A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume I (of 2)

1206

Anderson’s History of Commerce.

1207

Cary’s Bemerkungen über Grossbritanniens Handel; übersetzt von Wichmann. Leipzig, 1788, i. p. 372. Boyle remarks in his Experimenta de Coloribus, Coloniæ, 1680, 4to, that a bright scarlet colour was never produced except when tin vessels were used. It appears, therefore, that he had observed the good effects of a solution of tin.

1208

See Fabricii Bibliotheca Antiquaria, p. 959. Reimmanni Idea Systematis Antiquitatis Litterariæ, 1718, 8vo, p. 169. Astle’s Origin and Progress of Writing, 4to.

1209

Plin. lib. xvi. cap. 35. Martial, lib. xiv. epigram. 38.

1210

Plin. lib. c. Catullus, carm. xxxvi. 13, mentions Cnidus arundinosa. Ausonius, epist. iv. 75, calls the reeds Cnidii nodi.

1211

Plin. lib. xvi. cap. 36.

1212

Bauhini Pinax Plantar, p. 17: Arundo scriptoria atro-rubens. Hist. Plant. ii. p. 487. Theatrum Botan. p. 273.

1213

“Their writing-pens are made of reeds or small hard canes of the size of the largest swan-quills, which they cut and slit in the same manner as we do ours; but they give them a much longer nib. These canes or reeds are collected towards Daurac, along the Persian Gulf, in a large fen supplied with water by the river Hellé, a place of Arabia formed by an arm of the Tigris, and another of the Euphrates united. They are cut in March, and, when gathered, are tied up in bundles and laid for six months under a dunghill, where they harden and assume a beautiful polish and lively colour, which is a mixture of yellow and black. None of these reeds are collected in any other place. As they make the best writing-pens, they are transported throughout the whole East. Some of them grow in India, but they are softer and of a paler yellow colour.” – Voyages de Chardin, vol. v. p. 49.

1214

“It is a kind of cane which grows no higher than a man. The stem is only three or four lines in thickness, and solid from one knot to another, that is to say filled with a white pith. The leaves, which are a foot and a half in length, and eight or nine lines in breadth, enclose the knots of the stem in a sheath; but the rest is smooth, of a bright yellowish-green colour, and bent in the form of a half-tube, with a white bottom. The panicle or bunch of flowers was not as yet fully blown, but it was whitish, silky, and like that of other reeds. The inhabitants of the country cut the stems of these reeds to write with, but the strokes they form are very coarse, and do not approach the beauty of those which we make with our pens.” – Voyage du Levant, vol. ii. p. 136.

1215

Lib. i. cap. 114. Rauwolf says in his Travels, vol. i. p. 93, “In the shops were to be sold small reeds, hollow within and smooth without, and of a brownish-red colour, which are used by the Turks, Moors, and other Eastern people, for writing.” It appears that Rauwolf did not see these reeds growing, but prepared and freed from the pith. We are told by Winkelmann, in his second Letter on the Antiquities of Herculaneum, p. 46, that for want of quills he often cut into writing-pens those reeds which grow in the neighbourhood of Naples.

1216

Flora Ægyptiaco-Arabica. Havniæ, 1775, 4to, p. 47, 61.

1217

Those who wish to see instances of learned men who wrote a great deal and a long time with one pen, may consult J. H. Ackeri Historia Pennarum, Altenburgi, 1726. The author has collected every thing he ever read respecting the pens of celebrated men.

1218

Clementis Alex. Opera. Coloniæ, 1688, fol. p. 633. The best account of these sacred writers may be found in the Prolegomena, p. 91, of Jablonski’s Pantheon Ægypt.

1219

Sat. iv. 149.

1220

Od. iii. 29, 53.

1221

Gronovii Thesaurus Antiq. Græc. ii. n. 28.

1222

Lambec. lib. vii. p. 76. – Montfaucon, Palæograph. Græca, lib. i. cap. 3, p. 21.

1223

Amm. Marcellini Hist. ed. Valesii, Par. 1681, fol. p. 699. The letters might have been raised on the plate, or deeply engraven in it, so that Theodoric only followed with his pen an impression of them made upon the paper.

1224

It is uncertain whether the characters were followed with a style, a reed, or a quill; for γραφὶς (the word used) is the general appellation. “There have been princes, also, acquainted with writing, but so lazy that they kept a servant who could imitate their hand to subscribe for them.” Of this we have an instance in the emperor Carinus, respecting whom Vopiscus says, “Fastidium subscribendi tantum habuit, ut quendam ad subscribendum poneret qui bene suam imitaretur manum.”

