Stories of Invention, Told by Inventors and their Friends
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Title: Stories of Invention, Told by Inventors and their Friends
Author: Edward Everett Hale
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES OF INVENTION, TOLD BY INVENTORS AND THEIR FRIENDS ***
STORIES OF INVENTION
_TOLD BY INVENTORS AND THEIR FRIENDS._
BY EDWARD E. HALE.
[Illustration]
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1889.
_Copyright, 1885_,
BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
PREFACE.
This little book closes a series of five volumes which I undertook some
years since, in the wish to teach boys and girls how to use for
themselves the treasures which they have close at hand in the Public
Libraries now so generally opened in the Northern States of America. The
librarians of these institutions are, without an exception, so far as I
know, eager to introduce to the young the books at their command. From
these gentlemen and ladies I have received many suggestions as the
series went forward, and I could name many of them who could have edited
or prepared such a series far more completely than I have done. But it
is not fair to expect them, in the rush of daily duty, to stop and tell
boys or girls what will be "nice books" for them to read. If they issue
frequent bulletins of information in this direction, as is done so
admirably by the librarians at Providence and at Hartford, they do more
than any one has a right to ask them for. Such bulletins must be
confined principally to helping young people read about the current
events of the day. In that case it will only be indirectly that they
send the young readers back into older literature, and make them
acquainted with the best work of earlier times.
I remember well a legend of the old Public Library at Dorchester, which
describes the messages sent to the hard-pressed librarian from the
outlying parts of the town on the afternoon of Saturday, which was the
only time when the Library was open.
"Mother wants a sermon book and another book." This was the call almost
regularly made by the messengers.
I think that many of the most accomplished librarians of to-day have
demands not very dissimilar, and that they will be glad of any
assistance that will give to either mother or messenger any hint as to
what this "other book" shall be.
It is indeed, of course, almost the first thing to be asked that boys
and girls shall learn to find out for themselves what they want, and to
rummage in catalogues, indexes, and encyclopædias for the books which
will best answer their necessities. Mr. Emerson's rule is, "Read in the
line of your genius." And the young man or maiden who can find out, in
early life, what the line of his or her genius is, has every reason to
be grateful to the teacher, or the event, or the book that has
discovered it. I have certainly hoped, in reading and writing for this
series, that there might be others of my young friends as sensible and
as bright as Fergus and Fanchon, who will be found to work out their own
salvation in these matters, and order their own books without troubling
too much that nice Miss Panizzi or that omniscient Mrs. Bodley who
manages the Library so well, and knows so well what every one in the
town has read, and what he has not read.
I had at first proposed to publish with each book a little bibliography
on the subjects referred to, telling particularly where were the
available editions and the prices at which they could be bought by young
collectors. But a little experiment showed that no such supplement could
be made, which should be of real use for most readers for whom these
books are made. The same list might be too full for those who have only
small libraries at command, and too brief for those who are fortunate
enough to use large ones. Indeed, I should like to say to such young
readers of mine as have the pluck and the sense to read a preface, that
the sooner they find out how to use the received guides in such
matters,--the very indexes and bibliographies which I should use in
making such a list for them,--why, the better will it be for them.
Such books as Poole's Index, Watt's and Brunet's Bibliographies, and the
New American Indexes, prepared with such care by the Librarians'
Association, are at hand in almost all the Public Libraries; and the
librarians will always be glad to encourage intelligent readers in the
use of them.
I should be sorry, in closing the series, not to bear my testimony to
the value of the Public Library system, still so new to us, in raising
the standard of thought and education. For thirty years I have had more
or less to do with classes of intelligent young people who have met for
study. I can say, therefore, that the habit of thought and the habit of
work of such young people now is different from what it was thirty years
ago. Of course it ought to be. You can say to a young learner now, "This
book says thus and so, but you must learn for yourself whether this
author is prejudiced or ill-informed, or not."
You can send him to the proper authorities. On almost any detail in
general history, if he live near one of the metropolitan libraries, you
can say to him, "If you choose to study a fortnight on this thing, you
will very likely know more about it than does any person in the world."
It is encouraging to young people to know that they can thus take
literature and history at first hand. It pleases them to know that "the
book" is not absolute. With such resources that has resulted which such
far-seeing men as Edward Everett and George Ticknor and Charles Coffin
Jewett hoped for,--the growth, namely, of a race of students who do not
take anything on trust. As Professor Agassiz was forever driving up his
pupils to habits of original observation in natural history, the Public
Library provokes and allures young students to like courage in original
research in matters of history and literature.
EDWARD E. HALE.
ROXBURY, April 1, 1885.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION 9
II. ARCHIMEDES 20
III. FRIAR BACON 36
Of the Parents and Birth of Fryer Bacon, and
how he addicted himself to Learning, 39. How
Fryer Bacon made a Brazen Head to speak, by
the which he would have walled England about
with Brass, 41. How Fryer Bacon by his Art
took a Town, when the King had lain before it
three Months, without doing it any Hurt, 45.
How Fryer Bacon burnt his Books of Magic
and gave himself to the Study of Divinity
only; and how he turned Anchorite, 49. How
Virgilius was set to School, 53. Howe the
Emperor asked Counsel of Virgilius, how the
Night Runners and Ill Doers might be rid-out
of the Streets, 55. How Virgilius made a
Lamp that at all Times burned, 56.
IV. BENVENUTO CELLINI 58
Life of Benvenuto Cellini, 59. Benvenuto's
Autobiography, 60.
V. BERNARD PALISSY 82
Bernard Palissy the Potter, 83.
VI. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 97
Franklin's Method of Growing Better, 100.
Musical Glasses, 112.
VII. THEORISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 119
Richard Lovell Edgeworth, 119. Edgeworth's
Telegraph, 124. Mr. Edgeworth's Telegraph
in Ireland, 127. Mr. Edgeworth's Machine,
136. More of Mr. Edgeworth's Fancies, 140.
Jack the Darter, 142. A One-wheeled Chaise,
144.
VIII. JAMES WATT 146
The Newcomen Engine, 150. James Watt and
the Steam-engine, 153. The Separate Condenser,
161. Completing the Invention, 164.
Watt makes his Model, 167.
IX. ROBERT FULTON 172
X. GEORGE STEPHENSON AND THE LOCOMOTIVE 193
George Stephenson, 194.
XI. ELI WHITNEY 219
Eli Whitney, 222.
XII. JAMES NASMYTH 237
The Steam-hammer, 237. James Nasmyth, 239.
XIII. SIR HENRY BESSEMER 259
The Age of Steel, 259. Bessemer's Family, 261.
Henry Bessemer, 264. Stamped Paper, 265.
Gold Paint, 270. Bessemer Steel, 273.
XIV. THE LAST MEETING 284
Goodyear, 284.
STORIES OF INVENTION
TOLD BY INVENTORS.
I.
INTRODUCTION.
