Chapter IV: Part 4

During the first century after the invention of the stocking-loom, few improvements were made upon it, and two men were usually employed to work one frame. But in the course of last century the machine was very greatly improved. The late ingenious Mr. Jedediah Strut, of Belper, Derbyshire, was the first individual who succeeded in adapting it to the manufacture of _ribbed_ stockings. Estimating the population of Great Britain, say sixteen millions, and the average annual expenditure of each individual upon stockings and knit gloves at five shillings, the total value of the manufacture will be £4,000,000, and we consider this rather to be under than over the mark.

The effect of this invention was very late in making its appearance in Scotland. Till far on in the eighteenth century, the use of knitted stockings was universal. Mittens, or woollen gloves for the hands, and boot-hose, for drawing over the legs in riding, were also quite common, and all were wrought by the hand. The manufacture was carried on solely by women, the wives and daughters of farmers, generally, and the produce was sold as the means of bringing in a small revenue. The introduction of the stocking-loom to Hawick, in 1771, and the change of manners which took place about this period, soon put an end to this traffic; but still the greater part of the stockings worn by the country people on ordinary occasions are knitted at home. The art is also still in use in Shetland, where knitting forms the only amusement to relieve the tedium of a long winter, and where the articles produced are exceedingly fine in the texture: the Shetland hose bring the highest price of any woollen stocking.

COACHES.

Coach is said to be derived from _caroche_, Italian; a term first used in the eleventh century, and invented to designate a military machine, so called.

We intend the word coaches to stand for the generic name of all those machines used for the carriage of persons, on business or pleasure, (except, indeed, those for the conveyance of the dead,) from the state carriage of the sovereign down to the humble gig. The original inventor of this species of carriage is said to have been an Athenian monarch, 1489 years before Christ, who being afflicted with lameness in his feet, first invented a coach for his convenience, and with a view to conceal his debility. This may be regarded as the first original, of the kind, of Grecian invention.

The ancient historian, Diodorus Siculus, makes mention of a carriage in which Sesostris was wont to be drawn; and also, he says when he entered the city, or went out to the sacrifice, had four of his captive kings yoked to his chariot; but it is conjectured this carriage, to which that historian alludes, was a warrior’s car. There is, most assuredly, ample room to believe that this was the first species of carriage which was introduced; if so, those existed long before the Athenian king above-named; because all the Homeric heroes, Greeks as well as Trojans, and their auxiliaries, rode in these machines, called chariots, or warriors’ cars, which are also known to have existed long antecedent to that period. We remain assured that war chariots were used in the first ages of the world, by all the great monarchs who possessed dominion.

That species of carriage before said to have been invented by the Athenian monarch, we therefore presume, was a covered carriage, similar to that species designated in the twelve tables of the Roman law, and by them called _arcera_, which was said to be a carriage of the last presumed description, and mentioned as being intended for the conveyance of the infirm. To this species of carriage succeeded the soft _lectica_. But we will leave this part of our subject, and proceed towards our own times.

After the subversion of the Roman power, the northern sovereigns, who had become the barbarous and ignorant oppressors of our species, introduced and established, among other political regulations, the feudal system, as it was called, by which all property in land was held by certain fiefs, whereby the king, or, as termed, lord of the soil, let certain portions of the land to his nobles, military officers, and other great persons, generally often on condition of certain services required to be performed, called knights’ service, and other military tenures; by which custom those tenants of the sovereign had to provide certain men and horses to serve him in his wars.--These first tenants, or vassals, afterwards underlet those lands to villains, so named, in contradistinction to the present recognised term, from their living in villages or hamlets, and other tenants, from whom, in their turn, similar services and certain provisions were required.--Thus the European world, which had become the prey of effeminacy and luxury, had, by this single important circumstance, their character so radically changed, that, like the mysterious power of the Cadmæan wand of Harlequin, wrought so uncommon a change in the morals of European society, that those who had formerly kept carriages, and wallowed in all the soft luxurious delicacy of Asiatic effeminacy, suddenly, or, at least, progressively, became a society of hardy equestrian veterans. Insomuch, that masters and servants, husbands and wives, clergy and laity, all rode upon horses, mules, or asses, which latter animals were chiefly used by women, monks, and other religious professors. The minister rode to court; the horse, without a conductor, returned to the stable, till a servant, regulated by the horologe, took him back to the court for his master. In this manner, we are assured, the magistrates of the imperial cities rode to council, till as late as the beginning of the sixteenth century; so that in the year 1502, steps to assist in mounting were erected by the Roman gate at Frankfort. The members of the council who, at the diet and other occasions, were employed as ambassadors, were, on this account, called _rittmeister_ in the language of the country; at present the expression riding-servant is preserved in some of the imperial cities. The entry of great lords in public into any place, or their departure from it, was never in a carriage, but always on horseback; in all the pontifical records, speaking of ceremonials, no mention is made either of a state coach, or body coachman, but of state horses and state mules. In the following regulation, it is found that the horse which his Holiness rode “was necessary to be of an iron-grey colour; not mettlesome, but a quiet, tractable nag. That a stool of three steps should be provided for the assistance of his Holiness in mounting: that the emperor, or kings, if present, were obliged to hold his stirrup, and lead the horse.”

