as invention is
concerned. He certainly gave a good, plausible account of the discovery,
or it was given for him, and this went current for many years in books
of inventions. It was said that the marquis, while confined in the Tower
of London, was preparing some food in his apartment, and the cover of
the vessel, having been closely fitted, was, by the expansion of the
steam, suddenly forced off and driven up the chimney. 'This
circumstance, attracting his attention, led him to a train of thought,
which terminated in the completion of his 'water-commanding engine.''

_E ben trovato._ Unfortunately, within a few years, and since Partington
published the 'Century of Invention,' there was unearthed from the
gossiping letters of a gay French court-belle, who little dreamed what
ill service she was doing her gallant, and what good service to history,
a chance bit of trifling, as she probably deemed it, which sends the
marquis's story exploding up the chimney after the lid of his apocryphal
kettle. It seems that when the marquis was in France, he, in accordance
with the elegant and refined custom which prevailed there and in
England, as the reader may gather from Boswell's 'Johnson'--went with
this lady to visit the madmen confined in the public prison.

I have already digressed so widely in this article, that a sin more or
less, of the kind, need not be noted too severely. Reader, if you are
one of those who think that mankind do not progress in heart, what think
you of this pretty custom of the last century, according to which
gentlemen and ladies of the highest rank, 'persons of quality,' made up
parties to visit public madhouses, which, by the way, were common shows,
at one penny entrance fee, and where the young gentlemen poked the mad
people with sticks, and pelted them, shook their chains, and jeered
them, till they foamed and raved, and the young misses giggled and gave
pretty screams, and cried, 'Oh, fie!' and 'lor!' and then the visitors
all laughed together? Then Miss ----, a little bolder, hissed at the
lunatics herself, and poked them with a stick--and then there was a
fresh storm of tears and howls and blasphemy and obscenity; and the
keepers, rushing in with heavy cudgels, beat the 'patients' right and
left like cattle--and it was all 'so horrible!' _Bad_, think you? These
were the ladies and gentlemen of the old school--the Grandisons and
Chesterfields and their dames. At the present day there are still vulga