In the composition of the “Century,” we notice several peculiarities which may sometimes be accounted for by the writer having caught the style of certain English authors. In a letter dated 30th of August, 1646, he quotes the proverb, “a child burned dreads the fire,” and in the “Century” we find the word “child” occurring six times to indicate little power or strength being required. The word “conceited” is used three times in the sense of ingeniously contrived. All these modes of expression are also peculiar to Bate, Plat, and the translation of Van Etten. The “twinkling of an eye” is an expression used twice. The article No. 15, is “A boat driving against wind and tide;” in Humane Industry, 1661, appears—“a way to drive their ships without oar.” The term “admirable” is common to Bate and to the Marquis; and so is another, that of the word “force,” peculiarly used in article No. 68, when he speaks of the “vessels” being “strengthened by the force within them:” really meaning no more, as appears, than some kind of pump-force or plunger acting the part of a valve to diminish any superabundant steam pressure; and not, as is perplexingly supposed, that he had some contrivance for making the expansive force of the steam within the boiler act of itself to strengthen the vessel!
When we read in article No. 56, the expression, “A most incredible thing if not seen,” and find Dr. Dee, in his preface to Euclid, expressing himself on a kindred subject, that it is—“A thing almost incredible,” we cannot refuse to believe from internal evidence that the author was from natural inclination well acquainted with that early English translation. The range of such studies as he delighted in, taken from the reign of Elizabeth to the troubled times of Charles the First, or even later, was very restricted; therefore a course of scientific reading would soon be exhausted by an indefatigable inquirer, who would then probably settle down to being satisfied with a small but chosen collection of his favourite authors. It is not only in traits of language that we see a resemblance in such early authors, but equally do we find a certain agreement in their matter. John Bate, for example, mingles the great with the small, the serious with the ludicrous; he has philosophical experiments, a great water-work, amusive toys, pyrotechny, drawing, and medical recipes arranged in four books; and the several editions appear to have enjoyed an amount of popularity which has made any of them very scarce in a perfect form.
A careful perusal of the “Century” will satisfy the reader that its contents relate principally to the practical and useful, notwithstanding that some appear of doubtful value, and some even paradoxical. The variety of cannon and musquetry is singular, the improvements in ships and fortifications quite surprising, and in various mechanical appliances remarkably ingenious. But, after all, what was the special design of its author; what was he principally seeking to establish through this wide course of investigation? It is evident he sought some mechanical power to supersede ordinary wind, water, and animal power. He tried weights and springs, screws and levers, and finally he filled a piece of a cannon three-quarters full of water, which, after making a fire under it, “burst and made a great crack.” The aim and object of all his laborious experiments was now attained, and from the day when he thus burst the cannon, steam power was realized, its application pursued, various kinds of machines constructed, and the strangeness, novelty, and power of the new engine were such that he declared, as in an ecstacy of delight, “I call this A Semi-omnipotent Engine, and do intend that a model thereof be buried with me.” Nay, more, he bowed down in adoration before his Maker, rendering him most humble thanks for vouchsafing him “an insight in so great a secret of nature.”
It is worth remarking, that the very form of the “Century” was rather due to a custom among scientific inventors than to any whim on the part of its author. In the 13th century, Wilars de Honecort had given a statement of fourteen inventions. In like manner Leonardo da Vinci, of ten various schemes for bridges, ditches, fortifications, and others, military and naval. So again Ralph Rabbards in 1574, Edmund Jentill in 1594, and Henry Marshall in 1595, gave notices of their several discoveries in medical waters, fire-works, and mechanical devices. In 1583, appears a MS. note of twenty “sundry sorts of engynes.” In 1596, Lord Napier wrote concerning his four “secret inventions,” concluding:—“These inventions, besides devices of sailing under water, with divers other devices and stratagems for harming of the enemies, by the grace of God, and work of expert craftsmen, I hope to perform.” In James the First’s reign was published a tract entitled, “Cornu-Copia: a miscellaneum of lucriferous and most fructiferous experiments, observations, and discoveries, immethodically distributed; to be really demonstrated and communicated in all sincerity.” The suggestions, amounting to seventeen, are chemical, medicinal, agricultural, and mechanical. In 1632, Thomas Grent patented six inventions, not one of which is otherwise described than after this manner:—“First. An instrument very profitable when common windes doe fail, for a more speedy passage of calmed shipps, or other vessels upon the sea or great rivers, which may be called the wind’s mate.” In 1636, Sir John C. Van Berg patented eight inventions, specified after this manner:—(First) “Diverse mechanicke instruments and frames operating by waights, soe to bee fitted and ordered that the force and strength of them may bee augmented or diminished either in regard of the instruments themselves, or in respecte of the number of workmen to be employed aboute them accordinge as occasion or necessitie shall require; &c.” In 1646, Captain Bulmer gave Emanuel College, Cambridge, a certificate of four hydraulic and mechanical inventions. In 1659, an account of Roger Bacon’s “admirable artificial instruments” was published, relating to ships, chariots, flying, scaling ladders, diving bell, &c. So that there was no lack of precedents for the form adopted in treating the multifarious subjects recorded in the “Century.” But, indeed, had no other existed, he had a sufficient example in the vague patent specifications that his predecessors, and he himself (in 1661), lodged as sufficient and valid instruments to secure a right in the matters therein specified. And in confirmation of this we have only to place in juxta-position the fore-named patent of 1661, and the “Century,” to see at once the close resemblance between the two; thus No. 1, is the 78th article, No. 2, the 58th, No. 3, the 19th, and No. 4, the 15th article of the “Century,” copied almost verbatim.[F] We, therefore, find that the one hundred articles are as explicit as any of the patent specifications of, and prior to, the reign of Charles the Second. Yet men of unquestionable literary taste, but unacquainted with these simple facts, have charged the Marquis of Worcester with mystifying his statements, by writing too enigmatically, without considering his promise, had he lived, “to leave to posterity a book” containing “the means to put in execution all these inventions;” and without the indulgence of awarding him at least the merit of writing his very syllabus with all the amplification required by law for the enrolment of a Patent Specification.
