OBSERVATIONS ON VENTRILOQUISM. 127 



room, his voice is reflected from every point of the apartment, 

 of which all prefent are made fenfible by the confufed noife 

 that fills up every paufe in his difcourfe ; neverthelefs every 

 one knows the true place of the fpeaker, becaufe his voice is 

 the prevailing found at the time. But were it pofllble to pre- 

 vent his words from reaching any one of the audience directly, 

 what then would follow? Undoubtedly a complete cafe of who may become 

 ventriloquifm would be the confequence, and the perfon fo r ^ U1 

 cireumftanced would tranfport the orator, in his own mind, 

 to the place of the principal echo, which would perform the 

 part of the prevailing found at the inftant. This he would be 

 obliged to do, becaufe the human judgment is bound, by the 

 dictates of experience, to regard the perfon as infeparable 

 from the voice ; and the deception in queftion would be una- 

 voidable, being produced by the fame concurrence of caufes 

 which makes a peal of bells, fituated in a valley, feem to 

 change place in the opinion of a traveller. It is the bufinefs Conditions of 

 of a ventriloquift to amufe his admirers with tricks refembling *" at arU 

 the foregoing delufion ; and it will be readily granted, that 

 he has a fubtle fenfe, highly corrected by experience, to ma- 

 nage, on which account the judgment mud be cheated as well 

 as the ear. This can only be accomplifhed by making the 

 pulfes, conftituting his words, ftrike the heads of his hearers, 

 not in the right lines that join their perfons and his. He mult 

 therefore know how (o difguife the true direction of his voice, 

 becaufe the artifice will give him an opportunity to fubftitute 

 almofl any echo he chufes in the place of it. But the fupe- 

 rior part of the human body has been already proved to form 

 an extenfivc feat of found, from every point of which the 

 pulfes are repelled, as if they diverged from a common centre. 

 This is the reafon why people, who fpeak in the ufual way, 

 cannot conceal the direction of their voices, which in reality 

 fly off towards all points at the fame inftant. The ventrilo- T ^ e foun<J muft 

 quilt therefore, by fome means or other, acquires the difficult iflUe jjr§m & 

 habit of contraaing the field of found within the compafs of*** 1 "^ 

 his lips, which enables him to confine the real path of his 

 voice to narrow limits. For he, who is matter of the art, has 

 nothing to do but to place his mouth obliquely to the com- 

 pany ; and to dart his words, if I may ufe the expreffion, 

 againft an oppofing object, whence they will be reflected im- 

 mediately, fo as to ftrike the ears of the audience from an and it muft be 



unexpected e ***pA h tc ^> ' 



