Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 368, June 1846

From an Arabian author of the middle of the 13th century, Casiri translates a passage into Latin, which Reinaud somewhat alters. We render it as nearly as we can in English. "It creeps along with scorpions of nitre powder (baraud) placed in cases. These scorpions take fire, and wherever they fall they burn; they spread abroad like a cloud; they yell like thunder; they burn like a brazier; they reduce all to cinders."

This passage is important, as showing the connexion of nitre or baraud– a word, as we have before stated, applied to nitre and nitre compositions – with a class of effects analogous to those attributed to the Greek fire.

The passage of incendiary compositions into gunpowder is still involved in much obscurity. Messrs Reinaud and Favé consider that a treatise, printed at Paris A.D. 1561, entitled Livre de Cannonerie, throws much light on the subject – "vient de l'éclairer d'une lumière nouvelle;" but we cannot at all agree with them in this view, and for the simple reason, that neither the names of the authors of the receipts contained in it, nor the dates, nor the countries, are given. Without either of these data, our readers, we think, will find it difficult to conceive that much new light can be thrown on the subject. The treatise contains a number of receipts for mixtures of oils, bitumens, sulphur, and nitre; and, as appears to us, all the aid given by this work towards elucidating the subject is, that these receipts are analogous to those of Marcus and of the Arabs, and have some internal evidence of having been written or copied from writings of an early date, though probably subsequent to Marcus; and, secondly the term Greek fire (feu Grégeois) being employed, and receipts for it given, would lead to the inference that the compositions here used under the same title were analogous to those which originally constituted the Greek fire. It is, however, certainly open to the remark, that Greek fire having become, in a great measure, a generic name for violent incendiary compositions, the term may have been applied to compositions analogous in their effects, though of more recent discovery. When, however, we find, in various distinct quarters, similar receipts; when we find these appearing at different epochs, and having different degrees of approximation to the explosive compounds which a more matured experience has rendered certain in their composition, the discovery of such a book as this becomes certainly a corroborative circumstance in favour of that view which regards the Greek fire as never having become extinct, and as having, by progressive but unequal gradations, changed into gunpowder.

In discussing the treatise above mentioned, there is a naïve expression of our authors, who, in remarking the necessary slow combustion of these compounds from the imperfections of the processes of manufacturing saltpetre, also given in the same book, say: – "One sees how much there is that is providential in the progress of human invention. If man had, in the first instance, a powder as strong as at present, he would probably have been unable to master this force, or to use it with suitable instruments, and the discovery would have remained without application. We see that, thanks to the primitive impurity of the saltpetre, man employed mixtures of it with sulphur and charcoal, which produced a force suitable for throwing to short distances feeble parcels of incendiary matter. This force increased little by little, as men became better able to refine saltpetre, and ends by enabling them to employ it for throwing projectiles."

We have frequently heard the word providential applied in a strange manner; but this is one of the most novel views of providential intervention we happen to have met with. The quiet gravity with which Providence is assumed to have interfered in favour of the progress of destructive implements, is about as instructive an instance of the unconscious devotion of an author to his speciality as could easily be selected.

In the treatise of 1561 are some receipts, assumed to be taken from works of an earlier date, in which saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, are submitted to a considerable degree of heat. The following is one: – "Take of saltpetre 100 lbs., sulphur, 25 lbs., charcoal, 25 lbs., put them altogether, and make them boil well, until the whole be well united, and then you will thus have a strong powder." Mixed in these proportions, and submitted to such a temperature, the chance of explosion is very great; and, as our authors observe, "the essential fact of the tradition respecting the invention of gunpowder is confirmed;" or rather, strictly speaking, the probability of its truth is strengthened. We therefore do not see very clearly why they should be anxious to divest Schwartz of the merit of its discovery, while they produce arguments to show the probability of the discovery being so made. The results of these arguments would only tend to show that the tradition is not sufficiently explicit, in not stating why the three ingredients were mixed together; and Schwartz would, according to this view, be regarded as the first who remarked and applied, or suggested the application of gunpowder, as supplying an explosive projective force.

