1518. Oratio Richardi Pacei ... Impressa per Richardum Pynson,

regium impressorem, cum privilegio a rege indulto, ne quis hanc orationem intra biennium in regno Angliæ imprimat, aut alibi impressam et importatam in eodem regno Angliæ vendat. Other works printed _cum gratia et privilegio_ occur 1520, 1521, 1525, 1528, 1530, &c. In the year 1483, when the well-known act was made against foreign merchants, foreigners however were permitted to import books and manuscripts, and also to print them in the kingdom; but this liberty was afterwards revoked by Henry VIII., in the year 1533, by an order which may be found in Ames. In 1538, Henry issued an order respecting the printing of bibles; and in 1542, he gave a bookseller an exclusive privilege during four years for that purpose[1281]. With a view of finding the oldest Spanish privilege, I consulted a variety of works, and among others Specimen Bibliothecae Hispano-Majansianae, but I met with none older than that to the following book: Aelii Antonii Nebrissensis Introductiones in Latinam Grammaticen. Logronii Cantabrorum Vasconum urbe nobilissima; anno salutis millesimo quingentesimo decimo. fol. That privileges to books were usual in Poland, has been shown by Am Ende, in Meusel’s Collections before-mentioned. FOOTNOTES [1278] Der Büchernachdruck nach ächten Grundsätzen des Rechts geprüft. [1279] Von denen altesten kayserlichen und landesherrlichen Bücherdruck-oder Verlag-privilegien, 1777, 8vo. [1280] Vol. xvi. p. 96. [1281] [Exclusive privileges for printing the English Bible and Prayer have been granted by the Crown at different periods up to the present time, with the exception of the period of the Commonwealth, during which they were abolished. In the 27th year of Charles II. a Royal patent was granted to Thomas Newcomb and Henry Hills. In the 12th of Anne to Benjamin Tooke and John Barber; in the 22nd of George I. to John Basket. Then came John Reeves, who received his patent from George III. in the 39th year of his reign, and in association with George Eyre and Andrew Strahan, printed the many editions of the Bible and Prayer described as Reeves’ editions. The present patent was conferred by George IV. upon Andrew Strahan, George Eyre, and Andrew Spottiswoode, for a term of thirty years, which commenced January 21, 1830, and consequently ceases in 1860. By this last patent every one but the patentees is prohibited from printing in England any Bible or New Testament in the English tongue, of any translation, with or without notes; or any Prayers, Rites, or Ceremonies of the United Church of England and Ireland; or any books commanded to be used by the Crown; nor can either of the above be imported from abroad, if printed in English, or in English mixed with any other tongue. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge also enjoy the right of printing Bibles, &c., in common with the patentees; but in their case it is a simple affair of permission, they having no power to prohibit or prosecute. The present patentees, it may be here observed, have not of late years attempted to enforce their rights, and Bibles are now printed almost _ad libitum_. In Scotland, prior to 1700, various persons held concurrent licenses, consequently it is very difficult to say who were king’s printers and who were not. On July 6, 1716, George I. granted a patent to John Basket, the English patentee, and Agnes Campbell, jointly for forty-one years. To them succeeded Alexander Kincaird, whose patent dates from June 21, 1749; and then James Hunter Blair and John Bruce, whose patent commenced in 1798 and expired in the hands of their heirs, Sir D. H. Blair and Miss Bruce. In 1833 the patent ceased, and has never been renewed. Unlike either England or Ireland, the four Scotch Universities have never participated in this monopoly. In Ireland, George III. in 1766 granted a Bible patent to Boulter Grierson for forty years. He was succeeded by his son George Grierson, who, in 1811, obtained a renewal, and is still with Mr. Keene, the Irish patentee. Trinity College, Dublin, has also a concurrent right, but both Oxford and Cambridge are, by the Irish printers’ own patent, permitted to import their Bibles into Ireland.--_Dr. Campbell’s Letters on the Bible Monopoly._] CATALOGUES OF BOOKS. The first printers printed books at their own expense, and sold them themselves. It was necessary therefore that they should have large capitals. Paper and all other materials, as well as labour, were in the infancy of the art exceedingly dear for those periods; and on the other hand the purchasers of books were few, partly because the price of them was too high, and partly because, knowledge being less widely diffused, they were not so generally read as at present. For these reasons many of the principal printers, notwithstanding their learning and ingenuity, became poor[1282]. In this manner my countrymen Conrade Sweynheim and Arnold Pannarz, who were the first, and for a long time the only printers at Rome, a city which on many accounts, particularly in the sixteenth century, might be called the first in Christendom, were obliged, after the number of the volumes in their warehouses amounted to 12,475, to solicit support from the pope[1283]. In the course of time this profession was divided, and there arose booksellers. It appears that the printers themselves first gave up the bookselling part of the business, and retained only that of printing; at least this is said to have been the case with that well-known bookseller John Rainmann, who was born at Oehringen, and resided at Augsburg[1284]. He was at first a printer and letter-founder, and from him Aldus purchased his types. Books of his printing may be found from the year 1508 to 1524; and in many he is styled the celebrated German bookseller. About the same period lived the booksellers Jos. Burglin and George Diemar. Sometimes there were rich people of all conditions, particularly eminent merchants, who caused books which they sold to be printed at their own expense. In this manner that learned man Henry Stephens was printer at Paris to Ulric Fugger at Augsburg, from whom he received a salary for printing the many manuscripts which he purchased. In