Kitabı oku: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 368, June 1846», sayfa 14

"To interest us in them, they show them to us forcing doors and picking locks. To these picturesque descriptions they add those profound theories, by which the People, if we listen to them, justify themselves in their own eyes for this crusade against property. Truly, it is a great misery, in addition to so many others, for them to have these imprudent friends. These theories and these acts are by no means of the people. The mass is, doubtless, neither pure nor irreproachable; but still, if you want to characterise it by the idea which prevails in the immense majority, you will find it occupied in founding by toil, economy, and the most respectable means, the immense work which constitutes the strength of this country, the participation of all classes in property."

We believe it sincerely and heartily. The great writers of all ages have believed it. Your low-minded scribblers have never doubted it; but it is far easier to depict the limited class, with its violence and felony, its startling incidents and painful murders – far less difficult to give picturesque effect to its nauseous jargon and offensive situations, than it is to work the simple portraiture of a whole community, who have nothing to offer to the artist but the delicate and unobtrusive material, such as Goldsmith could weave into a fabric whose colour and texture shall endure and enchant for all time.

"I feel," continues M. Michelet, with great tenderness – "I feel I am alone, and I should be sad indeed if I had not with me my faith and hope. I see myself weak, both by nature and my previous works, in presence of this mighty subject, as at the foot of a gigantic monument, that I must move all alone. Alas! how disfigured it is to-day; how loaded with foreign accumulations, moss, and mouldiness; spoilt by the rain and mud, and by the injuries it has received from passengers! The painter, the man of art for art, comes and looks at it; what pleases him is precisely that moss. But I would pluck it off. Painter, now passing by! This is not a plaything of art – this is our altar!"

"To know the life of the people, their toils and sufferings," he continues, "I have but to interrogate my own memory." He has himself sprung from the labouring population. Before he wrote books, he composed them in the literal sense of that term. He arranged letters before he grouped ideas; the sadness of the workshop, and the wearisomeness of long hours, are things known to his experience. The short narrative of his early struggles forms another beautiful passage in this singular and very unequal production. The great lesson which he brought with him from his season of difficulty and affliction, is one that authorizes him to approach the people as a teacher and a friend, and ought to have inspired him with nobler aims than he puts forth to-day. He has seen the disorders of destitution, the vices of misery; but he has seldom found them extinguishing original goodness of heart, or interfering with the noble sentiments that adorn the lowest as well as the highest of mankind. There is nothing new, he tells us, in this observation. At the time of the cholera in France, every body beheld one class eager to adopt the orphan children. What class was that? The Poor.

Whilst in poverty himself, his soul was kept free from envy by noting the unremitting devotedness, the indefatigable sacrifices of hard-working families – a devotedness, he assures us, not even exhausted in the immolation of one life, but often continued from one to another for several generations.

The two families from which he descended were originally peasants. These families being very large, many of his father's and mother's brothers and sisters would not marry, in order that they might the better contribute to the education of some of the boys, whom they sent to college. This was a sacrifice of which he was early made aware, and which he never forgot. His grandfather, a music-master of Laon, came to Paris with his little savings after the Reign of Terror, where his son, the author's father, was employed at the Imprimerie des Assignats. His little wealth was made over to the same son, and all was invested in a printing-office. To facilitate the arrangement, a brother and a sister of the eldest son would not marry, but the latter espoused a sober damsel of Ardennes. M. Michelet, the child of this industrious pair, was born in the year 1798 in the choir of a church of nuns, then occupied by the printing-office. "Occupied, I say, but not profaned; for what is the Press in modern times but the holy ark?"

The printing-office, prosperous at first, fed by the debates of the assemblies and the news of the armies, was overthrown in 1800 by the general suppression of the newspapers. The printer was allowed to publish only an ecclesiastical journal; and even this sanction was withdrawn in favour of a priest whom Napoleon thought safe, but was mistaken. The family of M. Michelet was ruined. They had but one resource; it was to print for their creditors a few works belonging to the printer. They had no longer any journeymen; they did the work themselves. The father, who was occupied with his employment abroad, could render no assistance, but the mother, though sick, turned binder, cut and folded. The child – the future historian – was the compositor; the grandfather, very old and feeble, betook himself to the hard work of the press, and printed with his palsied hands.

The young compositor, at twelve years of age, knew four words of Latin which he had picked up from an old bookseller, who had been a village teacher, and doted on grammar. The scene of the lad's labors – his workshop – was a cellar. For company he had occasionally his grandfather who came to see them, and always, without interruption, an industrious spider, that worked at the compositor's side, and even more assiduously than he. There were severe privations to undergo, but there was also much compensation.

"I had the kindness of my parents, and their faith in my future prospects, a faith which is truly inexplicable, when I reflect how backward I was. Save the binding duties of my work, I enjoyed extreme independence, which I never abused. I was apprenticed, but without being in contact with coarse-minded people, whose brutality, perhaps, would have crushed the precious blossom of liberty within me. In the morning, before work, I went to my old grammarian, who gave me a task of five or six lines. I have retained thus much; that the quantity of work has much less to do with it than is supposed; children can imbibe but a very little every day; like a vase with a narrow neck, pour little or pour much, you will never get a great deal in at a time."

We have said that in his struggles the aspiring boy knew nothing of envy. It is to-day his solemn belief that man would never know envy of himself, he must be taught it. The year 1813 arrived, and the home of the historian, as well as France herself – it was the time of Moscow – looked very cheerless. The penury of the family was extreme. It was proposed to get the compositor a situation in the Imperial printing-office. The parents, more fond than reasonable, refused the offer, and strong in the belief that the child would yet save the household, obtained an entrance for him in the college of Charlemagne. The tale is told. From that hour he rose. His studies ended soon and well. In the year 1821 he procured, by competition, a professorship in a college. In 1827, two works, which appeared at the same time —Vico and Précis d'Histoire Moderne– gained him a professorship in the Ecole Normale.

