of the case, that on the question of Lord Worcester's execution of any steam-engine, there has always prevailed great diversity of opinion. Nay, we even find one author of very considerable ingenuity, and of extensive though not always accurate research, in one of his works thinking it clear, for various reasons which he assigns, that this hydraulic machine must have been some species of steam-engine; and, probably, the identical "most stupendious Water-commanding Engine:"* while in another work, published not long before, he had said that the "Century of Inventions' is called by Walpole, with much truth, an amazing piece of folly," and had unmercifully ridiculed "the overwhelming quackery of the Marquis of Worcester, and the absurd extravagance of his pretensions." We must not omit the tradition which attributes the origin of the steam-ideas of the Marquis to the period of his imprisonment in the Tower of London. His captivity there, which was of several years' duration, began in 1665, when he was arrested while on a mission from Charles II., who was residing at the Court of France. It is said that the Marquis, "in those deep solitudes and awful cells," one day observed the lid of the pot in which his dinner was cooking suddenly rise, forced up by the vapour of the water which the fire had heated; or, in other words, by steam. "Then it occurred to him that the same force which had lifted the lid might become, in certain circumstances, a useful and convenient moving power:" and hence-so runs the story―arose the 'Century of Inventions,' with its steam-engine all ready-made and acting;-at least in the mind of its contriver! * Historical and Descriptive Anecdotes of Steam-engines, by Robert Stuart. London, 1829, vol. i. + Descriptive History of the Steam-engine, by Robert Stuart. London, 1824. CHAPTER X. COMPARATIVE CLAIMS OF SOLOMON DE CAUS AND THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER— THE comparative claims of Solomon De Caus and of the Marquis of Worcester have been a favourite subject of discussion with many writers in both France and England, the countrymen of the one and of the other respectively. In the national competition as to those two ingenious projectors, De Caus had clearly the priority in point of time, by a whole half-century. But then he is not even alleged ever to have applied his hollow ball and tube, or,-to dignify them by a name which they could hardly claim,-his boiler and steam-pipe, to any purpose of utility; and in all probability he never either executed them on a great scale, or attempted to regulate the force which on a small scale he may have been able so to exert. The engine devised by Lord Worcester, on the other hand, if we are to believe the concurrent testimony of his own description and prayer, of the correspondence between his widow and her confessor,-of the panegyric of his servant Rollock, and of the account given by Duke Cosmo de Medicis and his Secretary Magalotti,-would appear to have been at last executed on a scale large enough to produce very considerable hydraulic effects; and, although we must probably ever remain ignorant of the precise manner in which it acted, still there is no doubt that the language used by all parties in regard to it could best be explained by supposing that steam, in some one or more of its manifold ways of operation, was its moving power. Considering the uselessness of the contrivance of De Caus, and the doubtfulness existing as to that of the Marquis, it is, indeed, only surprising that "the invention of the steam-engine" should have been attributed to either of them, with such confidence as both French and English writers have alternately shown. In a work entitled 'A Summer amongst the Bocages and the Vines,' published in 1840, by Miss Louisa Stuart Costello, a lady favourably known to the world by several of her writings, appears the following letter, which she states, without hinting a suspicion of the truth of the statement, to have been written by Marion de l'Orme, in 1641, to M. de Cinq Mars. "MY DEAR EFFIAT, "PARIS, Feb. 1641. "While you are forgetting me at Narbonne, and giving yourself up to the pleasures of the Court, and the delight of thwarting M. le Cardinal de Richelieu, I, according to your express desire, am doing the honours of Paris to your English lord, the Marquis of Worcester; and I carry him about, or, rather, he carries me, from curiosity to curiosity, choosing always the most grave and serious, speaking very little, listening with extreme attention, and fixing on those whom he interrogates two large blue eyes, which seem to pierce to the very centre of their thoughts. He is remarkable for never being satisfied with any explanations which are given him; and he never sees things in the light in which they are shown him: you may judge of this by a visit we made together to Bicêtre, where he imagined he had discovered a genius in a madman." "If this madman had not been actually raving, I verily believe your Marquis would have entreated his liberty, and have carried him off to London, in order to hear his extravagances, from morning till night, at his ease. We were crossing the court LETTER OF MARION DE L'ORME. 99 of the mad-house, and I, more dead than alive with fright, kept close to my companion's side, when a frightful face appeared behind some immense bars, and a hoarse voice exclaimed, 'I am not mad! I am not mad! I have made a discovery which would enrich the country that adopted it.' 'What has he discovered?' I asked of our guide. 'Oh,' he answered, shrugging his shoulders, 'something trifling enough; you would never guess it; it is the use of the steam of boiling water.' I began to laugh. This man,' continued the keeper, 'is named Salomon de Caus; he came from Normandy, four years ago, to present to the King a statement of the wonderful effects that might be produced from his invention. To listen to him, you would imagine that with steam you could navigate ships, move carriages, in fact, there is no end to the miracles which, he insists upon it, could be performed. The Cardinal sent the madman away without listening to him. Salomon de Caus, far from being discouraged, followed the Cardinal wherever he went, with the most determined perseverance; who, tired of finding him for ever in his path, and annoyed to death with his folly, ordered him to be shut up in Bicêtre, where he has now been for three years and a half, and where, as you hear, he calls out to every visitor, that he is not mad, but that he has made a valuable discovery. He has even written a book on the subject, which I have here.' "Lord Worcester, who had listened to this account with much interest, after reflecting a time, asked for the book, of which, after having read several pages, he said, 'This man is not mad. In my country, instead of shutting him up, he would have been rewarded. Take me to him, for I should like to ask him some questions.' He was accordingly conducted to his cell, but after a time he came back sad and thoughtful. 'He is, indeed, mad now,' said he; 'misfortune and captivity have alienated his reason; but it is you who have to answer for his madness: when you cast him into that cell, you confined the greatest genius of * Here Miss Costello, in a note, adds the title of De Caus' book, the age.' After this, we went away, and, since that time, he has done nothing but talk of Salomon de Caus. "Adieu, my dear friend and faithful Henry. Make haste and come back, and pray do not be so happy where you are as not to keep a little love for me. "MARION DELORME." To us, we confess, it always appeared that this letter smacked very strongly of having been concocted in the nineteenth century; and we now beg to inform those of our readers who might at first have been disposed to think differently, that it is, throughout, an attempt at an impudent and fraudulent imposture. So far from "your English lord, the Marquis of Worcester," having then been in Paris, there was not, and there never had been, at the date of the letter in question, either in France or in England, any such person as a Marquis of Worcester at all, nor was there any such title as that Marquisate in existence! Further, the first peer who bore that title was not the Marquis of Worcester of steam-engine fame; and the latter did not become either Earl or Marquis of Worcester for years after the date of the alleged interview with De Caus. Henry, fifth Earl of Worcester, was not created a Marquis till 1642, when his son Edward, the author of the 'Century of Inventions,' was known as Lord Herbert. Edward, Lord Herbert, was created Earl of Glamorgan in 1645; and on the death of his father, the first Marquis, who died at the venerable age of eighty-five years, he succeeded to the Earldom and Marquisate of Worcester. The few years before and after the middle of the seventeenth century form a most brilliant era in the history of discoveries in natural philosophy; and, quite independent of the hydraulic machine invented by the Marquis of Worcester, some great advances were made at that time, by philosophers whose names have not usually been associated with the steam-engine, towards the right explanation of principles upon which its action was at |