some editions, from the year 1558 to 1567, he subscribes himself Henricus Stephanus, illustris viri Hulderici Fuggeri typographus. In the like manner also, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, a society of learned and rich citizens of Augsburg, at the head of whom was Marx Welser, the city-steward, printed a great number of books, which had commonly at the end these words, _ad insigne pinus_. Printing therefore thus gave rise to a new and important branch of trade, that of bookselling, which was established in Germany, chiefly at Frankfort on the Maine, where, particularly at the time of the fairs, there were several large bookseller’s shops in that street which still retains the name of _Book-street_. George Willer, whom some improperly call Viller, and others Walter, a bookseller at Augsburg, who kept a very large shop, and frequented the Frankfort fairs, first fell upon the plan of publishing every fair a catalogue of all the new books, adding the size, and publishing names. Le Mire, better known under the name of Miræus[1285], says, that catalogues were first printed in the year 1554; but Labbe[1286], Reimann[1287], and Heumann[1288], who took their information from Le Mire, make the year, perhaps erroneously, to be 1564. Willer’s catalogues were printed till the year 1592, by Nicol. Bassæus, printer at Frankfort. Other booksellers however must have soon published catalogues of the like kind, though that of Willer continued a long time to be the principal[1289]. In all these catalogues, which are in quarto, and not paged, the following order is observed. The Latin books occupy the first place, beginning with the Protestant theological works, perhaps because Willer was a Lutheran; then come the Catholic; and after these, books of jurisprudence, medicine, philosophy, poetry, and music. The second place is assigned to German books, which are arranged in the same manner. In the year 1604, the general Easter Catalogue was printed with a permission from government. After this the Leipsic booksellers began not only to reprint the Frankfort catalogues, but to enlarge them with many books which had not been brought to the fairs in that city. I have, dated 1600, a catalogue of all the books on sale in Book-street, Frankfort, and also of the books published at Leipsic, which have not been brought to Frankfort; with the permission of his highness the elector of Saxony to those new works which have appeared at Leipsic. Printed at Leipsic, by Abraham Lamberg; and to be had at his shop. On the September catalogue of the same year, it is said that it is printed from the Frankfort copy, with additions. I find an imperial privilege, for the first time, on the Frankfort September catalogue of 1616. Some imperial permissions however may be of an earlier date; for I have not seen a complete series of these catalogues. Reimmann says that, after Willer’s death, the catalogue was published by the Leipsic bookseller Henning Grosse, and by his son and grandson. The council of Frankfort caused several regulations to be issued respecting catalogues, an account of which may be seen in Orth’s work on the Imperial Fairs at Frankfort[1290]. After the business of bookselling was drawn from Frankfort to Leipsic, occasioned principally by the restrictions to which it was subjected at the former by the censors, no more catalogues were printed there; and the shops in Book-street were gradually converted into taverns. In perusing these old catalogues one cannot help being astonished at the sudden and great increase of books; and when one reflects that a great many of them no longer exist, this perishableness of human labours will excite the same sensations as those which arise in the mind when one reads in a church-yard the names and titles of persons long since mouldered into dust. In the sixteenth century there were few libraries; and these, which did not contain many books, were in monasteries, and consisted principally of theological, philosophical and historical works, with a few however on jurisprudence and medicine; while those which treated of agriculture, manufactures and trade, were thought unworthy of the notice of the learned, and of being preserved in large collections. The number of these works was, nevertheless, far from being inconsiderable; and at any rate many of them would have been of great use, as they would have served to illustrate the instructive history of the arts. Catalogues which might have given occasion to inquiries after books, that may be still somewhere preserved, have suffered the fate of tombstones, which, being wasted and crumbled to pieces by the destroying hand of time, become no longer legible. A complete series of them, perhaps, is nowhere to be found. This loss might in some measure be supplied by two works, were they not now exceedingly scarce. I mean those of Cless and Draudius, who, by the desire of some booksellers, collected together, as Georg[1291] did at a later period, all the catalogues published at the different fairs in different years. The work of Cless has the following title:--Unius sæculi ejusque virorum litteratorum monumentis tum florentissimi, tum fertilissimi, ab anno 1500 ad 1602 nundinarum autumnalium inclusive, elenchus consummatissimus--desumtus partim ex singularum nundinarum catalogis, partim ex bibliothecis. Auctore, Joanne Clessio, Wineccensi, Hannoio, philosopho ac medico[1292]. By the editor’s preface it appears that the first edition was published in 1592. The order is almost the same as that observed by Willer in his catalogues. The work of Draudius, which was printed in several quarto volumes, for the first time, in 1611, and afterwards in 1625, is far larger, more complete, and more methodical. I have never seen a perfect copy of either edition; but perhaps the following information may afford some satisfaction to those who are fond of bibliography. One part, which I consider as the first, has the title of Bibliotheca Classica, sive Catalogus officinalis, in quo singuli singularum facultatum ac professionum libri, qui in quavis fere lingua extant, recensentur; usque ad annum 1624 inclusive. Auctore M. Georgio Draudio. It contains Latin works on