MR. HICKSON will not, I hope, accuse one who is no critic for presuming
to offer this suggestion. I tender it with diffidence, being conscious
that, although a passionate admirer of the great bard, I am all
unlearned in the art of criticism, "a plain unlettered man," and
therefore simply take what is set before me in its natural sense, as
well as I may, without searching for recondite interpretations. On this
account, I feel doubly the necessity of apologising for interfering with
the labours of so learned and able a commentator as MR. HICKSON has
shown himself to be.

L.B.L.

* * * * *

VENTRILOQUISM

(Vol. ii., p. 88.)

Plutarch (tom. ii., p. 397.D.) has these words:

[Greek: "Ou gar esti theou hae gaerus oude ho phthoggos, oude he
lexis, oude to metron, alla taes yunaikos: ekeinos de monas tas
phantasias paristaesi, kau phos en tae psuchae poiei pros to
mellon."]

If that be the passage referred to be Rollin, nothing is said there
about ventriloquism. The Scholiast on Aristoph. (_Plut._ 39.) tells us
how the Pythian received the _afflatus_, but says nothing about her
_speaking_ from her belly: He only has