plant is a paradox:--sacred and revered, yet dedicated to the Evil One; of happy augury, yet funereal; dear to women and lovers, yet emblem of hatred; propagator of scorpions, yet the antidote to their stings.----Astrologers rule that Basil is a herb of Mars, and under the Scorpion, and therefore called Basilicon. =BAUHINIA.=--The leaves of the Bauhinia or Ebony-tree are two-lobed, or twin--a character, which suggested to Plumier the happy idea of naming the genus after the two famous brothers, John and Caspar Bauhin, botanists of the sixteenth century. =BEANS.=--Among the ancients, there appears to have been a superstitious aversion to Beans as an article of food, arising from the resemblance of the fruit to a portion of the human body. The Egyptians, among whom the Sacred Bean was an object of actual worship, would not partake of it as food, probably on that account; because by so doing they would be fearful of eating what they considered was human, and of consuming a soul. By some nations the seed was consecrated to the gods.----The eating of Beans was interdicted to the Jewish High Priest on the Day of Atonement from its decided tendency to bring on sleep.----The goddess Ceres, when bestowing her gifts upon mankind, expressly excluded Beans. The unhappy Orpheus refused to eat them; Amphiaraus, the diviner, in order to preserve a clear vision, always abstained from them; the Flamines, Roman priests, instituted by Numa, would neither touch nor mention them; and the Grecian philosopher Pythagoras, who lived only on the purest and most innocuous food, invariably declined to partake of Beans of any description, giving as his reason that, in the Bean, he recognised blood, and consequently an animal, which, as a vegetarian, he could not consume. According to tradition, the great philosopher, being pursued by his enemies, was overtaken and killed, solely because, having in his flight reached a field of Beans, he would not cross it for fear of trampling upon living beings, the souls of the dead, who had entered temporarily, into the vegetable existence. Cicero considered that the antipathy to Beans as an article of food arose from their being considered impure, inasmuch as they corrupted the blood, distended the stomach, and excited the passions. Hippocrates considered them unwholesome and injurious to the eyesight. They were also believed to cause bad dreams, and, moreover, if seen in dreams, were deemed to portend evil.----One of the Greek words for Bean is _Puanos_, and at the festival of Puanepsia, held in the month of October, at Athens, in honour of Apollo, Beans and Pulse, we are told, were sodden. The Romans offered Beans to their goddess Carna on the occasion of her festival in the month of June.----The Lemures, or evil spirits of those who had lived bad lives, according to a Roman superstition, were in the habit, during the night-time, of approaching houses, and then throwing Beans against them. The