The Marquis of Worcester, considered in his true character, was in every sense a learned, deep-thinking, studious, amiable, and good man. He was a Roman Catholic wholly free from religious prejudices, and a most loyal subject without displaying under an adverse change of circumstances any appearance of undue party zeal. In all his public conduct he was invariably consistent, scrupulously conscientious, and strictly honourable and humane. In scientific acquirements he stood grandly alone, not from pride, but rather as the result of a naturally modest retiring habit, probably constitutional, but certainly confirmed by long continued close study, favoured by his early domestic course of life. When at length he was forced to come before the public, he proved himself one of the most extraordinary mechanical geniuses of the seventeenth, or any preceding century; yet he was neither understood nor appreciated in his own day; his surpassing mental endowments were probably lost for want of earlier and fuller exhibition; while the influence of combined prejudice and ignorance served further to obstruct his rising in public estimation. It is, however, the glorious privilege of genius to leave on all its works the sure impress of mighty intellect. The “Century of Inventions,” gradually increasing in public estimation through two hundred years, owes its vitality to its remarkable ingenuity and its concentration of thought; and it cannot fail to happen that each succeeding age will inquire, with increasing interest, into every particular of the singular and touching history of its noble author. END OF THE LIFE. Footnotes [Illustration: C. Somerset (autograph) Charles Somerset, 1st Earl of Worcester] [A] The annexed autograph of this great ancestor of the Marquis of Worcester, is obtained from a document in the British Museum. Cotton. MSS. Vesp. F. xiii. fol. 78. [B] According to the old money system prevalent in France before the Revolution, accounts were kept in Livres Tournois of 20 Sous or Sols.--_Dr. Patrick Kelly’s Universal Cambist_, 4to. 1811, page 146. [C] See page 225. [D] From MSS. Badminton. [E] Appendix A. [F] Between the 14th of July, and the 21st of August, 1684, being then Duke of Beaufort, he made his progress through North and South Wales, as Lord President of Wales, and Lord Lieutenant of the counties of Gloucester, Hereford, and Monmouth, accompanied by “T.D. _gen._” that is “T. Dineley,” who left the particulars thereof in a manuscript of some length, containing many interesting anecdotes, inscriptions of arms, and pen sketches of scenery and antiquities, now very curious.