theology, jurisprudence, medicine, history, geography and politics. The copy in the library of our university ends at page 1304, which has however a catchword that seems to indicate a deficiency. The second part is entitled Bibliotheca Classica, sive Catalogus officinalis, in quo philosophici artiumque adeo humaniorum, poetici etiam et musici libri usque ad annum 1624 continentur. This part, containing Latin books also, begins at page 1298, and ends with page 1654, which is followed by an index of all the authors mentioned. A smaller volume of 302 pages, without an index, has for title, Bibliotheca Exotica, sive Catalogus officinalis librorum peregrinis linguis usualibus scriptorum; and a fourth part, forming 759 pages besides an index of the authors, is called, Bibliotheca Librorum Germanicorum Classica; that is, A Catalogue of all the books printed in the German language till the year 1625. By the indices, and the proper arrangement of the matter, the use of this work is much facilitated. I must however observe that the oldest catalogues had the same faults as those of the present time, and that these have been copied by Draudius. Many books are mentioned which were never printed, and many titles, names and dates, are given incorrectly; but Draudius, nevertheless, is well worth the attention of any one who may be inclined to employ his time and ingenuity on the history of literature. [Towards the end of the seventeenth and especially during the eighteenth century, book-catalogues of every description multiplied rapidly. Their progress is copiously treated of in Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes, vol. iii. pp. 608-693, to which the reader is referred. Perhaps the most remarkable bookseller’s-catalogue ever printed is Mr. Henry Bohn’s so-called Guinea Catalogue, which is upwards of six inches thick, and contains, in about 2000 pages, merely the details of his own stock.] FOOTNOTES [1282] Several of them were editors, printers, and proprietors of the books which they sold. [1283] Their lamentable petition of the year 1472 has been inserted by Fabricius in his Bibliotheca Latina. Hamburghi, 1772, 8vo, iii. p. 898. See also Pütter von Büchernachdruck, p. 29. [1284] Von Stetten, Kunst-geschichte von Augsburg, p. 43. [1285] Le Mire, a Catholic clergyman, who was born in 1598, and died in 1640, wrote a work De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis Sæculi xvi., which is printed in Fabricii Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica, Hamburgi 1718, fol. The passage to which I allude may be found p. 232; but perhaps 1564 has been given in Fabricius instead of 1554 by an error of the press. [1286] Labbe Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum, Lips. 1682, 12mo, p. 112. [1287] Hist. Lit. i. p. 203. [1288] Conspectus Reip. Litter, c. vi. § 2, p. 316. [1289] [The earliest known catalogue of English printed books on sale by a London bookseller, was published in 1595, by Andrew Maunsell, in folio. It was classed and consisted of two parts; the first containing _Divinity_, the second the _Arts and Sciences_; a third, containing History and Polite Literature, was intended but never published.] [1290] Frankf. 1765, 4to, p. 500. [1291] [Bücher Lexicon; a Catalogue of books printed in Europe, to 1750; with supplements to 1758, 8 parts in 4 vols. folio. A very elaborate compilation, in which the title, place of publication, name of publisher, date, size, number of sheets, and publication price, of all the books known at the time, are given, including even those printed as early as 1462. It mentions however a great many books which never existed.] [1292] Francofurti, ex offic. Joannis Saurii, impensis Petri Kopffii, 1602, 4to. The first part contains 563 pages, and the second 292. RIBBON-LOOM. Among the inventions, which, by lessening labour, render a great number of workmen unnecessary, and consequently deprive many of bread, and which, with whatever ingenuity they may be contrived, have been considered as hurtful, and were for a long time suppressed by governments, may be reckoned the ribbon-loom. In its general construction, this machine approaches very near to that of the common weaving loom; but the workman, instead of weaving one piece, or one ribbon, as is the case when the latter is used, can, on the former when it has all the necessary apparatus, weave sixteen or twenty pieces at the same time, and even of different patterns. Such a loom is so made, that the workman can move the batten as in the common loom, towards him and from him, and also to the right and left, with all the shuttles it contains; or, it is furnished with certain machinery below, which can be moved by a boy unacquainted with the art of weaving, and which keeps the whole loom with all its shuttles in motion. Looms of the former kind are certainly much simpler than those of the latter, and in all probability are older. To the first kind belongs the loom at Erfurt, and that which was lately brought thence to Göttingen. Of the other kind there are two at Berlin; and some of them may be seen in many other places. The art has been discovered also of causing such looms to be driven by water; and an instance of this may be found, as I have been told, in the neighbourhood of Iserlohe[1293]. The proprietors however in most places keep the construction of their looms a secret, and, as far as appears, no complete description or figure of them has ever been published. There is reason to believe that this invention is as yet little used in France; no mention at least is made of it in the Encyclopedie, where, however, the common loom of the ribbon-weavers and lace-weavers is fully represented with all its parts in ten copper-plates. Attempts were made in Europe to suppress this invention, as was the case with printing in Turkey. But without here inquiring whether inventions may not save too much labour, and be therefore hurtful, as Montesquieu affirms, or whether it would be possible to suppress them throughout all Europe, I shall restrict myself to the history of the ribbon-loom as far as information is to be collected on the subject. We are told by M. Jacobson, that it is believed the Swiss invented such looms above