314 LIFE, TIMES, AND SCIENTIFIC LABOURS 



any other, or seeking after or troubling any person, who 

 may buy them, or lend money on the ten jewels here 

 tofore mentioned, in faith of which we have signed this 

 present and put thereto our Eoyal Seal in our Court 

 at St. Germain en Laye, this 20th day of May, one 

 thousand six hundred and forty-eight.&quot; 

 (EOYAL ARMS.) 



The lamentable fate that befel Charles the First, 

 effectually terminated all expectation of relief; and 

 therefore, from the year 1647, when the Marquis left 

 Ireland, to 1660 the period of the Eestoration, about 

 13 years, was, if possible, the most unhappy and gloomy 

 of his eventful life. He was about five years in exile, 

 about three years and a quarter a prisoner in the Tower, 

 and nearly five years a state prisoner at large, most 

 likely under strict surveillance. 



The year of his Lordship s release from the Tower, 

 1655, will ever be memorable for his having then 

 written his u Century of Inventions,&quot; which was pub 

 lished eight years later. 



There is every reason to believe that the Marquis 

 of Worcester pursued his scientific inquiries both in 

 secrecy and seclusion. This might arise from his 

 early domestic habits, particularly during his married 

 life, commencing in 1628, when he first engaged 

 Caspar Kaltoff. We never find him associated with, or 

 mentioned by, men of his time, which, therefore, leads 

 to the supposition that he was naturally of a recluse 

 and retiring disposition. But, on the other hand, we 

 have nothing to guide us in forming an opinion of the 

 origin, the nature, and the progress of his experimental 

 operations. They may have been commenced for the 

 simple gratification of a mind desirous to satisfy itself 

 in every particular of whatever it undertakes. In 



