VENTRILOQUOUS, 



formed, that the baron de Mengen, a German nobleman, 

 poffefled this art in a very high degree. He alfo relates, 

 from Brodeau, a learned critic in the fixteenth century, one 

 of the fingular feats performed by a capital ventriloquift in 

 his time, who was called Louis Brabant, and was valet de 

 chambre to Francis I. Our countryman Dickenfon fpeaks 

 of him particularly, in his traft entitled " Delphi Phoeniai- 

 zantes," printed in duodecimo at Oxford, in 1655. Louis 

 had fallen in love with a beautiful and rich heirefs, but was 

 rejefted by the parents as an unfuitable match, on account 

 of his low circumftances. However, the father dying, he 

 vifits the widow ; and on his firft appearance in the houfe, 

 Ihe hears herfelf accofted in a voice refembling that of her 

 dead hufband, and which feemed to proceed from above. 

 " Give my daughter in marriage to Louis Brabant, who is 

 a man of great fortune, and excellent charafter ; I rww en- 

 dure the inexpreffible torments of purgatory, for having 

 refufed her to him ; obey this admonition, and I {hall be 

 foon dehvered ; you will provide a worthy huftjand for your 

 daughter, and procure everlafting repofe to the foul of your 

 poor hufband." The dread fummons, which had no ap- 

 pearance of proceeding from Louis, whofe countenance 

 exhibited no change, and whofe lips were clofe and motion- 

 lefs, was inftantly comphed with ; but the deceiver, in order 

 to mend his finances for the accomplifhment of the marriage- 

 contraft, applies to one Cornu, an old and rich banker at 

 Lyons, who had accumulated immenfe wealth by ufury and 

 extortion, and was haunted by remorfe of confcience. After 

 fome converfation on demons and fpeftres, the pains of pur- 

 gatory, &c. during an interval of filence, a voice is heard 

 like that of the banker's deceafed father, complaining of his 

 dreadful fituation in purgatory, and calling upon him to 

 refcue him from thence, by putting into the hands of Louis 

 Brabant, then with him, a large fum for the redemption of 

 Chriftians in flavery with the Turks ; threatening him at the 

 fame time with eternal damnation, if he did not thus expiate 

 his own fins. Upon a fecond interview, in which his ears 

 were faluted with the complaints and groans of his father, 

 and of all his deceafed relations, imploring him for the love 

 of God, and in the name of every faint in the Calendar, to 

 have mercy on his own foul and others, Cornu obeyed the 

 heavenly voice, and gave Louis ten thoufand crowns, with 

 which he returned to Paris, and married his miftrefs. The 

 mifer, being afterwards undeceived, was fo mortified, that 

 he took to his bed and died. 



The abbe de la Chapelle takes occafion to account for all 

 the circumftances attending Saul's conference with the Witch 

 of Endor, ( which fee, ) and endeavours to (hew that the fpeech, 

 fuppofed to be addrefled to Saul by the ghoft of Samuel, 

 aftually proceeded from the mouth of the reputed forcerefs, 

 whom he fuppofes to have been a capital ventriloquift. On 

 thefe grounds he explains that tranfaftion, and reconciles all 

 its circumftances to the relation given of it in Scripture ; 

 where, it is to be obferved, that Saul is not faid to have feen 

 Samuel, but only to have heard a voice, which a ventriloquift 

 can produce and tranfmit from any quarter, and with any 

 degree of llrength whatever. He afterwards brings many 

 inftances to prove, that the ancient oracles principally fup- 

 ported their credit, and derived their influence, from the 

 exercife of this particular art. Many other learned men 

 have given the fame account of the witch of Endor. 

 Though ftie is (aid to have a familiar fpirit, yet the Hebrew 

 word ob, and the plural oboth, is generally rendered by the 

 LXX lyWTji^xuflo;, ■uentriloquift. Thus it is rendered 

 Ifaiah, xix. 3. It appears from Plutarch (De Defeft. 

