356 INTRODUCTION 



Lastly, No. 100, a water- work is spoken of as &quot; by 

 many years experience and labour, advantageously 

 contrived. &quot; And connected with this water-raising 

 subject we may take No. 68, of which he says : 

 &quot; I have seen the water run like a constant fountain- 

 stream forty feet high.&quot; This is not the language of a 

 speculative theorist. It is experimental, practical, and 

 demonstrative. 



Considering the vast sums expended by the Mar 

 quis on his experimental and on his practical works, 

 the immense variety of his inventions, and the 

 extreme novelty and singularity of many, it is rather 

 surprising that no account of any of them has come 

 down to our time, through some of the many channels 

 of information then open to receive any accounts of the 

 marvellous. Our next surprise is that none of the 

 many cabinets of the curious seem to have possessed 

 any model or any curious work of his production ; not 

 even the indefatigable Tradescant, although his museum 

 was at Lambeth, bought by Ashmole, and given by him 

 to the Bodleian Museum at Oxford. The Marquis did, 

 however, present a peculiarly constructed box to Charles 

 the Second, and he offered an improvement on it to the 

 Earl of Lotherdale,* remarking: &quot;I promise your 

 Lordship a box, with such conveniences and rarities as 

 that which you saw had, though it were a presumption 

 in me to say, I would give a subject a better qualified 

 present than I gave my Sovereign. 7 The invention 

 might refer to the Cabinet mentioned in article No. 79, 

 of the Century, as well as include some of his ingenious 

 escutcheons, keys, and locks. 



We cannot but suppose that the Marquis was inti 

 mately acquainted with the published works of the 



See page 223. 



