272 LETTERS ON NATURAL MAGIC. 



adversary's piece on the square from which it 

 was taken, and takes the next move itself. In 

 general, though not always, the automaton wins 

 the game. 



During the progress of the game, the exhibitor 

 often stands near the machine, and winds it up 

 like a clock, after it has made ten or twelve 

 moves. At other times he went to a corner of 

 the room, as if it were to consult a small square 

 box, which stood open for this purpose. 



The chess-playing machine, as thus described, 

 was exhibited after its completion in Presburg, 

 Vienna, and Paris, to thousands, and in 1783 and 

 1784 it was exhibited in London and different 

 parts of England, without the secret of its move- 

 ments having been discovered. Its ingenious 

 inventor, who was a gentleman and a man of 

 education, never pretended that the automaton 

 itself really played the game. On the contrary, 

 he distinctly stated, "that the machine was a 

 bagatelle, which was not without merit in point 

 of mechanism, but that the effects of it appeared 

 so marvellous only from the boldness of the con- 

 ception, and the fortunate choice of the methods 

 adopted for promoting the illusion." 



Upon considering the operations of this auto- 

 maton, it must have been obvious that the game 

 of chess was performed either by a person en- 

 closed in the chest, or by the exhibitor himself. 

 The first of these hypotheses was ingeniously 

 excluded by the display of the interior of the 

 machine, for as every part contained more or less 

 machinery, the spectator invariably concluded 

 that the smallest dwarf could not be accom- 

 modated within, and this idea was strengthened 

 by the circumstance, that no person of this 



