No. 77, his scheme for flying, whatever it might have been, whether a balloon, wings, or a machine, yet even of this he says—“which I have tried with a little boy of ten years old.”
Lastly, No. 100, a water-work is spoken of as “by many years experience and labour, advantageously contrived.” And connected with this water-raising subject we may take No. 68, of which he says:—“I have seen the water run like a constant fountain-stream forty feet high.” This is not the language of a speculative theorist. It is experimental, practical, and demonstrative.
Considering the vast sums expended by the Marquis on his experimental and on his practical works, the immense variety of his inventions, and the extreme novelty and singularity of many, it is rather surprising that no account of any of them has come down to our time, through some of the many channels of information then open to receive any accounts of the marvellous. Our next surprise is that none of the many cabinets of the curious seem to have possessed any model or any curious work of his production; not even the indefatigable Tradescant, although his museum was at Lambeth, bought by Ashmole, and given by him to the Bodleian Museum at Oxford. The Marquis did, however, present a peculiarly constructed box to Charles the Second, and he offered an improvement on it to the Earl of Lotherdale,[D] remarking:—“I promise your Lordship a box, with such conveniences and rarities as that which you saw had,—though it were a presumption in me to say, I would give a subject a better qualified present than I gave my Sovereign.” The invention might refer to the Cabinet mentioned in article No. 79, of the Century, as well as include some of his ingenious escutcheons, keys, and locks.
We cannot but suppose that the Marquis was intimately acquainted with the published works of the renowned Roger Bacon, born in 1212, and who died at Oxford in 1292, celebrated for his proficiency in mathematics, mechanics, and chemistry. In his “Discovery of miracles of Art,” published 1659, there occurs the following passage:—“A man may easily make an instrument, whereby one man may, in despite of all opposition, draw a thousand men to himself, or any other thing, which is tractable.”
The Marquis has left in manuscript a list of nine inventions, due to the “Quint-essence of Motion,” by means of which, he says in the 8th section,—“I can stop any other man’s motion, and render it null, since from any point of the compass, I can forcibly and effectually cause a counter-buff, or absolute obstruction to such motion, which way I please; all ways being indifferent to me, to work a perfect resistance, and to countermine their intentions, or to force their motions a clear contrary way.”[E]
What may be the meaning of either statement it is difficult to imagine; or even to decide whether they be really allied to each other, for although in some respects alike, each is very enigmatical.
We have also given in the “Life,” at page 216, a copy of a MS. list of heads of some inventions, among which occurs:—“Intelligence at a distance communicative, and not limited to distance, nor by it the time prolonged.” The wording of which article as clearly as possible expresses what in modern times has actually been attained by the magnetic and the electric telegraph. The “not limited to distance,” and the “time not prolonged” appear conclusive. Wires, tubes, or other mechanical means of communication would necessarily be “limited to distance;” and that which alone we believe to be illimitable through, any human agency is electricity. Truly the Marquis of Worcester was a man of no ordinary stretch of mind.
The “Century” has but slender claims to our notice as a literary performance. Some persons have even imagined that it would have been fortunate for the character of its noble author had it never been written. This is a mistaken view of the subject. In the absence of his elaborated work, it is fortunate that this precious relic has come down unmutilated to our time. It is but as a sketch compared with the finished picture, but we realize the master-hand in the brief outline, and feel conscious of the intelligence and versatile genius of the mind that could conceive, work out, and minutely register the forming of alphabets, automata, ordnance, and finally “a semi-omnipotent engine.” His work has two dedications, one addressed to Charles the Second, the other to both Houses of Parliament, composed in a quaint but courtly style. He mingles classic lore with every-day proverbs. He re-entitles his book as a “summary collection,” and a “Century of summary heads of wonderful things,” as “experiments extant and comprised under these heads practicable with my directions,” and is convinced of “The treasures buried under these heads both for War, Peace and Pleasure being inexhaustible;” concluding that it is a “Century of Experiences perhaps dearly purchased” by him.
He also touches on his pecuniary position, offering, in case he is assisted with the patronage and support sought, “to outgo the £6 or £700,000 already sacrificed;” alludes to “the melancholy which hath lately seized” upon him; and to his work-place at “great expenses made fit for public service,” amounting to about £10,000, “yet lately like to be taken” from him.
He assures Parliament that his several inventions are “practicable with my directions, by the unparalleled workman both for trust and skill, Caspar Kaltoff’s hand, who hath been these five and thirty years as in a school under me employed.” So that, dating from 1663, when he made this statement, we are thus carried back to the year 1628, about the period of his first marriage, and the whole comprises a space of time from the 27th to the 62nd year of his age. How had he employed the peaceable portion of those 35 years? It seems to have been peculiar to the noble experimenter to keep his favourite workman fully employed in putting into practice whatever was known, and in that way establish his own improvements. We can find some analogous device in old scientific writings for the greater part of the subjects he investigated; and it is no disparagement of his ingenuity to say that his refinements may often be traced to the crude efforts made by others to attain similar results. Italy, Germany, Holland, and France abounded in authors whose works we may easily imagine formed a favourite portion of his library; Vitruvius, Vegetius, Hero, Ramelli, Branca, De Caus, Fludd, Besson, Van Etten, Schwenter, Porta, Lana, and other similar tomes replete with engraved brass, copper, and wood-engravings. But the English press likewise produced such works, as Bourne’s Inventions, 1578; Lucar’s Lucar-solace, 1590; Bate’s Mysteries of Art, 1634; Wilkins’ Mathematical Magick; Porta’s Natural Magick, 1658; De Caus’ New and Rare Inventions, 1659, &c. Of all these we are disposed to think that Bate’s Mysteries of Nature and Art was an early favourite; the second edition appeared in 1635, when the Marquis was 34 years of age. The first portion of the work on “Water-works” opens with the observation: “It hath beene an old saying amongst Philosophers, and experience doth prove it to bee true, Non datur vacuum, that is to say, Nature will not admit of any vacuity or emptinesse. For some or other of the Elements, but especially Ayre and Water, doe insert themselves into all manner of concavities, or hollownesses, in, or upon the earth, whether they are such as are formed either by Art or Nature.” Through 82 pages the same subject of Water-works is carefully examined, and at page 57, is a description with engravings of “the Watermill or Engine neare the North end of London Bridge.”