and inanimate things, as a plane, a screw, a saw, an omelet frying, &c. Secondly, His ventriloquial efforts. In these he produced the effect of persons speaking from a distance; from the other side of a door, both shut and open; from a trunk, also alternately open and shut; from a chimney-top; and from a cellar, with gradation of the voice as the person in the chimney and cellar ascended or descended. With his ventriloquial exertions alone we have to do here; and in these the illusion of confinement, freedom, distance, and gradual approach and recession was complete. In M. Alexandre's production of these curious effects, we observed several particulars:

1. His voice, to give the illusion of distance or confinement, was invariably a stifled voice; and in changing from confinement to freedom, he dropt ventriloquism, and spoke merely in character, as first above distinguished.

2. He never began to speak en ventriloque without previously establishing a point, place, or local, or at least direction from which the audience should believe the voice to come. This he did in course of the incidents of the piece, so that all impression of arrangement was prevented, and the audience never dreamed of disputing the direction with the performer, but took all that for granted, to his most perfect satisfaction. He aided the illusion by his own action and attitude, as he spoke into a cellar, up a chimney, into a trunk or press, or through a door.

3. We never saw his face, at least his front face, when speaking en ventriloque; but we observed it always turned towards us when he spoke as the person in our sight.

4. We observed, that after his ventriloquial exertions, he often coughed; and, lastly, he counterfeited inimitably the hoarseness of a severe cold.

On returning from this singular exhibition, our own conjectures on the subject of ventriloquism were these :— 1. That by the force of uncommonly acute powers of perception, which nothing that happens around him escapes,

whether visible, tangible, or audible, (phrenologicè a large
endowment of all the knowing organs, particularly Tune
and Individuality,) he has become perfect master of
sounds in all their varieties and modifications. In this,
per se, he may have, and no doubt has, multitudes of rivals.
2. Having got familiar with the intensities of sounds which
alight upon the human ear, from various distances and cer-
tain places, he does nothing more than imitate the sound
desired, not as it is where uttered, but where heard. It is
in either case an imitable sound. It would seem to follow,
that the closer the person to be deceived is to the ventri-
loquist, the illusion must be the more complete, seeing that
the sound imitated is the sound that strikes his own ear,
which, it is obvious, may not suit the variously arranged
spectators in a large theatre. 3. As the sound which reaches
our ears must necessarily vary with the distance it has come;
but as each variation is a specific imitable sound, so the ven-
triloquist has only-assuredly it requires exquisite skill-
to vary his imitation progressively, in either direction, to
give the perfect illusion of advance and retreat.
An ana-
logy occurred to us, in which, if as yet unknown to our-
selves, we have ever been anticipated, we should only have
the more confidence. Distance is artificially represented
to the eye on the lansdcape-painter's canvass by gradual
diminution, according to the rules of mathematical per-
spective, of the size of the successive objects; and, ac-
cording to those of aerial perspective, of the strength of
their colouring; from the large and bold fore-ground, to the
diminished distance, almost blending with the tints of the
sky. Now, M. Alexandre's vocal illusions are, as it were,
the perspective of sounds, and address to the ear a grada-
tion which we cannot help associating with the successive
distance of the landscape whence they come. What an
extent of country a hunting party may be made to traverse
in imagination in the theatre, by a skilful gradation of the
sounds of their bugles, from the faint sound in the distant
hills, till the boisterous Nimrods-their tunics of scarlet-

are smacking their whips on the stage. As to the direction of the sound, we conjectured this to be exclusively the doing of the imaginations of the audience, when a locality was established. This we put to the test; believing that the performer could do no more than imitate distance, without the possibility of imitating direction, which has no distinctive sound; as such, we tried to reverse, in our own minds, the direction of the chimney-top and the cellar, and we found the identity of the sound suit either place. It is obvious, when a ventriloquist fairly alarms people, he may give any direction he pleases to his voice.

That this perspective of sound is the essence of the effect produced we could not doubt; of the physiology of the inquiry-the physical power by which the effect is produced, we were by no means so certain. Organs of speech in the stomach or belly we at once discarded as a barbarous absurdity; but we really saw nothing in the imitations which might not be executed by a person who possessed a great power over the movements of the larynx, directed by a good ear, and seconded by a very flexible tongue.

