The Life, Times, and Scientific Labours of the Second Marquis of Worcester / To which is added a reprint of his Century of Inventions, 1663, with a Commentary thereon.

by Henry Dircks

The “Century of Inventions” derives its name rather from the circumstance of the work containing one hundred articles, than the same number of inventions. Its noble author may have had in mind the Centuria di Secreti Politici, Cimichi, e Naturali, by Francesco Scarioni of Parma, duodecimo, printed at Venice in 1626, when he fixed on the quaint title of his own remarkable production.

Among the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum Library is a manuscript copy of the “Century,” the title of which omits the words “at the instance of a powerful friend,” also the motto, date, dedications, and author’s name. It also differs in other respects from the printed edition, by introducing “A stamping Engine” as the 88th article, in place of which its author has printed his account of “A Brazen Head;” the concluding article likewise varies, especially in closing with a short notice of “three sorts” of other inventions “set down in cypher,” but which do not appear. The top of the title page has written on it “From August y^e 29th to Sept. y^e 21st 1659,” probably by the copyist, to notify the time occupied in writing.

The first edition was printed in 1663, during the author’s lifetime, as he died in 1667; and the last edition, with notes by Mr. C. F. Partington, is dated 1825. This last edition professes on the title page to be “from the Original Manuscript”; and, at page 6, alludes to “a manuscript in the Marquis’s handwriting, having been preserved in the Harleian Collection, appended to an original copy of the Century of Inventions.” Now, as no other manuscript is known to exist, it is important to state distinctly that the Manuscript Century in question is neither original nor yet in the handwriting of the Marquis; it is evidently no more than one of those copies, which it was then a common practice to circulate; and the MS. bound up in the same volume with this interesting document, relating to a method of “Cypher writing,” is not in the Marquis’s handwriting.

So far, therefore, from “The Century of Inventions of the Marquis of Worcester, from the Original MS.” being what it thus distinctly professes, it is an amalgamation of the Harleian MS. copy, and the first printed edition. This obliges the introduction of two Nos. 88; but unfortunately there is neither mark, note, nor observation to guide or guard the reader even as to the editor’s numerous emendations; and the result has been such as to render this the most unreliable of all the reprints of the “Century,” which will appear more evident by the unauthorised readings, marked P, in the notes.

The “Century” remained in manuscript from 1655, the period of its author’s release from the Tower, until 1663, the date of the first printed edition; the title page of which repeats the date of its composition, adding, “my former notes being lost;” as he was, however, the inventor of many ciphers or kinds of short-hand, it is probable his lost notes would be written so as to be unreadable without the key. It was printed soon after the passing of the Act for his “Water-commanding Engine,” which is mentioned in the Dedication to the Houses of Parliament.

It has been frequently reprinted singly, as well as produced entire in larger works, of all which publications a list is hereunto annexed.

We subjoin the title pages of the “Century”:—

From the Harleian MS. in the British Museum.

“From August y^e 29th to Sept. y^e 21st, 1659.

From the printed edition of 1663.