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CHARLES THE SECOND.

71

and as he advances no proof that he ever put it in practice, may be dismissed in as brief a

manner as he announces it.

The foundation of the mechanical superiority of England may be said to have been laid in the time of Charles I. The reign of Charles II. was one of the most favourable periods that had been in England for the advancement of its arts; and it detracts little from the merit of the " merry monarch," whether his patronage followed, or led the taste of his court into these channels. "His majesty was, however, much devoted to the study of mechanics, mathematics, natural history, and chymistry, on which account he sent for a skilful professor of these arts from France, and erected for him, in St. James's Park, a suitable building for carrying on his operations and experiments." The king took particular pleasure in experiments relating to navigation, of which he had a very accurate knowledge; "and paid great attention to finding out what sorts of wood require the least depth of water to float them, and what shapes are the best adapted for cutting the water and making good sailers;" and his brother's (the Duke of York) taste was strongly turned towards the same pursuits. The well-known Sir Robert Moray had the control of the king's laboratory, and the office of "master of mechanics" was conferred on Sir Samuel Morland, an ingenious practical

Sir Samuel was the son of the Rev. Thomas Morland rector of Sulhamstead, in Berkshire, and was born abou 1625. From Winchester school he was sent to Cambridge where he devoted himself to the study of mathematics. In 1653 he accompanied Whitelocke on the famous embassy to the Queen of Sweden; and was afterwards sent by Cromwell to the Duke of Savoy, regarding his expulsion of the Walden ses, a business which he is said to have conducted with great address. He remained some time at Geneva, and after his

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mechanic, and was often employed by the king in that capacity.

return he wrote a "History of the Evangelical Churches of the Vallies of Piedmont," with numerous cuts. At his return he received the thanks of a select-committee appointed to inspect his transactions. He was now high in the confidence of Thurloe, secretary to Cromwell, and admitted into the most intimate affairs of state; but overhearing the discussion of a plot to assassinate Charles II., he, fearing the king's blood might be laid to his charge another day, disclosed it to that monarch at Breda. He was then in affluence, having, as he said, "a house well furnished, an establishment of servants, a coach, and 10007. per annum, and a beautiful young woman to his wife for a companion." He was created a baronet in 1660, and master of mechanics to the king; and held several pensions as remunerations for various experiments which had involved him in pecuniary embarrassments: "these experiments," he said, "had pleased the king's fancy, but when he spent 500 or 1000 pounds upon them, he received sometimes but half, or a third of what he had expended." He married a second wife, who pretended to be an heiress of 20,000 pounds, but was a beggar, and when she turned out a strumpet he divorced her. Two years before King Charles's death he was sent into France about the king's water-works, but here he again lost more than he gained. Water engines employed much of his attention, and in 1774, in the Journals of the House of Commons, is a notice of a bill to enable him to enjoy the sole benefit of certain pumps and water engines invented by him. He was, probably, a very gay man in his youth, for he acknowledges having been excommunicated. He invented the speaking trumpet, a fire engine, a capstan to heave anchors, and two arithmetical machines, of which he published a description.

Sir Samuel, in 1675, obtained a lease of Vauxhall-house, (now a distillery,) made it his residence, and considerably improved the premises, every part of which showed the invention of the owner. The side-table in the dining-room was supplied with a large fountain, and the glasses stood under little streams of water. His coach had a moveable kitchen, with clock-work machinery, with which he could make soup, broil steaks, or roast a joint of meat. About 1684 he bought a house at Hammersmith, near London, where he died in January, 1696, and was buried in Fulham church.

He gave a pump and well adjoining his house for the use of the public, which was thus recorded upon a tablet fixed in the wall: "Sir Samuel Morland's well, the use of which he freely

MACHINE AT WINDSOR.

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In 1675, he obtained a patent for a certain powerful machine to raise water. By the strength of eight men it forced water from the Thames to the top of Windsor-castle, and sixty feet higher, in a continual stream, at the rate of sixty barrels an hour. This was repeated, in 1681, before the king, queen, and court, at which time his majesty presented his magister mechanorum with a medal, having his effigy set round with diamonds.

