246 Mr Dugald Stewarl on Vtnlriloquism. 



may contrive to bring the whole of his exhibition under the 

 cognizance of the ear alone. Of the few persons of this de- 

 scription, whom I have happened to see, I have uniformly ob- 

 served, that all of them contrived, under one pretext or ano- 

 ther, to conceal their faces, while they were practising their 

 imitations. One of the number remarked to me, that the art 

 of ventriloquism would be perfect, if it were possible only to 

 speak distinctly, without any movement of the lips at all.* 



2d, The ventriloquist may direct the imagination towards 

 that particular quarter from which the sound is supposed to 

 proceed. The possibility of this appears from many facts. I 

 have seen a person, by counterfeiting the gesticulations of a 

 performer on the violin, while he imitated the music with his 

 voice, rivet the eyes of his audience on the instrument, though 

 every sound they heard proceeded from his own mouth. I 

 have seen another, by imitating the barking of a lap-dog, di- 

 rect the eyes of a whole company below the table. 



A mimic of considerable powers, (the late Savile Carey) who, 

 among his various other exhibitions, imitated very successfully 

 the whistling of the wind blowing into a room through a nar- 

 row chink, told me, that, by way of experiment, he had fre- 

 quently practised this deception in the corner of a coffee-house ; 

 and that he seldom failed to see some of the company rise to 

 examine the tightness of the windows ; while others, more in- 

 tent upon their newspapers, contented themselves with putting 

 on their hats, and buttoning their coats, 



The same thing is exemplified on a greater scale in those 

 theatres (formerly not uncommon on the Continent,) where a 

 performer on the stage exhibits the dumb-show of singing, with 



* Are not the deceptions of this kind, exemplified in some of the exhi- 

 bitions of Mathews, facilitated by the slight paralytic distortion of his 

 mouth to one side of the face? In consequence of this accident, when he 

 wishes to conceal the motion of his lips, he has only to turn the other side 

 of his face to the spectators. They, however, who have had the pleasure 

 of seeing him, will readily acknowledge, that this circumstance goes but a 

 very little way to account for his powers as a Ventriloquist. It may con- 

 tribute something to give a freer scope to their exercise ; but by far the great- 

 er part of the illusion depends on his singular talents as a mimic, combined 

 with that ascendant over the imaginations of his audience, which he owes 

 to a superiority of comic genus and of theatrical skill, seldom found in un- 

 ion with that pecondary accomplishment. 



