ment; with cries and groans he imputed his aggravated tortures in purgatory, to his refusal of his daughter to Louis Brabant, and conjured her, "if e'er she did her poor father "love," to marry the said Louis forthwith; which, in suitable horror, consternation, and filial piety, she did. The swindling bridegroom succeeded, at the same time, in enriching himself, so as to meet his bride's fortune. He frightened a rich old usurer out of ten thousand crowns, by a welltimed intimation, en ventriloque, of what awaited him in purgatory, with a distinct exposition of the only method of averting the otherwise certain doom. This accomplished person, we may presume, did much business on a smaller scale, besides these two great coups du maitre.

A century after this period, probably in consequence of the appearance of another or other ventriloquists, the first modern attempts seem to have been made to write upon the subject; and Allazzi, an Italian, in 1629, published a work entitled Leonis Allatii de Engastrimytho Syntagma. Allazzi, in the same work, translated the Greek treatise of Eustathius into Latin; but his own treatise, as well as that of the Archbishop, is confined to the question of the evocation of the ghost of Samuel, on which controversy the works are erudite and argumentative.

Conrad Amman, a Dutch doctor in medicine, had observed the ventriloquists of the beginning of the last century, and published a Latin treatise at Amsterdam in 1700, to explode the old notion, current, it would appear, till then, that Engastrimism is a demon in the belly. His observations seem chiefly to have been made on an old woman at Amsterdam, who possessed the talent of ventriloquism. His theory was, that the effect was produced by a sort of swallowing of the words, or forcing them to retrograde as it were by the tracheal artery;-by speaking during inspiration of the breath, and not, as in ordinary speech, during expiration.-" Quidquid hactenus," says Conrad Amman," de "voce et loquela dixi, de quotidiana illa et vulgari accipi velim, quæ fit expirando; est enim adhuc modus eam per inspira

"tionem formandi, qui non cuivis datus est, et quam aliquoties in "Gastrimythis quibusdam admiratus sum: et Amstæledami "olim vetulam quandam audivi utroqe modo loquentem, sibique "ad quæsita quasi inspirando respondentem; ut eam cum viro, "duos ad minimum passus ab ea remoto colloqui dejerassem; " vocem enim, inter inspirandum absorptam e longinquo venire "credebam. Muliercula hæc Pythiam agere facile potuisset,"

&c.

Nothing farther appears on the nature or history of ventriloquism till the year 1772, when a work appeared on the subject by M. de la Chapelle, Censeur Royal at Paris, and a member of several learned bodies, besides the Royal Society of London. This, although a greatly over-learned work, with a prodigious display of irrelevant erudition, gives a most satisfactory explanation of ventriloquism, which was confirmed by a committee of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and ultimately by the whole Academy. We have the more confidence in the theory, that it is demonstrated to be true, so far as it goes, by what we hold to be the surest of all tests-by Phrenology. The existing ventriloquists of M. de la Chapelle's time were two :-a Baron Mengen, in the household of Prince Lichtenstein, at Vienna; and a person of the name of Saint Gille, a grocer at St Germain-enLaye, near Paris. Both these ventriloquists were communicative, made no secret of their art, and contributed descriptions of their own experiences, to forward the inquiry which seems, in that time of profound peace, to have made some noise in France.

Baron Mengen ridiculed the old prejudice, that ventriloquists speak from, much less with, the stomach and belly; and made no pretence to any other aid than that of the common organs of speech. The Baron's account of himself is in substance this:-That he owed his art to a passion, which showed itself in him at a very early age, to counterfeit the cries of animals and the voices of persons; and he soon found, that he had the power of imitating sounds in such a way, as to give them the appearance of coming from points different from his own mouth. That his organs gained flexibility by use, so as to be able to sustain a long illusion.

For the sake of amusing his friends, he made a small figure or doll, with a contrivance with which, by inserting his hand under the dress, he could occasion appropriate motion of the lips. With this figure, from which he could make his voice to appear to come, he carried on droll and often highly-satirical conversations. His own words, describing the kind of vocal exertion he made, are as follows:-" I press my "tongue strongly against my teeth and left cheek, and the voice, "which appears articulated by the mouth of the figure, is form"ed in reality between the teeth and left cheek of my own. "For this I use the precaution to hold in reserve in the wind" pipe (le gosier*) a sufficient portion of air, either to sing or speak, without the stomach or belly giving any assistance; " and it is solely with that portion of air in reserve, moderated, "retained, and suffered to escape with effort, that I produce the "voice which I wish to make heard. Add to that a quality in my tongue extremely subtile and rarely possessed, by means of "which I articulate all syllables and words, (either singing or speaking,) without in the least moving the lips; and taking great care to retain to the end of each period, phrase, or sentence, the air which comes from the lungs for the renewing of "my respiration, which requires a very good chest."

