can I saye more then I well remembr
to have spoke and written to you that allready words could not
expresse your merits nor my gratitude: and that next to my wife and
children I was most bound to take care of you, whereof I have
besides others, particularly assured yor Cosin Biron as a person
deare unto you. * * And rest assured, if God should crosse me wth
your miscarrying I will treate your Sonne as myne owne, and that
yw labour for a deare friende as well as a thankfull Master when
tyme shall afforde meanes to acknowledge how much I am

'Yor most assured real constant
and thankfull friend
'CHARLES R.'

There are other letters from Charles R., very little to his credit as
regards the keeping of promises, and likewise several strange papers of
the Worcester people, showing that they had their clouds and humors,
like other families. Of our marquis--the reader will readily pardon me
all that I have digressed to say of his early history--it must suffice
to tell that, after the Restoration, he appears as a poor inventor, and
that on the 3d April, 1663, a bill was brought into Parliament for
granting to him and his successors the whole of the profits that might
arise from the use of a water-raising engine, described in the last
article in the 'Century' of Inventions. The 'Century' itself had been
presented to the king and commons some months previously. This
invention, coupled with its penultimate and antepenultimate ninety-ninth
and ninety-eighth inventions, may indeed be justly considered as the
wonder of the 'Century,' since, when united with the sixty-eighth, they
appear, in Partington's opinion, to suggest all the data essential for
the construction of a modern steam engine. The injustice which he
encountered during life, seems to have followed Worcester for two
centuries after death; for Lord Orford declares that the bill granting
the marquis such advantages as his invention might give birth to, was
passed on a simple affirmation of the discovery that he (the marquis)
had made. 'His lordship's want of candour in this statement will be
apparent when it is known that there were no less than seven meetings of
committees on the subject, composed of some of the most learned men in
the house, who, after considerable amendments, finally passed it on the
12 May.'

It is touching to see the absolute, extreme, life-giving faith