a hundred years ago; but I do not know any grounds upon which this conjecture can be supported. To me it appears much more probable that this invention had its rise in the Netherlands or Germany, either about the end of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth century. The oldest account with which I am acquainted seems to be in favour of Germany and the sixteenth century. Lancellotti, in a work[1294] published at Venice in 1636, says “Anthony Moller of Dantzic relates, that he saw in that city about fifty years before a very ingenious machine, on which, from four to six pieces could be wove at the same time; but as the council were afraid that by this invention a great many workmen might be reduced to beggary, they suppressed it and caused the inventor to be privately strangled or drowned.” Who this Anthony Moller was I do not know; but that he saw a ribbon-loom at Dantzic is beyond all doubt. If the date of the printing of the book be taken as the time in which Lancellotti wrote, there is reason to believe that there was a ribbon-loom at Dantzic about the year 1586; but it appears to me that the book was written in 1629, which would bring us to the year 1579. The next oldest information with which I am acquainted, is that given by Boxhorn, who says, “About twenty years ago some persons in this city (Leyden) invented a weaving-machine on which one workman could with ease make more cloth than several others in the same space of time. This gave rise to rioting among the weavers, and to such loud complaints, that the use of this machine was at length prohibited by the magistrates.” According to this account, Leyden was the place of the invention; but, in order to determine the time, it will be necessary to attend to the following circumstances. Boxhorn’s Institutiones Politicæ have been often printed, as for example, at Amsterdam 1663, in 12mo. Boxhorn read lectures on the Institutiones Politicæ, and gave verbal illustrations of them to his scholars, one of whom, in the year 1641, carried a fairly written copy of the latter to Germany, and gave them to Professor C. F. Franckenstein, who caused them to be printed for the first time at Leipsic in 1658, and again in 1665, 12mo. The passage above-quoted is to be found in the illustrations which are appended. Hence there is reason to conclude that the ribbon-loom was known in Holland about the year 1621. It is some confirmation of Boxhorn’s account, that the States-General, as early as the 11th of August 1623, if they did not totally prohibit the use of the ribbon-loom, as commonly asserted, at any rate greatly circumscribed it. The proclamation for that purpose may be found in the Groot Placaet-Boeck[1295], a valuable collection published at the Hague in seven large folio volumes, between the years 1658 and 1746. Nothing further however is found there respecting the history of ribbon-looms, which are called _Lint-molens_, than that they had been in use for several years to the great injury and even total ruin of many thousands of workmen, who were accustomed to weave ribbons on the common loom. This prohibition was renewed on the 14th of March 1639, and again on the 17th of September 1648, as appears by the same work[1296]. On the 5th of December 1661, the use of them was extended a little longer, and defined with more precision[1297]; but as far as I have been able to find, no other regulations were made respecting these machines in the Netherlands. The council of Nuremberg, it is said, prohibited the use of them in 1664, as is mentioned in the Hanau work, which I shall soon have occasion to quote. On the 24th of December, the same year, ribbon-looms were prohibited in the Spanish Netherlands. In the proclamation for that purpose, it is stated that a great number of articles manufactured on these looms were privately imported from Viane and Culenburg. In the year 1665, there was to be seen at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, a loom which of itself wove all kinds of lace, tape, &c., provided the silk or yarn was properly arranged in the usual manner; but if a thread happened to break, it was necessary that some one should again join it by means of a knot[1298]. The year following, some person in that city applied not only to the council, but even to the emperor, for permission to establish such a loom, but was not able to obtain it. In 1676 the ribbon-loom was prohibited at Cologne, and the same year some disturbance took place in consequence of its being introduced into England[1299]. It is probable that Anderson[1300] alludes to this loom when he says, speaking of the above year, “As was also brought from Holland to London, the weavers’ loom-engine, then called the Dutch loom-engine.” He however praises the machine without describing it; nor does he mention that it occasioned any commotion. The lace-weavers in Germany, but in particular the councils of Augsburg and Cologne, applied to Frederick Casimir, count of Hanau, who had great influence in the empire, and requested that he would endeavour to procure a general prohibition of ribbon-looms throughout all Germany; and the count accordingly presented a representation on this subject to the electors and states. On the 8th of January 1681, it was declared by Imperial authority that a prohibition of ribbon-looms was both useful and necessary. This was followed by an imperial decree, dated January the 5th, 1685, and on the first of September following it was strengthened by a _conclusum in senatu_ of the council of Frankfort. The council of Hamburg, it is said, ordered a loom to be publicly burnt; and the emperor Charles VI. caused the prohibition of 1685 to be renewed on the 19th of February 1719; though some mercantile people made considerable opposition to this measure. A general prohibition was likewise issued in the electorate of Saxony, on the 29th of July 1720. All these coercive means however were ineffectual; and the ribbon-loom, being found useful, has now become common. In the year 1718, the first loom of this kind was brought from Holland to Charlottenburg on the Spree; but Nicolai, in his Description of Berlin, says that this circumstance took place in the year 1728. The