M. Saint Gille was more at hand, and was often visited and experimented upon by M. de la Chapelle. In their first interview, the ventriloquist surprised and rather alarmed the philosopher, by producing a distinct cry of " M. de la Cha"pelle !" as if from the roof of a neighbouring house. On farther acquaintance, M. de la Chapelle accompanied Saint Gille on occasions of many amusing and perfectly innocent applications of his art. On one of these, he addressed many individuals of rank, of both sexes, to their great consternation, as they sat on the grass, at a fete champetre, with many witty personal remarks, for which he had been previously prepared-the effect may easily be conceived. On another, he imposed incessant mass-singing upon a fraternity of monks who had been remiss in their attention to the departed soul of one of their number. The deceased spoke as from the roof of the choir where they were assembled, and uttered

This is physically impossible; and the Baron afterwards shows that he means the lungs or chest.

loud complaints and awful threatenings against the survivors for their neglect of him.

On some occasions, M. Saint Gille put his powers to good uses, in mortifying vanity, abasing pride, disappointing avarice, and changing selfish and base purposes. Several very diverting instances of these are detailed by M. de la Chapelle.

M. Saint Gille made no mystery of his art more than Baron Mengen, and attributed all his success to an extreme desire and continued habit of exercising his organs in that imitative way. He gained the accomplishment in a very short time-eight days-at Martinique, by imitating another ventriloquist. This circumstance leads M. de la Chapelle into the only mistake he commits,-namely, that any one that chooses may become a ventriloquist. It is the very circumstance which forces a Phrenologist to the opposite conclusion.

The theory of M. de la Chapelle, as confirmed by the Academy, is in substance as follows:-The same sound varies in its effect on the ear according to the distance or place from which it comes. But every sound, as it reaches the ear, is a sound that may be imitated. A power of imitating sounds, which we are all accustomed to refer to certain distances and certain situations, is the whole art of ventriloquism. It is worthy of remark, that by custom the illusion lost its effect on M. de la Chapelle,-he referring the words to the mouth of the speaker, which all others referred to distant points. The members of the Academy commissioned to make the inquiry with M. de la Chapelle, compare this gradation of sound to the imitations of distance in the symphonies of the opera; the distance being judged by the first sound heard, diminishes in appearance as the sounds become fainter.

The Savans, satisfied that the effect produced was imitation of the sounds appropriate to certain distances, applied themselves to investigate the nature of the organic power which produced this effect, and they referred it to a

power acquired by habit over the larynx, by which it could be readily shut and opened to the required degree, with the additional power, from flexibility of tongue, to articulate within the mouth, or even in the back part of it. The constriction and expansion of the larynx they believed to be very fatiguing, and attended with hoarseness after a lengthened exertion. They observed that M. Saint Gille appeared fatigued before the end of his exhibition, and lost some degree of his power to create the illusion; that each exertion was followed by the irritation of a slight cough; and that, when he was enrhumé, or (as we translate it in Scotland by a most convenient word,) colded, he had great difficulty of speaking en ventriloque. Hippocrates, treating of a particular ailment of the throat, says, that those affected with it spoke as if they had been Engastrimuthoi. If, say the reporter, there be a diseased state of throat, which produces this effect, it is easy to suppose the effect of the malady imitated, or the throat brought artificially into the same state.

M. de la Chapelle, and the other academicians, unite in their refutation of Conrad Amman's theory, that ventriloquism is articulating during inspiration of the breath. This mistake was repeated evidently from Amman by the Abbé Nollet, in his Leçons de Physique Experimentale, 1745.

It is admitted, that a low stifled sound may be produced for a few seconds during inspiration; but the high and often strong voice of the ventriloquists can only result from a brisk expulsion of air from the trachea, by an increased action of the part. The Amsterdam woman spoke high, but it was Conrad that concluded she spoke during inspiration. Besides, there is no reply to the objection, that inspiration no more than speaking with the belly will account for variations and distances.

Last of all, it was observed that Saint Gille opened his mouth and even moved his lips; and that, to conceal these movements, he always turned away his face when he spoke en ventriloque. When any one stood in front of him, and