Bishops made their public entry, on induction, on horses or asses richly caparisoned. At the coronation of the emperor, the electors and principal officers of the empire were ordered to make their entry on horseback.--It was formerly requisite, that those who received a fief, or other investiture, should make their appearance on horseback. The vassal was obliged to ride with two attendants to the court of his lord, where, after he had dismounted his horse, he received his fief.

Covered carriages were again introduced in the beginning of the sixteenth century, for the accommodation of women of the very first rank; the men, however, thought it disgraceful to ride in them. At that period, when the electors, and other Germanic princes, did not choose to be present at the meeting of the States, they excused themselves to the emperor, that their health would not permit them to ride on horseback, which was considered as an _established point_, that it was unbecoming to them to ride like women. What, according to their prevailing ideas, was not permitted to princes, was much less allowed to their servants. In A. D. 1554, when Count Wolf, of Barby, was summoned by John Frederic, Elector of Saxony, to go to Spires, to attend the convention of the States assembled there, he _requested leave_, on account of ill health, to make use of a close carriage with four horses. When the counts and nobility were invited to attend the solemnity of the elector’s half brother, John Ernest, the invitation was accompanied with a memorandum, that such dresses of ceremony as they might be desirous of taking with them, should be transported in a small waggon;--which notice would have been unnecessary, had coaches been generally used among those nobles. The use of covered carriages was in fact, for a long time, prohibited even to women, the consorts of princes. About the year 1545, the wife of a certain duke obtained from him, with great difficulty, permission to use a covered carriage in a journey to the baths, in which permission there was this express stipulation, that none of her attendants were to be permitted this indulgence: though much pomp was displayed upon the occasion by the duchess. Such is the influence of example in our superiors, who can mould dependents and inferiors to whatever shape they please.

Notwithstanding all these ceremonious regulations, about the end of the fifteenth century, kings and princes began to employ covered carriages in journeys, and afterwards on public solemnities. When Richard II., towards the close of the fourteenth century, was compelled to fly from his rebellious subjects, himself with all his followers, were on horseback; but his mother, who was weak and sick, rode in a carriage. But this became afterwards unfashionable here, for that monarch’s queen, Anna, daughter of the King of Bohemia, showed the English ladies how gracefully she could ride on a side-saddle; and therefore whirlicotes (the ancient name for coaches in England), and chariots, were disused in England, except on coronations and other public solemnities.

In the year 1471, after the battle of Tewkesbury, which decided the fate of Henry VI., and that of the house of Lancaster, when others flew in different directions, the queen was found in her coach, almost dead with sorrow.

In 1474, the Emperor Frederic III. came to Frankfort in a close carriage; and as he remained in it on account of the wetness of the weather, the inhabitants had no occasion to support the canopy which was to have been held over him, while he went to the council house and returned. In the following year, the same emperor visited that city in a very magnificent carriage. In 1487, on occasion of the celebration of the feast of St. George at Windsor, the third year of Henry VII., the queen and king went in a rich chaise; they were attended by twenty-one ladies. In the description of the splendid tournament held by the Elector of Brandenburg, at Ruppin, in 1509, Beckmann says, he reads of a carriage all gilt, which belonged to the Electress; of twelve other coaches, ornamented with crimson; and of another, belonging to the Duchess of Mecklenburgh, which was hung with red satin.

In the Northumberland household book, about this period, is an order of the duke for the chapel stuff to be sent before in my lord’s chariot.

At the coronation of the Emperor Maximilian, 1562, the Elector of Cologne had twelve carriages. In 1594, when John Sigismund did homage at Warsaw, for Prussia, he had in his train thirty-six coaches, with six horses each. Count Kevenhiller, speaking of the marriage of Ferdinand II. with a princess of Bavaria, says, “The bride rode with her sisters in a splendid carriage studded with gold; her maids of honour in carriages hung with black satin, and the rest of the ladies in neat leather carriages.”

Mary, Infanta of Spain, spouse of Ferdinand III., rode, in 1631, in a glass carriage, in which no more than two persons could sit. The wedding carriage of the first wife of the Emperor Leopold, who was a Spanish princess, cost, with the harness, 38,000 florins. The coaches used by that emperor are thus described:--“In the imperial coaches no great magnificence was to be seen; they were covered over with red cloth and black nails. The harness was black, and in the whole work there was no gold. The panels were of glass, and on that account they were called the imperial glass coaches. On festivals the harness was ornamented with red silk fringes. The imperial coaches were distinguished only by their having leather traces; but the ladies in the imperial suite were obliged to be content to be conveyed in carriages, the traces of which were made of ropes.” At the magnificent court of Ernest Augustus, at Hanover, there were in 1681, fifty gilt coaches, with six horses each. So early did Hanover begin to surpass other cities in the number and splendour of its carriages.

The first time that coaches were introduced into Sweden was towards the end of the sixteenth century, when John of Finland, among other articles of luxury, brought one with him on his return from England.

Beckmann also informs us, that the great lords of Germany first imagined that they could suppress the use of coaches by prohibitions. There is still preserved an edict, in which the feudal nobility and vassals are forbidden the use of coaches, under pain of incurring the punishment of felony.