There is, or is supposed to be, somewhere in Norfolk County in
Massachusetts, in the neighborhood of the city of Boston, a rambling old
house which in its day belonged to the Oliver family. I am afraid they
were most of them sad Tories in their time; and I am not sure but these
very windows could tell the story of one or another brick-bat thrown
through them, as one or another committee of the people requested one or
another Oliver, of the old times, to resign one or another royal
commission. But a very peaceful Rowland has taken the place of those
rebellious old Olivers.
This comfortable old house is now known to many young people as the home
of a somewhat garrulous old gentleman whom they call Uncle Fritz. His
real name is Frederick Ingham. He has had a checkered life, but it has
evidently been a happy one. Once he was in the regular United States
Navy. For a long time he was a preacher in the Sandemanian connection,
where they have no ordained ministers. In Garibaldi's time he was a
colonel in the patriot service in Italy. In our civil war he held a
command in the national volunteer navy; and his scientific skill and
passion for adventure called him at one time across "the Great American
Desert," and at another time across Siberia, in the business of
constructing telegraphs. In point of fact, he is not the relation of any
one of the five-and-twenty young people who call him Uncle Fritz. But he
pets them, and they pet him. They like to make him a regular visit once
a week, as the winter goes by. And the habit has grown up, of their
reading with him, quite regularly, on some subject selected at their
first meeting after they return from the country. Either at Lady
Oliver's house, as his winter home is called, or at Little Crastis,
where he spends his summers, those selections for reading have been
made, which have been published in a form similar to that of the book
which the reader holds in his hand.
The reader may or may not have seen these books,--so much the worse for
him if he have not,--but that omission of his may be easily repaired.
There are four of them: STORIES OF WAR told by Soldiers; STORIES OF THE
SEA told by Sailors; STORIES OF ADVENTURE told by Adventurers; STORIES
OF DISCOVERY told by Discoverers.
Since the regular meetings began, of which these books are the history,
the circle of visitors has changed more or less, as most circles will,
in five years. Some of those who met are now in another world. Some of
the boys have grown to be so much like men, that they are "subduing the
world," as Uncle Fritz would say, in their several places, and that they
write home, from other latitudes and longitudes, of the Discoveries and
Adventures in which they have themselves been leaders. But younger
sisters and brothers take the places of older brothers and sisters. The
club--for it really is one--is popular, Lady Oliver's house is large,
and Uncle Fritz is hospitable. He says himself that there is always room
for more; and Ellen Flaherty, or whoever else is the reigning queen in
the kitchen, never complains that the demand is too great for her
"waffles."
Last fall, when the young people made their first appearance, the week
before Thanksgiving day, after the new-comers had been presented to
Uncle Fritz, and a chair or two had been brought in from the dining-room
to make provision for the extra number of guests, it proved that, on the
way out, John Coram, who is Tom Coram's nephew, had been talking with
Helen, who is one of the old Boston Champernoons, about the change of
Boston since his uncle's early days.
"I told her," said he to Uncle Fritz, "that Mr. Allerton was called 'the
last of the merchants,' and he is dead now."
"That was a pet phrase of his," said Uncle Fritz. "He meant that his
house, with its immense resources, simply bought and sold. He was away
for many years once. When he returned, he found that the chief of his
affairs had made an investment, from motives of public spirit, in a
Western railroad. 'I thought we were merchants,' said the fine old man,
disapproving. As he turned over page after page of the account, he found
at last that the whole investment had been lost. 'I am glad of that,'
said he; 'you will remember now that we are merchants.'"
"But surely my father is a merchant," said Julius. "He calls himself a
merchant, he is put down as a merchant in the Directory, and he buys and
sells, if that makes a man a merchant."
"All that is true," said Uncle Fritz. "But your father also invests
money in railroads; so far he is engaged in transportation. He is a
stockholder and a director in the Hecla Woollen Mills at Bromwich; so
far he is a manufacturer. He told me, the other day, that he had been
encouraging my little friend Griffiths, who is experimenting in the
conservation of electric power; so far he is an inventor, or a patron of
inventions.
"In substance, what Mr. Allerton meant when he said 'I thought we were
merchants,' was this: he meant that that firm simply bought from people
who wished to sell, and sold to people who wished to buy.
"The fact, that almost every man of enterprise in Massachusetts is now
to a certain extent a manufacturer, shows that a great change has come
over people here since the beginning of this century."
"Those were the days of Mr. Cleveland's adventures, and Mr. Forbes's,"
said Hugh.
He alluded to the trade in the Pacific, in which these gentlemen shared,
as may be read in STORIES OF ADVENTURE.
Uncle Fritz said, "Yes." He said that the patient love of Great Britain
for her colonies forbade us here from making so much as a hat or a
hob-nail while we were colonies, as it would gladly do again now. He
said that the New Englanders had a great deal of adventurous old Norse
blood in their veins, that they had plenty of ship-timber and tar. If
they could not make hob-nails they could make ships; and they made very
good ships before they had been in New England ten years.
Luckily for us, soon after the country became a country, near a hundred
years ago, the quarrels of Europe were such, that if an English ship
carried produce of the West Indies or China to Europe, France seized,
if she could, ship and cargo; if a French ship carried them, English
cruisers seized ship and cargo, if they could. So it happened that the
American ships and the American sailors, who were not at war with
England and were not at war with France, were able to carry the stores
which were wanted by all the world. The wars of Napoleon were thus a
steady bounty for the benefit of the commerce of America. When they were
well over, we had become so well trained to commerce here, that we could
build the best ships in the world; and we thought we had the best seamen
in the world,--certainly there were no better. Under such a stimulus,
and what followed it, our commerce, as measured by the tonnage of our
ships, was as large as that of any nation, and, if measured by the miles
sailed, was probably larger.
All this prosperity to merchants was broken up by the War of 1812,
between the United States and Great Britain. For two years and a half,
then, our intercourse with Europe was almost cut off; for the English
cruisers now captured our vessels whenever they could find them. At last
we had to make our own hob-nails, our guns, our cannon, our cotton
cloth, and our woollen cloth, if we meant to have any at all. The
farmers' wives and daughters had always had the traditions of spinning
and weaving.
When Colonel Ingham said this, Blanche nodded to Mary and Mary to
Blanche.
"That means," said the Colonel, "that you have brought dear old mother
Tucker's spinning-wheel downstairs, and have it in the corner behind
your piano, does it not?"
Blanche laughed, and said that was just what she meant.
"It does very well in 'Martha,'" said the Colonel. "And can you spin,
Blanche?"
Blanche rather surprised him by saying that she could, and the Colonel
went on with his lecture. Fergus, who is very proud of Blanche, slipped
out of the room, but was back after a minute, and no one missed him.
