Add MS 38844

"A SECOND CENTURY of Inventions, and A Speculative Enquiry into the Origin and Progress of the Practical and Theoretical Knowledge of Mankind from the Creation to the Present Times . . . . By William Congreve Esq., A.M., of Trinity College, Cambridge, Student of the Middle Temple, and Member of the Society for the Improvement of Naval Architecture." Dedicated to H.R.H. Prince William Frederick of Gloucester. Holograph. The author, cr. Bart. in 1814, is best known as the inventor of the rocket. The former work takes its name (according to the Preface) from A Century of Inventions, by Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquis of Worcester, and is, like it, a somewhat vague syllabus of projects without details of execution; e.g. "A Writing Table which gives several facsimile copies of anything that may be written on it without any external or visible agency." f. 37; "How to construct a chamber organ so that any person perfectly unacquainted even with the characters of music shall be able to adjust it to play any piece." f. 39. On f. 16 is an index of subjects. The second work gives a commonplace description of the progress of man as illustrated by mechanical inventions, divided into six periods. f. 52. An earlier draft of this work follows on f. 280. Paper; ff. 333. Folio. Circ. A.D. 1800. Presented by the Royal Artillery Institution.