Though the probabilities of the use of gunpowder, as an explosive compound, being suggested by accidents occurring in the manufacture of combustible compounds, are thus shown to be very great, the actual step, if step it were, still remains in obscurity. Most probably, like many other inventions, the fact was observed again and again with different degrees of accuracy and different resulting suggestions; until, at length, growing intelligence seized on it, and increasing facility of publication rendered its development more rapid and general. The actual date of its general introduction or use in war is still uncertain. Schwartz's discovery is stated by Kircher at 1354; but gunpowder is stated to have been used at the siege of Stirling in 1339; in Denmark in 1340; in Spain in 1343; at Cressy in 1346; at the siege of Calais in 1347.

Without entering into the critical discussions which the vagueness of the historical records of these periods might tempt, we can scarcely be far wrong in setting down the general introduction of gunpowder during the first half of the fourteenth century, although any attempt to specify, from existing data, the exact date of its invention, would be vain. With regard to its connexion with Greek fire, we may sum up by stating, that during different periods, extending from the eighth to the fourteenth century, combustible matters, in which saltpetre was one ingredient, have been used; and that the term Greek fire has been, at various times within this period, applied to them. Although it does not necessarily follow that the Greek fire alluded to in the more recent works was identical with the Greek fire of an earlier period, yet the probability is strong that there was at least a striking analogy in effect, or the name would not have been used. There is, moreover, some internal evidence of community of origin in these various receipts, when we find that in different parts of the world, in China, in Arabia, and Greece, one general characteristic ingredient is present, viz., nitre; when also the history and progress of chemistry have taught us that no substance, other than nitre or a salt of nitric acid, has ever been, or is now known, which would produce similar effects, (for the comparatively recent discovery of the chlorates would produce effects of detonation by friction or percussion, of which we find no records,) there can, we think, be little doubt that Greek fire was of the same chemical character as gunpowder; that it passed by a transition, which may have been in particular cases more or less sudden, but which upon the whole was gradual, into gunpowder; and that the history of the progress of one of these manufactures is, in fact, the history of the progress of the other. In this history there are still many gaps to be filled up, many errors to be rectified.

The book of Messrs Reinaud and Favé, though somewhat inartificially arranged, has given to the public much valuable information; but there is still room for an elaborate and well-digested treatise on the subject, in which the whole progress of pyrotechnic invention may be arranged in chronological order, and more lucidly expounded than are antiquarian matters in general. This is a task, however, which few, if any, are capable of undertaking, as it requires for its successful execution a combination of extensive antiquarian, chemical, and philological acquirements. In the mean time, our authors may say, and we say with them,

"Si quid novisti rectius istis,

Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum."

HOW TO BUILD A HOUSE AND LIVE IN IT

We're a true Bœotian people after all: that's a fact. We may talk about Attic art and Doric strength; but in our habits, no less than in our climate, we certainly belong to the wrong side of the hills. We're a stuffing and guzzling race, if ever there was one; we doat on great hunks of meat and flagons of strong drink; and as truly as every Paddy has got a hot potato somewhere in his head, making him the queer, mad chap he is, so have we got a national brain compounded of pudding, and beef, and sausages, turning us into that stubborn and stolid people which we know ourselves to be. Sidney Smith expressed the fundamental idea of the English nation to a T, when he said that the ultimate end of all good government was a hot chop and plenty of claret; but, in saying so, he did no more than re-echo the burden of the old song, translated into more modern and fashionable language —

"Back and side go bare, go bare;Both foot and hand go cold;But belly, God send thee good ale enough,Whether it be new or old!"

Ah! he was a splendid fellow that indited this song, and so was that other clerical wight who broached the idea —

"When I go to bed, then of heaven I dream;But that is fat pullets and clotted cream;" —

A real Devonian or Somersettian parson; but they spoke from the heart, – or rather from the stomach, jolly, good comfortable souls as they were, and their words go right home to the stomachs and hearts of all, wherever the British lion has the privilege of lashing his tail or shaking his mane.