Here in Massachusetts some of the most skilful merchants--Appletons,
Perkinses, and Lawrences--joined hand with brave inventors like Slater
and Treadwell, and sent out to England for skilful manufacturers like
Crompton and Boott; thus there sprung up the gigantic system of
manufacture, which seems to you children a thing of course. Oddly
enough, the Southern States, which had always hated New England and New
England commerce, and had done their best to destroy it when they had a
chance, were very eager to secure a home-market for Southern cotton; and
thus, for many years after the war, they kept up such high protective
duties that foreign goods were very dear in America, and the New England
manufacturers had all the better prices.
While Uncle Fritz was saying this in substance, Ransom, the old servant,
appeared with a spinning-wheel from Colonel Ingham's music-room. The
children had had it for some charades. Kate Fogarty, the seamstress of
the Colonel's household, followed, laughing, with a great hank of flax;
and when the Colonel stopped at the interruption, Fergus said,--
"I thought, Uncle Fritz, they would all like to see how well Blanche
spins; so I asked Ransom to bring in the wheel."
And Blanche sat down without any coaxing, and made her wheel fly very
prettily, and spun her linen thread as well as her great-grandmamma
would have done. Colonel Ingham was delighted; and so were all the
children, half of whom had never seen any hand-spinning before. All of
them had seen cotton and wool spun in factories; in fact, half of them
had eaten their daily bread that day, from the profit of the factories
that for ten hours of every day do such spinning.
"Now, you see," said the well-pleased Colonel, "Blanche spins that flax
exactly as her grandmother nine generations back spun it. She spins it
exactly as Mrs. Dudley spun it in the old house where Dr. Paterson's
church stands. It is strange enough, but for one hundred and fifty years
there seems to have been no passion for invention among the New
Englanders. Now they are called a most _inventive_ people, and that bad
word has been coined for them and such as they.
"But all this is of the last century. It was as soon as they were thrown
on their own resources that they began to invent. Eli Whitney, a
Worcester County boy, graduated at Yale College in 1791. He went to
Georgia at once, to be a tutor in a planter's family; but before he
arrived, the planter had another tutor. This was a fortunate chance for
the world; for poor Whitney, disappointed, went to spend the winter at
the house of Mrs. General Greene. One day, at dinner, some guests of
hers said that cotton could never be exported with profit unless a
machine could be made to separate the seeds from the 'wool.' 'If you
want anything invented,' said Mrs. Greene, 'ask my young friend Mr.
Whitney; he will invent anything for you.' Whitney had then never seen
cotton unmanufactured. But he went to work; and before he was one year
out of college, he had invented the cotton-gin, which created an
enormous product of cotton, and, in fact, changed the direction of the
commerce of the world.
"Well, you know about other inventions. Robert Fulton, who built the
first effective steamboat, was born in Pennsylvania the same year
Whitney was born in Massachusetts.
"Hector, you are fond of imaginary conversations: write one in which
Whitney and Fulton meet, when each is twenty-one; let Daniel Boone look
in on them, and prophesy to them the future of the country, and how much
it is to owe to them and to theirs."
"I think Blanche had better write it--in a ballad," said Hector,
laughing. "It shall be an old crone spinning; and as she turns her wheel
she shall describe the Ætna Factory at Watertown."
"There shall be a _refrain_," said Wallace,--
"'Turn my wheel gayly;
Spin, flax, spin.'"
"No," said Hatty; "the refrain shall be
'Four per cent in six months,
Eight per cent in twelve.'
We are to go to Europe if the Vesuvius Mills pay a dividend. But if they
_pass_, I believe I am to scrub floors in my vacation."
"Very well," said Uncle Fritz, recalling them to the subject they had
started on. "All this is enough to show you how it is that you, who are
all New Englanders, are no longer seafaring boys or girls, exclusively
or even principally. Your great-grandmother, Alice, saved the lives of
all the crew of a Bristol trader, by going out in her father's boat and
taking her through the crooked passage between the Brewsters. You would
be glad to do it, but I am afraid you cannot."
"I should rather encourage those who go to do it," said Alice, demurely,
repeating one of their familiar jokes.
"And your great-grandfather, Seth, is the Hunt who discovered Hunt's
Reef in the Philippines. I am afraid you cannot place it on the map."
"I know I cannot," said Seth, bravely.
"No," said the old gentleman. "But all the same the reef is there. I
came to an anchor in the 'Calypso,' waiting for a southwest wind, in
sight of the breakers over it. And I wish we had the pineapples the
black people sold us there.
"All the same the New Englanders are good for something. Ten years
hence, you boys will be doing what your fathers are doing,--subduing the
world, and making it to be more what God wants it to be. And you will
not work at arms' length, as they did, nor with your own muscles."
"We have Aladdin's lamp," said Mary, laughing.
"And his ring," said Susie. "I always liked the ring one better than the
lamp one, though he was not so strong."
"He is prettier in the pictures," said George.
"Yes," said the Colonel; "we have stronger Genii than Aladdin had, and
better machinery than Prince Camaralzaman."
"I heard some one say that Mr. Corliss had added twenty-seven per cent
to the working power of the world by his _cut-off_," said Fergus.
The Colonel said he believed that was true. And this was a good
illustration of what one persevering and intelligent man can do in
bringing in the larger life and nobler purpose of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Such a man makes men cease from _labor_, which is always irksome, and
_work_ with God. This is always ennobling.
"I am ashamed to say that I do not know what a _cut-off_ is," said
Alice, who, like Seth, had been trained to "confess ignorance."
"I was going to say so," said John Rodman.
"And I,--and I,--and I," said quite a little chorus.
"We must make up a party, the first pleasant day, and go and see the
stationary engine which pumps this water for us." So the Colonel met
their confessions.
"But does not all this indicate that we might spend a few days in
looking up inventions?"
"I think we ought to," said Hatty. "Certainly we ought, if the Vesuvius
pays. Imagine me at Manchester. Imagine John Bright taking me through
his own mill, and saying to me, 'This is the rover we like best, on the
whole. Do you use this in America?' Imagine me forced to reply that I do
not know a rover when I see one, and could not tell a 'slubber' from a
'picker.'"
The others laughed, and confessed equal ignorance. "Only, John Bright
has no mills in Manchester, Hatty."
"Well, they are somewhere; and I must not eat the bread of the Vesuvius
slubbers, and not know something of the way in which slubbers came to
be."
"Very well," said Uncle Fritz, as usual recalling the conversation to
sanity. "Whom shall we read about first?"
"Tubal Cain first," said Fergus. "He seems to have been the first of the
crew."
"It was not he who found out witty inventions," said Fanchon, in a mock
_aside_.
"I should begin with Archimedes," said Uncle Fritz.
"Excellent!" said Fergus; "and then may we not burn up old Fogarty's
barn with burning-glasses?"
The children dislike Fogarty, and his barn is an eyesore to them. It
stands just beyond the hedge of the Lady Oliver garden.
"I thank Archimedes every time I take a warm bath. Did he not invent hot
baths?"
"What nonsense! He was killed by Caligula in one."