1225

Origines, lib. vi. 13, p. 132.

1226

His writings may be found in Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum. Lugduni, 1677, fol. tom. xiii. In p. 27, is the following poem on a pen: —

De Penna ScriptoriaMe pridem genuit candens onocrotalus albamGutture qui patulo sorbet in gurgite lymphas.Pergo ad albentes directo tramite campos,Candentique viæ vestigia cærula linquo,Lucida nigratis fuscans anfractibus arva.Nec satis est unum per campos pandere callem;Semita quin potius milleno tramite tendit,Quæ non errantes ad cœli culmina vexit.

The author does not speak here of a goose-quill, but of a pelican’s, which at any rate may be as good as that of a swan.

1227

Ad latrinium (latrinam).

1228

Alcuini Opera, cura Frobenii, Ratisbonæ, 1777, 2 vols. fol. ii. p. 211.

1229

De Re Diplomatica, Par. 1709, fol. in Suppl. p. 51.

1230

Petr. Venerabil. lib. i. ep. 20, ad Gislebertum. C. G. Schwarz, who quotes the passage in Exercit. de Varia Supellectili Rei Librariæ Veterum, Altorfii, 1725, 4to, § 8, ascribes them falsely to the venerable Bede, who died about the year 735.

1231

Ger. Nic. Heerkens Aves Frisicæ, Rot. 1788, 8vo, p. 106.

1232

Hist. Nat. lib. x. cap. 22.

1233

This manuscript was correctly printed by P. F. Fogginius, in quarto, in 1741. A specimen of the writing is given, p. 15. See also Virgilius Heynii, in Elenchus Codicum, p. 41.

1234

Divin. Lection. cap. xxx. p. m. 477, 478.

1235

Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, i. p. 537.

1236

Reuchlin’s life may be found in Meiners’ Lebensbeschreibungen Berühmter Männer. Zurich. 1795, 8vo, vol. i.

1237

Pirkheimeri Opera, Franc. 1610, fol. p. 259.

1238

Illustrium Virorum Epistolæ ad Jo. Reuchlin.: Hagenoæ, 1519, 4to, p. 144.

1239

Ambrosii Traversarii Epistolæ. ed. L. Mehus. Florentiæ, 1759, 2 vols. fol. ii. p. 566.

1240

Ibid. p. 580.

1241

[The publisher has in his possession an extremely well-made metallic pen (brass) at least fifty years old, and with it a style for writing by means of smoked paper, both in a morocco pocket-book, which formerly belonged to Horace Walpole, and was sold at the Strawberry Hill sale.]

1242

Waterston’s Cyclopædia of Commerce, 1846.

1243

Exodus, chap. xxxix. ver. 3. – Braun, De Vestitu Sacerdotum Hebræorum, p. 173.

1244

Homer, Odyss. lib. viii. 273, 278. – Ovid. Metamorph. lib. iv. 174.

1245

Lib. xxxiv. cap. 8.

1246

Lib. xxxiii. cap. 4. – Aldrovandus relates, in his Museum Metallicum, that the grave of the wife of the emperor Honorius was discovered at Rome about the year 1544, and that thirty-six pounds of gold were procured from the mouldered dress which contained the body.

1247

Cicero de Nat. Deor. iii. 34, 83. – Valer. Max. i. 1. exter. § 3.

1248

Lamprid. Vita Heliogab. cap. 23.

1249

Plin. lib. viii. cap. 48. That the cloth of Attalus was embroidered with the needle is proved by a passage of Silius Italicus, lib. xiv. 661. We find by Martial, lib. xiii. ep. 28, that the Babylonian cloth was also ornamented with embroidery; and the same author, lib. xiv. ep. 50, extols the weaving of Alexandria, as being not inferior to the Babylonian embroidery with the needle. In opposition to which might be quoted a passage of Tertullian De Habitu Mulierum, where he makes use of the word insuere to the Phrygian work, and of intexere to the Babylonian. By these expressions it would appear that he wished to define accurately the difference of the Phrygian and Babylonian cloth, and to show that the former was embroidered and the latter wove. But Tertullian often plays with words. Intexere is the same as insuere. In Pliny, book xxxv. ch. 9, a name embroidered with gold threads is called “aureis litteris in palleis intextum nomen.”

1250

Lamprid. Vita Alexand. Severi, c. 40.