As to eating, quoad comedendum constipandumque, we keep up the Bœotic charter to the very letter and spirit of all its provisions; and in the moistening of our national clay, we certainly show a praiseworthy diligence; we wet it like bricks – and that's a fact, too; but as for doing these important matters in proper places and at proper times, there, selon nous, we are lamentably behind-hand with the rest of the unfledged, articulate-speaking, bipedal genus to which we have the honour to belong. And as it has been lately shown in our pages, as clear as the sun at noonday, (the truth of which beautiful and rare simile, gentle reader, varies considerably with the place where you may happen to use it – from Shoe Lane, London, to the Strada di Toledo at Naples,) or as clear as – clear can be, that John Bull does not know how to put a decent coat on his back when he goes out to dinner; so now it is to be essayed to show, that for all he may think otherwise, John has not got a comfortable, sensible house to go and eat his dinner in; that he does not know what a regular, good, snug, and snoozy chimney-corner is; and that, when he stumbles up-stairs to bed, he generally puts himself into a hole, but not what can be called a room – a real comfortable, respectable bed-room. We do not say that he might not have done so once – we know, on the contrary, that he did; all we contend for is, that he does not do so now, and we don't think he is in the right way to mend; and, as John is a special friend of ours, and so is Mrs Bull, and all the little Bulls, who will be big, full-grown Bulls some day or other, and as we like to make ourselves useful to the present generation, and hope to be agreeably remembered by posterity, therefore do we intend to take the Bull by the horns, and see if we cannot wheedle, coax, pull, push, or bully him into our way of thinking about rooms and houses.

It is set down as a national axiom at the present day, that we are at the very head of the world in arts, arms, manufactures, laws, constitution, Church and State, literature, science – (any thing else? – there must be something more; to be sure there is) – money and railroads! and he's no true Englishman, Sir, he's not one of the British public, if he does not think so. We see it in print every day – it must be true; we've read as much in the Times, Herald, Chronicle, Post, &c. – for the last twenty years, and what all the world says must be so. Be it so, honest John, we honour your Bœotic patriotism; it's a glorious principle, old boy, and 'twill carry you bravely through all the thicks and thins of life – "sed audi alteram partem" – do put your nose outside your own door a bit, now that railroads are so plenty and cheap – do go abroad a little – just go and look at some of those foreigners in their own outlandish countries, and then think quietly over these matters again. Besides, who's afraid of change now-a-days? Are we not making all these splendid inroads into the country, ay, and into the constitution? – are we not going to have corn and cattle, and silk and cotton, and butter and cheese, and brandy to boot, all brought to our own doors for nothing? We'll leave these other things alone – we will not argue about them now; let us talk about bricks and mortar, and suchlike, and see if we cannot open your eyes to the light of reason and common sense.

