A Legend from the German. By A. Lodge.
GREEK FIRE AND GUNPOWDER.[73]
The traditional account of inventions and discoveries whose origin is involved in the darkness of antiquity is generally short and summary. To some fortunate individual, whose name, either from his having actually taken the most prominent part in the progress of the discovery, or, as is more generally the case, having with the greatest and most persevering energy impressed it upon the public, the whole merit is ascribed and the whole glory attached.
The world, active though its individual members be, as to their own specialties, is inert as a mass, and glad to save itself the trouble of entering into details by adopting the hypothesis which has been most urgently forced upon its notice, or which has caught its attention at one of its most wakeful periods. We thus find nearly every discovery which has added to the permanent stock of human knowledge attributed to a single individual, and to a single guess of that individual.
The traditional account of so recent a discovery as that of Galvani, is the preparation of frog soup for his wife, and the accidental touching one of them with the knife; while, in fact, he had been for years employed in examining the convulsive action of frogs, and had presented several memoirs to the Institute of Bologna on the subject, before its general publicity; indeed, in the main fact he had been anticipated by Swammerdam, and he possibly by others.
Schwartz, the monk of Cologne, probably had a real existence, probably had something to do with the progress of pyrotechnic art; it is even more probable that he invented gunpowder than that the public invented him. The very accident which is reported to have happened, it is not altogether improbable did happen; but if a mixture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal accidentally exploded, it was not accident which brought together those particular three ingredients out of the whole laboratory of nature and art.
It is indeed possible that the frequency of accidental explosions when gunpowder was known, were reflected back as a plausible hypothesis to account for its invention; but as the explosive power and utility of gunpowder were not facts which could have been arrived at by a priori reasoning, there is every likelihood of such an accident having originally suggested the application of an explosive mixture as a means of propulsion. The history of the invention then resolves itself into the question, Were any admixtures of these three ingredients previously known, what led to them, and what were the objects proposed by them? This question is attempted to be answered by the book before us, containing a very erudite inquiry into the progress of the invention of Greek fire and gunpowder, which are, according to the author's view, modifications of the same thing, i.e. pyrotechnic compositions, differing only or mainly in the proportions or purity of their ingredients. A mass of very curious information is given to the reader, which, in addition to the general stock of knowledge or obscure tradition on this subject, shows a gradual and generally diffused use of sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal in different proportions, and occasionally mixed with other combustible substances. Among the Arabs of the thirteenth century a vast number of receipts for such mixtures existed; this is proved by some ancient Arabic MSS. preserved in the Bibliothèque Royale. How the Arabs got possession of these arts is left somewhat in obscurity, though our authors consider there are strong grounds for conjecturing that they obtained then originally from the Chinese about the ninth century; that they then proceeded slowly in improving this knowledge for the three centuries during which they had no intercourse with the Chinese; and that they again acquired further information on these points after the Mongul irruption in the thirteenth century.
The defect of the book before us is its inconclusiveness: from the preface we are led to expect the solution of a theorem; after reading the book through, we find ourselves not indeed as far at sea as ever, but aided mainly by negations. The actual origin of gunpowder or Greek fire is not traced; many of the connecting links in the chain of pyrotechnic discovery are still deficient; and the conjectures, which stand in the place of conclusions, are frequently founded upon what appear to us insufficient data. On the other hand it must be admitted, that on a subject so involved in obscurity, inasmuch as proof is impossible, speculation is to a certain extent admissible as a link to render isolated facts intelligible.
It may be well here if, before passing to the more immediate object of this paper—viz. a sketch of the probable progress of pyrotechny—we explain to those of our readers who are unacquainted with chemistry, the philosophy of explosive combustibles.
Combustion is nothing else than rapid chemical union, taking place between two dissimilar substances, which have what is called an affinity for each other, i.e. a tendency to unite and form a new compound. When a candle or lamp is burned, it is carbon and hydrogen, the principal constituents of oil or fat, which combine with oxygen, one main ingredient of the atmosphere. As it requires a certain temperature for this union to take place, to prevent the cooling effect of mass, a wick is used which can be readily heated, and where, as soon as chemical action has once taken place, other portions of the oil or melted tallow are absorbed, which ascend just as water through the pores of a sponge, and supply the place of those burned. In this example, only a small ignited surface is exposed to the influence of the oxygen: if, however, this latter element could be obtained in a solid state, and mixed up with the combustible, each particle throughout the whole mass would have in contact with it a particle of oxygen; so that, if the whole were raised to the necessary temperature for combustion, combustion would be instantaneous—or if the temperature of a part were sufficiently elevated, the combustion of this portion would communicate an intense heat to the contiguous portions, and the whole would rapidly kindle as a fuse does. In this case also, the access of the air being immaterial, combustion might take place in a closed vessel, or even under water.
Nitre, or saltpetre, is one of a class of substances which contains a large portion of oxygen in a combined and solid state; and, being mixed with combustible matter such as charcoal, it causes rapid deflagration when the temperature is raised. The whole class of pyrotechnic compositions are reducible to this simple principle—they all consist of combustible substances intimately mixed with substances containing oxygen; or, to reduce the proposition to more general and simple terms, they consist of two or more substances, having for each other a powerful chemical affinity, and capable of rapidly uniting when the temperature is elevated. When a projectile force is necessary, a further condition is essential, viz., that they liberate by their chemical action gaseous matter, whereby a sudden increase in volume is produced, the expansion of which, augmented by the high temperature, produces the required effect of propulsion.
This slight sketch will show that the purity and proportions of the saltpetre, and the inflammable substances mixed with it, are the main elements to be attended to in the improvement of self-burning compositions: it is indeed far from improbable, that the substances used in purifying saltpetre have first suggested such compounds. Wood ashes were used at a very early period for purifying nitre; and at the end of an Arabic receipt of the thirteenth century, for the preparation of saltpetre, in which charcoal is used, is the expression, "guard against sparks of fire."
The probabilities strongly favour the view, that incendiary compositions of the nature we have been describing originated with the Chinese. China snow, and China salt, are the names given by writers of the greatest antiquity to saltpetre. In the Arabic MSS. to which we shall presently allude, the words Chinese wheel, Chinese flower, Chinese dart, occur as appellatives of different fireworks. It is very possible that the influx of Chinese literature, which the result of the recent war with that people promises us, will lead to the discovery of Chinese treatises upon pyrotechny.
Other authors speak of fire-arms among the Chinese at a very early period of our era, and even before Christ; but the interpretation which they have put upon obscure passages—interpretations evidently derived from their existing knowledge—makes these expressions and translations of extremely doubtful import.
At a later period, however, we have the authority of Raschideddin, (minister of the Tartar Khan of Persia,) and of Marco Polo, that the machines of war employed at the siege of Siang Yang were constructed by Arabian or European workmen, and that the Tartars were not at this period themselves able to manufacture such machines. This would tend to negative the belief which has been entertained by some, that the Chinese then used gunpowder as a means of projection, but does not lessen the possibility that the fuses and compositions projected by these machines were of Chinese origin.
In the history of the dynasty of Sang, A.D. 1259, there is a distinct account of a projectile by means of fire as follows:—"In the first year of the period Khaiking, a kind of arms was manufactured called Tho-ho-tsiary, that is to say, 'impetuous fire-lance.' A nest of grains was introduced into a long tube of bamboo, to which fire was set. A violent flame darted forth, and instantly the nest of grains was projected with a noise similar to that of a peacock, which was heard at a distance of about 150 paces."
Upon the whole, it would appear that the Chinese, although the character of their claims to the knowledge of gunpowder has been exaggerated, were in all probability the people among whom mixtures of combustibles with oxygenated substances originated; and this will form one of the many interesting fields of inquiry to be pursued by those skilled in the literature of the Chinese, now that the field is so largely opened to them.
There are obscure passages in writers of a very early period, which speak of thunderbolts being shot from the walls of besieged towns upon the enemy. Philostratus speaks of such; but the indefinite character of these expressions makes their connexion with either Greek fire or gunpowder extremely doubtful.
In the year 883, Nicetas, admiral of the Eastern empire, was sent by the Saracens of Crete to assault Constantinople, and is stated to have burned twenty of their ships with Greek fire.
One of the earliest accounts of its composition is that given by Anna Comnena, who states it was composed of sulphur, bitumen, and naphtha; but the most distinct early receipt for a composition analogous to gunpowder, is that contained in the celebrated book of Marcus Græcus. In the book called Liber Ignium, we have the following receipts:—
"Note. That the fire capable of flying in the air is of twofold composition, of which the first is: One part of colophon and an equal part of sulphur, two parts of saltpetre, and well pulverized, to be dissolved in linseed or laurel oil. A case, or hollowed wood, is then to be charged with it, and ignited. It will fly suddenly to whatever place you wish, and burn up every thing by its fire."
The second sort of flying fire is prepared in this manner:—
"One pound of sulphur vivum, two pounds of charcoal of linden wood or of willow, six pounds of saltpetre, which three things are minutely pounded in a marble mortar. After that you will charge with it a sheath suitable for flying, or for making thunder.
"Note. The sheath for flying ought to be slender and long, and filled with the aforesaid powder well rammed.
"The sheath for making thunder ought to be short and large, and half filled with the aforesaid powder, and well bound in every direction with an iron band.
"Note. That in every sheath a small aperture is to be made, in order that it may be ignited by the match when applied, which match is made slender at the extremities, but in the middle large and filled with the aforesaid powder."
Another receipt of Marcus for Greek fire is as follows:—
"Greek fire is made in the following manner. Take pure sulphur, tartar, sarcocole, (a kind of resin,) pitch, fused saltpetre, and oil of petroleum. Boil them well together. Dip tow in the mixture, and set fire to it. This fire cannot be extinguished but with vinegar or sand."
The close analogy, or rather the identity, of these compositions with gunpowder as at present made, requires no comment. The more important question is the date at which this work was written. This is a matter of great doubt. Messrs Reinaud and Favé, from the fact that the receipt for the preparation of saltpetre to be found in this same book of Marcus is much more imperfect than that in the Arabian MSS., place the date of his book earlier than the thirteenth century. Again, Geber, an oriental writer, the date of whose life is doubtful, but whom our authors fix at the eighth century, has described the preparation of a salt which has been translated nitre, but which our authors consider to have been a sesqui-carbonate of soda, natron, not nitrum. They thence conclude that nitre was unknown to Geber, and thus, because it was known to Marcus, that he lived subsequently; and for this reason they place Marcus between the ninth and twelfth century.
We have seldom seen an instance of more loose deduction than this. It is required to find the date of Marcus. Geber, whose date is unknown, is set down, upon rather weak data, as of the eighth century. Geber's translator is corrected to prove that Geber did not know saltpetre. Hassan Alrammah, an Arabian, is considered as more recent than Marcus, a Greek, because his process for saltpetre is somewhat more perfect; and from the cumulative effect of these data, each of which is very insufficiently established, and which, if established, only go to prove differences in the degrees of perfection of their respective receipts, the date of Marcus is fixed: this certainly is pushing incertum per incertius very far. We fear that if no more accurate information be brought to bear on it, the epoch of Marcus Græcus will be a subject of as much controversy as ever.
The paragraph in the treatises De Mirabilibus of Albert the Great is so identical with that of Marcus Græcus, that there can be no doubt of its being copied from it, or derived from the same source, and is a strong additional instance of the general progress of inventions. A received publication calls attention to a fact already disclosed but forgotten, the knowledge acquired by the world since is brought to bear on the old fact; and a consequent improvement results.
Roger Bacon, to whom the invention or knowledge of gunpowder has been attributed by some, would stand a very poor chance among the men of science of the present day: it is not now the man who conjectures a possibility, but he who demonstrates a fact, that is hailed as the discoverer.
The following series of possibilities are curiously interesting, both from their partial subsequent realization, and from the simple credulity with which Bacon gives us that which he had known "a wise man explicitly excogitate."
"Instruments of navigation can be made, men being the propelling agents, that the largest river and sea barks can be borne along (one man only managing them) with greater speed than if they were full of navigators. Carriages can also be constructed which may be moved without animals, with an inestimable impetus; so that one would think that they were the armed chariots with which they fought in ancient times. Instruments for flying can also be made, so that a man sitting in the centre of the machine, and turning an engine, by which artificial wings may strike the air in the manner of a bird flying. An instrument also can be made, small in magnitude, for elevating and lowering almost infinite weights, than which nothing is more useful in mischances, for by an instrument of the length of three fingers, and of the same breadth or less, a man may extract himself and companions from all danger of prison, and elevate and lower them. An instrument can also be made by which one man may draw to himself a thousand men, by force and against their will. Instruments for walking on the sea can also be made, and in rivers to the bottom without corporal peril. For Alexander the Great used them that he might see the secrets of the sea, according to the relation of Ethicus the astronomer.
"These things, indeed, are of antiquity and of our times, and are certain, except the instrument for flying, which I have not seen, nor have I known a man who has, but I know a wise man who has explicitly excogitated it; and an infinity of other things can be made, as bridges over rivers, can be made without columns or any support, and machines or unheard of engines."
The ultra admirer of the ancients will see in this, if not an accurate relation of facts, which with the exception of the flying it purports to be, at least a wonderful perception of practicabilities; and railroads, diving-bells, suspension-bridges, &c., will be so many circumstantial corroborations of the correctness of his view. We, however, are rather disposed to regard them as ingenious extravagances. Predictions of the success of science are always on the safe side. If in the present day one were to say, that we shall be able to see the inhabitants of Jupiter, or even converse with them, it would be a prophecy which could never be negatived, which might be the case if we said such things were impossible.
Bacon's obscure intimations of gunpowder are not so clearly derived from the same source as the receipts of Marcus Græcus and Albertus Magnus are; but they are apparently derivatives from what was then known to a few, of nitre compositions, and are very analogous, though not quite so extravagant as some of his other deductions.
Bacon also speaks of a child's toy (ludicrum puerile) which was made with saltpetre, the explosion of which produced a report, "quod fortis tonitrui sentiatur excedere rugitum."
As with this, so with the greater number of Bacon's observations; they bear reference to facts, or relations received as facts, which were at that time either generally or partially known, and do not profess to give to the world his own inventions, though the theories deduced from those asserted facts are frequently the produce of his own imaginative brain. Upon the whole, we are fully disposed to agree with Messrs Reinaud and Favé, that the invention of gunpowder is by no means due to Bacon.
We now pass to the Arabian manuscripts of the 13th century, to which we have before alluded, and which constitute the principal discovery of our authors. The same word (baraud) which is now used by the Arabs as signifying gunpowder, was originally used to signify saltpetre; and even in this application had a secondary meaning, its more primitive meaning being "hail." The whiteness and crystalline form of saltpetre presented a sufficient analogy to attach to it a similar name, neology being in those days not quite so common or so easy as at present.
Various salts were also included under the same name, their specific differences not being then known. This fact had probably much influence in retarding the pyrotechnic art, as accurate means of testing the purity and chemical character of the salt were not distinctly understood. A receipt successful in one case, because a proper salt was used, failed in another, because the salt was totally unfit for supporting combustion, though passing under the same name.
In these MSS. occur a vast number of receipts for pyrotechnic compositions, of which we may here give one or two as specimens, and as instances of the close approach made at that time to the composition of gunpowder as manufactured at the present day:—
Proportions of the Sun's Rays.
1st Composition.
Saltpetre, 10—Sulphur, 1⅛—Charcoal, 2¼.
2nd Composition.
Saltpetre, 10—Sulphur, 1⅞—Charcoal, 2.
Proportions of the Garland of Golden Flowers.
Saltpetre, 10—Sulphur, 1—Steel filings, ½—Bronze filings, ½.
Flashing Rocket.
Saltpetre, 10—Sulphur, 1⅜—Charcoal, 2⅛.
Each substance to be separately pounded; the charcoal and saltpetre are then mixed, and gently pounded; moisten with spittle, and then add the sulphur.
White Rocket without sparks.
Saltpetre, 10—Sulphur, 1¼—Charcoal, 2¼.
To be mixed as before directed.
Egyptian Moonshine.
Saltpetre, 10—Sulphur, 2¼—Charcoal, ¼.
Add 4 parts of Lead or Black Ointment.
These instances will be sufficient to show the general character of the Arabic receipts. Saltpetre is used in all of them—in most of them sulphur or charcoal; while arsenic, incense, camphor, iron and bronze filings, are occasionally used to vary the colour and character of the light produced. The Arabs were also in possession at this period of a vast number of instruments of war in which similar combustible matters were employed, such as lances and clubs, with fires at the extremity, girdles for the waist with fires attached. We translate the description of one of them:—
War Club.
"Get the glass-maker to make a club, which shall be pierced at its extremity like an iron club. Get the turner to turn a stick, which you will fasten strongly to it. You may give it whatever form you please. Arrange on the sides three 'tubulures,' and at the bottom also three for the 'roses,' (one class of the compositions,) then make the usual compositions. When you wish to set fire to them, arrange them in the form of a segment, set fire to the club, and break it, for the love of God."
The termination of this receipt is a very usual one, and applied to several other receipts—instruments of destruction being then, as now, considered a most appropriate method of serving God.
Another ingenious weapon was called "the egg which moves itself and burns;" and this consisted of two long fuses, which seemed to give force and direction to the firework, and a shorter one, which was directed forwards, the object of which was to burn the enemy. This projectile was cast by the hand, and then, to use the quaint language of the receipt, "it walks, it starts, and it burns extremely well."
Many other compositions were known to the Arabs, as appears from the two curious MSS. above mentioned; such as compositions for covering the body to protect from fire, others to emit a suffocating smoke.
The performances of these instruments were, doubtless, what we should now consider very insignificant; but they must have produced upon the excited imagination of the warrior of those days an effect which it is very difficult to conceive in the present day.
Nothing, probably, has occasioned more frequent historical errors, than forming deductions as to real effects from the exaggerated descriptions of ancient writers.
When Musschenbroek (not a superstitious soldier, but an inductive philosopher) first discovered the Leyden Phial, he declared he would not take a second shock for the kingdom of France; and yet we well know that a schoolboy would not now be frightened at a much more powerful shock than he then experienced. Want of familiarity with a phenomenon, and ignorance of its proximate cause, will ever make it terrible. We cannot see any thing terrible in a sky-rocket, because we have been early influenced by those on whom we rely to regard it as an amusement; but had they brought us up in fear of it—had they magnified these accounts, having some foundation in fact, as to its destructive power, we may well understand what effects of terror it would produce.
Thus regarded, the ignotum pro magnifico appears quite sufficient to explain the narrated effects of the Greek fire. But there was also another reason—viz. that all results, not of continual occurrence, and within the range of ordinary experience, were attributed to magic, and consequently spread a terror far disproportioned to the real effects; for this reason, the means of producing then were prohibited by the hierarchy, and, as they gradually acquired a more extensive use, were then only permitted against the enemies of the religion of the people who used them; hence the expression so frequent in the Arabian receipts, "You shall burn your adversary for the service of God;" and similar language is used by the Christian writers, when similar compositions became used by Christian warriors.
A narration, taken from the Sieur Joinville's History of St Louis, will place before our readers the contemporaneous description of the effects of the pyrotechny of the Arabs.
The following is the account of Joinville of one of the skirmishes of St Louis on the borders of the Nile. We should premise that Turk is the term generally applied by Joinville to all Mussulman soldiers; and though the army was generally recruited from Turkish slaves, yet the country was possessed by Arabs, and the language and arts were theirs.
"One evening it happened that the Turks brought an engine called 'la perriere,' a terrible engine for doing mischief, and placed it opposite the 'chaz chateils,' (wooden towers to shelter the advanced guard,) which Messire Gaultier de Carel and I were watching at night, by which engine they cast at us Greek fire, which was the most horrible thing that ever I saw. When the good Chevalier Messire Gualtier, my companion, saw this fire, he exclaimed and said to us, Sirs, we are lost for ever without any remedy; for if they burn our 'chaz chateils' we are broiled and burned, and if we leave our watch we are disgraced. From which I conclude that there is no one can defend us from this peril, except God our blessed Creator. So I counsel you all, that whenever they cast at us the 'feu Grégeois,' that each of us throw himself upon his elbows and knees, and cry mercy to our Lord, in whom is all power; and as soon as the Turcs threw the first charge of fire, we threw ourselves upon elbows and knees, as we had been instructed. And the fire of this first discharge fell between our two 'chaz chateils,' in a space in front which our people had made for damming the river; and immediately the fire was extinguished, by a man whom we had for this purpose. The manner of the Greek fire was such, that it came forth as large as a tun, and the tail extended as long as 'une demye canne de quatre pans.' It made such a noise in approaching, that it seemed like thunder which had fallen from heaven, and seemed to me a great dragon flying through the air; and threw out such a blaze that it appeared as clear as the day, so great a flame of fire was there. Three times during the night they threw this Greek fire at us from the above-mentioned 'perriere,' and four times with the 'arbalesté.' And every time that our good king Saint Loys heard that they thus threw the fire, he cast himself upon the ground, and stretched his hands to heaven, and cried with a loud voice to our Lord, and said, shedding copious tears—'Good Lord Jesus Christ, preserve me and all my people;' and, believe me, his good prayers and orisons did us good service (nous eurent bon mestier)."
It is impossible to render, in literal translation, the quaint simplicity of the old French; but the fact that this terrible fire was extinguished by a single man, would tend very much to lessen our belief in the marvels attributed to it by the narrator.
Be that as it may, we have, in the extract quoted, the expression Greek fire, (feu Grégeois,) which will connect the effect then produced with that known as pertaining to the Greek fire. There is every probability that the compositions here used were the same or similar to those generally known under that title, while the MSS. above quoted detail the compositions used by the Arabs at that period: the evidence is, therefore, very strong that the Greek fire was a composition closely resembling, if not identical with, those indicated in the Arabian receipts.
If we trace back the effects of the combustible compositions to the period of the Crusades, anterior to the time when Joinville wrote, we shall find a strong analogy with those described by him; but the use of saltpetre appears to have been more rare, and that of bituminous substances more frequent.
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.
Johnson's bed-rooms are, even the best of them, of moderate size, while the small ones are very small indeed; and into these small rooms he has stuck large four-post beds, that make them darker and more inconvenient than they naturally are, and leave room for hardly any of the usual evolutions of the toilette. What, indeed, with the big chests of drawers, like the big sideboard in the dining-room, it is as much as you can do to get about conveniently between the bed and the side walls; though one good thing the builder and furnisher have certainly effected—you can open the bed-room door, and you can stir the fire, and you can almost pull up the window-blind, without quitting the protection of the counterpane; and this on a cold morning is something.
Mrs Johnson says that the arrangement of the area gate in Paragon Place is perfection itself; for she can see the butcher's boy as he comes for his orders of a morning, while sitting at the breakfast-table, through the green blinds, and that the policeman dares not stop there, during daylight at least—she should be much too sharp upon him; so that the cook is twice as punctual as when they lived in the city. True; these are points of household management that have their weight; but then Mrs J. forgets that the dustman rings his bell there at most inconvenient hours, that the dirty coalheaver spoils the pavement once a month, and that it is a perpetual running up and down those stone steps, to shut the gate and keep dogs and beggars out, all day. However, the railings and the gate are not part of the house; and, if people like to have their back-doors under their eyes, why, there is no accounting for their taste.
We could not help thinking, the last time we went over to Paris, that our friend Dubois, the wine-merchant—him from whom we get our Chambertin, and who has about the same relative income as Johnson—was much better housed. His cellars are down at the Halle aux Vins, like every body else's; and he is shut up there in his little box of a counting-house nine hours every day of his life; but he lives, now that he has moved from the Marais, in the Rue Neuve des Mathurins, which leads out of the Chaussée d'Antin. Here he has a premier, as they call it in Paris—or a first-floor, as we should term it in London; and he pays 2000 francs, or £80 a-year for it, with about 100 francs of rates and taxes. For this he has two drawing-rooms, a dining-room, a study, six bed-rooms, kitchens, and cellars; some of the rooms look into the street, the rest run round the ample court-yard of the house. To get at him you go up a flight of stone stairs that four people can easily mount abreast; when you enter his door, from the little hall paved with stone and marble, you pass from the sitting-rooms one into the other—for they all form a suite; while the bed-rooms lie mostly along a corridor, into which they open. Once up the two flights of stairs that lead to the doorway, and the mounting, whether for masters or servants, is done with. The kitchen is at the furthest end, away from the other rooms, and is approached by a back staircase from the court-yard. There are no beggars nor dogs, nor butcher's boys, nor other bores, except what the concierge at the gateway allows to come in; and though the street is rather noisy, being in a fashionable quarter, yet the court-yard is perfectly quiet, and free from all plagues of organs, singers, &c. The rooms are, one and all, twelve feet high; their Windows down to the ground; the floors of solid oak, polished till you can slide on them; the doors are in carved oak, painted white and richly gilt; the chimney-pieces are all marble—none of the flimsy thin slabs of Paragon Place, but good solid blocks, cut out from the red quarries of the Pyrenees; with polished brass dogs in the fireplaces, and large logs of flaming wood across then. The drawing-rooms are hung in silk on the walls; the other rooms are tastefully papered. There is abundance of good furniture, which, from the ample size of the apartments—the principal room being thirty feet by twenty—sets off the proportions of the dwelling without blocking it up. Dubois has not a four-post bed in his house; no more has any man in France. They are all those elegant and comfortable things which we know a French bed to be; and the long sweeping folds of the red and white curtains that come down to the floor from the ceiling, form a graceful contrast to the curves of the other furniture. The walls are all of good solid stone, two feet thick on the outside; the house has been built these fifty years, and is of a better colour than when first put up; the windows are richly ornamented in their frames without, and form commodious recesses for settees within. You may dine twenty, and dance forty people here! or you may throw your rooms open, give a soirée, (no boiled mutton affair, remember; but music, dancing, and cards; coffee, ice, and champagne,) and cram each room full of people, and the landlord will never fear for the safety of his building.
Now, there are three other sets of apartments in the same house, and above Dubois, not so lofty as his, but nearly as commodious, and all with their proportionate degree of elegance and solid comfort. Dubois has not got a house at Dieppe, it is true; but then, like all Frenchmen, he is so absorbed in his dear Paris, that he hardly cares to stir out from it. If ever he does, he runs off to Vichy or Mont Dor for a fortnight in the saison des eaux, and he is contented.
But then, you will say, Dubois lives, after all, in another man's house—he is only a lodger; whereas Johnson dwells in what the law calls his "castle." Be it so; for the same money we would rather have the positive advantages of the one, en société, than the tasteless and inconvenient isolation of the other.
And, after all, is Johnson more decidedly at home in his own house, than Dubois is in his "appartement?" What does it matter whether you have people living on each side of you, with their street doors so close to yours that their wives or their daughters pop up their noses above the green blinds every time a cab or a jarvey drives up; or whether you have people who come in at the same gateway with yourself, and go up the same stairs, it is true, and who live either above or below you, and who can, if they like, run out on their landings to see who is thumping at your door panels? Upon our conscience as honest folks, who have lived in half the capitals of Europe, to say nothing of those of our own islands, we never found the slightest intrusion on privacy arising from the collecting of several families in the same house, in Paris, Rome, Florence, or Vienna. All we know is, and we often think of it agreeably, that these continental houses seemed to us like so many social colleges, and that the having a set of rooms with a common staircase, used to put us in mind of our old Christ Church, and of Garden Court in the Temple. 'Tis true, that in the one set of rooms we had no fellow-inmates except our dog, and every now and then a joyous set of fellows that would have made any place tolerable; that in the other there was our old laundress and bed-maker, and our "boy," and for a short time our "man," and actually, upon our honour it is true, we did once see a client in them! whereas, in our continental suites of chambers, we are en famille with wife, bairns, and "bounes" to boot, and that we did parfois try the elasticity or the stretching powers of our camere pretty considerably, and did cram therein no end of guests. But on the whole, we have fairly made the experiment in propriâ personâ; we have weighed well friend Johnson's castellated independence, and l'ami Dubois's social contiguation;—and, rent for rent, we prefer the latter. If we must live with two neighbours within a few feet of us, we would rather have one under us on the ground floor, and one above us on the second, and ourselves in the midst on the first, and all three clubbing together to live in a little palazzo:—we would rather have this, than be crammed in between Mr A and Mr B, each of us in a third or fourth rate kind of house, with poor thin walls, small low rooms, dirty areas, melancholy gardens, shabby-genteel fronts, ugly backs, and little comfort.
It may be said, and justly, that the idea of a man living in his own castle is applicable only to that state of society when large towns do not exist, inasmuch as the idea can be nothing more than an idea, and can hardly ever approach to a reality, the moment men begin to congregate themselves together in cities. Doubtless, it is indispensable to all our notions of comfort, and of the due independence of social life—it is, indeed, one of the main elements of the constitution of a family, that a certain degree of isolation should be maintained and respected; but we submit to the candid observer, that the only difference between English cities and continental ones in this respect is, that Englishmen aim at "horizontal" independence, foreigners at "vertical." Englishmen form their line of location every man shoulder to shoulder, or rather, elbows in ribs; foreigners mostly get upon one another's backs and heads, and form a living pyramid like the clown and boys at Astley's. By this arrangement, however, it comes to pass, that for the same number of inhabitants much more ground is occupied by an English than by a continental town; and also, that each single dwelling is of mean, or, at the most, moderate architectural appearance, the great condition of elevation being wanting, and the power of ornamentation being generally kept closely under by the limitation of each individual's pecuniary resources. Practically, we contend, there is quite as much comfort (we think, indeed, in many cases more) in the continental manner of arranging houses as in the English one: while the former allows of and encourages architectural display, and indeed requires a much more solid system of construction; but the latter leads to the running up of cheap, slight, shabby-genteel houses, and represses all attempts at external ornament as superfluous from its expense. Upon this subject, we appeal to the experience of all who have dwelt for any length of time on the Continent, not to those who merely run across the water for six weeks or so, and come back as blind as they went; but rather to those who have given themselves time and opportunity enough for the film of national prejudice to wear away from before their eyes, and have been at length able to use that natural good sense with which most Englishmen are blessed by Providence. To them we would say, that the plan of several families tenanting one large dwelling, clubbing together, as it were, for the erection of a handsome and commodious edifice, and just so far sacrificing their independence as to consent occasionally to run up against their neighbour in the common court-yard, or perchance to see his coat-tails whisking by their door up or down stairs, is the more sensible of the two. There is practically a great saving of walls, of spaces of support, as the architects term it, in this plan: great saving in roofing; and, from the mere dimensions of the building, a certain degree of grandeur is necessarily given to it. This plan requires the edifice to be built court-fashion, and sometimes will admit of a good garden being appended: it also requires that a most useful servant, a porter, in a suitable lodge, should be kept by the little social community; and every body knows what an useful body the porter, or concierge, as the French call him, may be made. Just as bachelors join together in clubs to the great promotion of their individual comfort, and certainly to the outward advantage of a city, so should families join together for their civic residences; they would all derive benefit from their mutual support, and the appearance of a town would be immediately improved.
We do not say that any joining together of houses should take place in country, nor even in suburban residences. No; there let every man have a house to himself; the foundation of the whole system is quite different: and there is also a certain class of persons who should always have separate dwellings in a town; but to these subjects we will revert on another occasion. We will only allude to one objection which the fastidious Englishman will be sure to raise: if you live under the same roof with one or more families he will say, you must necessarily be acquainted with all the members of the same: you must, in fact, know what they are going to have for dinner, and thus must be acquainted with all the secrets of their household economy. Well, so one would undoubtedly expect to be the case: unfortunately, however, for the theory, the practical working of the thing is just the contrary: we do not know of any town where so much isolation is kept up as in Paris, though there men crowd together under the same roof like bees into the common hive. We have lived ourselves, between the epochs of our bachelor or embryo state, and that of our full-blown paternal maturity, on every floor of a Parisian house, from the entresol just over the stable, where we could lean out of our window of a morning, smoke our hookah, and talk to the "Jockey Anglais" who used to rub down our bit of blood, up to the Septième, where in those celestial regions we could walk about upon our little terrace, look over the gardens of the Tuileries, ('twas in the Rue de Rivoli, gentle reader!) all the way to St Cloud and Meudon, one of the sweetest and gayest prospects in the world, by the by, and hold soft communings either with the stars or our next neighbours—(but thereon hangs a tale!) and yet never did we know the name even of any other soul in the house, nor they ours. Oh! we have had many an adventure up and down that interminable staircase, when we used to skip up two hundred and twenty steps to get to our eyry; many a blow-up with our old porter: she was a good soul, too, was old Madame Nicaise; many a time have we seen flounces and redingotes coming in and out of doors as we went up or down; but actually we cannot call to mind the reality, the living vision of a single individual in that vasty mansion. On the contrary, we used to think them all a set of unsociable toads, and, in our days of raw Anglicism, we used to think that we might be just as well called in to "assist" at some of the charming soirées which we used to hear of from the porter: we did not then know that a Parisian likes to be "chez lui" as he calls it, quite as much as an Englishman. We should have lived on in that house, gentle reader, ad infinitum; but one day on going up-stairs, we saw in ominous letters, on a new brass plate, "au troisième, de la cour," Legrand, Tailleur. Horror of horrors! 'twas our own man! we had not paid him for two years: we gave congé that evening, and were off to the Antipodes.