workmen were then engaged from foreign countries; and the loom was supported at the king’s expense. The electorate of Saxony also, in the year 1765, revoked its prohibition, and permitted such looms to be publicly used. In the rescript dated March the 20th, it is said, that as things were much changed, and as other German states had annulled the prohibitions against ribbon-looms, it was induced to grant full liberty to the lace-weavers to employ freely and publicly in future, ribbon and lace-looms, and to manufacture all kinds of ribbons and other articles of the like kind that could be wove on them. It stated further, that the lace-weavers should give notice whether any of them wished to establish ribbon-looms, and how soon they could get them ready for work; that such of them as did not choose to be at the expense, should for every loom constructed receive a certain sum, besides being admitted a member of the company; and that three months after the publication of this order, fifty rix-dollars would be given, by way of premium, for every loom on which from twelve to fifteen pieces of silk-ribbon could be wove; and thirty rix-dollars for every loom employed to weave ferret and articles of woollen[1301]. [The profitable application of steam-power to silk weaving was long considered to be almost impossible; so much time being consumed in the handling and trimming of the silk, in proportion to the time that the loom is in motion, there was consequently a waste of power. A small factory was built in 1831, for the purpose of making the experiment on ribbons. It was, however, burnt during a disturbance relating to prices; and though the act was disclaimed by weavers in general, the feeling amongst them was so strong against the employment of inanimate labour whilst their own was superabundant, that the scheme was given up. Within a few years there were numerous steam-factories at work at Congleton, Leek, Derby and other places, which made large quantities of plain ribbons, chiefly black sarsenets. The Coventry manufacturers, alarmed for the interests of their trade, formed in 1836 a steam-company, and erected a large factory, but difficulties arose as to the apportionment of the power among the different parties, and it has never yet been fitted up for its original purpose. Another large factory was soon after built, and applied to the making of figured ribbons, but owing to the failure of the parties, the experiment was not in this instance fairly tested. One experiment on a smaller scale had some success. The factories of the North and of Derby have proved the advantage of steam-power as applied to plain ribbons. At Congleton there were in 1838, 254 power-looms engaged in the manufacture of plain silk, a few black satin and some plain coloured ribbons; at Leek there were 100 employed in the same way, and at Derby 233. In these, each loom is tended by one pair of hands, which pick up and keep the machinery in order: the gain consists, not in a more rapid motion of the shuttles, the delicacy of the materials not allowing of this; but in the shooting down being seldom interrupted during the picking up, as in hand-loom weaving; in the greater regularity of the fabric, and also in the addition of from one-fifth to one-third more shuttles, for which one workman suffices, the loom being so constructed as to enable him to reach from the front over the batten to the warps behind. But when two pairs of hands are required for one loom, as is the case with the Jacquard loom, one before to tend the work and one behind to pick up, the advantage is much lessened. Steam-loom weaving is undoubtedly making great progress notwithstanding all disadvantages: in 1840, the steam-factory at Coventry, which formerly failed, was again at work under fresh parties, who were making both plain and fancy ribbons with a strong probability of ultimate success. The fine factory belonging to the Steam Company, which is now occupied by broad silk steam-looms, has one ribbon-loom at work; and in one other instance, in Coventry, Jacquard steam-looms are employed in making light figured ribbons with great beauty and precision, and in this case it is found that one man is able to tend the front and another the back of two looms. There can be little doubt that the time is approaching when steam will be the chief motive-power of the ribbon as of other manufacturing districts, and that the strength of English machinery will be called for to enter into competition with French taste. Coventry is the great city for the manufacture of ribbons in England; in 1838, the number of persons employed there was 6000 or 7000, and in the rural parishes, 10,000 or 11,000[1302].] FOOTNOTES [1293] Looms of the first kind are seldom capable of weaving above sixteen pieces at one time: and very rarely eighteen, because the breadth necessary for that purpose would render them highly inconvenient. At a ribbon manufactory in the Milanese, there were some years ago, thirty looms of an excellent construction, each of which could weave twenty-four pieces together, so that sixty dozen of pieces were wove by the whole at the same time. See Voyage d’un François par Italie, i. p. 387. M. Escher, at Zurich, is said to have had a large ribbon-loom which was driven by water; but the traveller who saw the work, assured me that it was a machine for winding silk; and this seems to be probable, from the short account given of it by M. Andreæ, in his Briefen aus der Schweitz, pp. 49, 50. [1294] L’Hoggidi overo gl’ingegni non inferiori a’ passati. [1295] Page 7. [1296] Page 1191. [1297] Ibid. p. 2762. [1298] Von Lersner, Chronica der Stadt Frankfurt, ii. p. 566. [1299] Relatio Historica semestralis vernalis 1776, Art. 10. [1300] Hist. of Commerce. [1301] See this rescript in the Leipsiger Intelligenz-Blattern, 1765, p. 119. [1302] Penny Cyclopædia. GUNS. GUN-LOCKS. The first portable fire-arms were discharged by means of a match, which in the course of time was fastened to a cock, for the greater security of the hand while shooting. Afterwards a fire-stone was screwed into the cock, and a steel plate or small wheel, which could be cocked or wound up by a particular kind of key, was applied to the