 Orac. tom. ii. p. 414.), Suidas (torn. i. ad voc. iyfar^i- 

 /xuflo;, p. 667.), and Jofephus (Antiq. lib. xiv. p, 354.), 



that thofe who were anciently called ventriloquifts had after- 

 wards the name of Pythonejes, which implies a pretence to 

 divination. Accordingly Python is the word ufed by the 

 Vulgate verfion, i Sam. xxviii. 7, 8 ; though not, as Vol- 

 taire feems to intimate, in the Hebrew ; and, therefore, 

 there is no ground for the conclufion which he draws, toz. 

 that the hiftoiy was not written till the Jews traded with the 

 Greeks, after the time of Alexander, i. e. for determining 

 the date of a Hebrew book from the ufe of a word in a 

 Latin tranflation, made many hundred years after it, and 

 not to be found in the original. 



From baron de Mengen's account of himfelf, and the ob- 

 fervations made by M. de la Chapelle in his frequent examin- 

 ations of M. St. Gille, it feems that the faftitious voice 

 produced by a ventriloquift does not (as the etymology of 

 the word imports) proceed from the belly, but is formed 

 in the inner parts of the mouth and throat. The artj, ac- 

 cording to this author, does not depend on a particular 

 ftrufture or organization of thefe parts, peculiar to a few 

 individuals, and very rarely occurring, but may be acquired 

 by almoft any ardently defirous of attaining it, and deter- 

 mined to perfevere in repeated trials. The judgments we 

 form concerning the fituation and diftance of bodies, by 

 means of the fenfes mutually affifting and correfting each 

 other, feem to be entirely founded on experience (fee Reid's 

 Inquiry into the Human Mind, p. 70. edit. 2.); and we 

 pafs from the fign to the thing fignified by it immediately, 

 or at leaft without any intermediate fteps perceptible to our- 

 felves. Hence it follows, that if a man, though in the fame 

 room with another, can by any peculiar modification of the 

 organs of fpeech produce a found, which in faintnefs, tone, 

 body, and every other fenfible quality, perfeftly refembles 

 a found delivered from the roof of an oppofite Iioufe, the 

 ear will naturally, without examination, refer it to that 

 fituation and diftance ; the found which the perfon heai-s 

 being only a fign, which from infancy he has been accuf- 

 tomed, by experience, to afFociate with the idea of a perfon 

 fpeaking from a houfe-top. A deception of this kind is 

 praftifed with fuccefs on the organ, and other mufical in- 

 ftruments ; and there are many fimilar optical deceptions. 



Rolandus, in his Agloffoftomographia, mentions, that if 

 the mediaftinum, which is naturally a fingle membrane, be 

 divided into two parts, the fpeech will feem to come out of 

 the breaft ; fo that the by-ftanders will fancy the perfon 

 pofTeffed. 



For fome fafts and obfervations tending to explain the 

 curious phenomena of ventriloquifm by Mr. John Gough, 

 we refer to the Manchefter Memoirs, vol. v. part 2. p. 622. 

 London, 1802, in which the ingenious author inveftigates 

 the method vvfliereby men judge by the ear of the pofition 

 of fonorous bodies relative to their own perfons. This 

 author obferves in general, that a fudden change of direc- 

 tion in found, our knowledge of which, as he conceives, 

 does not depend on the impulfe in the ear, but on other 

 fafts, will be perceived, when the original communication 

 is interrupted, provided there be a fenfible echo. This cir- 

 cumftance will be acknowledged by any perfon who has had 

 occafion to walk along a valley, intercepted with buildings, 

 at the time that a peel of bells v^as ringing in it. For the 

 found of the bells, inftead of arriving conftantly at the ears 

 of a perfon fo fituatcd, in its true direction, is frequently 

 reflefted in a fhort time from two or three different places. 

 Thefe deceptions are in many cafes fo much diverfified by 

 the fucceffive interpofitions of frefh objefts, that the fteeple 

 appears, in the hearer's judgment, to perform the part of 

 an expert ventriloquift on a theatre, the extent of which is 

 adapted to its own powers, and not to thofe of the human 

 5 A 2 voice. 



