TO THE CENTURY. 355 



the instance of a powerful friend,&quot; only those inven 

 tions he &quot; can call to mind to have tried and perfected. &quot; 

 This explicit language admits of no doubtful construc 

 tion, yet he has been maligned by the envious as 

 recording dreams and fancies. The Century closes 

 with the remarkable declaration of his &quot; meaning to 

 leave to posterity a book, wherein under each of these 

 heads the means to put in execution and visible trial 

 all and every of these inventions, with the shape and 

 form of all things belonging to them, shall be printed 

 by brass-plates. 7 An intention which his premature 

 decease rendered unavailing, yet sarcastic writers have 

 not been wanting to stigmatize the u Century &quot; as though 

 its author had offered it to public approbation as a com 

 plete work ; making no allowance for the circumstances 

 under which it was produced, as a mere syllabus of the 

 intellectual treasures he possessed, or the sad occurrence 

 to which alone the non-completion of his promised 

 publication with engravings of his several designs can 

 be attributed. 



Some of his inventions he specially notices to 

 signify their practical development. Thus No. 56, he 

 performs at the Tower before Charles I, most of his 

 Court, and the Lieutenant, Sir William Balfour. 



No. 64, an improvement on fire-arms, was &quot;tried 

 and approved before the King (Charles I.), and an hun 

 dred Lords and Commons.&quot; 



Nos. 59 to 67, further improvements on fire-arms 

 and cannon, occasion his particularly stating that : 

 u by several trials and much charge I have perfectly 

 tried all these.&quot; 



No. 77, his scheme for flying, whatever it might 

 have been, whether a balloon, wings, or a machine, yet 

 even of this he says &quot;which I have tried with a little 

 boy often years old.&quot; 



2 A 2 