1251

Odyss. lib. v. 230; x. 23, 24.

1252

Vita Aureliani, cap. 46.

1253

A doubt however arises respecting this proof. It is possible that the author here speaks of gilt silver; for, as the ancients were not acquainted with the art of separating these metals, their gold was entirely lost when they melted the silver. I remember no passage in ancient authors where mention is made of weaving or embroidering with threads of silver gilt.

1254

Salmas. ad Vopisc. p. 394; et ad Tertull. de Pallio, p. 208. Such cloth at those periods was called συρματινὸν, συρματηρὸν, drap d’argent.

1255

Antiquitat. Ital. Medii Ævi, ii. p. 374.

1256

Pyrotechnia, lib. ix.

1257

La Piazza Universale, Ven. 1610, 4to.

1258

Von Murr, in Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, v. p. 78. To this author we are indebted for much important information respecting the present subject.

1259

Bjornstahls Briefe, i. p. 269.

1260

See a description of it in Sprengel’s Handwerken und Künsten, iii. p. 64; or in the tenth volume of the plates belonging to the Encyclopédie, under the article Tireur et fileur d’or.

1261

Bericht von Gold- und Silber-dratziehen; von Lejisugo. Lubeck, 1744, 8vo, p. 199.

1262

Winkelmann, von den Herculan. Entdeckungen.

1263

Ibid. p. 38.

1264

Second Bulletin des Fouilles d’une Ville Romaine, par Grignon. Paris, 1775, 8vo, p. 111.

1265

Von Murr, Beschreibung von Nürnberg, 1778, 8vo, p. 229.

1266

Some explain the following words in the twelve tables of the Roman laws, “Cui auro dentes vincti sunt,” as alluding to this circumstance. Funccius however does not admit of this explanation, because he does not believe it possible to bind a tooth in that manner. It has, nevertheless, been sufficiently confirmed both by ancient and modern physicians. Celsus, de Medicina, lib. vii. cap. 12.

1267

A description of this excellent machine may be found in Sprengel’s Handwerken, iv. p. 208; Cancrinus Beschreibung der vorzüglichsten Bergwerke, Frankf. 1767, 4to, p. 128; in the tenth volume of the plates to the Encyclopédie under the article Tireur et fileur d’or; and other works. Von Murr quotes a very ingenious description of it by the well-known poet Eobanus Hessus, who died in 1540.

1268

This account may be found vol. i. p. 197 of the Urbis Norimbergæ Descriptio, Hagenoæ, 1518, fol. cap. 5.

1269

Nachricht von Nürnbergischen Künstlern, p. 281.

1270

In the Journal des Freyherrn von Bibra.

1271

Journal von und für Teutschland, 1788, achtes Stück, p. 102.

1272

Piece-workers were such masters as were obliged to work privately by the piece; because, according to the imperial patent, no one except Held or those whom he permitted durst carry on this business. For this permission it was necessary to pay a certain sum of money.

1273

The family at this period consisted of Frederick Held and his three sons Bartholomew, Frederick, and Paul.

1274

Von Breslau, Documentirte Geschichte, ii. 2, p. 409.

1275

Chronica Cygnæa, durch Tob. Schmidten, Zwickau, 1656, ii. p. 254.

1276

Anderson’s Hist. Commerce, iv. p. 101.

1277

Husbandry and Trade improved, by J. Houghton, 1727, 8vo, ii. p. 188.

1278

Dictionnaire de Commerce, par Savary, ii. p. 599. – Dictionnaire des Origines, par D’Origny, ii. p. 285.

1279

Dictionnaire Etymologique, i. p. 593. The author quotes the following passage from a French bible printed at Paris in 1544: “Ne ayes pas merveilles, si tu lis en aucuns lieux à la fois, que ces choses estoient d’airain, et à la fois arcal; car airain et arcal est un mesme metal.”

1280

Bulletin des Fouilles d’une Ville Romaine, i. p. 22.

1281

Menage, Dictionnaire Etymologique, i. p. 593.

1282

Jungii Disquisit. de Reliquiis, &c. Hanov. 1783, 4to.

1283

History of Sumatra. London, 1783, 4to, p. 145.

1284

Kindersley Briefe von der Insel Teneriffa und Ostindien. Leipzig, 1777, 8vo. The jesuit Thomans praises the negroes of Monomotapa on the same account. See his Reise und Lebensbeschreibung. Augsburg, 1788, 8vo.

