The account of the conception and birth of Servius Tullius is curious from its circumstantiality. Ovid tells us, _Fasti_, vi., 625-659, Bonn's translation: "Vulcan was the father of Tullius; Ocrisia was his mother, a woman of Corniculum, remarkable for her beauty. Her, Tanaquil, having duly performed the sacred rites, ordered, in company with herself, to pour some wine on the decorated altar. Here amongst the ashes, either was, or seemed to be, a form of obscene shape; but such it really was. Being ordered to do so, the captive (Ocrisia was a slave), submits to its embraces; conceived by her, Servius had the origin of his birth from heaven. His father afforded a proof, at the time when he touched his head with the gleaming fire, and a flame rising to a point, blazed upon his locks." In some earlier lines, the poet tells us that the goddess, Fortune, was enamoured of this same Roman king, and visited him nightly--much as Venus came to converse with Anchises. In this story, we have an unusual ingredient, inasmuch as there is a witness to that which we may call the immaculate conception, and after birth, a proof of the child's divine origin! Of course there are many irreverent people who declare that the story is untrue--that it is far more likely that the real father was Tarquin, who, finding his consort's beautiful servant to be with child, contrived a plan by which she would escape the vindictiveness of the mistress--one which, if devotionally inclined, she was bound to give credence to. Nor can devout Christians altogether range themselves amongst the unbelievers in the miracle, for the founder of their religion was borne by a woman of low condition, and is said to have been begotten by an overshadowing spirit. He assumed to be a king; but the son of Ocrisia became one in reality, and instituted games in honour of his divine progenitor. For some more modern poetical fictions of the same nature, we may refer our readers to Scott's _Lady of the Lake_, where, in the account of the Highland seer, Brian, they will find a parallel to the story promulgated by Alexander the false prophet, respecting his birth, described by Lucian. The same ideas, with which we are all of us so familiar in Christendom, that they form a portion of the creeds which the orthodox weekly rehearse, have obtained in far Ceylon. Thus, for example, we read in a Buddhistic legend (_Kusa Iatakaya_, translated by T. Steele, Truebner, London, 1871, small 8vo., pp. 260):-- "As Sakra*, with his thousand eyes gazed over every land, The hapless queen, with heart distraught, he saw dejected stand; His godlike eye revealed to him that to her blessed womb Two radiant gods illustrious from Heaven's high town should come.