Now, what is the end, object, and use of all habitations, houses, tenements, and premises whatsoever in this same united kingdom of our's, and in this glorious nineteenth century, except to shelter a man from the cold, or the heat, or the damp, or the frost, or the wind, whichever may come upon him, or any part or parcel of the same; and further, to give him room to hoard up, stow away, display, use, and enjoy all his goods, chattels, and other appurtenances; and further, wherein to sit down with a friend or friends, as the case may be, to any description of meal that his purse can or cannot pay for, and then to give him room and opportunity either to spatiate for the good of digestion, or to put his India-silk handkerchief over his bald pate, and snore away till tea-time? This being the very acme of comfort, the very object of all labour, the only thing that makes life worth living for, in the opinion of three-fourths of Queen Victoria's loving subjects, it follows, that if they would spend that money they love so much in a rational and truly economical way, they should bear such objects as these constantly in sight. This brings us, therefore, to the enunciating, for the second time, that great fundamental law of human operations – usefulness first, ornament afterwards, or both together if you please; but not, as we see the law interpreted now-a-days – ornament and show in the first place, and usefulness and comfort put in the background. It is this backward reading of the great rule of common sense, that makes men so uncommonly senseless as we often find them to be; and when it comes in the way of building, it turns us into the least architectural and worst built nation of any in this part of Christendom. Taking into account the cost of erecting buildings, and the relative value of money in different countries, there are no towns in Europe where so little good building and so small a degree of architectural effect are produced as in those of "old England." Poets and home tourists have affected to fall into rhapsodies of admiration at the beautiful neatness of our small country towns, at the unparalleled magnificence of London, at the ostentatious splendour of our commercial cities, Liverpool, Bristol, &c. This is all very well for home readers, and for home reputation; for there is nothing like a lot of people congregating themselves into a nation, and then be-lauding themselves and their doings up to the skies – there is nobody to say nay, and they can easily write themselves down the first people on earth. The fault is not peculiar to England; that vapouring coxcomb Crapaud is full of such nonsense; and that long-haired, sallow-cheeked, quid-chewing Jonathan, is still more ridiculously fond of indulging in it: but because it is one of the most offensive weaknesses of human nature, it is not therefore the less worthy of reprehension, and the sooner we try to throw off such false and morbid patriotism the better. The three towns in Great Britain, which, taking them in the general average of their common buildings, their citizens' houses, can be called the best-looking ones, are these: – first and fairest is dear Auld Reekie, next is Cheltenham, and last is Bath. The great metropolis we put out of the comparison, for metropolitical cities should be compared together; but Edinburgh is facile princeps in the list of all habitable places in this island; Cheltenham is at the head of all watering-places, and pleasure-places – (Brighton, Leamington, Clifton, &c., are certainly not equal to it in point of good architecture and general effect;) and Bath, now that its fashionable name has somewhat declined, may be looked on as the leader of our second-rate quiet kind of towns. Were we to make a fourth class of comparisons we would take our cathedral cities, and place Oxford at the head, before Worcester, Exeter, and so forth. But we revert to our first proposition; and were we about to show a foreigner those places wherewith we could desire him to compare his own distant cities, we should take him to the three above mentioned. It is in these three places that the great essentials of use and ornament seem to us to be the most happily combined; attempts are made at them in other quarters with various degrees of success, but here their union has been the most decided. Bear our opinion in mind, gentle reader; and, when next you go upon your travels, see if what we assert be not correct.