"You shall not talk such stuff.--Uncle Fritz, what books shall I bring
you?"
It would seem as if, perhaps, Uncle Fritz had led the conversation in
the direction it had taken. At least it proved that, all together on the
rolling book-rack which Mr. Perkins gave him, were the account of
Archimedes in the Cyclopædia Britannica, the account in the French
Universal Biography, the life in La Rousse's Cyclopædia, Plutarch's
Lives, and a volume of Livy in the Latin. From these together, Uncle
Fritz, and the boys and girls whom he selected, made out this little
history of Archimedes.
II.
ARCHIMEDES.
Archimedes was born in Syracuse in the year 287 B. C., and was killed
there in the year 212 B. C. He is said to have been a relation of Hiero,
King of Syracuse; but he seems to have held no formal office known to
the politicians. Like many other such men, however, from his time down
to Ericsson, he came to the front when he was needed, and served
Syracuse better than her speech-makers. While he was yet a young man, he
went to Alexandria to study; and he was there the pupil of Euclid, the
same Euclid whose Geometry is the basis of all the geometry of to-day.
While Archimedes is distinctly called, on very high authority, "the
first mathematician of antiquity," and while we have nine books which
are attributed to him, we do not have--and this is a great
misfortune--any ancient biography of him. He lived seventy-five years,
for most of that time probably in Syracuse itself; and it would be hard
to say how much Syracuse owed to his science. At the end of his life he
saved Syracuse from the Romans for three years, during a siege in which,
by his ingenuity, he kept back Marcellus and his army. At the end of
this siege he was killed by a Roman soldier when the Romans entered the
city.
The books of his which we have are on the "Sphere and Cylinder," "The
Measure of the Circle," "Conoids and Spheroids," "On Spirals,"
"Equiponderants and Centres of Gravity," "The Quadrature of the
Parabola," "On Bodies floating in Liquids," "The Psammites," and "A
Collection of Lemmas." The books which are lost are "On the Crown of
Hiero;" "Cochleon, or Water-Screw;" "Helicon, or Endless Screw;"
"Trispaston, or Combination of Wheels and Axles;" "Machines employed at
the Siege of Syracuse;" "Burning Mirror;" "Machines moved by Air and
Water;" and "Material Sphere."
As to the story of the bath-tub, Uncle Fritz gave to Hector to read the
account as abridged in the "Cyclopædia Britannica."
"Hiero had set him to discover whether or not the gold which he had
given to an artist to work into a crown for him had been mixed with a
baser metal. Archimedes was puzzled by the problem, till one day, as he
was stepping into a bath, and observed the water running over, it
occurred to him that the excess of bulk occasioned by the introduction
of alloy could be measured by putting the crown and an equal weight of
gold separately into a vessel filled with water, and observing the
difference of overflow. He was so overjoyed when this happy thought
struck him that he ran home without his clothes, shouting, 'I have found
it, I have found it,'--[Greek: Eurêka, Eurêka.]
"This word has been chosen by the State of California for its motto."
To make the story out, it must be supposed that the crown was irregular
in shape, and that the precise object was to find how much metal, in
measurement, was used in its manufacture. Suppose three cubic inches of
gold were used, Archimedes knew how much this would cost. But if three
cubic inches of alloy were used, the king had been cheated. What the
overflow of the water taught was the precise cubic size of the various
ornaments of the crown. A silver crown or a lead crown would displace as
much water as a gold crown of the same shape and ornament. But neither
silver nor lead would weigh so much as if pure gold were used, and at
that time pure gold was by far the heaviest metal known.
Fergus, who is perhaps our best mathematician, pricked up his ears when
he heard there was a treatise on the relation of the Circle to the
Square. Like most of the intelligent boys who will read this book,
Fergus had tried his hand on the fascinating problem which deals with
that proportion. Younger readers will remember that it is treated in
"Swiss Family." Jack--or is it perhaps Ernest?--remembers there, that
for the ribbon which was to go round a hat the hat-maker allowed three
times the diameter of the hat, and a little more. This "little more" is
the delicate fraction over which Archimedes studied; and Fergus, after
him. Fergus knew the proportion as far as thirty-three figures in
decimals. These are 3.141,592,653,589,793,238,462,643,383,279,502. When
Uncle Fritz asked Fergus to repeat these, the boy did it promptly,
somewhat to the astonishment of the others. He had committed it to
memory by one of Mr. Gouraud's "analogies," which are always convenient
for persons who have mathematical formulas to remember.
When those of the young people who were interested in mathematics looked
at Archimedes's solution of the problem, they found it was the same as
that they had themselves tried at school. But he carried it so far as to
inscribe a circle between two polygons, each of ninety-six sides; and
his calculation is based on the relation between the two.
Taking the "Swiss Family Robinson" statement again, Archimedes shows
that the circumference of a circle exceeds three times its diameter by a
small fraction, which is less than 10/70 and greater than 10/71 and that
a circle is to its circumscribing square nearly as 11 to 14. Those who
wish to carry his calculations farther may be pleased to know that he
found the figures 7 to 22 expressed the relation more correctly than 1
to 3 does. Metius, another ancient mathematician, used the proportion
113 to 355. If you reduce that to decimals, you will find it correct to
the sixth decimal. Remember that Archimedes and Metius had not the
convenience of the Arabic or decimal notation. Imagine yourselves doing
Metius's sum in division when you have to divide CCCLV by CXIII.
Archimedes, in fact, used the Greek notation,--which was a little better
than the Roman, but had none of the facility of ours. For every _ten_,
from 20 to 90, they had a separate character, and for every _hundred_,
and for every _thousand_. The _thousands_ were the units with a mark
underneath. Thus [Greek: a] meant 1, and [Greek: ,a] meant 1,000. To
express 113, Archimedes would have written [Greek: rig]. To express 355,
he would have written [Greek: tne]; and the place which these signs had
in the order would not have affected their value, as they do with us.
We cannot tell how the greater part of Archimedes's life was spent. But
whether he were nominally in public office or not, it is clear enough
that he must have given great help to Syracuse and her rulers, as an
engineer, long before the war in which the Romans captured that great
city. At that time Syracuse was, according to Cicero, "the largest and
noblest of the Greek cities." It was in Sicily; but, having been built
by colonists from Greece, who still spoke the Greek language, Cicero
speaks of it among Greek cities, as he would have spoken of Thurii, or
Sybaris, or the cities of "Magna Græcia,"--"great Greece," as they
called the Greek settlements in southern Italy. In the Second Punic War
Syracuse took sides against Rome with the Carthaginians, though her old
king, Hiero, had been a firm ally of the Romans. The most interesting
accounts that we have of Archimedes are in Livy's account of this war,
and in Plutarch's Life of Marcellus, who carried it on on the Roman
side. Livy says of Archimedes that he was--
"A man of unrivalled skill in observing the heavens and the stars, but
more deserving of admiration as the inventor and constructor of warlike
engines and works, by means of which, with a very slight effort, he
turned to ridicule what the enemy effected with great difficulty.
