saw his mouth opened and his lips moved, the illusion, in their case, did not take place.

We do not think it worth while to occupy our readers with detailing an attempt made to explain the illusion of distance in ventriloquism, by supposing that the speaker avails himself of artificial echoes, to throw back the sound to the ear of his hearer. A paper, maintaining this view, was read to the Philosophical Society of Manchester by Mr Gouch, in 1801, and is preserved in the second part of the fifth volume of their Transactions. There is much scientific clearness and justness of exposition in that paper on the laws of acoustics, but these laws are wofully misapplied to ventriloquism. It at once occurs to ask the author of that paper how the ventriloquist is to command even one echo when he wishes it,-one fixed material distant obstacle to reflect the voice? But when he is to modulate his voice gradually as the sound is supposed to advance or retire, or when he shifts the voice from above to below, and all around, where shall he command his succession of echoes, or the change of their position? Mr Gouch saw the ventriloquist-we think of the name of Garbutt,-who travelled to most towns in this island about 1796. This ventriloquist made his voice seem to come from the part of the room behind the audience; but, if on Mr Gouch's own shewing, sound will reach the ear by the shortest road, how did it first pass the audience, and then return to them? Garbutt farther brought the voice, as it were, from under the benches on which the spectators sat, to which locality he first strongly directed their attention, and he occasionally made it appear to be the voice of a child confined under a glass. Echoes for all these illusions are evidently out of the question. But how did Garbutt carry about his echo with him, when he alarmed a fish-woman in Edinburgh, by making her own fish contradict a declaration of their freshness? or when he made a poor man unload a whole cart of hay to extricate a crying child, whose cries were heard more and more plainly as the hay diminished,

till they concluded with an imp's laugh, when the last particle was examined? The notion of echo seems to have been hinted before, for M. de la Chapelle himself disproves it, by an experiment made by M. Saint Gille in the open park of St German-en-Laye, where he astonished an Italian by speaking to him from every point of the compass.

It cannot have failed to strike the reader, that, as admitted by the French Savans, a ventriloquist must cheat the judgment as well as the ear. This is effectually done, as will be made more clearly to appear presently, by establishing a local, from which it is intended the audience shall believe that the voice comes. Garbutt had recourse to this finesse in the illusions which he performed.

When we mention Mathews, we consider his powers of vocal illusion as the least of his comic accomplishments; but it is of great consequence for our readers to keep in mind that so perfect a comic imitator as Mathews does possess to a considerable degree that power of imitating sounds, which is called ventriloquism. Indeed, we have observed, that most clever comedians have some degree of the same talent.

Such was the state of this curious question, when means equally unexpected and ample have come within our own reach, of verifying former theories, and observing for ourselves both directly and phrenologically. This opportunity has been afforded us, and indeed our attention has been called for the first time in our lives to the subject, by the late arrival in Edinburgh of the celebrated Monsieur Alexandre, a native of Paris, and beyond all rivalry the possessor of the most astonishing powers of vocal illusion which we have either heard or read of. This young man has already, at the early age of twenty-five, exhibited his powers in almost every country of Europe. His vocal illusions are displayed in amusing comic pieces, in which he is the sole actor, and which he has exhibited in six or eight different languages. Nay, he performed one of these in English for six months, before he had learned the language, so as to understand what he was

uttering; and it is said with very few mistakes. He exhibits testimonials from crowned heads, princes, nobles, and savans on the continent,* and from a great number of persons of rank and literary and scientific eminence in England, (of which, besides performing 150 times in London, he visited most of the great towns,) all bearing witness to his astonishing powers, and most of them commending his manners and qualifications as a gentleman. He brought letters to many individuals in Edinburgh; one of which was the means of our introduction to him, which has been to us so satisfactory. M. Alexandre's first exhibition was announced to take place in the Caledonian Theatre, to which we went, and watched as narrowly as we could every thing he did or said, as he succeeded by his own unassisted exertions in engrossing and highly diverting a crowded audience for three hours.+

We shall now endeavour to describe what we saw, as minutely as we observed it narrowly. He performed a sort of drama, the hero of which is a clever young rogue, in the service of an old physic-taking valetudinarian and his careful fantastical wife, upon whom he perpetrates all sorts of mischievous tricks, both in revenge of his own short commons, and in furtherance of a scheme, for which he is well paid, to unite the hands of the only daughter to a very agreeable young officer of infantry, quartered in the neighbourhood. Without merit as a comedy, the incidents of this piece-some of them very ludicrous-afforded him the means of exhibiting every variety of his vocal illusion. He represents the whole characters, male and female, young and

• The kings of Prussia, Bavaria, and Saxony, Princes Blucher, Swartzenberg, Metternich, Wrede, M. Goethe, Blumenback, &c. &c. It is a curious fact, that the aged Landgravine of Hesse Darmstadt was enabled, by having seen M. Saint Gille in Paris, to compare his powers with M. Alexandre's, to which last she gave the decided preference.