Philip II., Duke of Pomeranian-Stettin, reminded his vassals also, in 1608, that they ought not to make so much use of carriages as of horses. All these orders and admonitions, however, were of no avail, and coaches became common all over Germany.

Persons of the first rank (ladies we presume), in France, frequently sat behind their equerry, and the horse was often led by servants. When Charles VI., wished to see, _incognito_, the entry of the queen, he placed himself behind his master of the horse, with whom, however, he was incommoded in the crowd. Private persons in France, physicians, for instance, used no carriages in the fifteenth century. In Paris, at all the palaces and public places, there were steps for mounting on horseback.

Carriages, notwithstanding, appear to have been used very early in France, as appears by an ordinance issued in 1294, for suppressing luxury, and in which the citizens were prohibited from using carriages. About 1550, there were at Paris, for the first time, only three coaches; one of which belonged to the queen; another to Diana of Poictiers, the favourite mistress of two kings, Francis I. and Henry II.; and the third to René de Laval, a corpulent nobleman, unable to ride on horseback. Henry IV. was assassinated in a coach; but he usually rode through the streets of Paris on horseback. For himself and his queen he had only one coach, as appears by a letter which he writes to a friend, which is still preserved: “I cannot _wait_ upon you to-day, because my wife is using my carriage.”

Roubo, in his costly treatise on joiners’ work, has furnished three figures of carriages used in the time of Henry IV., from drawings preserved in the King’s Library: from them it is seen those coaches were not suspended by straps, that they had a canopy supported by ornamental pillars, and that the whole body was surrounded by curtains of stuff or leather, which could be drawn up. The coach in which Louis IV. made his public entrance about the middle of the seventeenth century, appears from a drawing in the same library to have been a suspended carriage.

Our national chronicler, John Stowe, says coaches were first known in England about 1580; he likewise says, they were first brought from Germany by the Earl of Arundel, in 1589. Anderson places the period when coaches began to be used in common here about 1605. It is remarked of the Duke of Buckingham, that he was the first who was drawn by six horses, in 1619. To ridicule this pomp, the Earl of Northumberland put eight horses to his carriage.

Things are altered now when we have carriages of every description--for the high and low, the rich and the poor. Vis-a-vis,--an open carriage chiefly constructed for the benefit of conversation, as its name implies. Landau, landaulets, phætons, chaises, whiskeys, cabs, fiacres, &c., &c., are but names adapted to different purposes, and constructed nearly upon the same principles as coaches, but some of them close, others open, some to be opened or shut according to the weather, or taste of the passengers, and calculated to contain an indefinite number, from two to six persons; nay, there are the jolly good omnibuses running in every town and village in the kingdom, the generality of which are constructed to carry twelve inside and eight outside passengers.

The number of hackney coaches which ply in the streets of London have been augmented from time to time, since their first establishment in 1625, when there were only twenty. Coaches, cabs, omnibuses, &c., now plying, amount to nearly three thousand.

To prevent imposition, the proprietors of these carriages are compelled to have their names painted on some conspicuous place of the carriage, and their number affixed in the inside, as well as the out. This regulation has become absolutely necessary of late years, on account of the numerous frauds practised by the coachmen.

We read that in Russia there are employed clumsy, but very convenient sorts of carriages, so constructed as to be either closed or open, and to hold a bed or couch, called _brichka_, with which persons can travel even for two or three thousand miles without much inconvenience, except it be over the rough stones of their towns, owing to the superior accommodations of either lying down or sitting; this change of position renders a journey less irksome, without which it would prove intolerable. In Russia, from Riga to the Crimea, at least, post horses are furnished by the government, and entrusted to subalterns in the Russian army to provide them.

Coaches for hire were first established by public authority in France, as early as 1671. There are employed in the streets of the capital no fewer than three thousand hackney coaches. As early as the year 1650 Charles Villerme paid into the royal treasury fifteen thousand livres, for the exclusive privilege of keeping and using fiacres in Paris.

Post chaises were introduced in the year 1664.

Hackney coaches were established in Edinburgh in 1673, when the number was only twenty. Public fiacres were introduced at Warsaw in 1778. In Amsterdam the coaches have no wheels; nor have they any at Petersburg in the winter--they are used as sledges.

The state-coach of the city of London is a species of heir-loom, or the hereditary property of the city; it is a very large and apparently extremely heavy machine, but superbly decorated with large panels of crystal glass, richly gilt, and elegantly painted with several appropriate designs. In one of the centre panels, among a group of figures, is one supporting a shield bearing the inscription “_Henry Fitzalwin_, 1189,” in the old English, character; therefore we conjecture that the coach was constructed at a period coeval with the above date.

SADDLES, BRIDLES, AND STIRRUPS.

In the earliest ages it was customary to ride without either bridles or saddles, if the poet be worthy of credit; for we observe Lucan, speaking of the Massillians, says:

“Without a saddle the Massilians ride,
And with a bending switch their horses guide.”