"The wall, which ran along unequal eminences, most of which were high
and difficult of access, some low and open to approach along level
vales, was furnished by him with every kind of warlike engine, as seemed
suitable to each particular place. Marcellus attacked from the
quinqueremes [his large ships] the wall of the Achradina, which was
washed by the sea. From the other ships the archers and slingers and
light infantry, whose weapon is difficult to be thrown back by the
unskilful, allowed scarce any person to remain upon the wall unwounded.
These soldiers, as they required some range in aiming their missiles
upward, kept their ships at a distance from the wall. Eight more
quinqueremes joined together in pairs, the oars on their inner sides
being removed, so that side might be placed to side, and which thus
formed ships [of double width], and were worked by the outer oars,
carried turrets built up in stories, and other battering-engines.
"Against this naval armament Archimedes placed, on different parts of
the walls, engines of various dimensions. Against the ships which were
at a distance he discharged stones of immense weight; those which were
nearer he assailed with lighter and more numerous missiles. Lastly, in
order that his own men might heap their weapons upon the enemy without
receiving any wounds themselves, he perforated the wall from the top to
the bottom with a great number of loop-holes, about a cubit in diameter,
through which some with arrows, others with scorpions of moderate size,
assailed the enemies without being seen. He threw upon their sterns some
of the ships which came nearer to the walls, in order to get inside the
range of the engines, raising up their prows by means of an iron grapple
attached to a strong chain, by means of a _tolleno_ [or derrick], which
projected from the wall and overhung them, having a heavy counterpoise
of lead which forced the line to the ground. Then, the grapple being
suddenly disengaged, the ship, falling from the wall, was by these
means, to the utter consternation of the seamen, so dashed against the
water that even if it came back to its true position it took in a great
quantity of water."
"Fancy," cried Bedford, "one of their double quinqueremes, when she had
run bravely in under the shelter of the wall. Just as the men think they
can begin to work, up goes the prow, and they all are tumbled down into
the steerage. Up she goes, and fifty rowers are on each other in a pile;
when the old pile-driver claw lets go again, and down she comes, splash
into the sea. And then Archimedes pokes his head out through one of the
holes, and says in Greek, 'How do you like that, my friends?' I do not
wonder they were discouraged."
The bold cliff of the water front of Syracuse gave Archimedes a
particular advantage for defensive operations of this sort. They are
described in more detail in Plutarch's Life of Marcellus, who was the
Roman general employed against Syracuse, and who was held at bay by
Archimedes for three years.
Here is Plutarch's account:--
Marcellus, with sixty galleys, each with five rows of oars, furnished
with all sorts of arms and missiles, and a huge bridge of planks laid
upon eight ships chained together,[1] upon which was carried the engine
to cast stones and darts, assaulted the walls. He relied on the
abundance and magnificence of his preparations, and on his own previous
glory; all which, however, were, it would seem, but trifles for
Archimedes and his machines.
These machines he had designed and contrived, not as matters of any
importance, but as mere amusements in geometry,--in compliance with King
Hiero's desire and request, some little time before, that he should
reduce to practice some part of his admirable speculations in science,
and by accommodating the theoretic truth to sensation and ordinary use,
bring it more within the appreciation of people in general. Eudoxus and
Archytas had been the first originators of this far-famed and highly
prized art of mechanics, which they employed as an elegant illustration
of geometrical truths, and as a means of sustaining experimentally, to
the satisfaction of the senses, conclusions too intricate for proof by
words and diagrams. As, for example, to solve the problem so often
required in constructing geometrical figures, "Given the two extremes to
find the two mean lines of a proportion," both these mathematicians had
recourse to the aid of instruments, adapting to their purpose certain
curves and sections of lines. But what with Plato's indignation at it,
and his invectives against it as the mere corruption and annihilation of
the one good of geometry, which was thus shamefully turning its back
upon the unembodied objects of pure intelligence, to recur to sensation,
and to ask help (not to be obtained without base subservience and
depravation) from matter; so it was that mechanics came to be separated
from geometry, and when repudiated and neglected by philosophers, took
its place as a military art.
Archimedes, however, in writing to King Hiero, whose friend and near
relative he was, had stated that, given the force, any given weight
might be moved; and even boasted, we are told, relying on the strength
of demonstration, that if there were another earth, by going into it he
could move this.
Hiero being struck with amazement at this, and entreating him to make
good this assertion by actual experiment, and show some great weight
moved by a small engine, he fixed upon a ship of burden out of the
king's arsenal, which could not be drawn out of the dock without great
labor by many men. Loading her with many passengers and a full freight,
sitting himself the while far off, with no great endeavor, but only
holding the head of the pulley in his hand and drawing the cord by
degrees, he drew the ship in a straight line, as smoothly and evenly as
if she had been in the sea.
The king, astonished at this, and convinced of the power of the art,
prevailed upon Archimedes to make him engines accommodated to all the
purposes, offensive and defensive, of a siege. These the king himself
never made use of, because he spent almost all his life in a profound
quiet and the highest affluence. But the apparatus was, in a most
opportune time, ready at hand for the Syracusans, and with it also the
engineer himself.
When, therefore, the Romans assaulted the walls in two places at once,
fear and consternation stupefied the Syracusans, believing that nothing
was able to resist that violence and those forces. But when Archimedes
began to ply his engines, he at once shot against the land forces all
sorts of missile weapons, with immense masses of stone that came down
with incredible noise and violence, against which no man could stand;
for they knocked down those upon whom they fell in heaps, breaking all
their ranks and files. In the mean time huge poles thrust out from the
walls over the ships [these were the derricks, or _tollenos_, of Livy]
sunk some by the great weights which they let down from on high upon
them; others they lifted up into the air by an iron hand or beak like a
crane's beak, and when they had drawn them up by the prow, and set them
on end upon the poop, they plunged them to the bottom of the sea. Or
else the ships, drawn by engines within, and whirled about, were dashed
against the steep rocks that stood jutting out under the walls, with
great destruction of the soldiers that were aboard them. A ship was
frequently lifted up to a great height in the air (a dreadful thing to
behold), and was rolled to and fro and kept swinging, until the mariners
were all thrown out, when at length it was dashed against the rocks, or
let fall.
