, MR. STUKELEY THE PERPETUAL-MOTION SEEKER. 413 
excite fanaticism in France; The pu blic, entirely ighorant of the events 
mentioned by Trenck in his Memoirs, believed him on his word, aiVd 
felt an interest for him, as is natural for an extraordinary man sups 
posed to be unjustly persecuted. He was, however, soon unmasked, 
much more effectually than he pretended to unmask the Macedonian 
Hero, Frederick II. For my part, I cannot help subscribing to what 
is said of him in the fifth volume of Mirabeau’s Prussian Monarchy, 
especially as it accords with the opinion of the most enlightened per- 
sons at Berlin, and the account given of him by various German 
writers.”— Trenck published several works in prose and verse, which 
it is not necessary to enumerate. His Life, translated into French by 
himself, was published at Paris. A new edition of his Macedonian 
Hero was printed in Frankfort and Leipsic. 
Mr. Stukely, the Perpetual-Motion Seeker. 
The following account is extracted from the Percy Anecdotes.— 
Mr. Stukeley was a gentleman of fortune, bred to the law, but gave up 
the profession, and retired into the country, filled with the project of 
discovering the perpetual motion. During a period of thirty years 
he never went abroad but once, which was when he was obliged to 
take the oath of allegiance to King George the First ; this was also 
the only time he changed his shirt and clothes during the whole course' 
of his retirement. 
Mr. Stukeley was at once the dirtiest and the cleanliest man j wash-p 
ing his hands twenty times a day, but his hands only. His family 
consisted of two female servants ; one lived in the house, and the 
other out of it. He never had his bed made. After he had relin- 
quished the project of the perpetual motion, he devoted himself to 
observing the works and economy of ants; and stocked the town so 
plentifully with that insect, that the fruits in the gardens were de- 
voured by them. 
During the reign of Queen Anne, whenever the duke of Marlbo- 
rough opened the trenches against a city in Flanders, he broke 
ground at the extremity of a floor in his house, made with lime and 
sand, according to the custom of that country, and advanced in his 
approaches regularly with his pickaxe, gaining work after work, 
chalked out on the ground according to the intelligence in the ga- 
zette ; by which he took the tow n in the middle of the floor at Bidde- 
ford, the same day the duke was master of it in Flanders : thus every 
city cost him a new floor. 
Sterne, no doubt, had Mr. Stukeley in his eye, when he drew the 
character of my uncle Toby. 
Mr. Stukeley never sat on a chair, and when he chose to warm him- 
self, he made a pit before the fire, into which he leapt, and thus sat on 
the floor. He suffered no one to see him but the heirs to his estate, his 
brother and sister: the first never but when he sent for him, and that 
very rarely ; the other sometimes once a year, and sometimes sel» 
domer, when he was cheerful, talkative, and a lover of the tittle-tattle 
of the town. Notwithstanding his apparent avarice, he was by no 
means a lover of money, for, during his seclusion, he never received 
nor asked for any rent from any of his tenants ; those who brought ' 
