VOCAL IMITATION, AND VENTRILOQUISM. 



257 



body of the trachea only gives measure to the sound, and renders it more or 

 less copious in proportion to its volume. It is not, therefore, to be vi^ondered 

 at, that a similar sort of imitative power should be sometimes cultivated Vi^ith 

 success in the human larynx ; and that we should occasionally meet with 

 persons, who, from long and dexterous practice, should be able to imitate the 

 notes of almost all the singing-birds of the woods, or the sounds of other ani- 

 mals, or even to personate the different voices of orators and other public 

 speakers. 



One of the most extraordinary instances of this last kind consists in the 

 art of what is called ventriloquism,* of which no very plausible explanation 

 has hitherto been offered to the world. The practitioner of this occult art is 

 well known to have a power of modifying his voice in such a manner as to 

 imitate the voices of different persons conversing at a considerable distance 

 from each other, and in very different tones. And hence the first impression 

 which this ingenious trick or exhibition produced on the world, was that of 

 the artist's possessing a double or triple larynx ; the additional larynxes being 

 supposed to be seated still deeper in the chest than the lowermost of the two 

 that belong to birds : whence indeed the name of ventriloquism or belly- 

 speaking. Mr. Gough has attempted in the Memoirs of the Manchester So- 

 ciety, to resolve the whole into the phenomena of echoes ; the ventriloquist 

 being conceived by him on all occasions to confine himself to a room well 

 disposed for echoes in various parts of it, and merely to produce false voices 

 by directing his natural voice in a straight line towards such echoing parts, 

 instead of in a straight line towards the audience ; who, upon this view of the 

 subject, are supposed to be artfully placed on one or both sides of the ven- 

 triloquist. It is sufficient to observe, in opposition to this conjecture, that it 

 does not account for the perfect quiescence of the mouth and cheeks of the 

 performer while employing his feigned voices ; and that an adept in the art, 

 like Mr. Fitzjames or Mr. Alexander, is wholly indifferent to the room in 

 which he practises, and will allow another person to choose a room for him. 

 Mr. Fitzjames is a native of France ; and his vocal art and vocal powers have 

 been paid particular attention to by M. Richerand, one of the most popular 

 French physiologists of the day ; who has also examined the vocal organs of 

 other ventriloquists, and observes, as the result of his investigations, that 

 although there is little or no motion in the cheeks during the art of speaking, 

 there is a considerable demand and expenditure of air; the ventriloquist 

 always inhaling deeply before he commences his deception, passing a part of 

 the air thus inhaled through his nostrils, and being able to continue his vari- 

 ous voices as long as the inspired air may last, or till he has inhaled a fresh 

 supply. 



This view of the subject induced M. Richerand to relinquish the old hypo- 

 thesis of a kind of vocal organ being seated in the stomach, to which we have 

 already adverted, and which he had formerly embraced ; though it does not 

 appear that he has very distinctly adopted any other in its stead : " At first," 

 says he, " I had conjectured that a great part of the air expelled by expiration 

 did not pass out by the mouth and nostrils, but was swallowed and carried 

 into the stomach; and, being reflected in some part of the digestive canal, 

 gives rise to a real echo ; but having afterward more attentively observed 

 this curious phenomenon in Mr. P'itzjames, who exhibits it in its greatest 

 perfection, I was soon convinced that the name of ventriloquism is by no 

 means applicable ; since the whole of its mechanism consists in a slow gra- 

 dual expiration ; in which the artist either influences at his will the surround- 

 ing muscles of the chest, or keeps down the epiglottis by the base of the 

 tongue, the point of which is not protruded beyond the arch of the teeth. "f 



M. de la Chapelle, without offering any particular explanation of this 

 curious art, published, in 1772, an ingenious work, in which he attempted to 

 prove that ventriloquism is of a very ancient date ; and that it formed the mode 

 by which the responses of many of the oracles of former times were delivered 



*Study of Medicine, vol. i, p. 463, edit. 1. t Nouveaux El(imcns de Physiologio, in loc. Paris, 1804. 