At the engine that Marcellus brought upon the bridge of ships,--which
was called _Sambuca_ from some resemblance it had to an instrument of
music of that name,--while it was as yet approaching the wall, there was
discharged a piece of a rock of ten talents' weight,[2] then a second
and a third, which, striking upon it with immense force and with a noise
like thunder, broke all its foundation to pieces, shook out all its
fastenings, and completely dislodged it from the bridge. So Marcellus,
doubtful what counsel to pursue, drew off his ships to a safer distance,
and sounded a retreat to his forces on land. They then took a resolution
of coming up under the walls, if it were possible, in the night;
thinking that as Archimedes used ropes stretched at length in playing
his engines, the soldiers would now be under the shot, and the darts
would, for want of sufficient distance to throw them, fly over their
heads without effect. But he, it appeared, had long before framed for
such occasion engines accommodated to any distance, and shorter weapons;
and had made numerous small openings in the walls, through which, with
engines of a shorter range, unexpected blows were inflicted on the
assailants. Thus, when they, who thought to deceive the defenders, came
close up to the walls, instantly a shower of darts and other missile
weapons was again cast upon them. And when stones came tumbling down
perpendicularly upon their heads, and, as it were, the whole wall shot
out arrows against them, they retired.
And now, again, as they were going off, arrows and darts of a longer
range inflicted a great slaughter among them, and their ships were
driven one against another, while they themselves were not able to
retaliate in any way. For Archimedes had provided and fixed most of his
engines immediately under the wall; whence the Romans, seeing that
infinite mischiefs overwhelmed them from no visible means, began to
think they were fighting with the gods.
Yet Marcellus escaped unhurt, and, deriding his own artificers and
engineers, "What," said he, "must we give up fighting with this
geometrical Briareus, who plays pitch and toss with our ships, and with
the multitude of darts which he showers at a single moment upon us,
really outdoes the hundred-handed giants of mythology?" And doubtless
the rest of the Syracusans were but the body of Archimedes's designs,
one soul moving and governing all; for, laying aside all other arms,
with his alone they infested the Romans and protected themselves. In
fine, when such terror had seized upon the Romans that if they did but
see a little rope or a piece of wood from the wall, instantly crying out
that there it was again, that Archimedes was about to let fly some
engine at them, they turned their backs and fled, Marcellus desisted
from conflicts and assaults, putting all his hope in a long siege. Yet
Archimedes possessed so high a spirit, so profound a soul, and such
treasures of scientific knowledge, that though these inventions had now
obtained him the renown of more than human sagacity, he yet would not
deign to leave behind him any commentary or writing on such subjects;
but, repudiating as sordid and ignoble the whole trade of engineering,
and every sort of art that lends itself to mere use and profit, he
placed his whole affection and ambition in those purer speculations
where there can be no reference to the vulgar needs of life,--studies
the superiority of which to all others is unquestioned, and in which the
only doubt can be whether the beauty and grandeur of the subjects
examined or the precision and cogency of the methods and means of proof
most deserve our admiration.
It is not possible to find in all geometry more difficult and intricate
questions, or more simple and lucid explanations. Some ascribe this to
his natural genius; while others think that incredible toil produced
these, to all appearance, easy and unlabored results. No amount of
investigation of yours would succeed in attaining the proof; and yet,
once seen, you immediately believe you would have discovered it,--by so
smooth and so rapid a path he leads you to the conclusion required. And
thus it ceases to be incredible that (as is commonly told of him) the
charm of his familiar and domestic science made him forget his food and
neglect his person to that degree that when he was occasionally carried
by absolute violence to bathe, or have his body anointed, he used to
trace geometrical figures in the ashes of the fire, and diagrams in the
oil on his body, being in a state of entire preoccupation, and, in the
truest sense, divine possession, with his love and delight in science.
His discoveries were numerous and admirable; but he is said to have
requested his friends and relations that when he was dead they would
place over his tomb a sphere containing a cylinder, inscribing it with
the ratio which the containing solid bears to the contained.
The boys were highly edified by this statement of the difficulty which
Archimedes's friends found in making him take a bath, and chaffed Jack,
who had asked if he were not the inventor of bath-tubs.
When the reading from Plutarch was over, Fergus asked if that were all,
and was disappointed that there was nothing about the setting of ships
on fire by mirrors. It is one of the old stories of the siege of
Syracuse, that he set fire to the Roman ships by concentrating on them
the heat of the sun from a number of mirrors. But this story is not in
Livy, nor is it in Plutarch, though, as has been seen, they were well
disposed to tell what they knew which was marvellous in his
achievements. It is told at length and in detail by Zonaras and
Tzetzes, two Greek writers of the twelfth century, who must have found
it in some ancient writers whose works we do not now have.
"Archimedes," says Zonaras,[3] "having received the rays of the sun on a
mirror, by the thickness and polish of which they were reflected and
united, kindled a flame in the air, and darted it with full violence
upon the ships, which were anchored within a certain distance, in such a
manner that they were burned to ashes."
The same writer says that Proclus, a celebrated "mathematician" of
Constantinople, in the sixth century, at the siege of Constantinople set
fire to the Thracian fleet by means of brass mirrors. Tzetzes is yet
more particular. He says that when the Roman galleys were within a
bow-shot of the city walls, Archimedes brought together hexagonal
specula (mirrors) with other smaller ones of twenty-four facets, and
caused them to be placed each at a proper distance; that he moved these
by means of hinges and plates of metal; that the hexagon was bisected by
the meridian of summer and winter; that it was placed opposite the sun;
and that a great fire was thus kindled, which consumed the ships.
Now, it is to be remembered that these are the accounts of writers who
were not so good mechanics as Archimedes. It should be remembered, also,
that in the conditions of war then, the distance at which ships would be
anchored in a little harbor like that of Syracuse was not great. By
"bow-shot" would be meant the distance at which a bow would do serious
damage. Doubtful as the story of Zonaras and Tzetzes seems, it received
unexpected confirmation in the year 1747 from a celebrated experiment
tried by the naturalist Buffon.
After encountering many difficulties, which he had foreseen with great
acuteness, and obviated with equal ingenuity, Buffon at length succeeded
in repeating Archimedes's performance. In the spring of 1747 he laid
before the French Academy a memoir which, in his collected works,
extends over upwards of eighty pages. In this paper he described himself
as in possession of an apparatus by means of which he could set fire to
planks at the distance of 200 and even 210 feet, and melt metals and
metallic minerals at distances varying from 25 to 40 feet. This
apparatus he describes as composed of 168 plain glasses, silvered on the
back, each six inches broad by eight inches long. These, he says, were
ranged in a large wooden frame, at intervals not exceeding the third of
an inch, so that, by means of an adjustment behind, each should be
movable in all directions independent of the rest; the spaces between
the glasses being further of use in allowing the operator to see from
behind the point on which it behooved the various disks to be converged.
In this last statement there is a parallel with that of Tzetzes, who
speaks of the division of Archimedes's mirrors.
At the present moment naturalists are paying great attention to plans
for the using of the heat of the sun. It is said that on any county in
the United States, twenty by thirty miles square, there is wasted as
much heat of the sun as would drive, if we knew how to use it, all the
steam-engines in the world.
Fergus asked Uncle Fritz if he believed that Archimedes threw seven
hundred pounds of stone from one of his machines. The largest modern
guns throw shot of one thousand pounds, and it is only quite recently
that any such shot have been used.
