on the simple affirmation by the Marquis of his having made such a discovery, but after repeated meetings of committees on the subject, in both Houses, at which several amendments were made on the Bill. Besides the passing of the Act, and the publication of the Century,' the principal circumstances that seem to show that the Marquis did more than merely imagine the construction of such an engine, are the following:

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(1.) It is expressly provided in the Act, "that a model "thereof" [i. e. of the engine] "be delivered by the said Marquess or his assigns, to the Lord Treasurer or Commis"sioners for the Treasury for the time being, at or before the "nine-and-twentieth day of September, one thousand six hun"dred sixty-three, and be by him or them put into the “Exchequer and kept there." Unfortunately, we are not in a condition to prove that this model ever was so deposited. The Act was passed prior to the publication of the 'Century,' for in the Dedication prefixed to the latter, "To the Right "Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and to the

The following history of the date of the introduction of the Bill, and of its progress through Parliament, which we have taken from the Journals of the respective Houses, will, we believe, be found a more correct one.

The Marquis of Worcester's Engine Bill was brought into the House of Lords, and there read a first time, on the 16th of March, 1663.

Bill read a second time 19 March, and referred to a Committee of twentytwo Peers.

The Committee reported certain alterations on the Bill, which were read twice, and the Bill was re-committed, 28 March.

Further report from the Committee, of a proviso to be added: proviso read twice and agreed to, and Bill ordered to be engrossed, with the proviso, 30 March.

Bill read a third time, and passed, 31 March.

Sent to the House of Commons, 2 April.

Read a second time, and referred to a Committee of fifty-one members, 4 April.

Committee reported several amendments, which were agreed to, and further proviso recommended, 13 April.

Bill with amendments and proviso agreed to, 5 May; and Lord Herbert directed to carry the same up to the Lords.

Bill with amendments brought up to the House of Lords, 7 May.

The Lords acquaint the Commons that they agree to the amendments and alterations in the Bill; message received by the Commons, 12 May.

The Royal Assent given by Commission to the Act, 3 June, 1663.

It will thus be seen that the Act in question was not passed without formal, and apparently careful deliberation; though we still are uninformed as to how far evidence may have been called for, before either of the Committees, as to the reality and the

Read a first time in the House of specific particulars of the invention Commons, 3 April. affirmed to have been made.

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Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses of the Honourable House "of Commons, now assembled in Parliament," the Marquis speaks of "the Act of the Water-commanding Engine (which "so chearfully you have past)." Yet in the whole course of the work he does not say either that the model had been deposited as directed, or that the engine was in course of construction on a great scale; although he does speak very confidently of the feats he intended to perform, with the help of one "Caspar Kaltoff's hand," an "unparallelled workman both for trust and skill, who hath been these five-andthirty years as in a school under me imployed, and still "at my disposal, in a place by my great expences made fit "for publick service;"-expenses which he afterwards estimates at 10,000l. His expectations of realising a fortune by his engine were evidently exuberant; and, with a heroic boldness not unworthy of the rest of his character and proceedings, he professes his design of first paying his debts, next of settling a competency to himself to live according to his birth and quality, and lastly, of dedicating the rest to the service of his king and country;-who, however, fared little the better for that "bright reversion!"

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(2.) In a letter to the Marchioness of Worcester from her confessor, dated 1670, which was three years after the death of her lord, the writer remonstrates with her ladyship for allowing her thoughts to be too much set "on the title of Plantagenet, and of disposing yourself for that greate dignity by getting of greate sums of money from the King to "pay your deceased lord's debts, and enriching your selfe by "the great machine and the like." All of which ideas the priest, Walter Travers, declares to be motives employed by the devil, "to make his suggestions the more prevalent : very piously advising the Marchioness, "insteede of temporall, "to seeke after eternall riches and honors," but very ungallantly adding, "which your age doth assure you are not "far off."

