On the Performances of different Ventriloquists. 257 



distance and obstacle interposed, appeared still more striking- 

 ly to be out of the room. He then looked up to the ceiling, 

 and called out in his own voice, " What are you doing above ? 

 — Do you intend to come down p* to which an immediate an- 

 swer was given, which seemed to be in the room above. " I 

 am coming down directly." The same deception was prac- 

 tised, on the supposition of a person being under the floor, 

 who answered in the unusual but a very different voice from 

 the other, " that he was down in the cellar putting away some 

 wine.*' 1 An excellent deception of the watchman crying the 

 hour on the street, and approaching nearer the house till he 

 came opposite the window, was practised. Our attention was 

 directed to the street by the marked attention which Fitz- 

 James himself appeared to pay to the sound. He threw up 

 the sash and asked the hour, which was immediately answered 

 in the same tone, but clearer and louder ; but upon his shutting 

 the window again, the watchman proceeded less audibly, and 

 all at once the voice became very faint ; and Fitz- James, in 

 his natural voice, then said, he has turned the corner. In all 

 these instances, as well as others which were exhibited to the 

 very great entertainment and surprise of the spectators, the 

 acute observer will perceive that the direction of the sound 

 was imaginary, and arose entirely from the well-studied and 

 skilful combinations of the performer. Other scenes which 

 were to follow required the imagination to be too completely 

 misled to admit of the actor being seen. He went behind a fold- 

 ing screen in one corner of the room, when he counterfeited 

 the knocking at a door. One person called from within, and 

 was answered by a different person from without, who was 

 admitted ; and we found, from the conversation of the parties, 

 that the latter was in pain, and desirous of having a tooth ex- 

 tracted. The dialogue, and all the particulars of the opera- 

 tion that followed, would require a long discourse, if I were 

 to attempt to describe them to the reader. The imitation of 

 the natural and modulated voice of the operator, encourag- 

 ing, soothing, and talking with his patient, the confusion, ter- 

 ror, and apprehension of the sufferer, the inarticulate noise 

 produced by the chairs and apparatus, upon the whole, consti- 

 tuted a mass of sounds which produced a strange but comic 