They regulated the motion of the horses by a switch and their voice. It has been observed, that the case was the same with the Numidians, Getulians, Libyans, as well as most of the Grecian people. As the reason of the thing appears to point out the superior expediency of a bridle, they afterwards came into fashion among the Greeks, which they called _lupi_; because it is said the bit of the bridle bore a resemblance to the teeth of the wolf, whence Lucan says of it:--

“Nor with the sharper bits
Manage th’ unruly horse.”

In the east it would appear that bridles, at least, were used at an early period. For we have a great number of texts in the Scripture, which definitely express as much: in the Psalms, and likewise in Proverbs, the name and application of the bridle is often particularly mentioned, and more frequently alluded to. Virgil, indeed, says, referring to very early times:

“The Lapithæ of Pelethronium rode
With bridles first,--and what their use was show’d.”

The saddle is also of ancient origin, for we read in I. Kings, xiii., 13.,--“And he said unto his sons, _saddle_ me the ass. So they saddled him the ass: and he rode thereon.” And before that period, in the second generation after Noah, the Assyrian empire was established. In its commencement, even as early as the days of Semiramis, the wife of Ninus, the first Assyrian king, who built Ninevah, there were those articles of horse furniture, called _packs_ and _fardles_; for in ancient historians we find the following passage occur in this respect. “Semiramis ascended from the plain to the top of the mountain, by laying the packs and fardels of the beasts that followed her, one upon another.” The same author informs us that this was Mount Bagistan, in Medea, and that it was seventeen furlongs from the top to the bottom.

In the first ages, among the Greeks and Romans, a cloth or mattrass, a piece of leather or raw hide, was all they used for a saddle. Such coverings afterwards became more costly: Silius Italicus says, they were made of costly skins.

It, however, appears, that after they were become common, it was considered as effeminate to use them; hence the Romans despised them: and in his old age, Varro boasts of having, when young, rode without a covering to his horse. Xenophon reproaches the Persians, because they put more clothes upon the backs of their horses than upon their beds. From the aspect in which hardy people viewed this practice, the warlike Teutones considered it most disgraceful, and despised the Roman cavalry.

In the fifth century, saddles were so magnificent, that a prohibition was issued by Leo I., that they should not be ornamented with pearls or precious stones. In the sixth century, the Emperor Mauritas directed that they should have coverings of fur, of large dimensions.

From every information we have been able to collect, we believe that the appendage of stirrups were not added to saddles before the sixth century. It is said, that previous to the introduction of stirrups, the young and agile used to mount their horses by vaulting upon them, which many did in an expert and graceful manner; of course, practice was essential to this perfection. That this should be afforded, wooden horses were placed in the Campus Martius, where this exercise was performed of mounting or dismounting on either side; first, without, and next with arms. Cavalry had also, occasionally, a strap of leather, or a metallic projection affixed to their spears, in or upon which the foot being placed, the ascent became more practicable. Respecting the period of this invention, Montfaucon has presumed that the invention must have been subsequent to the use of saddles; however, opposed to this opinion, an ingenious argument has been offered, that is possible they might have been anterior to that invention; because, it is said, they might have been appended to a girth round the body of the horse. Both Hippocrates and Galen speak of a disease to which the feet and ancles were subject, from long riding, occasioned by suspension of the feet without a resting-place. Suetonius, the Roman, informs us that Germanicus, the father of Caligula, was wont to ride after dinner, to strengthen his ancles, by the action of riding affording the blood freer circulation in the part.

The Latin names assigned them have been various, among which is _scalæ_; in which sense Mauritius, in his treatise on the art of war, is said to have named them. Now, this writer is supposed to have lived in the sixth century; but we conceive it is pretty evident they had an earlier existence in Arabia, Turkey, and Persia, as there is an alto, as well as bas-relief of this last country, still extant, which is believed to have been as ancient as the days of Darius, because it was brought from the city he built, Persepolis, having this representation.

The invention and name of stirrup is supposed to have been borrowed from the anatomy of the ear, where a band is found resembling it in form.

HORSE-SHOES.

When we consider the vast importance of security to the feet of that useful animal, the horse, we cannot but feel surprised that on account of the very rough roads the ancients must occasionally had to travel, that some metallic shoes had not been invented and introduced previously to the period when they appeared.

That the security of the rider necessarily depended upon the safety of the animal he rode, cannot be questioned. Hence, then, we do not wonder to observe, that the sagacious Aristotle and Pliny should remark upon the covering placed upon the feet of those animals of draught and burden. From what these authors have said, however, we dare not conclude that the feet of horses or camels were faced or shod with iron: but it should rather seem that in time of war, or on long journeys, the feet of both kinds of beasts were prepared with such species of shoes as the common people wore, and which were generally made of strong ox-leather. We are told that when the hoofs of cattle, particularly oxen, had sustained any injury or hurt, they were furnished with shoes made of Spanish or African broom, with which linen is often manufactured in the south of France and Italy; also shoes of some of the plants of the hemp kind, which were woven or plaited together. Although these may be considered as only a species of surgical bandages with regard to oxen; but such shoes were particularly given to mules, which in days of old were employed much more than at present for riding; and from some instances of immoderate extravagance in people of rank, it appears that they had for their animals very costly shoes of some of the most valuable metals. Nero, when he undertook short journeys, was drawn always by mules shod with silver, and those of his wife were shod with gold.

