' Others maintained that she
became black during her sojourn in Egypt. . . . Priests, of to-day,
say that extreme age and exposure to the smoke of countless altar-
candles have caused that change in complexion which the more naive
fathers of the Church attributed to the power of an Egyptian sun";
but the writer ruthlessly disposes of this supposition by pointing
out that in nearly all the instances of black Madonnas it is the
flesh alone that is entirely black, the crimson of the lips, the
white of the eyes, and the draperies having preserved their original
colour. The authoress of the article (Mrs. Hilliard) goes on to
tell us that Pausanias mentions two statues of the black Venus, and
says that the oldest statue of Ceres among the Phigalenses was
black. She adds that Minerva Aglaurus, the daughter of Cecrops, at
Athens, was black; that Corinth had a black Venus, as also the
Thespians; that the oracles of Dodona and Delphi were founded by
black doves, the emissaries of Venus, and that the Isis Multimammia
in the Capitol at Rome is black.
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