John Joseph Merlin he wheeled about himself, with great facility to any part of the room." At an event held by Teresa Cornelys in Carlisle House, Soho Square, Merlin appeared somewhat disastrously on roller skates of his own invention. By April 1783 Merlin was putting his musical instruments and his automatons on display at his own museum. Advertisements invited readers to visit his Museum of Musical Instruments and Mechanical Inventions at No. 2, Princes Street, Hanover Square, London. Well-off Londoners could meet their friends at Merlin's Mechanical Museum in the afternoon or evening, pay to see the exhibits, and drink tea or coffee
James Cox (inventor) James Cox (inventor) Cox's career as a jeweler began as early as 1751, and his automatons were designed by artists like Joseph Nollekens and Johann Zoffany. In the 1760s John Joseph Merlin became his apprentice. Though he proclaimed himself a goldsmith, he employed a number of jewelers and manufacturers who may have done much of the work; that he was never a member of the goldsmith's guild further substantiates the claim that he subcontracted his work. Cox specialized in intricate clockwork curios encrusted with gold, silver, and jewels, referred to as "sing-songs." His primary market was the Far East, especially