Having washed from his person all tokens of his simulated intoxication, and dressed himself anew, M. Alexandre then betook himself to the mansion of the nobleman to whom he had engaged himself.
On the following day the fashionable newspapers gave a detailed account of the grand party at his Grace the Duke of ——’s, and eulogized to the skies the entertaining performances of M. Alexandre, who, they said, had surpassed himself on this occasion. Some days afterwards, the Lord Mayor encountered M. Alexandre. “Ah, how are you?” said his lordship. “Very well, my lord,” was the reply. “Our newspapers are pretty pieces of veracity,” said his lordship. “Have you seen the Courier of the other day? Why, it makes you out to have exhibited in great style last Thursday night at his Grace of ——’s!” “It has but told the truth,” said the mimic. “What? impossible!” cried the Mayor. “You do not remember, then, the state into which you unfortunately got at the Mansion House?” And thereupon the worthy magistrate detailed to the ventriloquist the circumstances of his intoxication, and the care that had been taken with him, with other points of the case. M. Alexandre heard his lordship to an end, and then confessed the stratagem which he had played off, and the cause of it.
“I had promised,” said Alexandre, “to be with his Grace at half-past ten. I had also promised not to leave you till you yourself considered it fit time. I kept my word in both cases—you know the way.” The civic functionary laughed heartily, and on the following evening Alexandre made up for his trick by making the Mansion House ring with laughter till daylight.
Many anecdotes are told respecting M. Alexandre’s power of assuming the faces of other people. At Abbotsford, during a visit there, he actually sat to a sculptor five times in the character of a noted clergyman, with whose real features the sculptor was well acquainted. When the sittings were closed and the bust modelled, the mimic cast off his wig and assumed dress, and appeared with his own natural countenance, to the terror almost of the sculptor, and to the great amusement of Sir Walter and others who had been in the secret.
Of this most celebrated ventriloquist it is related that on one occasion he was passing along the Strand, when a friend desired a specimen of his abilities. At this instant a load of hay was passing along near Temple Bar, when Alexandre called attention to the suffocating cries of a man in the centre of the hay. A crowd gathered round and stopped the astonished carter, and demanded why he was carrying a fellow-creature in his hay. The complaints and cries of the smothered man now became painful, and there was every reason to believe that he was dying. The crowd, regardless of the stoppage to the traffic, instantly proceeded to unload the hay into the street. The smothered voice urged them to make haste, but the feelings of the people may be imagined when the cart was empty and nobody was found, while Alexandre and his friend walked off laughing at the unexpected results of their trick.
It would be obviously invidious to compare the merits of living professors. Mr. Maccabe, Mr. Gallagher, Mr. Thurton and Mr. Macmillan have long been favorites with the public.
THE THEORY OF VENTRILOQUISM.
Many physiologists aver that ventriloquism is obtained by speaking during the inspiration of air. It is quite possible to articulate under these circumstances, and the plan may with advantage be occasionally adopted; but our own practical experience and close observation of many public performers, and of not a few private friends who have attained distinctness and no small amount of facility in the art, convince us that the general current of utterance is, as in ordinary speech, during expiration of the breath. Some imagine that the means of procuring the required imitation are comprised in a thorough management of the echoes of sound. Unfortunately, however, for this theory, an echo only repeats what has been already brought into existence. Several eminent ventriloquists, including the late Mr. Matthews, have displayed the vocal illusion while walking in the streets. Baron Mengen describes as follows his mode of speaking, when he desired the illusion to take the direction of a voice emanating from the doll: “I press my tongue against the teeth, and then circumscribe a cavity between my left check and teeth, in which the voice is produced by the air held in reserve in the pharynx. The sounds thus receive a hollow and muffled tone, which causes them to appear to come from a distance.” The Baron furthermore mentions that it is essential to have the breath well under control, and not to respire more than can be avoided. M. St. Gille was seen to look somewhat exhausted when the vocal illusion grew less perfect. We ourselves, and all ventriloquists with whom we have conferred, have acknowledged that they have experienced fatigue in the chest, and have attributed it to the slow expiration of the breath. M. St. Gille, with the majority of ventriloquists, was often compelled to cough during the progress of his exercitation.
To attain an exact and positive knowledge of the modifications of voice specified as ventriloquism, it is important to be familiar with the distinctions of the sounds uttered by the mouth; and to ascertain how the organs act in producing those vocal modifications, it is necessary to know how the breath is vocalized in all distinctions of pitch, loudness, and quality, by the ordinary actions of the vocal organs. In ordinary language, we speak of noise, of common sound, and of musical sound-terms employed by Dr. Thomas Young in illustrating the mechanical agencies of articulation:—“A quill striking against a piece of wood causes a noise, but striking successively against the teeth of a wheel, or of a comb, a continued sound, and, if the teeth of the wheel are at equal distances, and the velocity of the rotation is constant, a musical sound. The general terms—pitch, loudness, quality, and duration, embrace all the distinctions with which the musician has to deal, and which he uses in his art.”
The distinguishing feature of musical sound is its uniform pitch throughout its duration, and acoustically musical sound is composed of an equal number of impulses or noises produced in equal tones.