[7] He was the author of a pamphlet now very rare, and which is absurdly enough attributed by Horace Walpole to the Marquis of Worcester. A reprint will be found in "The Life, Times, and Scientific Labours of the Marquis of Worcester," 8vo. 1866, page 559. It contains the following intimation to the reader:-- "I think it not amiss to give further notice in his Lordship's behalf, that he intends within a month or two, to erect an Office, and to entrust some very responsible and honourable persons with power to treat and conclude with such as desire at a reasonable rate, to reap the benefit of the same Water-commanding Engine." So that it is manifest a public company was intended to be established in 1663-4, to extend operations with the engine then actually raising water at Vauxhall. 15. SAMUEL SORBIÈRE visited the works at Vauxhall, and published particulars of the engine he saw there in 1663. 16. LORD JOHN SOMERSET, the Marquis's eldest brother, appears latterly to have lived at Vauxhall, according to a warrant dated September, 1664; and would certainly be admitted into his brother's confidence. 17. COSMO THE THIRD, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in his Diary exactly describes the engine he saw at Vauxhall in 1669, "considered to be of _greater service to the public_ than the other machine near Somerset House." 18. WALTER TRAVERS, a Roman Catholic priest, names the engine in a letter which he wrote to the Dowager Marchioness of Worcester, in 1670. 19. DR. THOMAS SPRAT, F.R.S., published in 1665, a critical work on "M. Sorbière's Voyage into England," and could not therefore be ignorant of the Marquis's engine, as it was named by the French traveller, although Sprat omitted to notice it specially in his own "Observations." 20. Among his other contemporaries were Sir Samuel Morland, Dr. Wallis, Sir Christopher Wren, Sir Isaac Newton, and many more, who, however, (so far as is at present known,) are silent in regard to all matters relating to the Marquis. II. LECTURE DELIVERED ON THE 5TH NOVEMBER, 1868: BEING THE FIRST OR INAUGURAL LECTURE OF THE FREE LECTURES, AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE, SYDENHAM, ON CHIMERAS OF SCIENCE: ASTROLOGY, ALCHEMY, SQUARING THE CIRCLE, PERPETUUM MOBILE, ETC. With Illustrative Diagrams. AND RE-DELIVERED AT THE BIRKBECK LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION, 17TH FEBRUARY, 1869. "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, But drinking largely sobers us again."--POPE. PREFACE.