1769; it was renewed in 1775. Humphry Gainsborough died in 1776.” *

But, fortunately, Mr. Fulcher's story is not original with him, nor is a test of its truth now to be applied to it for the first time.

Jabez Hornblower, who, after having been long employed as a stoker in Messrs. Boulton and Watt's manufactory at Soho, was, in the end of the last century, convicted of gross piracy of Mr. Watt's invention, employed a portion of the leisure which fell to his lot in the King's Bench Prison, in writing a first edition of the same fable, which was published in Gregory's Mechanics. Mr. Hornblower, however, with less caution than Mr. Fulcher, did not altogether evade the mention of any name or detail to authenticate his tale; but appealed, in proof of it, to a conversation said to have been held with Mr. Samuel More, the very respectable Secretary to the Society of Arts.

Now, in the trial of the cause, Boulton and Watt v. Bull, in the Common Pleas, 22nd June, 1793, Mr. More was, it happens, examined as a witness. He was asked, "You must have seen and known a vast number of machines of various kinds ;-Did you ever meet with the application of those principles Mr. Watt has applied to the fire-engine before you knew Mr. Watt's engine?" And upon oath he answered, "My situation in life leads me to see a vast many mechanical contrivances, and my inclination leads me to look into them. I take it to be the most useful engine that has ever been brought forward by the mind of man; I have considered it attentively; I do declare I never saw the principles laid down in Mr. Watt's specification either applied to the engine previous to his taking it up, nor ever read of any such thing what

ever.”

If it be true, although of this we have no proof beyond Hornblower's assertion,—that Mr. More had inspected Mr. Humphry Gainsborough's "working-model" to which his precious

* Fulcher, pp. 18, 19.

JABEZ HORNBLOWER.

87

"discoveries" were "applied," this only makes his evidence in favour of the entire novelty as well as originality of Mr. Watt's steam-engine the more conclusive. Mr. Humphry Gainsborough's opinion of the value of his own machine, as compared with that of Watt, appears, no doubt, to have been tolerably good; for "Suppose," writes Mr. Boulton to Mr. Watt in 1775, "another ingenious man starts up with another new discovery that should prove to be seven times better than the common engine, whilst ours is only three times, what then becomes of all the fabric we have raised, and of the visionary profits? And let me tell you that there is a great probability of it, for there is a very ingenious man at Henley-upon-Thames, who asserts that he hath made such a discovery." The person here alluded to,-who would have been very ingenious indeed if the ratio of seven to three in favour of his steam-engine against that of Watt had only proved to be true!

was no doubt Gainsborough ;—as in a subsequent letter, believed to have been written in 1776, Mr. Boulton talks of “Tubal-Cains, or Watts, or Dr. Fausts, or Gainsboroughs, arising with serpents like Moses', that devour all others.

CHAPTER IX.

BERT-PORTA-RIVAULT-SOLOMON

HISTORY OF THE STEAM-ENGINE BEFORE THE TIME OF WATT-EOLIPILES—GERDE CAUS-MARQUIS OF WORCESTER-HIS CENTURY OF INVENTIONS '—QUESTION WHETHER HE EXECUTED HIS APPARATUS—HIS ACT OF PARLIAMENT-BEAUFORT MSS.—ROLLOCK'S PANEGYRIC"

-TRAVELS OF COSMO DE MEDICIS.

As we are now arrived at that important epoch of Mr. Watt's life when he made the first, the greatest, and the most prolific of all his mighty inventions connected with the steam-engine, it is necessary that we should give some explanation of the state in which he found that machine, as then employed in imperfectly draining some collieries and mines in Great Britain, although not otherwise made available in either this or any other country. Without a brief historical sketch, such as this renders necessary, many of our readers would find it difficult either to follow the steps by which Mr. Watt ascended in his successive inventions, to understand their importance, or to appreciate their beauty; and we venture to believe that it is possible to communicate all that is on the present occasion needful to be known on this part of our subject, without perplexing our narrative by details either very numerous or at all obscure.

