DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61904#0107
RAGLAN CASTLE.
95
in one was being confirmed, it could be fupplied firft by one
cock, and then by the other, etc.
This certainly was not the firft time the idea of exercifing
force by fteam had occurred ; for Gibbon, in his “ Decline and
Fall,” relates how the architect of St. Sophia in Conftantinople
avenged himfelf of the annoyances of his next neighbour, a
lawyer, by running pipes up his houfe-fide, and introducing
them under his roof, and continually fhaking the houfe over
his head by explofions of fteam. Neither does it appear that
the idea was an original fuggeftion of the marquis’s own mind
or experiments, but that in Paris he had feen the unfortunate
Solomon de Caus, who was confined in the Bicetre as a lunatic,
for aflerting the wonders that might be done with fteam. We
are afraid that the marquis, being of an experimental turn,
liftened to the poor man’s fuppofed lunacy, and on his return
to England made a number of experiments at his houfe at
Lambeth, and boafted much of the wondrous power of his
fire-engine. But if the marquis did not do proper honour to
De Caus, he was deftined to receive the fame treatment.
According to the “ Experimental Philofophy” of Defaguliers,
a Captain Savary bought up all the books of the marquis that
he could lay his hands on, burnt them, and ftarted the idea as
his own. In confequence of the number of the marquis’s
“ Century of Scantlings” deftroyed by Savary, the book is very
rare, but the contents of it may be found in the eighteenth
volume of the “ Gentleman’s Magazine.” Thus from Raglan
ifiued,if not the origination of the marvellous agency of fteam,
the great revolutionizer of the world, at leaft the revival of it.
95
in one was being confirmed, it could be fupplied firft by one
cock, and then by the other, etc.
This certainly was not the firft time the idea of exercifing
force by fteam had occurred ; for Gibbon, in his “ Decline and
Fall,” relates how the architect of St. Sophia in Conftantinople
avenged himfelf of the annoyances of his next neighbour, a
lawyer, by running pipes up his houfe-fide, and introducing
them under his roof, and continually fhaking the houfe over
his head by explofions of fteam. Neither does it appear that
the idea was an original fuggeftion of the marquis’s own mind
or experiments, but that in Paris he had feen the unfortunate
Solomon de Caus, who was confined in the Bicetre as a lunatic,
for aflerting the wonders that might be done with fteam. We
are afraid that the marquis, being of an experimental turn,
liftened to the poor man’s fuppofed lunacy, and on his return
to England made a number of experiments at his houfe at
Lambeth, and boafted much of the wondrous power of his
fire-engine. But if the marquis did not do proper honour to
De Caus, he was deftined to receive the fame treatment.
According to the “ Experimental Philofophy” of Defaguliers,
a Captain Savary bought up all the books of the marquis that
he could lay his hands on, burnt them, and ftarted the idea as
his own. In confequence of the number of the marquis’s
“ Century of Scantlings” deftroyed by Savary, the book is very
rare, but the contents of it may be found in the eighteenth
volume of the “ Gentleman’s Magazine.” Thus from Raglan
ifiued,if not the origination of the marvellous agency of fteam,
the great revolutionizer of the world, at leaft the revival of it.