The circumstance being barely mentioned, without any particular detail, we are anxious to afford any certain information on the mode in which those shoes were constructed. From a passage in Dio Cassius, we have reason to believe that it was only the upper part of the shoe that was made of those costly metals, or that they were plaited from thin slips.

Xenophon relates that a certain people in Asia were in the habit of drawing socks over the feet of their horses, when the snow lay deep on the ground. The Kamschatkian employs the same means to preserve the feet of his dogs, which draw his sledge, or hunt the seals upon the ice. Those species of shoes, according to Captain Cook, are so ingeniously made as to be bound, and at the same time to admit the claws of the animal through them.

From a passage found in Suetonius, we may infer that the Roman horse-shoes were put on in the manner we have mentioned; for that author says, that the coachman of Vespasian once stopped to put on the shoes of his mules: this being the case, the probability appears pretty certain, that in deep roads and moist soils the animals must have frequently lost their shoes.

Artemedorus speaks of a shod horse, and uses the same kind of expression whilst speaking of other cattle. Winkelman has described a cut stone in the collection of Baron Stosch, on which is represented the figure of a man holding one foot of a horse, whilst another, kneeling, is employed in fastening a shoe.

That it was not usual to shoe the war-horse, may be gathered from this,--when Mithridates was besieging Cyzicus, he was obliged to send his cavalry to Bythnia, because the hoofs of the horses were entirely spoiled and worn out. Diodorus Siculus informs us, that Alexander, in his expedition, proceeded with uninterrupted marches, until the feet of his horses were entirely broken and destroyed. A like instance occurs in Cinnamus, where the cavalry were obliged to be left behind, because the horses had suffered considerably in their hoofs, to which he adds, they were often liable. Hence it may, perhaps, appear, that such horse-shoes as are now in use, were unknown to the ancients; and Chardiu gives no representation of them in ancient Persian antiquities. In the grave of Childeric, a northern chieftain and King of France, was discovered a piece of iron, which the learned antiquarians who saw it, pronounced, from that portion of it which the rust had left, to have been an old horse-shoe; they saw, or thought they saw, four distinct apertures for nails on each side; but whilst they were endeavouring to remove the corrosive excrescence of rust, to ascertain with more certainty, it broke under their hands. The reason why we mentioned this here is, that if the relic discovered was really a horse-shoe, it must have been one of the most ancient specimens known; because, we find that monarch died in the year 481; his grave was discovered at Tournay in 1683. The occasion of his having a horse-shoe in his grave, was from the creed of his religion; the superstitious belief of the Scandinavians taught them to place implicit confidence in the power of this amulet, to prevent the ingress of evil spirits. The remains of this belief is even now often seen in the obscure streets of the British metropolis; and, indeed, throughout the country, where the mystic shoe frequently appears as the faithful guardian of the domestic threshold.

It is, we understand, the opinion of the French historian, Daniel, that, in the ninth century, horses were not shod always, but only in the time of frost, and on some other very particular occasions.

The practice of shoeing horses was introduced into England by William I. We are told that this monarch gave the city of Northampton as a fief to a certain person, one of his attendants, in consideration of his paying a certain sum yearly for the shoeing of horses. And it is also alleged, that Henry, or Hugh de Ferres, or de Ferrers, was the same person who held this fief on the above condition, and who was the ancestor of the family of that name, and who still bear six horse-shoes in their coat of arms. This was the person whom William entrusted to inspect his farriers.

We should not omit to observe, that it is remarked, that horse-shoes have been found, with other riding furniture, in the graves of some of the old inhabitants of Germany, and also in those of the Vandals in the North of Europe.

GUNPOWDER.

The express period when _nitrum_ was first discovered is extremely uncertain; but that this nitrum is an alkaline salt, there is little difficulty in proving. It has, indeed, been conjectured that it was a component part of the _Greek fire_, invented about the year 678, which has been generally believed to be the origin of gunpowder. From the oldest prescriptions which have been found, and which is said to be that given by the Princess Anna Commena, in which, however, only resin, sulphur, and oil are mentioned, saltpetre does not appear.

It is believed by an author very well qualified to form a judgment on the question, that the first certain account we have of saltpetre by that express name, occurs in the oldest account of the invention of gunpowder, which, according to him (Professor Beckmann) occurred in the thirteenth century. Dr. Rees, in his Cyclopedia, expressly says, about the year 1320; and that it was first used by the Venetians employed against the Genoese in 1380; also that it was first in Europe at a place now known as Chrogia, against Laurence de Medicis; and the last named authority adds, “That all Italy made complaint against it, as a contravention of the law of arms.” Dr. Rees gives the following recipe for its manufacture, without distinguishing the proportionate parts:--“A composition of nitre, sulphur, and charcoal, mixed together, and usually granulated.” He describes its effects by observing, that “it easily takes fire, and when fired, rarifies and expands with great vehemence by means of its elastic force;” also that “it may be made without _nitre_, by means of _marine acid_.”

We have two accounts preserved to us of the original of this invention. The first of which was given by our illustrious countryman, Roger Bacon, called the Wonderful Doctor, who died A. D. 1278; previous to which period, gunpowder must have existed. The other account is by Albertus Magnus, in a work published in 1612.

