master much gain by sooth-saying." There is also that well-known tale in Plutarch, which is so impressive even to this day on the Christian imagination--the story we mean, of Epitherses, who, having embarked for Italy in the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, suddenly heard a voice from the shore, while becalmed one evening before the Paxe--two small islands in the Ionian sea, which lie between Corcyra and Leucadia; such voice addressing Thamus, a pilot, and an Egyptian by birth, who refused to answer till he received the third summons, whereupon it said, "When thou art come to the Palodes, proclaim aloud that the great Pan is dead!" It is added, that "the passengers were all amazed; but their amazement gave place to the most alarming emotions, when, on arriving at the specified place, Thamus stood in the stern of the vessel, and proclaimed what he had been commanded to announce." St. Chrysostom and the early fathers mention divination by a familiar spirit as practiced in their day; and the practice is still common in the East; as it is also among the Esquimaux. As to the treatise of Eustathius, the good bishop's notion was that the Witch of Endor was really possessed of a demon; whose deception the vision was, being produced by supernatural agency, not, as cited in the Septuagint, by Engastrimism, or Ventriloquy. In the nineteenth century, we are told by Sir David Brewster, that ventriloquists made great additions to their art. The performances, he says, of Fitzjames and Alexandré were far superior to those of their predecessors. "Besides the art of speaking by the muscles of the throat and the abdomen, without moving those of the face, these artists had not only studied, with great diligence and success, the modifications which sounds of all kinds undergo from distance, obstructions, and other causes, but had acquired the art of imitating them in the highest perfection. The ventriloquist was therefore able to carry on a dialogue in which the _dramatis voces_, as they may be called, were numerous; and, when on the outside of an apartment, could personate a mob with its infinite variety of noise and vociferation. Their influence over the minds of an audience was still further extended by a singular power which they had obtained over the muscles of the body. Fitzjames actually succeeded in making the opposite or corresponding muscles act differently from each other; and while one side of his face was merry and laughing, the other side was full of sorrow and tears. At one time, he was tall, and thin, and melancholy, and after passing behind a screen, he came out bloated with obesity and staggering with fullness. M. Alexandré possessed the same power over his face and figure, and so striking was the contrast between two of these forms, that an excellent sculptor (M. Joseph) has perpetuated them in marble. This new acquirement of the ventriloquist of the nineteenth century, enabled him in his own single person, and with his own single voice, to