According to old legends, which are always fond of embellishment, this star was an eagle flying and beating the air with his wings, and had within it the form and likeness of a young child, and above him the sign of a cross. D’Israeli mentions some rays of this star, in a collection of relics. There are numerous histories of the magi or kings themselves, all agreeing as to their number having been three, but some of them differing entirely in name. We may, however, consider Melchior, Jasper, and Balthasar, to be the genuine ones, and certainly more euphonious than Galagalath, Magalath, and Tharath; but even the legends that agree in the names, differ in the description of their persons, or in the appropriation of the presents given by them; but as Bede, in the seventh century, was the first writer in this country who has given a description of them, which he, no doubt, took from some earlier account, we may adopt, in the main, his history. According to this, Melchior was old, with gray hair and long beard, and offered gold to our Saviour in acknowledgment of his sovereignty; Jasper was young, without any beard, and offered frankincense in recognition of the divinity; and Balthasar was of a dark complexion, as a Moor, with a large spreading beard, and offered myrrh to our Saviour’s humanity; or as one of my family, Sandys the traveller, translates the description from ‘Festa Anglo-Romana,’— “Three kings the King of kings three gifts did bring, Myrrh, incense, gold, as to man, God, a king. Three holy gifts be likewise given by thee To Christ, even such as acceptable be For myrrha tears; for frankincense impart Submissive prayers; for pure gold a pure heart.” Many of the ancient ecclesiastical writers endeavoured to find out mystical meanings in every sacred subject, in which, however, they have followers in the present day; so that the variety in appearance of the Three Kings may be supposed to have some reference to the three races of man, where, according to the Armenian tradition, Shem had the region of the tawny, Japhet that of the ruddy, and Ham that of the blacks.