492 THE CENTURY, 



pretended to any invention of that kind, had I not 

 happily found out this new, but yet a much stronger 

 and cheaper force or cause of motion than any before 

 made use of. But finding this of rarefaction by fire, 

 the consideration of the difficulties the miners and 

 colliers labour under by the frequent disorders, cumber- 

 somness, and in general of water-engines, incouraged 

 me to invent engines to work by this new force, that 

 tho I was obliged to incounter the oddest and almost 

 insuperable difficulties, I spared neither time, pains, 

 nor money till I had absolutely conquer d them.&quot; 



Savery is reputed to have died in 1715, therefore he 

 was very probably between 40 and 50 years of age in 

 1699 ; and he might have commenced his investiga 

 tions into the existence of the Marquis s inventions, 

 models, books, papers, drawings, and traditional state 

 ments at 25 or 30 years of age, still leaving him from 

 15 to 20 years to complete his search for information. 

 If he died at 60 years of age, he would be 12 years old 

 when the Marquis died. At all events he had ample lei 

 sure, and the period was promising for such an inquiry. 



In his time neither writers nor inventors were very 

 scrupulous in their adoption of the labours of others ; 

 the wholesale literary plunder then practised by com 

 pilers, would not be permitted in modern times, nor 

 would it be attempted by any author of moderate 

 reputation. Invention, on the contrary, has always been 

 a doubtful sort of preserve, the rights of which have 

 been contested with fearless impunity by every poacher 

 down to the present period. In the 16th and 17th 

 centuries particularly, no rights were so ill defined as 

 those of the inventor, even in the face of patents, and 

 Acts of Parliament. But the rights of a deceased in 

 ventor were still less sacred in public opinion, and there 

 never has been, at any time, an organized body in- 