While the Marquis was struggling to obtain royal and state patronage, he had a powerful rival in Sir Samuel Morland, a gentleman of the Privy Chamber and Master of Mechanics, to Charles the Second. It has never been noticed that, simultaneously with the Marquis, he was projecting plans of novel means for draining mines, and it is very improbable that, while so engaged, he could view disinterestedly the various efforts of the Marquis of Worcester. In the “Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series for 1661–1662, edited by Mrs. M. A. E. Green,” octavo, 1861, we find the following particulars under the respective dates, viz:—
“Dec? 1661. No. 36. Petition of [Sir] Samuel Morland to the King, for a patent for the sole use of his invention of an Engine for raising water out of mines or pits, quicker and better than before practised.
“Dec. 11. Whitehall. Warrant for a grant to Sir Sam. Morland of the sole use for 14 years of his invention for raising water out of pits, &c. to a reasonable height, “by the force of powder and air conjointly.”
“Dec. Whitehall. Vol. 46. No. 49. Warrant for a grant to Sir Sam. Morland of the sole making of an Engine invented by him for raising water in mines or pits, draining marshes, or supplying buildings with water.”
The annexed reprinted title page is a facsimile for size and letter-press within the gothic frame, employed to enlarge it. The smallness of the work was by no means unusual, indeed the first edition, in the British Museum, is bound in a volume uniform with the discourses of Sir William Petty, and of Dr. Grew, before the Royal Society, in 1674, issued by its own printer. Although more than ten years later the quaint style reminds one of the Dedications to the “Century,” as when Sir William says he was commanded to print his discourse—“Because, as drapers cut patterns of their whole cloth out of an end, not because the end is better than the rest, but because it may be best spared; so (I suppose) the Society are content, that this exercise pass for a sample, pro tanto, of what they are doing.” And of his second part he observes that it is “To excite the world to the study of a little Mathematics, by showing the use of Duplicate Proportions in some of the most weighty of human affairs, which notion a child of 12 years[G] old may learn in an hour.” Lastly, the Epistle Dedicatory informs us that:—“Falsity, disproportion, and inconsistence cannot be rectified by any sermocinations, though made all of figurate and measured periods, pronounced in tune and cadence, through the most advantageous organs; much less by grandiosonous or euphonical nonsense farded with formality; no more than vicious wines can be remedied with brandy and honey, or ill cookery with enormous proportions of spice and sugar: Nam Res nolunt malè administrari.” One example from Dr. Grew’s epistle to his discourse will suffice, where he says:—“I know, my Lord, that there are some men, who have just so much understanding, as only to teach them how to be ambitious: the flattering of whom, is somewhat like the tickling of children, till they fall a dancing.”
The annexed Commentary has for its object to show the several sources from which it is not less probable than possible that the Marquis derived a certain amount of information for his guidance in endeavouring to advance and refine on the same by his own efforts at improvement. Many intelligent persons, particularly classical scholars, and men of purely literary tastes, whose reading has not embraced the study of the literature of science, have supposed that the whole or greater part of the Marquis of Worcester’s inventions emanated solely from his own unguided inventive skill; and not a few may have imagined it would be derogatory to the originality of an inventor to suppose him walking in the steps of others, however much he might outstrip their attainments in the same branch of inquiry. But all invention is progressive—first, laws of nature are discovered, then applications are invented, and last follow divisions and sub-divisions of endless great, small, and minute improvements. The Marquis originated many improvements, but assuredly only one pre-eminent invention, his great “fire water-work.” It would have been easy for us to make the commentary consist of essays on modern improvements, more or less traceable to the suggestive character of the “Century.” But we stop where the Marquis laid down his pen, preferring rather to show that materials existed from which he might derive the several classes of subjects therein noted, which many have so far doubted as to believe they originated wholly with himself; as by adopting the other course, we should only satisfy the public of the great use the “Century” has been to others, a matter which has never been doubted.