1285

Von Stetten, Kunstgeschichte, i. p. 489, and ii. p. 287.

1286

Bericht von Dratziehen, p. 192.

1287

It cannot however be denied that some indigenous grasses might be brought by culture, perhaps, to produce mealy seeds that could be used as food. It is at any rate certain that some grasses, for example, the slender-spiked cock’s-foot panic-grass, Panicum sanguinale, which we have rooted out from many of our gardens, was once cultivated as corn, and is still sown in some places, but has been abandoned for more beneficial kinds.

1288

“If the learned would lay aside disputing, and give place to truth, they would be convinced, both by the sight and the taste, that this plant (buck-wheat) is the ocimum of the ancients.” – Kreuterbuch, Augsburg, 1546, fol. p. 248.

1289

Theophrast. l. vii. c. 3.

1290

Dioscor. l. ii. c. 171.

1291

Geopon. l. ix. c. 28.

1292

Varro, lib. i. cap. 31. That a kind of meslin is here to be understood, has been supposed by Stephanus, in his Prædium Rusticum, p. 493; and Matthiolus is of the same opinion. See Matthioli Opera, p. 408. Buck-wheat may have been employed green as fodder; and it is indeed often sown for that use; but there are many other plants which can be employed for the like purpose.

1293

Dioscorid. l. ii. c. 188.

1294

Theophrast. p. 941.

1295

Plin. lib. xviii. cap. 10. He says in the same place, and also p. 291, that the erysimum was by the Latins called also irio; and hence it is that Ruellius and other old botanists give that name to buck-wheat.

1296

The first edition was published in octavo, at Lyons, in 1560. Two editions I have now before me; the first is called Dipnosophia seu Sitologia, Francofurti, 1606, 8vo. The other Joan. Bruyerini Cibus Medicus, Norimbergæ, 1659, 8vo. The author was a grandson of Symphorien Champier, whose works are mentioned in Haller’s Biblioth. Botan. i. p. 246.

1297

De Natura Stirpium, Basiliæ, 1543, fol. p. 324.

1298

Rei Rusticæ Libri Quatuor. Spiræ Nemetum, 1595, 8vo, p. 120. He calls it triticum faginum, φαγόπυρον, or nigrum triticum, buck-wheat.

1299

Le Grand d’Aussy quotes from this book in his Histoire de la Vie Privee des François, i. p. 106, the following words: “Sans ce grain, qui nous est venu depuis soixante ans, les pauvres gens auraient beaucoup à suffrir.”

1300

M. Schookii Liber de Cervisia. Groningæ, 1661, 12mo.

1301

Lobelii Stirpium Adversaria. Antv. 1576, fol. p. 395. – Bauhini Hist. Plant. ii. p. 993. – Chabræi Stirpium Sciagraphia. Gen. 1666, fol. p. 312, and in App. p. 627. – C. Bauhini Theatr. Bot. p. 530.

1302

The beech-tree in German is called Buche or Buke, in Danish Bög, and in Swedish, Russian, Polish, and Bohemian, Buk.

1303

Wörterbuch, p. 434. This derivation may be found also in Martinii Lexicon, art. Fagopyrum.

1304

Buck-wheat is sometimes named by botanists frumentum ethnicum (heathen-corn), and triticum Saracenicum, because some have supposed that it was introduced into Europe from Africa by the Saracens.

1305

A particular description of this scarce bible may be found in J. H. a Seelen’s Selecta Litteraria, Lubecæ, 1726, 8vo, p. 398, 409.

1306

This small work is entitled Vocabula Rei Nummariæ, &c. Additæ sunt Appellationes Quadrupedum, et Frugum, a Paulo Ebero et Casp. Peucero. Witebergæ, 1552, 8vo.

1307

Dictionarium Latino-Germanicum. Argentorati, 4to.

1308

Nya Swenska Economiska Dict. Stockh. 1780, 8vo, vol. ii.

1309

Abhandlungen der Schwedisch. Akad. der Wissenschaften, vi. p. 107, where is given, as far as I know, the first figure of it.

1310

Stirpes Rariores Imperii Russici, 1739, 4to.

1311

Ehrhart’s Œkonomische Pflanzen Historie, viii. p. 72.

1312

Ruellius De Natura Stirp. lib. ii. cap. 27. Some very improperly have considered this plant as Turkish wheat.

