A pleasant compliment had been paid, some two hundred years before that time, to another great Queen of Egypt, Berenice, the wife of Ptolemy Euergetes. Euergetes had been called to the wars, and Berenice, who was remarkable for a splendid head of hair, vowed, in her grief, that she would cut it all off and offer it as a sacrifice to the gods if her husband returned in safety. Ptolemy was victorious, the hair was dutifully cut off, and hung up in the Temple of Venus; after a time the hair disappeared, and Conon, the astronomer, being appealed to, declared that it had been carried off by Jupiter, who spreading it forth in the azure vault of heaven, had made of it a constellation of seven stars, which, to this day, is known as the “Coma Berenicis;” literally, Berenice’s head of hair. There must have been grand prizes to be drawn in those lucky days by the fortunate: to be installed in the starry firmament could not otherwise be regarded than as a distinguished and lasting honour; and an astronomer who was desirous of standing well with the Court, had it in his power to pay an agreeable compliment. We can fancy Astronomer Conon, after a courteous reception at the palace, saying, as he took his leave, “Your name, Madam, shall be enrolled among the constellations, to shine brightly for ever and ever more.” It was a pretty piece of scientific patronage, and convincing; for, of course, no further search was made for Berenice’s curls. These pleasant stories convey to us, as well as anything can, the admiration of the Egyptians for their lovely ones, and the ideal inspiration which associates itself with a name. We can no longer wonder that two superb obelisks, chiselled in the best period of Egyptian art, sculptured in the rose-coloured granite of the renowned quarries of Syené at the extremest limit of the kingdom, and set up in the midst of the regal city, made doubly lustrous by the presence of its beautiful Queen, and probably within the precincts of her favourite palace, should have received the name of Cleopatra’s Needles; nor, that that name should be borne by them to all futurity.[6] [6] Cleopatra’s Needle at Alexandria is the subject of the vignette on our title-page: it exhibits the infirm condition of the base of the obelisk; and it has been represented to the Egyptian government that, unless steps are taken to render it secure, it will probably share the fate of its fellow monolith. In the figure the pedestal is partially stripped of the earth and rubbish with which it is ordinarily covered.