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 60s and pageren 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 Hoαotos, (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.

faucon, fauconneau, and other species of ordnance} to contain this passage; Les autres pieces qui ne sont plus en usage etoient le dragon, le basilic (the power of which piece of ordnance explains that which is attributed in fable to the Basilisk's eye) la sirenne (and hence may be understood the fabulous power of the Syren's voice) et une infinité d'autres qu'on a fait refondre :' ́and on the base of Trajan's column are to be seen, accordingly, many reliefs of serpents, basilisks, and dragons. As to the first, it seems to have given the culverin its name, from couleuvre, a serpent ; and as to the dragon in particular, in what sense (that is to say, common sense) is the famous chimæra of Homer to be understood, if it do not allude to the fiery mouth of the mortar, or cannon, breathing the chimic air of gun-powder (x-aga) from within it? 6 II. 180,

—οπιθεν δε δράκων μεσση δε χιμαιρα Δείνον αποπνείσα πυρος μενος αιθομένοιο

The same dissertation has this passage also.

"If the last book of Virgil be considered, and particularly the following lines

569 qua solo fumantia culmina ponam.

578 Ferte faces properè, fædusque reposcite flammis

1.588

- 700

and. 739

fumoque implevit amaro―

horrendumque intonat armis

postquam arma Dei ad Vulcania ventum est;

I think it cannot be doubted, that nothing but fire-arms could possibly be productive of such effects, and that nothing but gunpowder could have been intended as causing the fumus amarus." The following passage likewise made a part of the same treatise. "In the fifth specimen of hieroglyphics, of Pl. 117, Denon, may be seen cannon themselves in specie, as marked not only by their shape, but by the ball within the butt and at the mouth of each of them, denoting that the same ball in the firing of a cannon, is, as it were eodem

* As the round objects at the butts may be taken for the charge or cartridges, and those at the mouths for the balls. The Chinese are in the habit at this day of placing their small cannon in a vertical position, (as in the figure,) and so firing them upwards on occasions of rejoicing.

momento, in both these places." Of these cannon a copy is now given in

corresponding exactly in shape with those which Mr. Bell mentions the having seen in a tower of the Chinese wall.

I am also of opinion, that in addition to the other hieroglyphics mentioned in that treatise as having a bearing upon this subject, the hierogly. phic groupe which is copied in