294 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



which the fruit is produced in the neighbourhood of 

 Constantinople 5 but it is rare, being never sold in 

 the markets, and but seldom seen in private gardens. 

 It is used as an ingredient in soups. 



Solanum Sodomeum is a purple egg-plant, of 

 which the fruit is large and handsome. A species of 

 cynips often attacks and punctures the rind; upon 

 which the whole fruit gangrenes, and is converted 

 into a substance like ashes, while the outside is fair 

 and beautiful. It is found on the borders of the Dead 

 Sea, and is that apple, the external beauty and the 

 internal deception of which have been so celebrated 

 in fabulous, and so perplexing in true history. 



" Dead-Sea fruits, that tempt the eye, 

 But turn to ashes on the lips." 



The dreadful judgment of the cities of the plain, 

 recorded in sacred history, the desolation around 

 the Dead Sea, the extreme saltness of its waters, 

 the bitumen, and as is reported, the smoke that 

 sometimes issued from its surface, were all calcu- 

 lated for making it a fit locality for superstitious ter- 

 rors ; and among the rest were the celebrated apples 

 which are mentioned by Josephus, the historian of 

 the Jews, not as fabulous matters of which he had 

 been told, but as real substances which he had seen 

 with his own eyes. He says, they " have a fail- 

 colour, as if they were fit to be eaten; but if you 

 pluck them with your hand, they vanish into smoke 

 and ashes." 



Milton, who collected all of history or fable that 

 could heighten the effect of his poem, refers to those 

 apples as adding new anguish to the fallen angels, 

 after they had been transformed into serpents, upon 

 Satan's return from the temptation of man. 



" There stood 



A grove hard by, 



laden with fair fruit, like that 



