. 151.

[195] It is singular, and perhaps significant, that the word eriko, in Greek, [Greek:  e)ri/ko], whence erica is probably derived, means to break in pieces, to mangle.

[196] Histoire Pittoresque des Religions, t. i. p. 217.

[197] According to Toland (Works, i. 74), the festival of searching, cutting, and consecrating the mistletoe, took place on the 10th of March, or New Year’s day.  “This,” he says, “is the ceremony to which Virgil alludes, by his golden branch, in the Sixth Book of the AEneid.”  No doubt of it; for all these sacred plants had a common origin in some ancient and general symbolic idea.