(See a paper by Professor E. R. Cowell, LL.D., in the “Journal of Philology,” 1876, vol. vi. pp. 222-231.) This legend also exists in Telugu, under the title of “Sananda Charitra,” of which the outline is given in Taylor’s “Catalogue Raisonne of Oriental MSS. in the Government Library, Madras,” vol. ii. p. 643:  Sananda, the son of Purna Vitta and Bhadra Datta, heard from munis accounts of the pains of the wicked, and wishing to see for himself, went to Yama-puri.  His coming had been announced by Narada.  Yama showed the stranger the different lots of mankind in a future state, in details.  Sananda was touched with compassion for the miseries that he witnessed, and by the use of the five and six lettered spells he delivered those imprisoned souls and took them with him to Kailasa.  Yama went to Siva and complained, but Siva civilly dismissed the appeal.—­Under the title of “The Harrowing of Hell,” the apocryphal Christian legend was the theme of a Miracle Play in England during the Middle Ages, and indeed it seems to have been, in different forms, a popular favourite throughout Europe.  Thus in a German tale Strong Hans goes to the Devil in hell and wants to serve him, and sees the pains in which souls are imprisoned standing beside the fire.  Full of pity, he lifts up the lids and sets the souls free, on which the Devil at once drives him away.  A somewhat similar notion occurs in an Icelandic tale of the Sin Sacks, in Powell and Magnusson’s collection (second series, p. 48).  And in T. Crofton Croker’s “Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland,” ed. 1828, Part. ii. p. 30 ff., we read of Soul Cages at the bottom of the sea, containing the spirits of drowned sailors, which the bold hero Jack Docherty set free.

[FN#413] The Rabbins relate that among the Queen of Sheba’s tests of Solomon’s sagacity she brought before him a number of boys and girls apparelled all alike, and desired him to distinguish those of one sex from those of the other, as they stood in his presence.  Solomon caused a large basin of water to be fetched in, and ordered them all to wash their hands.  By this expedient he discovered the boys from the girls, since the former washed merely their hands, while the latter washed also their arms.

[FN#414] Dr. W. Grimm, in the notes to his “Kinder und Hausm„rchen,” referring to the German form of the story (which we shall come to by and-by), says, “The Parrot, which is the fourth story in the Persian Touti Nameh, bears some resemblance to this”—­the Parrot is the reciter of all the stories in the collection, not the title of this particular tale.

[FN#415] To Sir Richard Burton’s interesting note on the antiquity of the lens and its applied use to the telescope and microscope may be added a passage or two from Sir William Drummond’s “Origines; or, Remarks on the Origin of several Empires, States, and Cities,” 1825, vol. ii. pp. 246-250.  This writer appears to think that telescopes were not unknown to the ancients and adduces plausible