Uncle Fritz told him that in the museum at St. Germain-en-Laye he would
one day see a modern catapult, made by Colonel de Reffye from the design
of a Roman catapult on Trajan's Column. This is supposed to be of the
same pattern which is called an "Onager" in the Latin books. This
catapult throws, when it is tested, a shot of twenty-four pounds, or it
throws a sheaf of short arrows. In one catapult the power is gained by
twisting ox-hide very tightly, and suddenly releasing it. Another is a
very stout bow, worked with a small windlass. Of course this will give a
great power.
Seven hundred pounds, however, seems beyond the ability of any such
machines as this; but from his higher walls Archimedes could, of course,
have rolled such stones down on the decks of the ships below. And if he
were throwing other stones or leaden balls to a greater distance with
his _Onagers_, it may well be that Plutarch or Livy did not take very
accurate account of the particular engine which threw one stone or
another.
Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier, to the great grief of
Marcellus, when the Romans finally took Syracuse. The city fell through
drunkenness, which was, and is, the cause of more failure in the world
than anything else which can be named. Marcellus, in some conversations
about the exchange or redemption of a prisoner, observed a tower
somewhat detached from the wall, which was, as he thought, carelessly
guarded. Choosing the night of a feast of Diana, when the Syracusans
were wholly given up to wine and sport, he took the tower by surprise,
and from the tower seized the wall and made his way into the city. In
the sack of the city by the soldiers, which followed, Archimedes was
killed. The story is told in different ways. Plutarch says that he was
working out some problem by a diagram, and never noticed the incursion
of the Romans, nor that the city was taken. A soldier, unexpectedly
coming up to him in this transport of study and meditation, commanded
him to follow him to Marcellus; which he declining to do before he had
worked out his problem to a demonstration, the soldier, enraged, drew
his sword, and ran him through. "Others write that a Roman soldier,
running upon him with a drawn sword, offered to kill him, and that
Archimedes, looking back, earnestly besought him to hold his hand a
little while, that he might not leave what he was then at work upon
inconsequent and imperfect; but the soldier, not moved by his entreaty,
instantly killed him. Others, again, relate that as Archimedes was
carrying to Marcellus mathematical instruments, dials, spheres, and
angles by which the magnitude of the sun might be measured to the sight,
some soldiers, seeing him, and thinking that he carried gold in a
vessel, slew him.
"Certain it is, that his death was very afflicting to Marcellus, and
that Marcellus ever after regarded him that killed him as a murderer,
and that he sought for the kindred of Archimedes and honored them with
signal honors."
Archimedes, as has been said, had asked that his monument might be a
cylinder bearing a sphere, in commemoration of his discovery of the
proportion between a cylinder and a sphere of the same diameter. A
century and a half after, when Cicero was quæstor of Sicily, he found
this monument, neglected, forgotten, and covered with a rank growth of
thistles and other weeds.
"It was left," he says, "for one who came from Arpinas, to show to the
men of Syracuse where their greatest countryman lay buried."
III.
FRIAR BACON.
"All the world seems to have known of Columbus's discoveries as soon as
he came home, but all the world did not know at once of Archimedes's
inventions; indeed, I should think the world did not know now what all
of them are."
Hester Van Brunt was saying this in the hall, as the girls laid off
their waterproofs, when they next met the Colonel.
"I think that may often be said of what we call Inventions and what we
call Discoveries," he said, "till quite recent times. When a man
invented a new process, it was supposed that if he could keep the
secret, it might be to him a very valuable secret. But when one
discovered an island or a continent, it was almost impossible to keep
the secret. They tried it sometimes, as you know. But there must be a
whole ship's crew who know something of the new-found land, and from
some of them the secret would leak out.
"But there has been many a process in the arts lost, because the man who
discovered the new quality in nature or invented the new method in
manufacture kept it secret, so that he might do better work than his
competitors. This went so far that boys were apprenticed to masters to
learn 'the secrets of their trades.'"
Fergus said that in old times inventors were not always treated very
kindly. If people thought they were sorcerers, or in league with the
Devil, they did not care much for the invention.
Uncle Fritz said they would find plenty of instances of the persecution
of inventors, even to quite a late date. It is impossible, of course, to
say how many good things were lost to the world by the pig-headedness
which discouraged new inventions. It is marvellous to think what
progress single men made, who had to begin almost at the beginning, and
learn for themselves what every intelligent boy or girl now finds ready
for him in the Cyclopædia. It is very clear that the same beginnings
were made again and again by some of the early inventors. Then, what
they learned had been almost forgotten. There was no careful record of
their experiments, or, if any, it was in one manuscript, and that was
not accessible to people trying to follow in their steps.
"I have laid out for you," said Uncle Fritz, "some of the early accounts
of Friar Bacon,--Roger Bacon. He is one of the most distinguished of the
early students of what we now call natural philosophy in England. It was
in one of the darkest centuries of the Dark Ages.
"But see what he did.
"There are to be found in his writings new and ingenious views of
Optics,--as, on the refraction of light, on the apparent magnitude of
objects, on the magnified appearance of the sun and moon when on the
horizon. He describes very exactly the nature and effects of concave and
convex lenses, and speaks of their application to the purposes of
reading and of viewing distant objects, both terrestrial and celestial;
and it is easy to prove from his writings that he was either the
inventor or the improver of the telescope. He also gives descriptions
of the camera obscura and of the burning-glass. He made, too, several
chemical discoveries. In one place he speaks of an inextinguishable
fire, which was probably a kind of phosphorus. In another he says that
an artificial fire could be prepared with saltpetre and other
ingredients which would burn at the greatest distance, and by means of
which thunder and lightning could be imitated. He says that a portion of
this mixture of the size of an inch, properly prepared, would destroy a
whole army, and even a city, with a tremendous explosion accompanied by
a brilliant light. In another place he says distinctly that thunder and
lightning could be imitated by means of saltpetre, sulphur, and
charcoal. As these are the ingredients of gunpowder, it is clear that he
had an adequate idea of its composition and its power. He was intimately
acquainted with geography and astronomy. He had discovered the errors of
the calendar and their causes, and in his proposals for correcting them
he approached very nearly to the truth. He made a corrected calendar, of
which there is a copy in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. In moral
philosophy, also, Roger Bacon has laid down some excellent precepts for
the conduct of life.[4]
"Now, if you had such a biography of such a man now, you would know that
without much difficulty you could find all his more important
observations in print. So soon as he thought them important, he would
communicate them to some society which would gladly publish them. In the
first place, he would be glad to have the credit of an improvement, an
invention, or a discovery. If the invention were likely to be
profitable, the nation would secure the profit to him if he fully
revealed the process. They would give him, by a 'patent,' the right to
the exclusive profit for a series of years. The nation thus puts an end
to the old temptation to secrecy, or tries to do so.
"But if you will read some of the queer passages from the old lives of
Bacon, you will see how very vague were the notions which the people of
his own time had of what he was doing."
