VENTRILOQUISM EXPLAINED. 169 



When the sounds which are required to pro- 

 ceed from any given object are such as they are 

 actually calculated to yield, the process of decep- 

 tion is extremely easy ; and it may be successfully 

 executed, even if the angle between the real and 

 the supposed direction of the sound is much 

 greater than the angle of uncertainty. Mr. 

 Dugald Stewart has stated some cases in which 

 deceptions of this kind were very perfect. He 

 mentions his having seen a person who, by coun- 

 terfeiting the gesticulations of a performer on the 

 violin, while he imitated the music by his voice, 

 riveted the eyes of his audience on the instru- 

 ment, though every sound they heard proceeded 

 from his own mouth. The late Savile Carey, who 

 imitated the whistling of the wind through a 

 narrow chink, told Mr. Stewart that 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 tight- 

 ness of the windows, while others, more intent 

 on their newspapers, contented themselves with 

 putting on their hats and buttoning their coats. 

 Mr. Stewart likewise mentions an exhibition 

 formerly common in some of the continental 

 theatres, where a performer on the stage dis- 

 played the dumb-show of singing with his lips 

 and eyes and gestures, while another person un- 

 seen supplied the music with his voice. The 

 deception in this case he found to be at first so 

 complete as to impose upon the nicest ear and 

 the quickest eye; but in the progress of the 

 entertainment, he became distinctly sensible of 

 the imposition, and sometimes wondered that it 

 should have misled him for a moment. In this 



