1865.] The Life of the Second Marquis of Worcester. 543 



that its invention or improvement in the 17th century, was an act 

 unworthy of even a mediocre intellect. 



Close upon this follow two inventions (89 and 90) which, in spite 

 of what the commentator says on the subject, we can call neither more 

 nor less than devices to enable one to cheat at cards and dice. The 

 first is a mode of knotting silk in a pair of gloves in such a manner 

 that " without suspicion," reckoning may be kept of all sixes, sevens, 

 and aces, which a player at primero (an old game of cards) may have 

 played. The second relates to a dice-box from which four false dice 

 may be thrown out, while the real ones are at the same time fastened 

 to the inside of the box. 



Invention 26 relates to the raising of weights by leverage according 

 to a method which the Marquis had seen in use in the Arsenal at 

 Venice. Inventions 25, 27, and 99, refer to the raising or moving of 

 a great weight through a certain space, by means of a small weight 

 moving through an equal space. The commentator explains this by 

 supposing the small weight to be represented by a piston moving air- 

 tight in a cylinder, and that the great weight is moved by atmospheric 

 pressure on the upper surface of the piston, a vacuum having pre- 

 viously been produced, by condensing steam beneath it. The expla- 

 nation is ingenious, but we think far-fetched, for we have no reason 

 whatever to suppose that the Marquis discovered the atmospheric 

 engine. 



We come now to the greatest of the inventions of the Marquis, 

 the invention so often alluded to throughout this work ; had all his 

 other inventions been destroyed, this, according to his admiring 

 biographer, would alone have rendered him immortal — we allude to 

 the application of steam to the raising of water on a large scale. 

 Inventions 68, 98, and 100 relate to this " water-commanding engine." 

 We are bound to say that if the Marquis had invented and perfected 

 the steam-engine as it now exists, he could not have spoken of his 

 invention in higher terms : " I may boldly call it," he writes, " the 

 most stupendious work in the whole world ; " again he speaks of it as a 

 " semi-omnipotent engine ; " the introduction of semi we consider a 

 great piece of modesty, when we compare the sentence with others 

 on the same subject ; " By Divine providence," he writes, " and 

 heavenly inspiration, this is my stupendious water-commanding engine, 

 boundless for height and quantity." In common with the other inven- 

 tions mentioned in the ' Century,' this is described in very obscure 

 language : it is defined as " an admirable and most forcible way to 

 drive up water by fire, not by drawing or sucking it upwards, for that 

 must be, as the philosopher calleth it, " intra sphaeram activitatis, 

 which is but such a distance ... I have seen the water run like 

 a constant fountain stream forty foot high ; one vessel of water, 

 rarefied by fire, driveth up forty of cold water, and a man that tends 

 the work is but to turn two cocks, that one vessel of water being con- 

 sumed, another begins to force and refill with cold water, and so 

 successively, the fire being tended and kept constant, which the self- 

 same person may likewise abundantly perform in the interim between 

 the necessity of turning the said cocks." 



