hundred thousand pounds already sacrificed for the king, as he
asserts, but rather meaning, I imagine, that he might get some portion
of it back again. Let no one laugh at the character of many of these
'Scantlings.' Science was young then; thaumaturgy, or the working of
mere wonders, was still the elder sister of art; astrology might be
found in every street; alchemists still labored in lonely towers all
over England; and witches were still burned to the glory of GOD. The
'Mathematicall Magick, or the Wonders that may be performed by
Mechanicall Geometry'--now by chance open before me--by Bishop Wilkins,
the brother-in-law of Cromwell, with its disquisitions on 'Perpetuall
Motion,' 'Volant Automata,' and 'Perpetuall Lamps,' passed for sound
sense, and with it passed much occult nonsense of a darker dye. Manners
and morals were as yet badly organized. Gambling was a daily amusement
with all the gentry, and its imitators; for the Revolution, though it
had very promptly driven out of England the very little merriment and
cheerfulness which the Reformation had spared, had by no means taken
away vice, and to cheat at cards was a part of all play in the best
society--which it had not been in the olden time. Political plots were
still rife, and cipher alphabets, signals by knots and signs, deadly
secret weapons, and devices to escape prison were in daily demand, just
as patent apple-parers and ice-cream freezers are at the present day.
The marquis, who had lived well through his times, knew what would be
popular, and, though a man of honor as times went, and a pious
Christian, never dreamed that he did not play his part as a good citizen
in supplying such grotesque wants.

First among his Inventions is one which, revived in modern times, meets
the eye of every one daily on the face of every letter. As he designed
it, it was, however, very elaborate, embracing 'several sorts of seals,
some showing by screws, others by gauges, fastening or unfastening all
the marks at once: others by additional points and imaginary places,
proportionable to ordinary escutcheons and seals at arms, each way
palpably and punctually setting down (yet private from all others but
the owner, and by his assent) the day of the month, the day of the week,
the month of the year, the year of our Lord, the names of the witnesses,
and the individual place where anything was sealed, though in ten
thousand several places, together with the very number of lines