The earliest instance of a machine in which steam was deliberately used to generate motion, is, it seems to be generally admitted, the Æolipile,-Æoli-pila, or ball of Æolus,—such as is delineated and described by Hero of Alexandria, in his Pneu

EARLY KNOWLEDGE OF STEAM.

89

matica, or Spiritalia,* about 120 B. C. This molipile was a hollow ball of metal, moveable on external axes working in sockets, and fitted with one or more tubes issuing from it horizontally, closed at their ends, but with an opening in their sides. This ball being partially filled with water, and placed over a fire, the re-action of the steam, rushing with violence from those openings, caused it to revolve with more or less rapidity, according to the force of steam employed. The machine has been constructed of several forms, and has often served purposes of ingenious amusement. In point of practical utility, it is recommended by Branca, in his work entitled 'Le Machine,' published at Rome in 1629, to be used to produce a rotatory motion, by acting on the pinions of a wheel. It has also been employed instead of bellows, directing a strong current of steam on the fire, in place of a blast of air.

But the most singular details as to an instrument of this sort with which we have met, are given in the following passage, taken from Plot's Staffordshire :-"Yet there are many old customs in use within memory, of whose originals I could find no tolerable account, that possibly might commence as high as these times; such as the service due from the Lord of Essington in this county [Stafford] to the Lord of Hilton, about a mile distant, viz., that the Lord of the manor of Essington shall bring a goose every New-year's-day, and drive it round the fire in the hall at Hilton, at least three times, (which he is bound to doe as mean lord,) whil'st Jack of Hilton is blowing the fire. Now, Jack of Hilton is a hollow little image of brass of about 12 inches high, kneeling upon his left knee, and holding his right hand upon his head, * * * having a little hole in the place of the mouth, about the bness of a great pin's head, and another in the back about

of an inch diameter, at which last hole it is filled with water, it holding about 4 pints and, which, when set to a strong fire, evaporates after the same manner as in an æolipile, and vents itself at the smaller hole at the mouth in a constant blast, blowing

* A curious treatise, which, along with his other works, is to be found in the Mathematici Veteres, Gr. et Lat., Par. 1693, fol.

the fire so strongly that it is very audible, and makes a sensible impression in that part of the fire where the blast lights, as I found by experience, May the 26th, 1680." *

William of Malmesbury describes as being preserved in the Cathedral of Rheims, among other proofs of the mechanical skill of Gerbert, (afterwards Pope Sylvester II., who died A. D. 1003,) a hydraulic organ, blown "by the violence of boiling water." †

Baptista Porta, a Neapolitan gentleman who devoted his life to researches in chemistry and natural philosophy, in which he displayed remarkable ingenuity, and distinguished himself by inventing the magic lantern, has left us an account, in a work published in 1601, of some curious experiments on the power of steam, on its condensation, and on its relative bulk as compared with water. In one of them, a vacuum is distinctly formed by condensation, and water is forced up into it by the pressure of the atmosphere; and although this appears, both from his description, and from the rude wood-cut which accompanies it, to have been performed on the scale not of any large engine for raising water, but only of a small philosophical apparatus, still the novel principle is there clearly pointed out, and made available to any of his readers. In another experiment, a retort has its neck inserted in a cistern which is nearly filled with water; the water in the retort is then made to boil, and the steam, pressing on the water in the cistern, forces it up through a tube fixed in its lid.

David Rivault, Seigneur de Flurance, near Laval, in France, in a treatise on the Elements of Artillery, which he published in 1605, and of which a second edition, containing an additional fourth book, appeared in 1608, describes the power of steam in

* Nat. Hist. of Staffordshire, by Robert Plot, LL.D., p. 433, edit. Oxford, 1686. At plate xxxiii. of that work there is an engraved likeness of Jack, to which we refer those of our readers who are curious in such matters.

+ Willielm, Malmesbur. de gestis Regum Anglorum, Lib. ii.; inter Rer. Anglic. Script. ed. Lond. 1596, fol. 36, verso:

Pneumaticorum libri tres: cum duobus curvilineorum elementorum (printed at Naples), 4to. It was translated into Italian, and published, also at Naples, with the title, 'I tre libri de' 'Spiritali,' 1606, 4to.