SPEAKING AND SINGING HEADS. 159 



Orpheus, which uttered its responses at Lesbos, 

 is one of the most famous. It was celebrated 

 not only throughout Greece, but even in Persia ; 

 and it had the credit of predicting, in the equivo- 

 cal language of the heathen oracles, the bloody 

 death which terminated the expedition of Cyrus 

 the Great into Scythia. Odin, the mighty 

 magician of the North, who imported into Scan- 

 dinavia the magical arts of the East, possessed a 

 speaking head, said to be that of the sage Minos, 

 which he had enchased in gold, and which uttered 

 responses that had all the authority of a divine 

 revelation. The celebrated mechanic Gerbert, 

 who filled the papal chair A.D. 1000, under the 

 name of Sylvester II., constructed a speaking 

 head of brass. Albertus Magnus is said to have 

 executed a head in the thirteenth century, which 

 not only moved but spoke. It was made of 

 earthenware, and Thomas Aquinas is said to have 

 been so terrified when he saw it, that he broke it 

 in pieces ; upon which the mechanist exclaimed, 

 " There goes the labour of thirty years !" 



It has been supposed by some authors, that in 

 the ancient speaking-machines the deception is 

 effected by means of ventriloquism, the voice 

 issuing from the juggler himself; but it is more 

 probable that the sound was conveyed by pipes 

 from a person in another apartment to the mouth 

 of the figure. Lucian, indeed, expressly informs 

 us, that the impostor Alexander made his figure 

 of JEsculapius speak, by transmitting his voice 

 through the gullet of a crane to the mouth of the 

 statue ; and that this method was general appears 

 from a passage in Theodoretus, who assures us, 

 that in the fourth century, when Bishop Theo- 



