Old Patentees caricatured.

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Chan. 6.]

nourable, (and deservedly to be praised and admired), Edward Somerset ,Lord Marquis of Worcester , and by his lordship himself presented to hismost excellent Majesty Charles the Second, our most gracious Sovereign.”This was a tract of twenty-two pages, and is supposed to have been printedfor the purpose of forming a Company to introduce the device. It is writ-ten in the same style as the Century, and instead of describing the machineis confined to an enumeration of its properties.

In Worcester ’s day, patents for useful inventions were often classedwith the most unrighteous monopolies, and the holders of them held ingeneral eontempt. This may serve to account in some measure for theneglect that Ramseye and Worcester ’s projects met with. The abomina-ble abuse which Elizabeth, James and Charles made of the power to grantpatents, excited general disgust. Courtiers and others obtained monopo-lies for nearly all the chief branches of trade, and sold rights in them toothers, so that prices were raised to an exorbitant height. Had patentsbeen confined to new inventions, the result would have been beneficial ;but exclusive grants were obtained to work and seil the commonest articles,as salt, iron, lead, coals, and even bones and rags : with the monopolistsof these, (harpies and horseletch.es as Elizabeth once called them) the au-thors of discoveries and improvements in the useful arts were confounded.In a masquerade got up for the entertainment of Charles I , in 1633,(among the managers of which were Noy the Attorney General, Sir JohnFinch and Mr. Seiden) were several flings at monopolies, as hints for theking. In the “ Antimasque of Projectors,” says Maitland, “ rode a fellowupon a little horse, with a great bit in his mouth; and upon the man’shead was a bit, with head-stall and reins fasten’d, and signified a projectorwho begged a patent , that none in the kingdom might ride their horses, butwith such bits as they should buy of him. Then came another fellowwith a bunch of carrots upon his head, and a capon upon his fist, describ-ing [representingj a projector who begged a patent of monopoly, as thefirst inventor of the art to feed capons with carrots ; and that none buthimself should make use of that invention ; and have the privilege forfourteen years, according to the Statute .”

Putting out of view his political conduct, the fate of Worcester resem-bled that of great inventors in almost every age. In some respects it waspeculiarly severe. The heir of one of the riebest and most powerful fami-lies of the land, he devoted his wealth and his energies, for more than onefinird of a Century, to useful discoveries ; and in his old age he was re-duced to borrow small sums to meet his necessities;—and when at last,the profligate Charles was restored, although Worcester recovered hisdemesne, his dwellings, furniture, papers, models and machines had allbeen destroyed, and he was overwhelmed with debt. Still his energieswere stimulated by a consciousness of the importance of his inventions,but which, alas ! his contemporaries were unable to appreciate, except bymsinuations that they were the fruits of a partial insanity. Finally deathstept in and closed his labors forever. Then it was that his widow, whowas fully sensible of the value of his great machine, used her exertionsto introduce it; but her confessor, a Roman Catholic priest, expostulatedwith her on the folly and sin of her conduct, and solemnly declared toher “ on the faith of a priest,” that if she did not cease her endeavors, shewould not only lose the favor of heaven, but the use of her reason ! Shedied in 1681, and the evil genius of Worcester did not even then ceaseits persecutions ; for posterity, which generally corrects the errors of con-temporaries, has not yet done justice to his memory. While a few writersadmit the value and originality of his inventions, and account him one of