258 On the Performances of' different Ventriloquists. 



effect. Loose observers would not have hesitated to assert 

 that they heard more than one voice at a time ; and though this 

 certainly could not be the case, and it did not appear so to me, 

 yet the transitions were so instantaneous, without the least 

 pause between, that the notion might be very easily generated. 

 The removal of the screen satisfied the spectators that one 

 performer had effected the whole. 



The actor then proceeded to show us specimens of his art 

 as a mimic; but here the power he had acquired over the 

 muscles of his face was fully as strange as the modulations of 

 his voice. In several instances he caused the opposite mus- 

 cles to act differently from each other ; so that while one side 

 of his face expressed mirth and laughter, the other side ap- 

 peared to be weeping. About eight or ten faces were shown 

 to us in succession as he came from behind the screen, which, 

 together with the general habits and gait of the individual, to- 

 tally altered him. 



In one instance he was tall, thin, and melancholic; and the 

 instant afterwards, with no greater interval of time than to 

 pass round behind the screen, he appeared bloated with obesity, 

 and staggering with fulness. The same man at one time ex- 

 hibited his face simple, unaffected, and void of character, and 

 the next moment it was covered with wrinkles expressing sly- 

 ness, mirth, and whim of different descriptions. How far this 

 discipline may be easy or difficult I know not, but he certainly 

 appeared to me to be far superior to the most practised mas- 

 ters of the countenance I have ever seen. 



During this exhibition, he imitated the sound of an organ, 

 the ringing of a bell, the noises produced by the great hydrau- 

 lic machine of Marly, and the opening and shutting of a snuff- 

 box. 



His principal performance, however, consisted in the debates 

 at the meeting of Nanterre, in which there were twenty differ- 

 ent speakers, as is asserted in his advertisement ; and certainly 

 the number of different voices was very great. 



Much entertainment was afforded by the subject, which was 

 taken from the late times of anarchy and convulsion in France, 

 when the lowest, the most ignorant part of society, was called 

 upon to decide the fate of a whole people by the energies of 



