Single mechanical figures, including the automaton Chess-player (which was scarcely a fair deception, and is too well known to need more than a passing allusion), although surprising for their special performances, were hardly more attractive than the groups of automata which have been from time to time exhibited. One of the Memoirs of the French Academy of Sciences describes, in 1729, a set of mechanical puppets, which were at that time performing a pantomime in five acts. In 1746, Bienfait, the show-man, brought out "The Bombardment of the City of Antwerp," which was performed in the most soldier-like manner, by automata; all the artillery being served and discharged with that regularity which is always attributed to clock-work. A year or two later, the same artist produced "The Grand Assault of Bergem-op-Zoom," with unequivocal success. He called his company _Comédiens praticiens_. The latest notable effort of mechanical puppet manufacture is exhibited at Boulogne at the present time. It is that of a jeweler, who has devoted eight years of his life to the perfection of a clock-work conjuror; which he has made a thorough master of the thimble-rig. Dressed in an Eastern costume, this necromancer stands behind a table, covered, as the tables of professors of legerdemain usually are, with little boxes and cabinets, from which he takes the objects he employs during the exhibition. He produces his goblets, and shows the balls under them; which vanish and reappear in the most approved style: now two or three are conjured into a spot, a moment before vacant; presently, these disappear again, and are perpetually divided and re-united. At every exclamation of the spectators, the little conjuror turns his eyes from side to side, as if looking round the house; smiles, casts his eyes modestly down, bows, and resumes his sleight-of-hand. He not only takes up the goblets from a stand, and places them over the balls, but leaves them there for a minute, and holds his hands up, to show the audience that he conceals nothing in his palm or sleeve. He then seizes the goblets again and goes on. This trick over, he puts his cups away, and shuts his cabinet. He then knocks on his table, and up starts an egg, to which he points, to secure attention; he touches the egg (which opens lengthwise) and a little bird starts into life; sings a roundelay, claps its enameled wings--which are of real hummingbirds' feathers, beyond any metallic art in lustre--and then falls back into its egg. The little conjuror nods, smiles, rolls his eyes right and left, bows as before, and the egg disappears into the table; he bows again, and then sits down to intimate that the performance is over. The height of this little gentleman is about three inches; his table and every thing else being in due proportion. He stands on a high square pedestal, apparently of marble. It is, however, of tin, painted white, and within it are all the wheels and works containing the heart of the mystery.