It is said to be doubted whether Albertus was the author of the book which bears his name; but that he, whoever he may have been, and Bacon, are presumed to have taken their information from the same identical source. About the period of the invention of gunpowder, it appears the art of making the Greek fire began to be lost. In the works of Roger Bacon, the term occurs three times. According to Casiri, the term _pulvis nitratus_, is to be found in an Arabic MS. the author of which existed about 1249. If the work of Geber, _De Investigatione Perfectionis_, be genuine, and if this writer lived, as has been thought, in the eighth century, it would be the oldest where saltpetre is mentioned, in a prescription for an _aqua solutiva_, which appears to be almost _aqua regia_.

We are inclined to believe, however, from various authorities, that gunpowder was invented in India, as it was proved in a paper read before the French National Institute, by M. Langles, that the Arabians obtained a knowledge of gunpowder from the Indians, who had been acquainted with it from the earliest periods. The use of it in war is said to have been prohibited them in their sacred books. It was employed in 690 at a battle near Mecca, by the Arabians. It was brought by the Saracens from Africa to the Europeans, who improved the preparation, and first discovered various ways of employing it in war. In no country could saltpetre and its various uses be more easily discovered than in India, where the soil is so rich in nitrous particles that nothing is necessary but lixiviation to obtain saltpetre; and where this substance is so abundant, that almost all the gunpowder used in different wars, with which European sovereigns have tormented themselves, burdened their subjects with intolerable taxes, and cursed the world from its invention--has been made from Indian saltpetre. Had not saltpetre been known previous to the thirteenth century, neither could gunpowder or aquafortis have existed; and for the best of all reasons, that neither of them could be made without saltpetre or nitre. But should it appear that this neutral salt was known in India long prior to that period, and used by Indians as well as Arabians before they were employed by Europeans, and considering the former to have practised chemistry previous to the latter; should this have been proved, perhaps a similar proof will necessarily await upon the articles aquafortis and gunpowder. Because if this affirmation be established, it will be discovered that Europeans knew nothing of aquafortis until after the Arabian chemists.

Probability appears to favour the idea, that at or about the twelfth century the accumulated number of consequents, from the improvement in European science, the arts we now possess were introduced into our catalogue, _i. e._, nitre, aquafortis, and gunpowder.

After the period that saltpetre became necessary to governments for the manufacture of gunpowder, they endeavoured to obtain it at a cheap rate; and for that purpose were guilty in some countries of the most violent and oppressive measures, intruding upon private property of every description to furnish it, hunting for the effervescence even in old walls, to the great annoyance of individuals. But after repeated acts of the most flagrant oppression from the public officers, and from farmers, to whom this iniquitous practice was entrusted, they could not procure a sufficiency; but were obliged to have recourse to traffic in India for that purpose.

GUNS.

That these dangerous weapons were not known in Europe previous to the introduction of gunpowder may be safely inferred; as without that substance their necessity or utility is wanting.

At first the construction of this machine was characterised by that awkward, rude, and cumbersome appearance which generally distinguished all inventions in their infancy; reminding us of those very rude instruments brought from the Sandwich Islands, and deposited in our Museum.

The first portable fire-arms were discharged by a match; in course of time this was fastened to a cock, for the greater security of the hand whilst discharging the piece. Afterwards a fire-stone was attached, screwed into a cock, with a steel plate before it, and fixed in a small wheel, which could be wound up by a key, affixed to the barrel. This fire-stone was not at first of a vitreous nature, like that now in use for striking fire, but a compact pyrites, long known as such, and called a fire-stone. As an instrument so furnished was often liable to miss fire, till a late period a match was still continued with the wheel; and it was not till a considerable time after that, instead of a friable pyrites, so much exposed to effloresce, a vitreous stone was affixed to the improvement of the lock, somewhat resembling our own gun-lock. But these progressive improvements advanced slowly, because as recently as the early part of the last century these clumsy contrivances were in use. During that period, those instruments were denominated by various names, chiefly German and Dutch, such as _buchse_, _hakenbuchse_, _arquebuss_, musket, martinet, pistol, &c. The first of these names arose from the oldest portable kind of fire-arms having a similarity to a box. There were long and short _buchse_, the latter of which were peculiar to cavalry; the longest kind also, from their resemblance to a pipe, were called in Germany, _rohr_.

Large pieces, which were conveyed on carriages, were called _Karren buchse_, from the action of conveyance. Soon afterwards cannon were introduced, at first called _canna_; now known as artillery. However, artillery-men, and others concerned in those employments, still use the terms previously mentioned. The hackenbuchse were so very large and unwieldy, that if carried in the hand, they could not be used manually alone; they were, therefore, supported by a post or stay, called a _bock_, because it had a forked end, somewhat resembling the horns of the buck, between which the piece was fixed by a hook projecting from the stock. There is still preserved in the Tower of London, an old _buchse_; a specimen of every species of our national arms may be seen in the same place.

From those terms before-mentioned, it would appear, that not only the English, but also the French, and most other European nations, took the names of their fire-arms.

