Note 229 — Chapter VI

A somewhat similar project was described in the Marquis of Worcester's Century of the Names and Scantling of ... Inventions (1663), in which the steam-engine is anticipated. The passage is as follows:—"32. How to compose an universal character, methodical, and easie to be written, yet intelligible in any language; so that if an Englishman write it in English, a Frenchman, Italian, Spaniard, Irish, Welsh, being scholars, yea, Grecian or Hebritian, shall as perfectly understand it in their owne Tongue, as if they were perfect English, distinguishing the Verbs from the Nouns, the Numbers, Tenses, Cases as properly expressed in their own Language as it was written in English."

A writer in Blackwood's Magazine in 1820 affirms that he has good reasons for believing that the above volume was really by Sir Thomas Urquhart, and was dishonestly put forth as the work of the Marquis of Worcester. He does not give us any of his reasons. The style of the little volume bears no resemblance to that of our author, and this fact is of itself almost conclusive proof that Sir Thomas Urquhart had nothing to do with it. The Scottish knight could scarcely open his lips without revealing his identity. It is rather difficult to believe, too, that a manuscript lost by Sir Thomas in the streets of Worcester should have been picked up by the Marquis of Worcester. The coincidence would be a very extraordinary one.