Of all these automata, the duck I confess appeared to me the most ingenious; but I can prove that like pieces of mechanism were made before the time of Vaucanson. We are told by Labat[353], that the French general De Gennes, who, about the year 1688, defended the colony of St. Christopher against the English, constructed a peacock which could walk about, pick up from the ground corn thrown before it, digest it, according to appearance, and afterwards drop something that resembled excrement. This man was of an ancient noble family in Brittany, which had however been so reduced, that the father carried on a handicraft. The son became acquainted with the marquis de Vivonne, who, on account of his promising talents, bred him to the sea. He rose to be commander of a vessel, conducted a squadron to the Straits of Magellan, where it was intended to form a colony, and obtained in Cayenne a tract of land, which he got erected into a county, under the name of Oyac. He invented machines of various kinds useful in navigation and gunnery, and, as we are told, constructed clocks that moved without weights or springs. The flute-player also of Vaucanson was not the first of its kind. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the anonymous author of that well-known poem Zodiacus Vitæ, saw at Rome a figure made in the like manner by a potter. It is much to be regretted that no account is given of its construction. Vidi ego dum Romæ, decimo regnante Leone, Essem, opus a figulo factum, juvenisque figuram, Efflantem angusto validum ventum oris hiatu[354]. I shall here beg leave to say a few words respecting an object of juggling, which, however old it may be, still excites astonishment, and has often imposed upon the credulity of men of learning[355]: I mean those speaking machines, which, according to appearance, answer various questions proposed to them, sometimes in different languages, sing, and even blow a huntsman’s horn. The figure, or only a head, is often placed upon a box, the forepart of which, for the better deception, is filled with a pair of bellows, a sounding-board, cylinder, and pipes, supposed to represent the organs of speech. At other times the machine is only like a peruke-maker’s block, hung round with a Turkish dress, furnished with a pair of arms, and placed before a table, and sometimes the puppet stands upon the table, or against a wall. The sounds are heard through a speaking-trumpet, which the figure holds in its mouth.