We must estimate the Marquis of Worcester by his general character. His natural taste and domestic habits led him into mechanical studies, while his large fortune enabled him to retain a paid mechanic in his service for nearly forty years, expending many thousands of pounds in experimental and practical trials of engines, machines, automata, naval and military works, and great guns and fire-arms. In his private life he was strictly honourable, virtuous, consistent, and free from all narrow or bigoted views, either in politics or religion. So adverse, however, did the course of events prove to him, that his loyalty and his religion combined, can alone be named against him as his greatest misfortune. His “Century” has been preserved to these times, but all his other works which might have thrown a fuller light on his inventions have perished. Whether books and papers belonging to him were procured and burnt, according to the story relating to such an incident, is now past discovery; but it is abundantly evident that the great scarcity of information which exists, has led to the propagation of many unfounded statements, and given undue weight to others purely conjectural. That which cannot be established by producing positive evidence, is too often only complicated by hazarding opinions irrespective of reasonable evidence, or worse, in the face of reasonable grounds for contrary statements. The “Century” stands alone in the languages of the civilized world, the strange monument of a strong mind, seeking its full development in a prejudiced age, striking into new paths which society could not comprehend, and which it therefore would not patronise. H. D. Blackheath, Kent, November, 1864. EDITIONS OF THE CENTURY. * * * * * 1663. London: Printed by J. Grismond in the year 1663. small 12mo. 1746. London: Printed in the year 1663. Reprinted and sold by T. Payne, in Round-Court in the Strand, 1746. 1748. No particulars. A copy was sold, according to Lowndes’s Bib. Man. with MS. additions. 1763. No particulars. Query--1663. 1767. Glasgow: Printed by R. and A. Foulis, 1767. 1778. Dated “Kyo, near Lanchester [co. Durham], June 18, 1778,” with an “Appendix containing an Historical account of the Fire-Engine for raising water.” 1778. A reprint agreeing with above, except in having _no name or_ _date_. It repeats the Title of the first edition, 1663, and at the end gives the foregoing “Appendix: containing an Historical Account of the Fire-Engine for raising water.” 8vo. In the latter, Dr. Desagulier’s Lectures, 1744, are quoted, so that this may possibly be an edition short only of a leaf, bearing the same place and date as the preceding. 1786. Glasgow, Printed. London: Reprinted by W. Bailey, Proprietor of the Speaking Figure, now shewing, by Permission of the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor, at No. 40, within Bishopgate, 1786. Sq. 16mo.