It appears that pistols were first used in Germany; they had a wheel attached to them. Bellay mentions them in the year 1544, in the time of Francis I.; and under Henry II., the German horsemen were called _pistoliers_. Several historians think that the name came from Pistolia, in Tuscany, because there they were first made; and, if we might hazard an opinion, we think this conjecture right. Hence, although Germany might first have generally used them, we think they were an Italian invention.

Muskets are said to have received their name from either the French _mouchet_, or else from the Latin _muschetus_; however, we are of opinion that neither of these terms gave its original; and submit that it is derived from the Latin _muscarium_,--the fall of men being as sudden after the explosion of this deadly weapon, as the death of a fly after it is flapped by that instrument, which was common in the butcher’s shambles of ancient Rome.

Daniel proves they were known in France as early as the period of Francis I. Brandome, however, asserts they were introduced by the Duke of Alva--that cruel monster in human shape--that tool of a blood-thirsty tyrant--whose name has its full merit when it has eternal execration, as the exploits of that diabolical character in the Spanish Netherlands bear indubitable testimony: that wretch existed in 1507; and they were not known in France at that period, as Brandome endeavours to prove, or we should have had more intelligence handed down to posterity by the commentators of one who would so willingly have used such an instrument. The _lock_ is said to have been invented in the city of Nuremberg, in Germany, about 1517; but that cannot be considered as the lock of the present day, as even in Germany the fire-lock is known by the name of the French-lock, which certainly militates against the previous assertion, the one giving the name perhaps to the other.

Beckmann says, “In the history of the Brunswick military it is stated, that the soldiers of that Duchy first obtained flint-locks instead of match-locks in 1687. It has often been asserted,” he continues, “that fire-tubes which took fire of themselves were forbidden first in Bohemia and Moravia, and afterwards in the whole German empire, under a severe penalty, by the Emperor Maximilian I.; but I have not found any allusion to this circumstance in the different police laws of that emperor.”

That the first fire-stones were pyrites appears from various sources, and afterwards a vitreous kind of stone was introduced in its stead; this circumstance is said to have produced some kind of confusion, as in many instances the properties were applied to that stone which were related by the Germans of antiquity as belonging to pyrites. In Germany, this vitreous stone was called _vlint_; in Sweden and Denmark, _flinta_; and in England, _flint_. This appellation is of great antiquity.

Anciently, in Germany, as it appears from the song of Hildebrand, a metrical romance of very early date, that Hildebrand and Hudebrand, a father and son, and, at the moment, ignorant of their affinity, agreed to fight for each other’s armour; and it is said “They let fly their ashen spears with such force, that they stuck in the shields, and they thrust resounding axes of flint against each other, having uplifted their shields previously; but the Lady Ulta rushed in between them--‘I know the cross of gold,’ said she, ‘which I gave him for his shield; this is my Hildebrand. You, Hudebrand, sheath your sword; this is your father!’ Then she led both champions into the hall, and gave them meat and wine with many embraces.”

Besides these proofs that the ancient name of the stone was known in Germany by the appellation _vlint_--which species of stone may, perhaps, without hazarding the danger of error, be conceived to be the same which Zipporah, the wife of Moses, is represented to have used, in the 25th verse of the 4th chapter of Exodus: “Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said,--Surely a bloody husband thou art to me.” And it is added she said so, on account of the circumcision.

In addition to what has appeared, let us add, it cannot be doubted that the instrument fired by this stone first obtained for it, in Germany, the name of _vlint_; as the ancient name may, in general, be now lost, it is commonly called flint-stone. Those people acquainted with the northern, Scandinavian, and German antiquities, know that the knives employed in ancient sacrifices, and other sharp instruments, were made of this stone, as appears from the remains being yet discovered in old barrows, and between urns.

It is also presumed that the Ethiopian stone, mentioned as used by one of the Egyptian embalmers, first to open the body to get at the intestines, was a flint-stone. The soil being in some places siliceous or chalky, naturally produces such stones in common with that earth.

The flint is a stone indigenous in most European countries; they are commonly collected and manufactured by people whose occupation allows them much spare time. The easiest mode to shape them is with a species of pillow of saw-dust, or some other soft material, sown up in coarse cloth, held upon the knees, and with a hammer having a bevil edge, they may be broken into almost any form or size by those accustomed to the practice.

The great quantity of the material from whence they are composed allows for any waste which accident may produce. In several counties of England they are so plentiful, that they are the common material employed for mending the public roads. But we are informed that this is not the case in France, where, in time of war, the people were prohibited from exporting them. The Dutch are commonly large dealers in this article.

Flint is a large component in the manufacture of glass.

Gun flints are now, however, comparatively little used, as percussion caps are generally substituted, which act with more certainty, and require a great deal less trouble.

ASTRONOMY.

Not being greedy of delusion ourselves, neither would we lead others into error; but, on the contrary, are desirous to avoid all deception, as we may be considered over studious to give the most rational origin, and where we cannot get at the history of those objects which engage our attention--whenever this is uncertain we resort to nature, experience, and reason, and furnish the most correct explanation our contracted circle of information will permit. Whenever we discover the clue of history, we collect the most satisfactory detail our limits will afford us to insert. Guided by the preceding notions, and directed by those principles, we have endeavoured correctly to conceive, and faithfully to portray our own conceptions in the best manner our experience might enable us, to make a just distinction between metaphorical allusion and literal application; ever endeavouring to discriminate between serious assertion and studied fable.

