viii PREFACE. 



of such defective and conflicting information, producing 

 the most absurd and unreliable statements, even on 

 the most ordinary points of individual history. In the 

 whole range of English biography, within the same 

 period of time, no important memoir has ever been so 

 mythical as that of Edward Somerset, second Marquis 

 of Worcester. 



So entirely unacquainted are his countrymen with 

 the history of his life, that a very plausible work might 

 be written to disprove both his authorship of the &quot; Cen 

 tury,&quot; and his invention of the steam-engine. Indeed 

 Scotland has already contributed materials for the 

 former, and M. Arago, late Astronomer Eoyal of 

 France, has all but made out the latter ! And such a 

 production would excite little suspicion and probably 

 110 hostility of feeling. But this need not cause much 

 surprise when it is mentioned, that it has not yet been 

 the good fortune of any writer, touching on the Life of 

 the Marquis of Worcester, to escape recording a mass of 

 errors, such as occur in no other biography in our lan 

 guage ; although the period usually selected seldom 

 exceeds four or five years, out of a life of sixty-six. 

 The reader, therefore, who takes up the present volume, 

 under impressions derived from such dubious sources of 

 information as those indicated, will find little to con 

 firm his preconceived opinions. The histories of men 

 as of nations require facts for their basis, judgment 

 to guide in their arrangement, discretion to direct a 

 wise selection, and a knowledge of the whole to perfect 

 the desired work. The mixed character of the Marquis 

 of Worcester has ever been a stumbling-block to the 

 purely classical scholar, the divine, the politician, and 

 the lawyer ; while, on the other hand, the rapid advances 

 in science during the last fifty years, have deprived u The 

 Century&quot; of more than half its interest. Science cannot 



