those countries, would be a great mistake, The court of China, às appears from Sir George Staunton's Narrative, and from Bell's Travels, have always entertained a very contemptuous opinion of trade, however much the lower classes of people there are addicted to it: and in conformity with those sentiments, Euryalus, one of the princes of Alcinous's court, meaning to insult and offend Ulysses, attempted to degrade him into the character of a mere trader (precisely in the same manner as that court were disposed to treat our late embassy; a coincidence which it would be highly amusing to trace, by referring to the narrative of that embassy just now mentioned :) Vid. s Od. 160, Ου γαρ σ' δε ξεινε δαιμονι φωτι είσκω - But Ulysses, indignant at such an insinuation (υπόδρα ιδων), reproves Euryalus most sharply, and under the poetical image of throwing a quoit, soon lets him feel the weight of his artillery.Yes; the weight of his artillery. For if the preceding pages shall be thought to contain sufficient evidence of an habitual intercourse between the Europeans and Chinese in the time of Homer, and if it should further appear that the latter were well acquainted with fire-arms at that time, it must be admitted that the former were not likely to have remained unacquainted with them; and that leads me to a subject which I have purposely reserved for this place. The following lines have been before cited, 6 Od. 260. Αυταρ επην πολιος επιβήσομεν την περι πυργος Υψηλος καλος τε λιμην I now add these, 7 Od. 43, Θαυμαζεν δ' Οδυσεις λιμένας και νηας είσας and without dwelling here again upon the superb harbours of the Chinese, upon their propensity to navigation, and their multitudinous population, noticed therein; I apprehend it to be impossible, after all that is said above in relation to other matters respecting that people, that any doubt can be entertained that the words wER! πυργος υψηλος and τείχεα μακρα allude to the stupendous wall of China. If that be granted, the XOXOTES, fitted to the wall, must be translated swivels, or guns (the Latin word scloppus also meaning a gun): the openings or embrasures for such swivels or guns are accordingly seen now existing at measured distances in the wall; and Mr. Bell, in his Travels, states that he saw some hundreds of old-fashioned iron cannon, in one of the gates of the wall, which would appear to have belonged to the wall itself.* Fire-arms of any The words of Mr. Bell (of Antermony) are these "While we stopped at one of the gates in the wall to refresh ourselves, I took the opportunity to walk into one of these towers, where I saw some hundreds of old cannon thrown together as useless, On examination, I found sort might not have been of more general use among the Chinese in the time of Homer than they are at the present day; and I think that fact may be collected from the following line, when taken out of the metaphor which it involves, 6 Od. 270. Ου γαρ Φαιήκεσσι μελλει βιος ηδε φαρετρη (for I apprehend 610g and pageтgn to mean in reality, a cannon or gun and its ammunition ;) but, however that may be, one of the most important meanings of the fable of Thetis obtaining arms for her son Achilles from Halotos, (China) (and of the shield, a part of those arms, containing, as is shewn above, a description of China), seems to me clearly to be, that the Chinese were the first inventors of gunpowder (as indeed they are them to be composed of three or four pieces of hammered iron, joined, and fastened together with hoops of the same metal. The Chinese, however, have now learned to cast as fine brass cannon as are any where to be found." p. 262. commonly supposed to have been), and that the Europeans learned the art of making it from them, and so introduced it into their own quarter of the world. But that fire-arms were in general use throughout Europe also, in the earliest times, may be established by evidence completely satisfactory: one of the dissertations which in the preface to the first volume, I mentioned the having printed (but not published) some years ago,* has the following passage. "But if gunpowder, sine quâ non, was only invented four or five hundred years ago, what is the meaning of those winged darts (in quivers which have the exact shape of cannon); and of those shields on which are delineated thunderbolts and lightning; so common on the Trajan and Antonine columns, and in all the ancient statuary? Again; on referring to Les Travaux de Mars, an old book on fortification, it will be found (after speaking, part iii, p. 98, of the cannon, culverin, * The one in question is dated the 16th Jan. 1806. |