Excerpt from Life, Times, and Scientific Labours of the Second Marquis of Worcester: To Which Is Added, a Reprint of His Century of Inventions, 1663, With a Commentary Thereon That a Memoir of the Inventor of the Steam Engine, should appear for the first time two hundred years after his decease, is an occurrence in our literature, which, of itself, might almost be considered sufficient to arouse public inquiry in respect to such a production. But far more solid ground exists for believing that the great country which gave birth to the Inventor, and his Invention of one of man's noblest productions in art, will peruse it with true national pride, when assured of the amount and strength of the evidence now first adduced to establish those claims which, although never entirely doubted, yet have hitherto borne too misty and mythi cal a character to satisfy common comprehension. The labour encountered in carrying out the required design may be appreciated from the fact, that the present work has been to a great extent the study of thirty years, although literally completed within only the last few years. This field of inquiry has been, con sequently, long open to more ambitious pens, and sooner or later would, no doubt, have received, as it demands - the attention of men of letters and of science. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.