1655.] OF THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 213 



Consequently lie was a close prisoner for at least 

 two years and a quarter, assuming that he was then 

 liberated ; which is the more likely, as we find that a 

 Warrant was given by Cromwell, dated the 26th of 

 June, 1655, to pay his Lordship the sum of three 

 pounds a week, for his better maintenance.* He would 

 be about or verging on 53 years of age, and must have 

 suffered very seriously from fatigue, disease, and severe 

 mental disquietude, prolonged through at least eight 

 years passed in every diversity of honour and disgrace, 

 wealth and poverty, high hopes and aspirations, termi 

 nating in blank disappointment ; he thus united in his 

 own person and history the most violent contrasts, 

 enough to have broken down and utterly destroyed any 

 enthusiasm less than is due to the conscious possession 

 of surpassing mental wealth. It would be difficult to 

 find in the voluminous history of scientific biography 

 a parallel case of so much self-reliance on the prompt 

 ings of a great and noble mind, under anything like 

 such an unmitigated burden of uncontrollable evils, as 

 fell to the share of this extraordinary man in the very 

 decline of life, when tired nature seeks calm, repose, 

 and competence. 



It would seem as if, while still a prisoner, he was 

 treating for Vauxhall, where we shall find he was after 

 wards actively engaged with his Water Engine ; for 

 Samuel Hartlib, well known from his acquaintance 

 with Milton, writes to the Honourable Eobert Boyle on 

 the 8th of May, 1654, signifying that, the Marquis is 

 buying Vauxhall from Mr. Trenchard. 14 



The next incident we meet with, of which any 

 record occurs, after his enlargement, is a melancholy 

 evidence of his extreme necessities and indeed absolute 



* Appendix F. u Boyle, Vol. v. p. 264. 