barrel. This fire-stone was not at first of a siliceous nature, like that used at present for striking fire, but a compact pyrites or marcasite, which was long distinguished by that name. But as an instrument of this kind often missed fire, a match till a late period was retained along with the wheel; and it was not till a considerable time after, that instead of a friable pyrites, so much exposed to decay, a siliceous stone came into use with the improved cock or present lock. On each new improvement, the piece, the caliber and length of which were sometimes enlarged and sometimes lessened, obtained various new names; such, for example, as _Büchse_, _Hakenbüchse_, _Arquebuse_; Matchlock, Musket, Pistol, _Flinte_, &c. But I shall leave it to those who are versed in matters of artillery to determine the difference between these kinds, and shall here add only what follows. The first name undoubtedly arose from the oldest portable kind of fire-arms having some similarity to a box. There were long and short _büchse_, the latter of which, as Hortleder says, were peculiar to the cavalry. The long kind also, on account of their similarity to a pipe, were called _rohr_. Large pieces, which were conveyed on cars or carriages, were called _karrenbüchse_, but soon after also _canna_, cannon. Instead of artillery-man, artillery and arsenal, people used the terms _büchsenmeister_, _büchsenmeistery_, _büchsenhaus_, &c. The _hakenbüchsen_ were so large and heavy that they could not be carried in the hand; it was necessary therefore to support them with a prop, called _bock_, because it had two horns, between which the piece was fixed with a hook that projected from the stock[1303]. Hence arose the name _hakenbüchse_, _hakenbüsse_, which the French and different nations, along with many other German words, adopted, and corrupted till they at length became _arquebuse_, _archibugio_, _archibuso_, &c. From the passages of ancient writers collected by Daniel, it may be concluded that these _hakenbüchsen_ with a wheel were invented in Germany, in the beginning of the sixteenth century; and this is confirmed by the testimony of Martin Bellay. Speaking of the league formed between the emperor Charles V. and pope Leo X. against France, and the siege of Parma undertaken in the year 1521, he says, “De ceste heure là furent inventées les harcquebouzes qu’on tiroit sur une fourchette.” Pistols also, which at first had a wheel, seem to have been used at an earlier period by the Germans than by the French. Bellay mentions them in the year 1544, in the time of Francis I., and under Henry II. the German horsemen, _des reiters_, were called _pistoliers_. De la Noue, who served under both these kings, says, in his Discours Politiques et Militaires, that the Germans first employed pistols. I know no probable derivation of this term. Frisch conjectures that it may have arisen from _Pistillo_ or _Stiopo_, because pistols used to have large knobs on the handle. Daniel and others think that the name comes from Pistoia in Tuscany, because they were there first made. He says he saw an old pistol, which, except the ramrod, was entirely of iron. Muskets received their name from the French _mouchet_, or the Latin _muschetus_, which signifies a male sparrow-hawk. This derivation is the less improbable, as it is certain that various kinds of fire-arms were named after ravenous animals, such, for example, as _falconet_. Daniel proves that they were known in France as early as the time of Francis I. Brantome however asserts, that they were first introduced by the duke of Alva, in the year 1567, when he exercised his cruelty in the Netherlands, in order to overawe and keep in subjection the people of that country; and that they were not then known in France. In another place he says that they were first made general in France by M. de Strozzi, under Charles IX.[1304] That the lock was invented in Germany, and in the city of Nuremberg, in 1517, has been asserted by many, and not without probability; but I do not know whether it can be proved that we are here to understand a lock of the present construction. In my opinion, the principal proof rests on a passage made known by Wagenseil[1305], from an unprinted Nuremberg Chronicle, the antiquity of which he has not determined. The same year is given by J. Guler von Weineck[1306], Walser[1307], M. von Murr and others. It is also certain that in the sixteenth century there were very expert makers of muskets and fire-locks; for example, George Kühfuss, who died in 1600, and also others, whose names may be seen in Doppelmayer. I must not omit here to remark, that many call the fire-lock the French lock, and ascribe the invention to these people; yet as, according even to Daniel’s account, the far more inconvenient wheels on pistols were used in France in 1658, it is probable that our neighbours, as is commonly the case, may have made some improvement in the German invention. In the history of the Brunswick regiments, it is stated that the soldiers of that duchy first obtained, in 1687, flint-locks instead of match-locks. It has often been asserted, that fire-tubes, which took fire of themselves, were forbidden first in Bohemia and Moravia, and afterwards in the whole German empire, under a severe penalty, by the emperor Maximilian I.; but I have not found any allusion to this circumstance in the different police laws of that emperor. That the first fire-stones were pyrites, appears from various accounts; and as a siliceous kind of stone was introduced in its stead, this circumstance gave often rise to confusion, some instances of which are related by Henkel, so that many applied to the stone what was related by our forefathers of pyrites. In the greater part of Europe[1308] people use at present that _hornstein_ called by Wallerius _Silex igniarius_, and by Linnæus _S. cretaceus_. In Germany it was formerly called _Flins_ or _Vlins_, which some consider as more proper; and in the Swedish, Danish and English, _Flinta_ and _Flint_. This appellation is of great antiquity; for the Wends had a pagan deity of that name, which they erected on a stone called _Flynstein_[1309]. In some districts of Germany this word has been