Our largely gifted historian, Lord Macaulay, never wrote such feeble lines as those in which he attempted to depict the Marquis of Worcester; but the historian is a tower of strength, and his words may here be quoted without a fear of our object being either mistaken, or open to misrepresentation. Depreciation is not our object, and nothing could be a greater folly than to attempt it on such ground; we give them in evidence, to prove how little really is known, even in well-informed circles, respecting this extraordinary inventor, when so brilliant a writer as Macaulay could be at fault, from no other cause than defective information. Speaking of Charles the Second’s reign, he says:--“The Marquess of Worcester had _recently_[?] observed the expansive power of moisture rarified by heat. After _many_ experiments he had succeeded in constructing a _rude_ steam engine,[?] which he called a fire water-work, and which he pronounced to be an admirable and most forcible _instrument of propulsion_.[?] But the Marquess was suspected to be a _madman_[?] and known to be a Papist. His inventions, _therefore_, found no favourable reception.[?] His fire water-work _might_, _perhaps_, furnish matter for conversation at a meeting of the Royal Society,[?] but was not applied to _any practical purpose_.[?]” These few lines suggest seven inquiries, but we are satisfied Macaulay could never have written thus upon the life of any great man of that period, much less on this illustrious inventor, had the proper materials been at command. This example is valuable, in as much as it is well known that Lord Macaulay was master of much curious reading, particularly of the class referring to that interesting period of our country’s history, and also that he possessed a remarkably retentive memory. But he was here dealing with a shattered monument; its goodly form wholly gone, and its fragments scattered in every direction; here ground to dust, there altogether buried, and so disfigured and dishonoured that he made the most he could of the faint traces within his immediate reach, and unquestionably felt satisfied that, considering the limit of these few lines, he had boldly, graphically, and truthfully pourtrayed the character he had designed to delineate. How infinitely superior to this rough draught would have been the sketch, had Macaulay possessed proper documentary evidence. A more striking or satisfactory instance than is here adduced could not be presented for showing the paucity of information hitherto existing in a collected form; and those readers who might otherwise have doubted the fact, will readily gather from what is here brought forward, that the story of this singular man’s life has hitherto remained untold.