Judging of the Marquis of Worcester's personal appearance from two family portraits, one when he was probably about twenty-five years of age, by Vandyck; the other when between forty and fifty years old, by Hanneman; he must have been rather of a delicate frame, and in stature somewhat under the average height; his face oval, with sharp bright eyes, and wearing a cheerful benignant aspect. His dress was, of course, the costume of the period of Charles the Second's reign, but its character has not been observed in either of the portraits just named, one of which represented him in armour, and the other, as was not then unusual with artists, attired as a Roman general. We infer that he laboured under a defect in his speech, from his remarking in a memorial addressed to the King that he penned it--"To ease your Majesty of a trouble incident to the prolixity of speech, and a _natural defect of utterance_ which I accuse myself of." It might be interesting to speculate how his sense of deficiency in physical strength, in eloquence of speech, and volubility of language might have contributed to the fostering of that disposition for intense application to scientific studies which became to him like a second nature. During the first two years of the Restoration, the Marquis was in pretty regular attendance on his Parliamentary duties. In 1661, he was obliged to seek protection so that proceedings might not be taken against him by his creditors; and about the same time his forfeited estates were restored to him, but so encumbered and impoverished as to yield him a very insufficient income, if any. It was in the midst of such distractions as these that this talented inventor and noble benefactor to his species had to maintain his social position; and, at the same time, endeavour to convince the bigoted age in which he may be said rather to have existed than to have flourished, that he was master of a power of such magnitude for the abridging of human labour, as the mind of man had never before conceived. It may be freely conceded that, _stupendous_ as he himself pronounced the parent engine to be, it was but as the acorn compared to the time-honoured monarch of the forest. Just as the existence of the plant is dependent on that of the seed, so if the Water-commanding Engine, the great Fire Water-work he constructed had never existed, we might have been unacquainted, to this day, with the mechanical application of steam, and should have been deprived in consequence of the manifold blessings it bountifully bestows on mankind. ADDENDUM. Evidence of the Marquis of Worcester's claim to the Invention of the Steam Engine. 1. His personal claim to have written a statement respecting it in 1655; his MS. being afterwards lost. 2. The Act of Parliament[5] which was granted him for the term of ninety-nine years, and which received the royal assent on the 3rd June, 1663.