1313

Several species of this genus were cultivated in the southern districts. Their distinguishing characteristics do not however appear as yet to be fully established. Bauhin makes the proper sorghum to be different from the durra of the Arabs. Linnæus in his last writings has separated Holcus bicolor from sorghum. Forskal thus describes the durra: “Holcus panicula ovata; spiculis sessilibus, subvillosis; alternatim appendiculatis; flosculo uno vel duobus vacuis, sessilibus.” There are kinds of it with white and reddish-yellow (fulva) seeds. According to his account, however, the Arabs cultivate another kind known under the name of dochna, though in less quantity, chiefly as food for fowls.

1314

Lib. xviii. cap. 7. Holcus sorghum is sold at Venice for brooms, as we are told by Ray in his Hist. Plant.

1315

Herodot. lib. i. cap. 193.

1316

Beschreibung der Reyss Leonhardi Rauwolfen. Frankf. 1582, 4to, ii. p. 68. The author observes that this kind of millet is mentioned also by Rhases and Serapion.

1317

Philostrat. Vita Apollon. lib. iii. cap. 2.

1318

Melica cioe saggina e conosciuta, et e di due manere, una rossa et una bianca, e trovasene una terza manera che a più bianca che l’miglio. Crescentio D’Agricoltura. In Venetia, 1542, 8vo, lib. iii. cap. 17. It appears therefore that in our dictionaries saggina ought not to be explained by Turkish wheat alone.

1319

Andrea, Briefe aus der Schweitz. Zurich, 1776, 4to, p. 182.

1320

Adanson, Voyage au Senegal.

1321

J. Lipsii Poliorcet. seu de Militia Romana, lib. iii. dial. 7.

1322

Lib. vii. cap. 56. Hyginns, fab. 274.

1323

Coverings for horses made of the costly skins of animals are mentioned by Silius Italicus, lib. iv. 270, and lib. v. 148. Also by Statius. See Thebaid. lib. iv. 272. Costly coverings of another kind occur in Virgil, Æneid. lib. vii. 279; viii. 552; and Ovid. Metam. lib. vii. 33. Livy, lib. xxxi. cap. 7, comparing the luxury of the men and the women, says, “Equus tuus speciosius instructus erit, quam uxor vestita.”

1324

Antiquité Expliquée, tom. ii. lib. 3. tab. 27, 28, 29, 30.

1325

Seneca, Epist. 80: “Equum empturus, solvi jubes stratum.” Macrob. Saturnal. i. 11: “Stultus est, qui, empturus equum, non ipsum inspicit, sed stratum ejus et frenum.” Apuleius calls these coverings for horses fucata ephippia. They were called also στράματα.

1326

Pæd. lib. viii.

1327

Cæsar, De Bello Gallico, lib. iv. 2. An old saddle with stirrups was formerly shown to travellers at Berne in Switzerland, as the saddle of Julius Cæsar. The stirrups, however, were afterwards taken away, and in 1685 they were not to be seen. Mélanges Historiques, recueillis et commentez par Mons. – Amst. 1718, 12mo, p. 81.

1328

Lib. lxiii. 14. After writing the above, I found with satisfaction that Le Beau, in l’Académie des Inscriptions, vol. xxxix. p. 333, forms the same conjecture. Before that period, the cavalry, when reviewed, were obliged to produce their horses without any covering, that it might be more easily seen whether they were in good condition. This useful regulation was abolished by Nero, in order that the cavalry might exhibit a grander appearance. He employed his soldiers for show, as many princes do at present.

1329

Lamprid. Vita Alex. Severi, cap. 50.

1330

De Re Equestri, p. 602. Respecting the stool or chair placed in carriages for people to sit on, see Pitisci Lexic. art. Sella curulis.

1331

De Rebus Deperditis, lib. ii. tit. 16.

1332

Ἕδρα and sella.

1333

Zonaras, lib. xiii. cap. 5. Ἐκπέπτωε τῆς ἕδρας ὁ Κονσταντίνος. Nicetas in And. Comnenus, lib. i. Τῆς ἕδρας ἀποβάλλεται. The word ἕδρα occurs twice in Xenophon, De Re Equestri. He gives an account how the back of the horse should be shaped in order that the rider may have a fast and secure seat; τῷ ἀναβάτῃ ἀσφαλέστεραν τὴν ἕδραν; and where he speaks of currying, says that the hair on a horse’s back ought to be combed down, as the animal will then be less hurt by his rider. I have taken the trouble to consult other historians who give an account of the death of Constantine, but they do not mention this circumstance.