Along with this letter may be taken another still more curious document, preserved, like it, by the Beaufort family, and published in 1825 in Mr. Partington's edition of the

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Century of Inventions;' it is entitled, "The Lord Marquesse "of Worcester's ejaculatory and extemporary thanksgiving

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a

Prayer, when first with his corporal eyes he did see finished perfect trial of his Water-commanding Engine, delightful "and useful to whomsoever hath in recommendation either knowledge, profit, or pleasure ;" and begins as follows:-"Oh! infinitely omnipotent God! whose mercies are fathomlesse, " and whose knowledge is immense and inexhaustible; next "to my creation and redemption I render thee most humble "thanks from the very bottom of my heart and bowels, for thy vouchsafing me (the meanest in understanding) an insight in soe great a secret of nature, beneficent to all "mankind, as this my water-commanding engine. Suffer me "not to be puffed upp, O Lord, by the knowing of it, and "many more rare and unheard off, yea unparallelled inven"tions, tryals, and experiments," &c.

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Supposing this prayer to have been really composed or offered up by the Marquis, it seems at least conclusive as to his own genuine belief in the wonders he asserted himself to have achieved; as he cannot for a moment be supposed to have been so abandoned, as, in so very deliberate and solemn a manner, to have called on his Maker to witness a lie.

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(3.) In one or two copies of the first edition of the 'Century,' there occurs, as a sort of Appendix, a description of "a stupendious Water-commanding Engine, boundless for height or quantity, requiring no external or even additional help or force, to be set or continued in motion, but what intrinsically is afforded from its own operation, nor yet the "twentieth part thereof," &c. &c. It is introduced by a preface, and concludes with a Latin elogium and English panegyric, composed, through duty and gratitude, by an "ancient servant of his Lordship, (James Rollock), who hath, "for 40 years, been an eye-witness of his great ingenuity, indefatigable pains, and vast expenses in perfecting, for "public service, not only this most stupendious Water-commanding Engine, but likewise several other rare, useful, "and never formerly heard of mathematical conclusions, of "which he hath owned a Century, and thereunto I refer you;

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though this alone were enough to eternalise his name to all "ages and future times," &c. &c.* It must be confessed that the romantic address of Mr. Rollock bears a somewhat close resemblance to the mythical style of the Marquis; but, on the other hand, the expressions in the third stanza are wonderfully descriptive of the powerful action of steam in raising water, as well as of its condensation when its work is done.

(4.) In the translation of the Travels in England of Cosmo 'de Medicis, Grand Duke of Tuscany,' published in 1821, it is stated that "on the 28th May, [1669], his Highness saw at "Vauxhall an hydraulic machine, invented by my Lord "Somerset, Marquess of Worcester. It raises water more "than forty geometrical feet, by the power of one man only; “and in a very short space of time will draw up four vessels "of water, through a tube or channel not more than a span " in width."

"Great is the Work, but greater is the Fame

"Of that great Peer, who did invent the

same.

"What Force or Strength can do, is in his reach;

"His long Experience, Costs and Charges teach:

"What Greeks nor Romans ere could do,

this day

"Our noble Britain here hath found the
way.

"If Ages past had bred you, we had seen
"Your Glorie's current run a bigger stream;
"But Art and Envy meeting face to face,
"Like France and Spain, dispute who shall
take place.

"None but Ignoble Minds love to detract
"From th' honour due to such a noble act:
"On then, that After-ages may relate
"Your Service done to Country, King, and
State.

"And though that envious Spirits spit their
gall,

"Your Noble Deeds are so well known to all,

"As if their malice should take from your

Praise,

"Your own deserts will crown your head with Bayes."

The Latin elogium is much to the same purpose, and precedes the panegyric.

The two accounts of the performances of the engine, the one by the Marquis, and the other by the Duke, or his Secretary, (the celebrated Magalotti), who wrote the Journal, are, in the essential point of numerical appreciation of the power, almost verbatim the same; and it is not improbable that, to ensure greater accuracy, the one might be copied from the other. This, however, we have been led to imagine solely from their extraordinary similarity, and from our not having met with a description of the engine in any other contemporary work.

So hard is it to discover, from such accounts, the true state 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."†

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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 1656, when he was arrested while on a mission from Charles II., who was then residing at the Court of France, and had sent him over to England to procure money and secret intelligence; articles of both of which the exiled monarch was at that time very destitute. It is said that the Marquis, "in those deep soli“tudes and awful cells," one day observed the lid of the pot in