] In the preface to his little
book, the marquis states he had sacrificed from six to seven
hundred thousand pounds in bringing his various inventions to
perfection; after which it is satisfactory to find he derived
some profit from one of them, conceived, as he says, "by heavenly
inspiration." This was a water-engine for drying marsh-lands and
mines, requiring neither pump, suckers, barrels, bellows, nor
external nor additional help, save that afforded from its own
operations. This engine Sorbiere describes as one of the most
curious things he had a mind to see, and says one man by the help
of this machine raised four large buckets full of water in an
instant forty feet high, through a pipe eight inches long. An
act of parliament was passed enabling the marquis to reap the
benefit and profit from this invention, subject to a tenth part
which was reserved for the king and his heirs.
The Royal Society soon became one of the foremost objects of
interest in the city. Foreigners of distinction were conducted
to its rooms that they might behold the visible signs of
knowledge it could proudly boast; and women of culture were
admitted to hear the lectures its members delivered.
Amongst these latter may be mentioned the eccentric Duchess of
Newcastle; a lady who dressed her footmen in velvet coats,
habited herself in antique gowns, wrote volumes of plays and
poetry, desired the reputation of learning, and indulged in
circumstances of pomp and state.
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