The style of house we most object to is Johnson's – you don't know Johnson? Why, don't you recollect the little bustling man that used to live at the yellow house in the City-Road, and that you were sure to meet every day, about eleven o'clock, in Threadneedle Street, or by the Bank Buildings? Well, he has been so successful in the drug line that he has left the City-Road, and has moved into the far west, Paragon Place, Bryanstone Square; and, not content with this, has taken a house at Brighton, on the Marine-Parade, for his "Sunday out," as he terms it. He is a worthy fellow at bottom, but he has no more taste than the pump; and while he thinks he inhabits the ne plus ultra of all good houses, lives in reality in ramshackle, rickety, ugly, and inconvenient dens. The house in Paragon Place is built of brick, like all others; but the parlour story is stuccoed to look like stone, the original brick tint being resumed at the levels of the kitchen below and the drawing-room above. There are two windows to the said drawing-room – one to the dining-room; and so on in proportion for the four stories of which the edifice consists: but the back is a curious medley of ins and outs, and ups and downs; single windows to dark rooms, and a dirty little bit of a back-yard, with a square plot of mud at the end of it, called "the garden;" the cook says the "airey" is in front; and Johnson knows that his wine-cellar is between the dust-bin and the coal-hole under the street. If you knock at the door you are let in to a passage too wide for one, but not wide enough for two, and you find at once the whole penetralia of the habitation lying open to your vision; dining-room door on right hand, parlour door behind it; kitchen door under the stairs, and garden door at the end of the passage. You know the man's whole household arrangements in a minute; and if he is not in the drawing-room, (but Johnson never does sit there, his wife keeps it for company,) it is of no use his pretending not to be at home, when you have your hand within a few feet of the locks of each door on the ground-story. And then, though the passage is dark, for there is only the fan-light over the entrance, and the long round-headed window at the first landing, all full of blue and orange glass, you know that dinner is preparing; for you see the little mahogany slab turned up to serve as a table near the parlour door, and such a smell comes up the kitchen stairs, that were you at the cook's elbow you could not be more in the thick of it. Well, they tell you he's in, and you walk up-stairs to the drawing-room; one room in front and the best bed-room behind; and Mr and Mrs Johnson's up-stairs again over the drawing-room; and the children's room behind that – you can hear them plain enough; and above all, no doubt, is the maid's room, and the servant-boy's who let you in; not so, the boy sleeps in the kitchen, and the front attic is kept for one of Johnson's clerks, for you might have seen him going up the second pair; and if he wasn't going to his bed-room what business had he up-stairs at all? So that, though you have been in the house only five minutes, you know all about it as well as if Mortice the builder had lain the plans on the table before you. Well, Johnson won a picture in the Art-Union some time since, and determined to stick it up in the drawing-room, against the wall fronting the windows; so up came the carpenter; and, as the picture was large, away went a ten-penny nail into the wall; and so it did go in, and not only in, but through the wall, for it was only half a brick thick; and, what with repeated hammerings, the bricks became so loose that the picture could not be safely hung there. So it was ordered to be placed against the wall opposite the fireplace – the wall of the next house in fact – and the same operation was going on, when old Mrs Wheedle, the next door neighbour, sent in her compliments to beg that Mr Johnson would have some regard for her hanging bookshelves, the nails of which had been all loosened by his battering-ram, and the books were threatening to fall on her tableful of china – she called it "cheyney" – below. Again, on the other side lives, or rather lodges, Signor Bramante, the celebrated violoncello, and he practises in what he has made the back drawing-room, equivalent to Johnson's best bed; but, the other day, when Smith came up from Birmingham to see Johnson, he could get no sleep for the first half of the night, Bramante having occasion to practise till nearly one o'clock, for the Stabat Mater of next morning's concert. So much for the substantiality of Johnson's town-house. His rooms, too, to our mind, are of bad proportions, and most inconveniently situated; they are so low that it is impossible to ventilate them properly; he has always a flight or two of stairs to go up when he retires to bed, and his servants might as well live in a treadmill, for the quantity of step-treading that they have to perform. There is no possibility of sitting in any one room out of a draft from either door or window, and there is not a single good cupboard in the whole house. As for ornament, there is none outside save the brass-knocker on the street door, for the windows are plain oblong holes in the walls; and, as for the inside, the only attempts at it are the cheap and meagre stucco patterns of the cornices, and the somewhat tawdry designs of the paper-hangings. He pays seventy pounds a-year rent for it, however, and sets himself down as a lucky man, because with his rates, &c., he comes within the hundred.

After all, when he goes to Brighton he is not much better off; though, as he likes fresh air, he gets plenty of it there, through every window, door, and chimney of the house – for there the bow-windowed projection in front is made of wood, coated over with tiles, to look like bricks. There he never attempted any picture-hanging fancies, the partition-walls would stand no such liberties being taken with them; there he cannot complain of not knowing what is going on in the town, for he can hear all that is said in the next house, by merely putting his ear to the wall. The most serious drawback, however, to his comfort in his marine residence, is, that while there he can never have a good-sized dinner-party, inasmuch as his landlord made it a stipulation of the lease, that not more than twelve people should be allowed to meet in the drawing-room at the same time, and that no dancing whatever should be attempted within the dwelling. The Brighton man only built the house for fifteen years; whereas the London one was more provident, he guaranteed his for thirty.