[Footnote 168: The ingredients of gunpowder, minus the charcoal.]
So much for scientific inference. But observe what presently follows:—
“This,” he concludes, “is my opinion, which I think can as hardly be disproved as proved; since any opinion may be right or wrong, for anything that anybody knows, for certainly there is none can make a mathematical demonstration of natural philosophy”.
Well! The exact sciences have advanced a little since such a statement as that could be made.
[Illustration: MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE
From the frontispiece of one of her books by Diepenbeck]
In the last two chapters we have been considering the literary works of Newcastle. We must now face those of his Duchess—a very much more serious matter. The quantity of her written stuff was prodigious. The following list of her books, drawn up by Langbaine, is enough to cause the stoutest heart to quail. He says:—[169]
“She has published six and twenty plays, besides several loose scenes”—loose they are indeed—“nineteen of which are bound, and printed in one volume in Fol. 1662, the others in Folio, Lond., 1668, under the title of _Plays never before printed_. I know there are some that have but a mean opinion of her plays; but, if it be considered that both the language and plots of them are all her own, I think she ought to be preferred to others of her sex, which have built their fame on other people’s foundations.”
“16. Sociable Companions, or The Female Wits.—Comedy.
“19. Youth’s Glory, and Death’s Banquet.—Tragedy.”
The other seven he does not name; but he says that to her play “Presence” are added twenty-nine single scenes which the Duchess designed to have inserted into this play, but finding it would too much lengthen it, she printed them separately. Of her other works he mentions:—
“The life of the Duke of Newcastle in English. Folio. London 1667.
“Nature’s Picture drawn by Fancy’s Pencil to the life. Folio. London 1656, at the end of which she has writ her own life.
“Philosophical Fancies. Folio. London 1653.
“Philosophical & Physical Opinions. Folio. London 1655.
“Philosophical Letters. Folio. London 1664.
“Two Hundred and Eleven Sociable Letters. Folio. London 1664.
The reader need not be afraid that much of all this is to be inflicted upon him; we have already seen a good deal of her writings; but a few fresh examples must needs be given. One reason for the prodigious number of her works was that she always kept secretaries at hand to write at dictation whatever happened to come into her head, a second seems to have been that she considered whatever came into her head to have been worthy of publication. Cibber says of her:—[170]