We are not disposed to question either his talent, or his veracity, hence the difficulty of offering any simple, direct, satisfactory reply to what otherwise appears to be an easily answered interrogative. Eminent writers of the seventeenth and previous centuries maintained that perpetual motion was possible. Dr. Dee, in his very curious preface to the first translation of Euclid into English, wrote favourably on this very topic; so that, however the modern scientific sceptic may blame his Lordship for want of skill, or, worse, of veracity, his opinion was quite in accordance with the estimation in which the subject was viewed in his day. But he goes a step farther, he speaks of a practical result. Hence he leaves us no alternative but to declare that he propounds either a truth or a falsehood; and if false that he was either himself mistaken, or deceived by others. But either way it is difficult to arrive at a thoroughly satisfactory conclusion, even as to what his Lordship actually intended and performed in this instance, owing to the usual vagueness of his own statements.

At 38 years of age Lord Herbert had enjoyed seven years of matrimonial felicity, and had been during four years a widower. In 1639, his son Henry would be 10 years old, his two daughters much younger, so that as well for their education as for the gratification of his own scientific investigations, he may have continued for some time to reside at Worcester House: the Strand and all that neighbourhood being then in the occupancy of families of title, wealth and high position. During his father’s lifetime, the resident housekeeper was James Redman, Esquire, as we learn from the list of his household.

The private studies and pursuits in which Lord Herbert was indefatigably engaged, must have occupied his attention from an innate love of physical science. The society in which he moved had no tendency that way, while the times in which he lived were far from affording any encouragement for such investigations as those in which he was principally engaged. The metropolis in his day was without coaches until 1625, when they were first used by the gentry, and ten years later hackney coaches were considered to have arrived at such a dangerous increase that their plying was restrained by law; and London streets were either so bad, or the treasury so low, that penalties were levied on all heavy vehicles passing over the highways. It is characteristic of the state of our laws at that period, that Dr. Leighton was for his writings sentenced to barbarous mutilations, as also happened in 1633 to the unfortunate learned Mr. Prynne, and four years later to John Lilburn. The pillory, whipping culprits through the streets, cropping ears and other mutilations and barbarities were ordinary punishments, and in 1636 the plague was raging throughout the metropolis and its suburbs, with all its accustomed terrors.

But not in this view alone do we see little to inspirit him in the ardent pursuit of mechanical employments, another and more serious obstacle arose from his belonging, like his father and ancestors, to the Roman Catholic faith. The laws against Papists were inconsistently stringent in England on religious grounds; and strange to say, in imperial Rome, the very seat of the papacy, absurdly severe denunciations were pronounced against even the free discussion of scientific subjects. On the memorable 22nd of June, 1633, Galileo, prosecuted by the Inquisition at Rome, was compelled to abjure his astronomical theories and discoveries as heretical! The inquiry with its results must have deeply interested Lord Herbert; but what could he hope to gain even from his own party, as the inventor of a “semi-omnipotent engine?” Thus situated he was surrounded by circumstances nowise calculated to stimulate his mental activity in the peculiar occupations that employed his leisure and his fortune; but the fact offers an invaluable proof of the intense satisfaction an inquiring mind always experiences in the realization of its mental speculations.

There is every reason to believe that his studies were completed, his tastes fixed, his experiments pretty well matured at this period, and that it was, therefore, the occasion of stamping his future character. He was then terminating his “golden days,” to enter upon a very different career. While, therefore, most anxious to avoid every appearance of substituting fictions for facts, we feel impelled to indulge in an attempt to account for his long serious devotion to employments so apparently foreign to either his education, his station in life, or the necessities of the times; while, indeed, on the other hand, all operated against him, owing to the darkness, ignorance, persecution and prevailing prejudices of the age.

It appears from his published work that Lord Herbert was better versed in mathematical than in classical literature. His mental activity may have been promoted by physical causes, assuming that from delicacy of constitution he may have been thereby disposed to those studious habits, to which he was ever after so much attached; the Vandyck portrait of him in his youth would indicate that he was not constituted for undergoing much severity of exercise in the fatiguing sports and pastimes then in vogue.

In 1639, his confidential workman, Caspar Kaltoff, would have expended eleven years in constructing models and machines to establish the practicability of the many novel schemes which his Lordship had, up to that time, developed. Meanwhile, his own reading was no doubt pursued with vigour, and we cannot believe him to have been unpossessed of the celebrated authorities among English and foreign writers. He must have studied with interest Ramelli’s very elaborate volume, 1588, on machines, illustrated with one hundred and ninety-five large, finely executed copper-plate engravings; the popular Spiritalia of Hero of Alexandria; with even, perhaps, the works of the engineer and architect Solomon De Caus, published in 1615; together with the labours of many kindred writers. Judging, however, from internal evidence, there was one, among many English authors, whose work especially gratified his taste, the “Mysteries of Nature and Art,” by John Bate, which went through two editions, dating 1634 and 1635, containing a “Booke of Water-workes,” treating of “evaporating water, and rarifying ayre.” The peculiarity of such studies was sufficient to separate him from the fashionable society of Courts, and the too frequently frivolous society attendant even at Raglan Castle. If he then made few enemies, his conversation and pursuits were little calculated to enlarge his social acquaintance, and may even have early inspired a belief in his possessing equal eccentricity and enthusiasm. His memory, however, cannot fail to be cherished by posterity as the illustrious possessor of a highly cultivated intellect, displaying a singularly powerful, original, protean inventive genius.

Footnotes

[A] The annexed specimen of his Lordship’s autograph, during his father’s lifetime, is from a MS. certificate in the British Museum dated 21st May, 1604.