Mater, of Mother Grey and her apples. Will any of your learned
correspondents, should it happen to fall within their knowledge, take
pity on the natural curiosity of the sex, by furnishing its details?

A.M.

_Jewish Music_.--What was the precise character of the _Jewish music_,
both before and after David? And what variety of musical instruments had
the Jews?

J. SANSOM

_The Plant "Haemony_."--Can any of your readers furnish information of,
or reference to the plant _Haemony_, mentioned in Milton's _Comus_, l.
638.:--

"--a small unsightly root,
But of divine effect,...
The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it,
But in another country, as he said,
_Bore a bright golden flower, but not in this soil:_
--More medicinal is it than that Moly,
That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave;
He called it _Haemony_, and gave it me,
And bade me keep it as of sov'reign use
'Gainst all enchantments," &c. &c.

The Moly that Hermes to Ulysses gave, is the wild garlick, [Greek: molu]
by some thought the wild rue. (_Odyss_. b. x. 1. 302.) It is the [Greek:
moluza] of Hippocrates, who recommends it to be eaten as an antidote
against drunkenness. But of _Haemony_ I have been unable to find any
reference among our ordinary medical authorities, Paulus Aeginata,
Celsus, Galen, or Dioscorides. A short note of reference would be very
instructive to many of the readers of Milton.

J.M. BASHAM.

17. Chester Street, Belgrave Square.

_Ventriloquism_.--What evidence is there, that _ventriloquism_ was made
use of in the ancient oracles? Was the [Greek: pneuma puthonos] (Acts,
xvi. 16.) an example of the exercise of this art? Was the Witch of Endor
a ventriloquist? or what is meant by the word [Greek: eggastrimuthos] at
Isai. xix. 3., in the Septuagint?

"Plutarch informs us," says Rollin (_Ancient History_, vol. i. p. 65.),
"that the god did not compose the verses of the oracle. He inflamed the
Pythia's imagination, and kindled in her soul that living light which
unveiled all futurity to her. The words she uttered in the heat of her
enthusiam, having neither method nor connection, and coming only by
starts, to use that expression [Greek: eggastrimuthos] from the bottom
of her stomach, or rather from her belly, were collected {89} with care
by the prophets, who gave them afterwards to the poets to be turned into
verse."

If the Pythian priestess was really a ventriloquist, to what extent was
she conscious of the