still retained; for example, white or grey ferruginous spar, _Minera ferri alba_, is called in Styria _Flins_, or, as it is often improperly written, _Pflinz_; and in Bayreuth that fire-stone is still called flint-stone[1310]. In our neighbourhood the same name is still used by the stone-cutters. It cannot be doubted that the weapon which is fired by the help of this stone, obtained from it, in German, the names of _Flintgewehr_, _Flint_, or _Flinte_; but since the old name of the stone has been forgotten, it is in general named from the weapon flint-stone. Those acquainted with the German and northern antiquities, know that the knives employed at the ancient sacrifices, and other articles, were made of this kind of stone, as appears by the remains still found in old barrows and between urns[1311]. This proves that these stones were much used by the ancients. In England and France old buildings constructed of them are still to be seen, and the stones appear to have been cut with the greatest care[1312]. The above articles, which have lain in the earth more than a thousand years, and these edifices, among which some at Norwich were inhabited in 1403, show the wonderful durability of this kind of stone. Some imagine that the art of working it has been lost; but though our artists prefer employing their talents and dexterity on stones which have a more beautiful appearance and less brittleness, they are able to cut also the flint-stone. Enamel painters, for the most part, rub their glass enamel on plates made of it; but they are obliged to purchase them at a very dear rate[1313]. Many of my readers will perhaps be desirous to know in what manner our gun-flints are prepared. Considering the great use made of them, it will hardly be believed how much trouble I had to obtain information on this subject. One would laugh were I to repeat the various answers which I obtained to my inquiries. Many thought that the stones were cut down by grinding them; some conceived that they were formed by means of red-hot pincers; and many asserted that they were made in mills. On the least reflection it may be readily conjectured, that the double cuneiform shape is given to these stones without much labour, because they are so cheap; and as every country, at all times, with whatever other it may be engaged in war, can obtain them in sufficient quantity, no nation can have an exclusive trade in them. It is nevertheless difficult to discover the places whence they are procured; and in works which give an account of the different articles of merchandise they are not named. The best account with which I am acquainted, is that collected by my brother, and published in the Hanoverian Magazine for the year 1772. Shepherds, and other persons who gain little by their service, break the flint-stone merely by manual labour, and chiefly in Champagne and Picardy. Some years ago, Gilbert de Montmeau, a merchant at Troye, carried on the greatest trade with them, and sold them at the rate of five livres six sous per thousand. The Dutch always buy up large quantities of them, which they keep in reserve, in order to sell them when the exportation of them is forbidden by France, in the time of war. Savary, however, relates that the largest quantity and best stones come from Berry, and particularly the neighbourhood of St. Agnau and Meusne. I know also that a great many are made at Stevensklint in Zeeland[1314], and exported from that country. In the year 1727, the chancery of war at Hanover sent some persons to learn the art of breaking flints; but after their return, it was given out that our horn-stone was unfit for that purpose. It is possible that those stones which occur in continued veins may be split easier in any required direction than those found in single pieces, as it appears to me that the latter are harder and more compact than the former. Perhaps the case is the same with flints as with vermilion, the preparation of which we endeavoured to learn from the English and Dutch, though from the earliest periods it had been made better in the very centre of Germany than anywhere else. That stones were used at least in the middle of the sixteenth century, is confirmed by the account of an ingenious Italian, named Francis Angelerius. This artist had constructed a short piece of wood, to which he applied a wheel, and instead of a cock substituted a dog, which held the stone in its mouth, the whole so ingeniously made, that a person who appeared with it at a masquerade was arrested by the guard, because it was considered to be a real pistol[1315]. I have thought it proper to mention this circumstance, because it proves that the wheel was then invented and known under the appellation of pistol. In old arsenals and armouries, large collections of arms with the wheel are still to be seen. I have inspected those preserved in the arsenal at Hanover. What I consider to be the oldest, have on the barrel the figure of a hen with a musket in its mouth, because perhaps they were made at Henneberg. A pistol of this kind was entirely of brass without any part of wood, and therefore exceedingly heavy. On the lower part of the handle were the letters J. H. Z. S. perhaps John duke of Saxony. A piece with a wheel, which seemed to be one of the most modern, had on the barrel the date 1606. Together with fire-stones, properly so called, pyrites, which is sometimes named fire-stone, continued long in use. In the year 1586, under duke Julius of Brunswick, when abundance of sulphureous pyrites was found near Seefen, the duke caused it to be collected, and formed it himself into the necessary shape, though in doing so he often bruised his fingers, and was advised by the physicians not to expose himself to the sulphureous vapour emitted by that substance. [The use of flint-locks to guns has, within the last few years, been almost entirely laid aside in this country; the percussion- or detonating-lock being substituted for it. The certainty and rapidity with which the discharge takes place, gives them a very great superiority. This ingenious invention belongs to a Scottish clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Forsyth, minister of Belhelvie in Aberdeenshire, but it has since received some great improvements, especially in the application of the copper cap, to which indeed may be attributed all its superiority.