There are other letters from Charles R., very little to his credit as regards the keeping of promises, and likewise several strange papers of the Worcester people, showing that they had their clouds and humors, like other families. Of our marquis--the reader will readily pardon me all that I have digressed to say of his early history--it must suffice to tell that, after the Restoration, he appears as a poor inventor, and that on the 3d April, 1663, a bill was brought into Parliament for granting to him and his successors the whole of the profits that might arise from the use of a water-raising engine, described in the last article in the 'Century' of Inventions. The 'Century' itself had been presented to the king and commons some months previously. This invention, coupled with its penultimate and antepenultimate ninety-ninth and ninety-eighth inventions, may indeed be justly considered as the wonder of the 'Century,' since, when united with the sixty-eighth, they appear, in Partington's opinion, to suggest all the data essential for the construction of a modern steam engine. The injustice which he encountered during life, seems to have followed Worcester for two centuries after death; for Lord Orford declares that the bill granting the marquis such advantages as his invention might give birth to, was passed on a simple affirmation of the discovery that he (the marquis) had made. 'His lordship's want of candour in this statement will be apparent when it is known that there were no less than seven meetings of committees on the subject, composed of some of the most learned men in the house, who, after considerable amendments, finally passed it on the 12 May.' It is touching to see the absolute, extreme, life-giving faith in the merit of his invention which inspired the marquis--and in this strange faith, like a prophecy, even more than in his invention itself, considering the way in which he probably came by it, do we recognize that Genius which rises here and there in the past history of the Aryan races, and that so all-sidedly and confidingly as to seem miraculous. I confess that when I look closely and deeply into the knowledge of Dante and Lionardo da Vinci, of Fiar Bacon, and the Cavalier Marquis of Worcester, an awe comes over me. All of them seem to have been so great, some of their order so _unearthly_ great; and they held the keys to so many mysteries, and to doors of science which were not unlocked for long centuries after their death; and there was in all of them such a strange sympathy and knowledge with the other great men as yet unborn, who were to come after them, and for whom they seem to have labored, and to whom they talked with the confidence of friends. I never pause before a certain passage in Dante's 'Inferno,' without the feelings of one standing before a great prophet--some marvellous earthly ancient of days, who foresaw all to come: