[574] “Ungefähr aus derselben Zeit.” Romocki, i. 189.
[575] Valturio’s plate is reproduced, ib., p. 193.
[576] “Ye vester darynn gestozzen, ye pesser.” Berlin Firebook, in ib., p. 192.
[577] “Es waren eiserne Kugeln von geringer Cohärenz, die, mit, Pech und Harz gefüllt, angezündet, aus den Mauerbrechern geschossen wurden. Beim Aufschlagen zerschellten diese Kugeln und die Stücke, von deren jedem eine heftige Flamme emporloderte, wurden umhergeschleudert. Das kleineste von ihnen konnte schwer verletzen, weil das Pech hinderte, es abzuschütteln. Niemand vermochte vor diesem Feuer auf den Mauern zu bleiben.” Bembo, Opera, 1556, i. 15, in Jähns, 810.
[578] Romocki, ii. 21.
[579] “Haec vocatur scientia experimentalis quæ negligit argumenta, quoniam non certificant, quantumcunque sint fortia, nisi simul adsit experientia conclusionis.... Sola experientia certificat hic, et non argumentum.” Opus Tertium, c. 13.
[580] Daniel’s Hist. de la Milice Française, 1724, i. 240.
[581] Major Ralph Adye, R.A., “The Bombardier,” &c., 1802.
[582] “Annals,” &c., p. 584, for the year 1543. Stow died in 1605. The 15½″ mortar, under Firemaster Thomas Wright, which accompanied a small force sent by Cromwell in 1651 to reduce the Royalist castle of Elizabeth in Jersey, may have been one of Bawd and Collet’s. Between five and ten rounds were fired daily for several days without any damage to the piece, although the carriage broke down completely on two occasions. The range was 1540 yards, and the shooting accurate. The first round, we may feel certain, was laid with extreme care. “I proffered to lay a wager of ten pounds with Captain Dover,” says the Firemaster, “that my first shot should strike the Castle, ... and by God’s providence it did strike one side of the great Tower, where the Granado brake” (i.e. exploded). The second shell “brake verie kindly,” and for the third he “altered (the) degrees of elevation.” Captain Dover may have paid his bet, but the Ordnance Office forgot to remit Wright’s pay; hence the “Perfect Narrative of the Particular Service performed by Firemaster Thomas Wright,” &c. &c., 1651. The word explode is not found before the seventeenth century—see Dr. Murray’s “New English Dictionary”—and was sparingly used in Wright’s time.
[583] “Italus a Parmensi ad Foederatos perfugiens, inauditam artem jactabat parandi vasa, cavatosque e ferro aut lapide globos, qui in obsessas urbes adigerentur, impleti ejus naturæ materiâ, ut simul ignem concepissent, in innumeros quasi acinos dissilirent.”