--_Brande._] FOOTNOTES [1303] A figure and description of the _Hakenbüchse_, the _bock_, the wheels and key, may be found in Daniel Histoire de la Milice Francaise. Amst. 1724, 2 vols. 4to, i. p. 334. At Dresden there is still preserved an old _Büchse_, on which, instead of a lock, there is a cock with a flint-stone placed opposite to the touch-hole, and this flint was rubbed with a file till it emitted a spark. [1304] [The musquet or musket is said to be a Spanish invention, and to have been first used at the battle of Pavia. They were so long and heavy as to require the support of a rest. In the time of Elizabeth and long after, the English musqueteer was very different from one at the present day. In addition to the musquet itself, he had to carry a flask of coarse powder for loading, and a touch-box of fine powder for priming; the bullets were contained in a leathern bag, the strings of which he had to draw to get at them; while in his hand was his burning match and musquet-rest.] [1305] De Civitate Noribergensi Commentat. 1697, 4to, p. 150: In chronico quodam MS. legitur: the fire-locks belonging to the shooting tubes were first found out at Nuremberg in 1517. [1306] Raetia das ist Beschreibung, &c. Zurich, 1616, fol. p. 152. [1307] Appenzeller Chronik. St. Gall, 1740, 8vo, p. 194. [1308] This kind of stone is not everywhere used for this purpose. In the Tyrol, for example, the hardest ferruginous granite, which consists of corneous, partly irregular and partly polyedral, pieces, is employed as flints, which therefore are called Tyrol flints. In other places, jasper, such as that found in great abundance in Turkey, is formed by grinding, and used in the same manner. [1309] Of this deity an account may be found in Schedii Syntagma de Diis Germanis. Halæ, 1728, 8vo, p. 726. [1310] Esper Nachricht von neu entdeckten Zoolithen, Nurnberg, 1774, fol. Mr. Esper says, those fire-stones only which contain fossils or petrifactions are called _flins_, flint; and it is possible that the singular formation may be the cause why they have retained longest the name of the pagan deity. [1311] Figures of such instruments may be found in the fifth volume of the Archæologia Britannica. [1312] Philosophical Transactions, No. 474. [1313] A polished plate a foot square is sold at the Vienna porcelain manufactory for five hundred florins. [1314] Chemnitz regrets that the largest and most beautiful pieces are broken in many thousand fragments, and afterwards sold for a trifle as gun-flints.--Berliner Beschäftigungen, p. 213. [1315] Hippolytus Angelerius, in a work entitled De Antiquitate Atestinæ, p. 14, in vol. vii. of Thes. Antiquit. Italiæ. FINIS. INDEX. Adulteration of wine, i. 245; ancients clarified their wine with gypsum, i. 250; potters-earth used for clarifying wine, _ib._; Jacob Ehrni beheaded for adulterating wine, i. 253; arsenical liver of sulphur used for detecting metal in wine, _ib._; fumigating with sulphur, i. 255; adulteration with milk, i. 256; adulteration of wine in England, _ib._ Air-chamber, when first applied to the fire-engine, ii. 252. Alum, i. 180; alum of the ancients was vitriol, _ib._; places where they procured it, i. 182; use of the ancient alum to secure buildings from fire, i. 184; invention of the modern alum, i. 185; _alumen roccæ_, i. 186; the oldest alum-works in the Levant, i. 187; the oldest in Europe on the island of Ænaria, i. 188; origin of those at Tolfa or Civita Vecchia, i. 190; at Volterra, i. 193; Popes’ exclusive trade in alum, i. 194; oldest alum-work in Germany, i. 195; the first in England, i. 196. Apothecaries, i. 326; Greek and Roman physicians prepared their own medicines, i. 327; their employment in the 13th and 14th centuries, i. 329; pharmacy first separated from medicine by the Arabian physicians, _ib._; medical establishments in Europe formed after that at Salerno, i. 331; English apothecaries, i. 333; French, _ib._; German, i. 333-338; portable apothecary’s shop at the Byzantine court, i. 339; first dispensatory, _ib._ Aquafortis, first intelligible account of, i. 506. Archil, i. 35; known to the ancients, i. 36; art of dyeing with, brought, in 1300, from the Levant, i. 38; account of the family of the Oricellarii or Rucellai, who made that art known in Italy, _ib._; trade of the Canary islands with, i. 39; of the Cape de Verde islands, i. 40; invention of Lacmus, 41. Artichoke, i. 212; _cinara_ of the ancients the same with the _carduus_, i. 213; _Scolymus_ described, i. 215; not our artichoke, i. 216; _Cactus_, what parts of it were eaten, i. 219; our artichoke known in the fifteenth century, i. 220; origin of the name, _ib._, opinions respecting the country from which it was first brought, i. 221. Artificial ice, ii. 142; preserving snow for cooling liquors, known to the ancients, _ib._; ice preserved for the same use, ii. 143; Nero’s method of cooling water, _ib._; how cooled in Egypt, ii. 144; water made to freeze in summer, ii. 146; art of making ice at Calcutta, _ib._; method of cooling water mentioned by Plutarch, ii. 147; earthen vessels used in Portugal for cooling water, _ib._; use of snow known at the French court under Henry III., ii. 149; trade carried on with snow and ice in France, ii. 150; cooling property of saltpetre, when discovered, ii. 151; drinking-cups of ice used in France, ii. 155; ice extensively used for œconomical purposes, ii. 158; machinery employed for cutting it, ii. 159. _Aurum fulminans_, i. 509; of what composed, _ib._; invention of it obscure, _ib._; said to have been discovered by a German monk, i. 510; Valentin’s receipt for preparing it, _ib._; deprived of its power by means of vinegar, i. 511. Bankers, the oldest at Rome, ii. 5. Bellows, wooden, i. 63; whether first invented by Anacharsis, i. 64; bellows at the oldest melting-houses driven by men, _ib._; leather and wooden bellows compared, _ib._; description of the latter, i. 65; advantages of them, i. 66; invented in Germany, _ib._; the inventor supposed to be Hans Lobsinger, Shellhorn a miller, or a bishop of Bamberg, i. 66, 67;