Page:Biographical catalogue of the portraits at Weston, the seat of the Earl of Bradford (IA gri 33125003402027).pdf/104

 from the Virgin Islands, and in this fatal storm he had to deplore the loss of his devoted friend and brother, Prince Maurice, who went down on the deck of the well-named Honest Seaman. Yet once more he had an escape from drowning when at Paris at the Court of Louis the Fourteenth, in company with Charles the Second. A letter from a Round-*head thus details the circumstance:—

'The Seine had like to have made an end of your Black Prince Rupert' (he was swimming with the King and Duke of York); 'he was near being drowned if it had not been for the help of one of his servants, who dragged him up by the hair of his head.' These 'highly liveried blackamoors,' like all other dependants of the Prince, were much attached to their noble master.

On his return to England in 1662 Rupert seems to have given himself up to the pursuit of philosophical and scientific studies, even (so it was affirmed by many) to those of an occult nature. He fitted up for himself a workshop in the High Tower of Windsor Castle, furnished with forges, crucibles, retorts, instruments of all sorts, and here 'the hero of a hundred fights' might be seen with blacksmith's apron and bare brawny arms indulging in all the experiments of vital interest to a chemist and an alchemist. In this laboratory he was frequently visited by his royal cousin the King, and his favourite the Duke of Buckingham, both of whom took a great delight in Rupert's occupations. This strange man had other apartments assigned to him in the castle, where he kept stores of armour and weapons from all parts of the world, together with a library of valuable books, the catalogue of which is still extant. John Evelyn was a great admirer of Rupert's versatile talents, and was a delighted listener when the Prince related to him the discovery that he had made of mezzotint engraving. The story is well known how on one occasion, when at Brussels, the Prince observed a sentinel at some distance from