ses it upon the piece in order to grasp it, lifts
it up, and places it upon the square it is to be removed to;
this done, it lays its arm down upon a cushion which
is placed on the chess-board. If it ought to
take one of its adversary's pieces, then by one entire
movement, it removes that piece quite off the chess-board,
and by a series of such movements as 1 have been describing,
it returns to take up its own piece, and place it in the
square, which the other had left vacant. I attempted to
practise a small deception, by giving the Queen the move of
a Knight; but my mechanic opponent was not to be so imposed
on; he took up my Queen and replaced her in the square she
had been removed from. All this is done with the same
readiness that a common player shews at this game, and I
have often engaged with persons, who played neither so
expeditiously, nor so skilfully as this Automaton, who yet
would have been extremely affronted, if one had compared
them to him. You will perhaps expect me to propose some
conjectures, as to the means employed to direct this machine
in its movements. I wish I could form any that were
reasonable and well-founded; but notwithstanding the minute
attention with which I have repeatedly observed it, I have
not been able in the least degree to form any hypothesis
which could satisfy myself. The English ambassador, Prince
Guistiniani, and several English Lords, for whom the
inventor had the complaisance to make the figure play, stood
round the table while I played the game. They all had their
eyes on M. de Kempett, who stood by the table, or sometimes
removed five or six feet from it, yet not one of them could
discover the least motion in him, that could influence the
Automaton. They who had seen the effects produced by the
loadstone in the curious exhibitions on the Boulevards at
Paris, cried out, that the loadstone must have been the
means here employed to direct the arm. But, besides that
there are many objections to this supposition, M. de
Kempett, with whom I have had long conversations since on
this subject, offers to let any one bring as close as he
pleases to the table the strongest and best-armed magnet
that can be found, or any weight of iron whatever, without
the least fear that t