In 1681, he was sent to France on business connected with his majesty's water-works, and during his residence in Paris he repeated the experiments to raise water, and erected several pumps, on his peculiar construction, in the houses of his friends: he also exhibited some models in action before King Louis, at St. Germains. These exhibitions, it has been stated, were given for the purpose of obtaining that patronage for his invention from the court of France, which he had failed in securing from his own.*

gives to all persons, hoping that none who shall come after him will adventure to incur God's displeasure, by denying a cup of cold water, (provided at another's cost, and not their own,) to either stranger, neighbour, passenger, or poor thirsty beggar. July 3, 1695." A malediction rests on some head, for the well has disappeared.

*This inference has, probably, received currency from the following statement by Dr. Hutton. "To Sir Samuel also, it appears, is due the first account of the steam-engine; on which subject he wrote a book, in which he not only showed the practicability of the plan, but even went so far as to calculate the powers of the different cylinders. The author dates his invention in 1682, consequently seventeen years prior to Savery's patent. It was presented to the French king in 1683, at which time experiments were actually shown at St. Germains. As Sir Samuel held places under Charles II., we must naturally conclude, that he would not have gone over to France, to offer his invention to Louis XIV., had he not found it slighted at home. The project seems to have remained obscure in both countries till 1699, when Savery, who probably knew more of Morland's invention than he owned, obtained a

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But as he nowhere mentions any thing of the sort, it is probable he had neither failed at home, nor solicited for encouragement abroad. In fact, his mission was to examine the machine at Marli, which Rannequin, that year, had put in motion, to supply the palace of Versailles with water; and Sir Samuel's exhibition of his cyclo-elliptique pump was made as much in the view of its being a novel exhibition, then particularly interesting to the French court, as with an hope of being able to introduce the use of his apparatus into France, and to secure to himself a monopoly of its profit.

These experiments, however, have been adduced as evidences of his having, at the same period, shown to the French king the method of raising water by means of fire. But no account of any such experiment is known to be in existence, or any expression which, even by inference, can be supposed to warrant such assumption. His book,* printed in 1685, on elevating water by all sorts of machines, does not contain a word on the subject. From that work, it might, probably, appear he was not unacquainted with the use of steam as a substitute for animal power; but even this can only be inferred after a very liberal construction of a dubious expression. Enumerating various moving forces, he mentions that to be patent, and, in the very same year, M. Amontons proposed Something similar to the French academy as his own! Mathematical Dictionary, vol. ii. p. 71. 1822.

* Elévation des Eaux par toute Sorte de Machines pour le bien public, par le Chevalier Morland. Jombert. A Paris. 1685. The copies generally appear without a date, from the bookseller's name being pasted over it, the title-page having been printed without this appendage.

"Selon la force mouvante donnée, soit des rivières ou du vent, soit des chevaux ou des hommes, soit enfin du feu ordi naire ou de celuy de la poudre à canon."

MANUSCRIPT BOOK.

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had from the current of rivers, from the action of wind, the force of men or horses, or even of a common fire, or from gunpowder.

It may be true, that, in 1683, he presented to the King of France a small and splendidly writ ten book, which, among other matters, contains some calculations of the size of cylinders to raise, by steam, a certain quantity of water a certain height in a minute; and he also gives an approximation towards the expansion of a quantity of water into vapour, very remarkable from its correctness, considering the early stage of the inquiry. But we are left in total ignorance with regard to his manner of experimenting.

The manuscript volume which is preserved in the British Museum, is also said to have been that presented to the King of France: it may have been so. The first part of this little book is most exquisitely written, each page is beautifully ornamented with a gold border, gold letters, and words in different coloured inks, and every way worthy not only of being presented to a king, but to be admired by the most tasteful monarch for its delicacy and elegance but the latter part of itall that relating to the experiments on steam, (which is given entire in the note,f) is in a

ELEVATION des Eaux par toute Sorte de Machines réduite à la Mesure au Poids et à la Balance, présentée à SA MAJESTE Très Chrétienne par le Chevalier MORLAND, Gentilhomme Ordinaire de la Chambre Privée, et Maistre de Mé. chaniques du Roy de la GRANDE BRETAIGNE, 1683.

† Les Principes de la Nouvelle Force de Feu inventée par le Chevalier Morland, l'An 1682, et présentée à Sa MAJESTE Très CHRETIENNE, 1683. L'Eau estant évaporée par la force de feu, ces vapeurs demandent incontinent un plus grand d'espace (environ deux mille fois) que l'eau n'occupoit aupara vant, et plus tost que d'être toujours emprisonnées, feroient crever une pièce de canon. Mais estant bien gouvernées selon les règles de la statique, et par science réduites à la mesure

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