1865.J The Life of the Second Marquis of Worcester. 539 



led to his imprisonment in Dublin Castle ; he was shortly afterwards 

 released on bail. Charles denied all cognizance of the matter of the 

 treaty, and some have aflirnied that the Marquis was guilty of forgery ; 

 it has been satisfactorily proved, however, that he was commissioned by 

 the King to treat with the Catholics ; at the same time, while we think 

 that Charles is to be chiefly blamed, we cannot entirely exonerate the 

 Marquis. In 1648 he quitted Ireland, and passed over to France, 

 where he remained in exile till 1651, when he returned to England to 

 privately ascertain the feeling which prevailed relative to the return 

 of Charles II. ; he was discovered, however, and imprisoned in the 

 Tower in 1652, but was released on bail in 1654. In the following 

 year the Marquis wrote his ' Century of Inventions.' At this time he 

 was in great pecuniary distress, his castle in Monmouthshire had been 

 destroyed by the Parliamentarians, his estates had been confiscated, 

 and his money had been devoted to the late King's service ; in 1655 

 Cromwell allowed him three pounds a week for his better maintenance. 

 At the Kestoration he might with justice have hoped for a return 

 of at least a part of his loan to the late King, but it was otherwise, 

 for although he constantly petitioned both the King and the Parlia- 

 ment, little notice appears to have been taken of his requests, except 

 to return him his heavily encumbered estates, and to grant him a mo- 

 nopoly of an engine for raising water by steam which he had recently 

 invented. It must be allowed that Charles ill-rewarded one of the 

 most loyal of his father's subjects, one who had sacrificed all for his 

 King. The Marquis died in London, and was buried at Eaglan, in 

 Monmouthshire, on April 17, 1667. 



The ' Century of Inventions ' was written in 1655, and was first 

 printed in 1663 ; a MS. copy (not the original, which does not exist) 

 is preserved in the Harleian Collection. The ' Century' gives the titles 

 alone of a number of inventions, or rather improvements on former 

 inventions ; at its conclusion the Marquis promises " to leave to pos- 

 terity a Booke wherein under each of these heads, the meanes to putt 

 in execution, and visible tryall, all and every of these Inventions, 

 with ye shape and forme of all things belonging to them, shall be 

 printed by brass© plates ; " it is much to be regretted that this was 

 never done, for from the obscurity of the language employed in the 

 ' Century,' it is impossible to surmise the exact nature of any one of 

 the inventions mentioned therein. This work has been reprinted no 

 less than twenty-three times ; for the completeness and extent of its 

 annotations we believe this to be the most valuable reprint which has 

 appeared ; Mr. Dircks has carefully traced the early history of most 

 of the inventions alluded to, and for this he is entitled to the thanks 

 of scientific men : — we consider that these annotations constitute some 

 of the most valuable parts of the work. 



We will very briefly consider the nature of the various inventions, 

 the titles of which are given in the ' Century.' 



The first and second inventions relate to seals of different kinds, 

 capable of showing the day of the week, the date in full, the names of 

 witnesses, the name of any one of ten thousand places at which a 

 document may be sealed, the number of lines contained in a docu- 



