IDENTICAL NOTE, a term in diplomacy to denote terms agreed upon by two Powers to coerce a third.

IDES, the name given in the Roman calendar to certain days that divide the month; in March, May, July, and October they fall on the 15th, in the rest on the 13th.

IDOLATRY, worship paid to a mere symbol of the divine while the heart is dead to all sense of that which it symbolises; a species of offence against the Most High, of which many are flagrantly guilty who affect to regard with pity the worshipper of idols of wood or stone.  “Idolatry,” says Buskin, apropos of Carlyle’s well-known doctrine, “is summed up in the one broad wickedness of refusing to worship Force and resolving to worship No-Force; denying the Almighty, and bowing down to four-and-twopence with a stamp on it.”

IDOMENEUS, king of Crete, grandson of Minos, and a hero of the Greeks in the war with Troy.

IDRIS, a giant, prince, and astronomer of Welsh tradition, whose rock-hewn chair on the summit of Cader Idris was supposed to mete out to the bard who spent a night upon it death, madness, or poetic inspiration.

IDUMAEA.  See EDOM.

IDUNA, a Scandinavian goddess who kept a box of golden apples which the gods tasted when they wished to renew their youth; she was carried off one day, but being sent for by the gods, came back changed into a falcon.

IDYLL, a poem in celebration of everyday life or life in everyday costume amid natural, often pastoral and even romantic, and at times tragic surroundings.

IF, an islet in the Gulf of Marseilles, with a castle built by Francis I., and afterwards used as a State prison.

IGGDRASIL the Tree of Existence, as conceived of by the Norse, and reflecting the Norse idea of the universe, “has its roots deep down in the kingdoms of Hela, or Death; its trunk reaches up heaven-high, and spreads its boughs over the whole universe.  At the foot of it, in the Death-Kingdom, sit the THREE NORNAS (q. v.) watering its roots from the sacred Well.”

IGNATIEFF, NICHOLAS, Russian general and diplomatist, born at St. Petersburg; was ambassador at Pekin in 1859, and at Constantinople in 1864, and secured at both posts important concessions to Russia; he is a zealous Panslavist and Anti-Semite, too much so to carry with him the support of the country; b. 1832.

IGNATIUS, FATHER, the name by which the Rev. Joseph Lyne is known, born in London, educated at St. Paul’s School and Glenalmond; commenced a movement to introduce monasticism into the Church of England, and built a monastery for monks and nuns near Llanthony Abbey, the members of which follow the rule and wear the garb of the Order of St. Benedict; b. 1837.

IGNATIUS, ST., surnamed Theophoros, an Apostolic Father of the Church, Bishop of Antioch; died a martyr at Rome about 115, by exposure to wild beasts, in the amphitheatre; is represented in Christian art as accompanied by lions, or exposed to them chained; left epistles which, if genuine as we have them, establish prelacy as the order of government in the primitive Church, and lay especial stress on the twofold nature of Christ.