We were not disappointed in our hopes to obtain M. Alexandre's own account of his singular powers. He has been as liberal as Baron Mengen and M. Saint Gille, and has unfolded to us his own views on the subject. He makes no mystery of it, and he is perfectly safe in his openness; for his talent is so rare, and his art so difficult, however clearly explained, that it requires the cover of secrecy much as the accomplishment of the man who stood on his head on the cross of St Paul's Cathedral required the protection of the patent which was offered him, we think by George the First.

M. Alexandre assured us,-1. That his voice does not come from his stomach or belly, in which, as he said in ridicule, he has neither tongue nor teeth; and against which inelegant region he has a sort of ill-will, for having occasioned the disgusting as well as absurd name of ventriloquism to an art which is merely vocal illusion. He wished to have offered himself in England as a professeur of vocal illuVOL. I.-No. III.

21

sion; but was advised that John Bull loves the marvellous, and would rather give his money to see a man who can speak with his stomach, than one who avowedly can only speak with his mouth.

2. That he possesses uncommon power and flexibility in the organs of speech; he can extend and contract the larynx or windpipe, which has great muscular strength, so as to produce all the gradations from a bass voice of great power to the shrillest squeak; and his tongue has a degree of flexibility and power of change of shape and position in the mouth, which enables him to do any thing with it he pleases. The exertion, he says, does not exhaust or fatigue him.

3. He is not conscious of speaking even during expiration, certainly he does not speak during inspiration upon any occasion. When he speaks en ventriloque, he is not aware that he breathes at all, but seems to use a confined supply of air, which he retains in his chest till the period is finished, when he breathes again. He must, however, although unconsciously, expend it in expiration as he speaks. seems proved by what follows next.

4. That he cannot ventriloquize with his lips shut.

This

5. That he cannot articulate the labial consonants M. B. and P. without using the lips. When he uses these consonants, therefore, he turns away his face from the person he wishes to deceive. He endeavours, as much as possible, to avoid the labials, and then he can speak without the slightest movement of the lips, or of any muscle of the face.

6. That he makes no use of echoes existing, much less does he create any, such a thing being far beyond human power. He scrupulously avoids places where echoes already exist, and this is the first thing he tries.

7. That he deceives the audience into the belief of the direction of the sound, entirely by previously fixing the direction, and trusting, which he never does in vain, to their imagination for the rest. He says, when he has fairly frightened people, which he has often done, he has no farther trouble; which way soever he looks, that becomes the direction of

the dreaded sounds. He once horrified a party of visitors to the embalmed bodies of the Prince and Princess of Lignitz, in Silesia, in the vault in which they had lain 230 years. He first declared himself 250 years old, and that he was present at the interment, and then made the Prince and Princess complain of want of air, in consequence of an order of the magistracy to prevent the coffin being opened to gratify public curiosity. The attendants, in consternation, made no attempt to prevent him from opening the coffins, for which service he received the grateful thanks of the Prince and Princess therein reposing, and an inconvenient quantity of holy water to exorcise him, as he came out of the vault.

Last of all, Mr Alexandre declares, that he has a ready perception of the varieties of sound, according to distances, and that each distance having its own specific sound, he IMITATES the sound as it is when it reaches his own ear. He has particularly studied this power of graduation, and has repeatedly imitated a person's voice who spoke at intervals as he receded above 300 yards. He has likewise sent a chimneysweeper up a vent, with instructions to speak down every few yards, and has imitated the voice in its gradations so exactly, that the persons in the room could not tell which was his and which the chimney-sweeper's. On one occasion in Vienna, at Prince Metternich's Hotel, he hung a rope from the window of an apartment on the third floor from the ground, to which a weight was suspended to serve for a man whom he undertook to pull up, and with whom he conversed every yard or two as he pulled the rope, the voice of the man gradually getting plainer, till he was at the window sill, when all at once, M. Alexandre allowed the rope to slip, and down went the poor man with a scream, and many a groan, as he lay knocked to pieces on the ground. The company were terrified, and it required a clear exposition of the illusion to restore their composure. We made the remark to him, that this gradation was like perspective in painting. He answered, that the same comparison is engraved on a medal which was given him by the University of Ghent.