1670.] OF THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER. 307 



But it must be remembered that the means for giv 

 ing publicity to any matter were then comparatively 

 limited ; and it is possible that the Water-commanding 

 Engine was little known beyond a certain aristocratic 

 circle, who afforded the chief support of the affair 

 pending other arrangements. Even this supposition very 

 indifferently accounts for the dead silence on the 

 subject at home, when it seems apparent that the 

 invention was looked on by foreigners as in striking 

 contrast with a much inferior mode of raising water at 

 Somerset House, performed by machinery worked by 

 two horses. One would suppose that of all inventions 

 an engine of superior capabilities for supplying the 

 city with water, would have excited attention in every 

 qiiarter. The inventor, and all concerned with him, 

 might see certain difficulties in meeting any demand 

 adequately remunerative, until works and machinery 

 were provided ; not so much to make the engines, but to 

 provide certain requisite articles and materials, well 

 understood in modern times, but wholly unknown two 

 centuries ago. The Marquis was in fact creating a 

 demand for iron plates, wrought and cast iron cylinders, 

 metal rods, and all manner of tools and novel kinds of 

 workmanship, so completely was this wonderful man 

 in advance of the age he might have adorned. 



Charles the Second, in the midst of all his gaiety and 

 all his poverty, had it in his power to benefit the 

 Marquis by, at least, affording him some countenance. 

 He had every reason to be grateful to him, but his 

 ruling passion gained the sway over all other 

 considerations. What Samuel Pepys relates of him, as 

 happening on the 1st of February, 1663-4, is charac 

 teristic of what may have been his utmost estimate of 

 even the Marquis himself. He says : &quot; I to Whitehall, 

 where, in the Duke s chamber, the King came and 



