Berg patented eight inventions, specified after this manner:--(First) “Diverse mechanicke instruments and frames operating by waights, soe to bee fitted and ordered that the force and strength of them may bee augmented or diminished either in regard of the instruments themselves, or in respecte of the number of workmen to be employed aboute them accordinge as occasion or necessitie shall require; &c.” In 1646, Captain Bulmer gave Emanuel College, Cambridge, a certificate of four hydraulic and mechanical inventions. In 1659, an account of Roger Bacon’s “admirable artificial instruments” was published, relating to ships, chariots, flying, scaling ladders, diving bell, &c. So that there was no lack of precedents for the form adopted in treating the multifarious subjects recorded in the “Century.” But, indeed, had no other existed, he had a sufficient example in the vague patent specifications that his predecessors, and he himself (in 1661), lodged as sufficient and valid instruments to secure a right in the matters therein specified. And in confirmation of this we have only to place in juxta-position the fore-named patent of 1661, and the “Century,” to see at once the close resemblance between the two; thus No. 1, is the 78th article, No. 2, the 58th, No. 3, the 19th, and No. 4, the 15th article of the “Century,” copied almost verbatim.[F] We, therefore, find that the one hundred articles are as explicit as any of the patent specifications of, and prior to, the reign of Charles the Second. Yet men of unquestionable literary taste, but unacquainted with these simple facts, have charged the Marquis of Worcester with mystifying his statements, by writing too enigmatically, without considering his promise, had he lived, “to leave to posterity a book” containing “the means to put in execution all these inventions;” and without the indulgence of awarding him at least the merit of writing his very syllabus with all the amplification required by law for the enrolment of a Patent Specification. While the Marquis was struggling to obtain royal and state patronage, he had a powerful rival in Sir Samuel Morland, a gentleman of the Privy Chamber and Master of Mechanics, to Charles the Second. It has never been noticed that, simultaneously with the Marquis, he was projecting plans of novel means for draining mines, and it is very improbable that, while so engaged, he could view disinterestedly the various efforts of the Marquis of Worcester. In the “Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series for 1661–1662, edited by Mrs. M. A. E. Green,” octavo, 1861, we find the following particulars under the respective dates, viz:-- “Dec? 1661. No. 36. Petition of [Sir] Samuel Morland to the King, for a patent for the sole use of his invention of an Engine for raising water out of mines or pits, quicker and better than before practised.