had probably some such plan as this in his
teeming brain.

Our noble friend jumps about from one
subject to another with an alacrity truly
remarkable; his projects are as numerous
and varied as those of Uncle Jack, in Sir
Edward Bulwer Lytton's Novel. A way to
level and shoot cannon by night as well as
by day; a quick mode of weighing an anchor;
a way to make a boat work itself against
wind and tide; how to make "a little engine,
within a coach, whereby a child may stop it,
and secure all persons within it, and the coach-
man himself, though the horses be never so
unruly, in full career;" how to raise water
constantly with two buckets only, day and
night, without any other force than its own
motion; how to "increase the strength of a
spring to such a degree as to shoot bombasses
and bullets of an hundred pounds weight a
steeple height;" how to "light a fire and a
candle, at what hour of the night one awaketh,
without rising or putting one's hand out of
bed;" how to make an artificial bird fly
which way, and as long as one pleaseth; a
way to make "a, complete light portable
ladder, which, taken, out of one's pocket, may
be by himself fastened an hundred feet high;"
how to make a pistol to discharge a dozen
times with once loading, and without so much
as once new priming requisite; a way, "with
a flask appropriated into it, which will furnish
either pistol or carabine with a dozen charges
in three minutes' time." Such are some
of the inventions, nearly in the order in which
they are placed. Many of the marquis's projects
altogether defy one's penetration; but
others point curiously to ideas which have
fructified in men's brains in later times. We
do not know, and probably never shall know,
how much these later inventors owe to him.
In an age of Colt's revolvers, one would
almost give a little finger to know how the
marquis made "a pistol to discharge a dozen
times with once loading." The firing of cannon,
as well as the sinking of ships, seems to
have been a cherished subject with the noble
inventor. His fifty-fourth item is a bouncer;
"tried and approved before the late King (of
ever blessed memory) and a hundred lords
and commons, in a cannon of eight inches
and half a quarter, to shoot bullets of sixty-
four pounds weight, and twenty-four pounds
of powder, twenty times in six minutes; so
clear from danger, that after all were
discharged, a pound of butter did not melt, being
laid upon the cannon hitch, nor the green oil
discoloured that was first anointed and used
between the barrel thereof, and the engine
having never in it, nor within six foot, but
one charge at a time." If the reader can
solve this riddle, well and good.

Four or five of the inventions relate to
locks and keys, mostly to that kind of puzzle
lock which has from time to time attracted
most attention. Flying was not likely to
escape the notice of such an indefatigable
contriver; and consequently, in the seventy-
seventh invention, we are told "how to make
a man to fly: which I have tried with a little
boy of ten years old, in a barn, from one end
to the other, on a hay-mow." We are introduced
to "a watch to go constantly, and yet
needs no other winding from the first setting on
the cord or chain;" "a way to lock all
the boxes of a cabinet (though never so many)
at one time;" hollow-handled pocket combs,
knives, forks, and spoons, for carrying secret
papers; a rasping-mill for hartshorn, "whereby
a child may do the work of half-a-dozen men;"
an instrument "whereby persons ignorant in
arithmetic, may perfectly observe numeration
and subtraction of all sums and fractions;"
a "chair made à la mode, and yet a stranger,
being persuaded to sit down in it, shall have
immediately his arms and thighs locked up,
beyond his own power to loosen them;" a
"brass mould to cast candles, in which a man
may make five hundred dozen in a day, and
add an ingredient to the tallow which will
make it cheaper, and yet so that the candles
shall look whiter and last longer." Any
one who has seen Mr. Sopwith's very
ingenious monocleid writing cabinet, will be
forcibly reminded of "the way to lock all
the boxes of a cabinet (though never so many)
at one time;" and the beautiful machine
now employed for making mould candles,
seems first cousin to the "brass mould to cast
candles."

Automaton figures evidently engaged the
attention of the marquis. He speaks of "a
brazen or stone head, in the midst of a great
field or garden, so artificial and natural that
though a man speak never so softly, and
even whisper into the ear thereof, it will
presently open its mouth, and resolve the
question in French, Latin, Welch, Irish, or
English, in good terms, uttering it out of his
mouth, and then shut it until the next question
be asked." Those who remember the
"invisible girl," exhibited many years ago,
and the "speaking figure," exhibited much
more recently, may conceive how something
midway between the two, or comprising some
of the characteristics of both, may have
suggested itself to the marquis's mind. A
redoubtable idea, too, was that of "an artificial
horse, with saddle and caparisons fit for
running at the ring, on which a man being
mounted, with his lance in his hand, he can
make him start, and swiftly to run his career,
using the decent posture with bon grace, may
take the ring as handsomely, and running as
swiftly, as if he rode upon a barb."

There is something very like a dredging
machine in the "screw, made like a water-
screw, but the bottom made of iron plate
spadewise, which, at the side of a boat,
emptieth the mud of a pond, or raiseth gravel."
And we seem to have something like the
patent slip, or rather a contrivance called the
water-camel, in the "engine, whereby one
man may take out of the water a ship of five