Automata Old and New

by Conrad William Cooke

This chess-player was, in the same year, purchased by Mons. Anthon, who took it all over Europe. At his death it came into the hands of Johann Maelzel, the inventor of the Metronome, who sent it to the United States. It was afterwards sent back to Europe, and in the year 1844 was in the possession of a mechanician of Belleville, named Croizier.

Maelzel himself was a mechanician of very considerable skill, and he constructed an automaton trumpeter, which was exhibited at Vienna about the year 1804, which played the Austrian and French cavalry marches, and marches and allegros by Weigl, Dussek, and Pleyel. Maelzel was, after that, appointed mechanician to the Austrian Court, and constructed an automatic orchestra, in which trumpets, flutes, clarionets, violins, violoncellos, drums, cymbals, and a triangle, were introduced, and this attracted very great interest in the Austrian capital at the time.

In the year 1772 there was in Spring Gardens, near Charing Cross, a most remarkable collection of automata exhibited in a place of entertainment known as Cox’s Museum, and here I have an original copy of the “Descriptive catalogue, of the several superb and magnificent pieces of mechanism and jewellery exhibited in Mr. Cox’s Museum, at Spring Gardens, Charing Cross.” To which this footnote is added, “Hours of Admission, 11, 2, and 7, every day (Sundays excepted), tickets Half a Guinea each, admitting one person, to be had at Mr. Cox’s, No. 103, Shoe Lane.” This was a very extraordinary exhibition, and contained upwards of twenty large and elaborate automata, several of them being adorned with gold and precious stones. Some were complicated clocks, some were large groups of animals, and figures with fountains and cascades around them. None of these objects was less than nine feet high, and some were as high as sixteen feet. I can find nothing important enough from a Mechanick’s point of view, to describe in detail, but it was the precursor in the same place of the exhibition of Monsieur Maillardet, which was one of the London attractions at the beginning of the present century.

M. Maillardet exhibited a bird automaton (similar to that already referred to which was made by Le Droz), and whose performance lasted four minutes with one winding up. He constructed also a spider, entirely of steel, which imitated all the actions of the real animal, it ran round and round the table in a spiral line, tending towards the centre. Maillardet made automata representing a caterpillar, a mouse, a lizard, and a serpent; the last crawled about all over the table, darted its tongue in and out, and produced a hissing sound.

Maillardet’s most important automata were, however, his drawing and writing figure, and his pianoforte player. The former was a kneeling boy, who wrote in ink with an ordinary pen, sentences in English and in French, and drew landscapes. The pianist was a figure of a lady, who performed eighteen pieces of music. She began by bowing to the audience, her bosom heaved, and her eyes first looked at the music, and then followed the motion of her fingers, and the music was produced by the keys being played on by the fingers; but the most remarkable of M. Maillardet’s machines, was a magician, or fortune-teller, which gave answers to some twenty given questions, which were inscribed on as many counters or medallions. One of these medallions having been put into a drawer, the figure arose from his seat, bowed to the audience, and described mystic circles in the air with his wand; after appearing to consult his book of mysteries, he struck a little door behind him, which flew open, and exhibited an appropriate answer to the question on the medallion.

The general principle upon which this automaton’s power of selection was founded lay in the fact that in the edge of each medallion there was a small hole drilled, but no two holes were drilled to the same depth, and, by an exceedingly delicate mechanism, the varying depth to which a pin could be thrust into the edge of a disc, was caused to control the mechanism by which the various answers were selected, and which were exhibited when the little door flew open.

The next great master of automaton design and construction, was that wonderful genius Robert-Houdin (about whom our worthy Secretary and Seer discoursed to us so pleasantly and so instructively nearly a year ago). Brother Manning’s paper was so complete in itself, and that part of it which dealt with automata was so ably illustrated, that it will be quite unnecessary for me to add to the length of this communication, by going over that ground again, so I will merely enumerate the automata of that interesting man and pass on to still more recent times.

The first of the automata of Robert-Houdin was a confectioner’s shop, in which a pastry-cook came out of the door when requested and offered to the spectators patisserie, bonbons, and refreshments of every description, and within the shop might be seen the assistants making pastry, rolling out the dough, and putting it into the oven. Then he made two clowns, known as Auriol and Débureau. The first of these performed a number of acrobatic feats upon a chair which was held at arm’s length by the other. After this, the figure of Auriol smoked a pipe, and accompanied on the flageolet an air played by the orchestra.

Another was an acrobat which performed tricks on the trapèze, and the last to which I shall refer, was his celebrated writing figure, which is illustrated in Brother Manning’s “Opusculum,” No. XXIV., to which I must refer you for a great deal of interesting information respecting that remarkable man.

A contemporary of Robert-Houdin was Mons. Mareppe, who constructed a very wonderful automaton violin player, and which was exhibited at the Conservatoire at Paris, in the year 1838, and which performed on the violin by bowing and fingering the strings, and in an account of the performance which was published at the time in “Galignani’s Messenger,” it is stated that the musical execution was so perfect as to bring tears into the eyes of the audience.