24: LIFE, TIMES, AND SCIENTIFIC LABOURS [1635. 



mindful of your good service done heretofore, in the 

 Lieutenancies of Glamorgan and Monmouth, and your 

 willing resigning of them. And he hath also com 

 manded me to tell the Earl of Bridgewater, that he shall 

 proceed therein with your Lordship in the same manner 

 the Earl of Northampton his predecessor did, and not 

 otherwise : which accordingly I have signified to his 

 Lordship. And thus having imparted to your Lordship 

 both his Majesty s gracious favour towards yourself and 

 your son, who in this business hath performed as much 

 respect and duty as can be expected from a worthy son, 

 I humbly take leave and so remain, 



&quot; Your Lordship s humble servant, 



&quot; JOHN COKE. 



&quot; Whitehall, December 3rd. 1635. 

 To the right honourable THE EARL OF WORCESTER, &c.&quot; 



It is not at all unlikely that after the funeral his 

 Lordship returned to Worcester House. London would 

 afford him many advantages for the gratification of his 

 scientific pursuits, not to be obtained in the country. It 

 appears, indeed, pretty evident that about this period he 

 set up in the Tower his large wheel for exhibiting self- 

 motive power, which the learned assume to be a me 

 chanical fallacy, but which no one has yet proved to 

 general comprehension to be an impossibility. In a 

 scientific point of view, but particularly in connection 

 with the life of this remarkable man, a subject of this 

 nature cannot be lightly passed over. It affects his 

 reputation more than appears on the surface, as we 

 shall show in the course of our observations. 



It was a machine, consisting of a wheel fourteen feet 

 in diameter, carrying forty weights of fifty pounds 

 each,* and is supposed to have rotated on an axle, sup- 



* The &quot; Century,&quot; Article No. 56. 