+M. Alexandre's success and popularity in Edinburgh, he himself says, has not been exceeded any where. Besides commanding overflowing houses, he has visited many of the most respectable inhabitants, and made the most favourable impression on all who have conversed with him, by his agreeable appearance, engaging manners, and liberal sentiments.

́old, himself; and besides displaying an address and quickness which we never saw exceeded, he changes his dress at least 30 or 40 times, with a rapidity which appears almost preternatural; so that the deception is perfect, that the whole dramatis persona are bustling and talking at the same moment.* His change of dress is not, however, more complete than his change of manner, voice, and whole character. He spoke with his own natural voice in the valet; with a deep strong voice in the old man; in a whining and chattering, and most affected voice in the lady; with a degagê easy style in the dandy officer; and with the softest tripping femeninism in the dandy's beloved. Of all these, he maintained the character with such judgment and effect, as to convince us of one truth, which our readers are requested to mark, that his histrionic powers-his talents as an actor-are very considerable. ·

As it is of great moment for our phrenological tests in the sequel, to keep steadily in view the power of imitation, we may here mention a sort of interlude, which M. Alexandre performed, in which he manifested his possession of that talent, with the farther power of concealing self, to a degree of intensity which, till we saw them, we could not have believed possible. He exhibited the visages, voices, and manners of several different nuns of a convent, where he is supposed to have served outside the grate. He is first a very pretty noviciate endeavouring to sing, but covered with bashfulness and heigh-hos!

"Her pretty oath by yea and nay,

"She could not, must not, durst not play."

M. Alexandre told us, that his attendants who attire him, behind the scenes, often urge him to wait a reasonable time to prevent doubts of his iden. tity. He paid an unconscious compliment to the unsuspicious British character, when he added, that although on some occasions, on the continent, he has found it necessary to station a responsible public officer on the stage, to vouch for him, he has been delighted with the absence of all suspicion, of which the cordial manner of his British spectators has given him the most encouraging assurances. Some of the changes are almost incredible; the old lady's long train has scarcely disappeared on one side of the stage, when the slim jacketed domestic enters on the other, with a frying-pan in his hand, to make an omelet for his master.

In an instant he is the angry abbess chiding her foolish pupil, with a face as round, as flat, and as pitted as a split muffin, and a voice to suit. Anon he rises, like a ghost from the ground, as Sister Beatrice, with a face double the length of the average of the human countenance. Down he sits again, and shows a face as preternaturally broad as the other was long, just above the level of the table, the said face being the index to the soul of Sister Agnes. A visage reduced to the size of a man's fist now peeps the hood of sister Angelina. The next face is all gone off to the east, its successor to the west, till he concludes with Sister Celestine's lamentable paralitic deformity, an exhibition greatly too like reality not to be exquisitely painful to the spectators, and which we have heard many say, M. Alexandre would gain credit for good taste as well as good feeling by omitting altogether. His other personations, amounting to an absolute change of identity before our eyes, are quite sufficient to establish him the most wonderful personator that ever exhibited.*

M. Alexandre's vocal exhibition consisted of two very obviously distinguishable parts:-First, His mere imitations, or changes of voice to suit the different characters in which he appeared on the stage; in which he meant no farther illusion, and left the audience to take the personage in their sight for the speaker. In this it is obvious there was comic imitation, but none of the illusion more strictly called ventriloquism. To this class belong his imitations of animals

• M. Alexandre paid a visit to a distinguished individual of Edinburgh, to deliver a letter of introduction. This was put into the gentleman's hands by a young man of very interesting and genteel appearance, and with the greatest modesty. He read it, and when he looked up to reply, a being stood before him as different in identity from what he had last looked upon, as an old grim French quack-doctor may be supposed to be from the first personage we have described. The gentleman started, and with an exclamation of wonder, asked if he could possibly be the same person who had two minutes before delivered him the letter! Our accomplished friend, Mr Joseph, has succeeded admirably with two busts of M. Alexandre, one in each of these dissimilar characters, and thus fixed down a real instead of an evanescent proof of the power of personation, which is especially valuable to phrenology.