We fully coincide with the just remark of the learned author of “Indian Antiquities,” who says “that in respect to the early ages of the world, all the remains of genuine history, except that contained in the sacred annals, is only to be obtained through the mazes of Mythology.”

It must be confessed, that to sift this grain of corn from the bushel of chaff with which it is surrounded, where every effort which the ingenuity of Greece could devise to render fable as current as truth, was resorted to, is no small task; that it requires the operation of the best exercised reason, and the assistance of extraordinary judgment, which is only to be attained through the medium of extensive experience and the exercise of clear and discriminative powers: then we pretend not to possess the best of possible acquisitions of this kind, but the best in our power, we have endeavoured to collect, and summoned to our assistance; and the value of our labours we will leave the public to judge.

If the application of observations like the preceding ever come _apropos_, surely they apply to the present article; since from the _sideral_ science, all the errors of an idolatrous race proceeded in the major part of the population of the ancient world: from thence also proceeded the most sublime imagery which embellishes the syren voice of poetic song, the grandest metaphors, and the sweetest allegories, which ornament the transendent eloquence of the most able rhetoricians of Greece and Rome; the fire of exquisitely natural and most noble allusions which enliven and embellish their historic pages. The sweetest philosophical explications also flowed from thence, which ornament the various immortal works of their most excellent poets, orators, historians, natural and moral philosophers; and, in brief, of every description of the sublimest genius of ancient Greece and Rome, in their most divine effusions.

It will appear, we believe, that the first astronomers of Chaldea, Phœnicia, and Egypt, are not now known as astronomers, by name, if we except the person of the royal Nimrod, the founder of the Chaldean empire, which name is often confounded with Belus; sometimes one is put for the other, and often Belus is called the son of Nimrod. How the truth of this was, we shall not at present determine: be it as it may, it is allowed on all hands that the sideral science claims for its inventor no less a person than the founder of the first monarchy in the world. That this science was first introduced by the founder of the Tower of Babel is not questioned, because it is more evident, that in that country there must have existed from necessity, the expediency of the most approved observation, which could be made upon this eminently useful science; where, on account of the excessive solar heat, people generally travel by night: where, for hundreds of miles, are nothing but pathless deserts, with a horizon as boundless and little impeded as that of the ocean; assuredly under such circumstances, the local situation of the site of the immense Observatory of Babel must point out the expediency of procuring some intelligence from the position which the inhabitants discovered the host of heaven to appear in at the rising, setting, &c.; for from what will appear in the course of this article, it will be very evident that the Tower of Babel was constructed for the purpose of an astronomical observatory; farther, that the climate of Chaldea was most favourable to the exercise of that sublime art, will not admit of a question, when we consider the atmosphere is so pure, so clear, so free from exhalation, that at night the sky is said to resemble an immense canopy of black velvet studded with embossed gold, from the appearance of the stars; and that it was not only the appearance of the stars, their rising, setting, and motion, by which they knew time was to be measured; but also the distinction between one star and another could be correctly ascertained from the usual colour--here it was the various planets, zodiacal constellations, and the other asterisms in both hemispheres, received their primary names.

The preceding circumstance, it is conceived, fixes the local place where the science had its origin.

The Tower of Babel was a parallelogram, with sides of unequal length. Herodotus thus describes it.--“The Temple of Jupiter Belus occupies the other [square of the city], whose huge gates of brass may be seen. It is a square building; in the midst rises a tower of the height of one furlong, upon which resting as a base, seven other turrets are built in regular succession. The ascent is on the outside, which, winding from the ground, is continued to the highest tower: in the middle of the whole structure there is a convenient resting place.”

Diodorus Siculus says, this tower was decayed in his time; but, in his description of Babylon, he thus speaks of it--describing it as the act of Semiramis, who flourished two thousand nine hundred and forty-four years before Christ:--“In the middle of the city, she built a temple to Jupiter-Belus; of which, since writers differ amongst themselves, and the work is now wholly decayed through length of time, there is nothing that can with certainty be related concerning it; yet it is apparent it was of an exceeding great height; and that, by the advantage of it, the Chaldean astrologers exactly observed the rising and setting of the stars. The whole was built of brick, cemented with bitumen, with great art and cost. Upon the top she placed three statues of beaten gold, of Jupiter, Juno, and Rhea: that of Jupiter stood upright, in the posture as if he was walking; it was forty feet in height, and weighed one thousand Babylonish talents. The statue of Rhea was of the same weight, sitting on a golden throne, having two lions standing on either side, one at her knees, and near to them were two exceeding great serpents of silver, weighing thirty talents each. Here, too, the image of Juno stood upright, and weighed eight hundred talents, grasping a serpent by the head in her right hand, and holding a sceptre adorned with precious stones in her left. For all these deities there was placed a table made of beaten gold, forty feet long and fifteen broad, weighing five hundred talents, upon which stood two cups, weighing thirty talents, and near to them as many censers, weighing three hundred talents: there were likewise placed three drinking bowls of gold--the one to Jupiter weighed two hundred talents, and the others six hundred each.”