"I grew up like grass between two paving-stones; but this grass has retained its sap as much as that of the Alps. My very solitude in Paris, my free study, and my free teaching, (ever free and every where the same,) have raised without altering me. They who rise almost always lose by it; because they become changed, they become mongrels, bastards; they lose the originality of their own class without gaining that of another. The difficulty is not to rise, but in rising to remain one's self."

There is also another difficulty; one which, judging from the volume before us, M. Michelet has yet to overcome: we mean the difficulty – after education, and after achieving the heights to which honourable ambition aspires – of forgetting the terrible and bitter punishment of early penury and trouble; of cherishing no longer the anger and hatred that were borne against the world, whilst the struggler looked upon it as a world in arms against him. The author of The People tells us, that in his saddest hours he knew no envy towards mankind; but he acknowledges also, that in his sufferings, he deemed all rich men, all men, bad; that he pined into a misanthropic humour, and, in the most deserted quarters of Paris, sought the most deserted streets. "I conceived an excessive antipathy against the human species." The writer, to use his own expression, "is raised, but not altered." The antipathy, somewhat chastened by prosperity, is not removed. It takes a bodily form in the volume that teaches France to regard the earth as her enemy, and calls upon her to vindicate her pre-eminence and glory in the field of battle and of blood.

THE ROSE OF WARNING

A Legend from the German. By A. Lodge

 
Where towering o'er the vale on high,
Those ice-bound summits pierce the sky;
And on the mountain flood amain,
The giant oak, and dusky plane,
Uptorn, with ever-deepening sound,
Rush roughly 'mid the gorge profound:
Behold – where horrors mark the scene,
And loveliest Nature smiles between,
Yon ivied arch and turrets gray,
Mouldering in serene decay;
Half choked, the scanty columns rise,
Where the prone roof in fragments lies; —
Of yore, so legends tell, the fane
Was call'd, of sainted Bernard's train;
Pious Brethren, self denying,
Fill'd with thoughts of holy dying,
Here, 'mid penance, prayer, and praise,
Content they wore their tranquil days;
Now the heavenly truths expounding,
In the Lord's good work abounding;
For deeds of love the dome was bless'd;
The hungry fed, the faint had rest; —
Thus they gave their light to shine,
And the Bread of Life divine!
 
 
These walls confess'd, long ages flown,
Strange tidings of the world unknown;
And dark the boding wonder fell,
With signal of the midnight bell:
For ever, as in solemn row,
The Brotherhood, devout and slow,
Paced the dim-lighted aisles along,
Loud echoing to the choral song;
To each – when the dread hour was nigh,
Of man's appointed lot – to die,
A sure forewarner told of doom,
With silent summons to the tomb:
As in the choir he knelt to pray,
On the desk a white Rose lay!
Prompt at the sign of awful power,
The destined brother took the flower,
"Thy will be done!" he cried, and press'd
Death's pale memento to his breast;
And straight retired, the Office o'er,
He left his cloister'd cell no more;
There, with due shrift and penance made,
The last absolving rites were paid,
And dead to thoughts of earth and time,
The doom'd one soar'd on hope sublime!
But first, with reverend hand, he placed
The monitory emblem chaste
On that dear pledge of pardon free,
Christ on his redeeming tree!
Then gazed, as the long hours crept by,
With solemn thought, and musing eye,
From early dawn to eve's repose,
Steadfast on the warning Rose!
 
 
And quick the shadow'd message came;
To dust return'd the mortal frame;
And with sad strains and funeral moan,
They hymn'd the soul to Mercy's throne!
Thus by mysterious high behest,
Each holy brother sank to rest,
Forewarn'd with supernatural power,
By the Rose at midnight hour!
 
 
It chanced, as once, for nightly prayer,
They reach'd the choir – the Rose was there!
Oh grief! before a youth it lay,
Warning that his life's young day
Must wither in its blooming May!
With sudden mortal pang, dismay'd
At thought, like the brief Rose to fade;
While death and awful judgment near
Made life's half-tasted charms more dear;
The youth, with anxious, trembling haste,
Unseen, the boding flower displaced;
Thus might the signal'd doom betide,
He deem'd, the brother at his side,
Who, calm in age, his last repose
Long waiting, hailed the welcome Rose!
For him, by faith assured, to die —
His birth of immortality!
 
 
But on the morrow – hark! the sound
Of sorrow's wailings echoes round:
What means the tear – the plaint – the sigh?
Why sits despair in every eye?
Oh, dire presage! two souls had fled —
The old man and the youth were dead!
And with dumb wondering awe they view
The White Rose tinged with purple hue!
For this the ceaseless knell is rung,
For this the choral Requiem sung: —
And when, few summers past, once more
They wept a brother gone before;
No longer the White Rose was seen;
It shunn'd the spot where crime had been!
 
 
A pilgrim in the Alpine vale,
I heard the legendary tale;
And as at eve, by Fancy woo'd,
Amid the dark'ning aisles I stood;
O'er crumbling stone and grassy mound,
I saw the White Rose blooming round!
Death's flower, methought, fit emblem made
To dwell in Ruin's silent shade!
And may the youth – I breathed a prayer —
Have owned the Saviour's pardoning care,
Who, deaf to warnings from the sky,
Tinged the White Rose with murder's dye!
 

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."