Then Hester read some passages which Colonel Ingham had marked for her.
OF THE PARENTS AND BIRTH OF FRYER BACON, AND HOW HE ADDICTED HIMSELF TO
LEARNING.
In most men's opinions he was born in the West part of _England_ and was
son to a wealthy Farmer, who put him to School to the Parson of the Town
where he was born: not with intent that he should turn Fryer (as he
did), but to get so much understanding, that he might manage the better
that wealth he was to leave him. But young _Bacon_ took his learning so
fast, that the Priest could not teach him any more, which made him
desire his Master that he would speak to his father to put him to
_Oxford_, that he might not lose that little learning that he had
gained: his Master was very willing so to do: and one day, meeting his
father, told him, that he had received a great blessing of God, in that
he had given him so wise and hopeful a Child as his son _Roger Bacon_
was (for so was he named) and wished him withal to doe his duty, and to
bring up so his Child, that he might shew his thankfulness to God, which
could not better be done than in making him a Scholar; for he found by
his sudden taking of his learning, that he was a child likely to prove a
very great Clerk: hereat old _Bacon_ was not well pleased (for he
desired to bring him up to Plough and to the Cart, as he himself was
brought) yet he for reverence sake to the Priest, shewed not his anger,
but kindly thanked him for his paines and counsel, yet desired him not
to speak any more concerning that matter, for he knew best what best
pleased himself, and that he would do: so broke they off their talk and
parted.
So soon as the old man came home, he called to his son for his books,
which when he had, he locked them up, and gave the Boy a Cart Whip in
place of them, saying to him: "Boy, I will have you no Priest, you shall
not be better learned than I, you can tell by the Almanack when it is
best sowing Wheat, when Barley, Peas and Beans: and when the best
libbing is, when to sell Grain and Cattle I will teach thee; for I have
all Fairs and Markets as perfect in my memory, as Sir _John_, our
Priest, has Mass without Book: take me this Whip, I will teach the use
of it. It will be more profitable to thee than this harsh Latin: make no
reply, but follow my counsel, or else by the Mass thou shalt feel the
smart hand of my anger." Young _Bacon_ thought this but hard dealing,
yet he would not reply, but within six or eight days he gave his Father
the slip, and went to a Cloister some twenty miles off, where he was
entertained, and so continued his Learning, and in small time came to be
so famous, that he was sent for to the University of Oxford, where he
long time studied, and grew so excellent in the secrets of Art and
Nature, that not England only, but all Christendom, admired him.
HOW FRYER BACON MADE A BRAZEN HEAD TO SPEAK, BY THE WHICH HE WOULD HAVE
WALLED ENGLAND ABOUT WITH BRASS.
Fryer _Bacon_, reading one day of the many conquests of England,
bethought himself how he might keep it hereafter from the like
conquests, and so make himself famous hereafter to all posterity. This
(after great study) he found could be no way so well done as one; which
was to make a head of Brass, and if he could make this head to speak
(and hear it when it speaks) then might he be able to wall all England
about with Brass. To this purpose he got one Fryer _Bungy_ to assist
him, who was a great Scholar and a Magician, (but not to be compared to
Fryer _Bacon_), these two with great study and pains so framed a head of
Brass, that in the inward parts thereof there was all things like as in
a natural man's head: this being done, they were as far from perfection
of the work as they were before, for they knew not how to give those
parts that they had made motion, without which it was impossible that it
should speak: many books they read, but yet could not find out any hope
of what they sought, that at the last they concluded to raise a spirit,
and to know of him that which they could not attain to by their own
studies. To do this they prepared all things ready and went one Evening
to a wood thereby, and after many ceremonies used, they spake the words
of conjuration, which the Devil straight obeyed and appeared unto them,
asking what they would? "Know," said Fryer _Bacon_, "that we have made
an artificial head of Brass, which we would have to speak, to the
furtherance of which we have raised thee, and being raised, we will keep
thee here, unless thou tell to us the way and manner how to make this
Head to speak." The Devil told him that he had not that power of
himself: "Beginner of lies," said Fryer _Bacon_, "I know that thou
wouldst dissemble, and therefore tell it us quickly, or else we will
here bind thee to remain during our pleasures." At these threatenings
the Devil consented to do it, and told them, that with a continual fume
of the six hottest simples it should have motion, and in one month space
speak, the Time of the month or day he knew not: also he told them, that
if they heard it not before it had done speaking, all their labour
should be lost: they being satisfied, licensed the Spirit for to depart.
Then went these two learned Fryers home again, and prepared the Simples
ready, and made the fume, and with continual watching attended when this
Brazen-head would speak: thus watched they for three weeks without any
rest, so that they were so weary and sleepy, that they could not any
longer refrain from rest: then called Fryer _Bacon_ his man _Miles_, and
told him, that it was not unknown to him what pains Fryer _Bungy_ and
himself had taken for three weeks space, only to make, and to hear the
Brazen-head speak, which if they did not, then had they lost all their
labour, and all England had a great loss thereby: therefore he entreated
Miles that he would watch whilst that they slept, and call them if the
Head speake. "Fear not, good Master," said Miles, "I will not sleep, but
hearken and attend upon the head, and if it do chance to speak, I will
call you: therefore I pray take you both your rests and let me alone for
watching this head." After Fryer _Bacon_ had given him a great charge
the second time, Fryer _Bungy_ and he went to sleep, and _Miles_, alone
to watch the Brazen-head. _Miles_ to keep himself from sleeping, got a
Tabor and Pipe, and being merry disposed sang him many a merry Song;
and thus with his own Music and his Songs spent he his time, and kept
from sleeping at last. After some noise the Head spake these two words:
"_Time is_." Miles hearing it to speak no more, thought his Master would
be angry if he waked him for that, and therefore he let them both sleep,
and began to mock the Head in this manner: "Thou Brazen-faced Head, hath
my Master took all this pains about thee, and now dost thou requite him
with two words, _Time is_? had he watched with a Lawyer so long as he
hath watched with thee, he would have given him more, and better words
than thou hast yet. If thou canst speak no wiser, they shall sleep till
doom's day for me. _Time is_: I know _Time is_, and that thou shall
hear, good man Brazen face." And with this he sang him a song to his own
music as to times and seasons, and went on, "Do you tell us,
Copper-nose, when Time is? I hope we Scholars know our Times, when to
drink drunk, when to kiss our hostess, when to go on her score, and when
to pay it, that time comes seldom." After half an hour had passed, the
Head did speak again, two words, which were these: "_Time was_." _Miles_
respected these words as little as he did the former, and would not wake
them, but still scoffed at the Brazen head, that it had learned no
better words, and have such a Tutor as his Master: and in scorn of it
sung a Song to the tune of "A Rich Merchant man," beginning as follows:
Time was when thou a kettle
Wert filled with better matter:
But Fryer _Bacon_ did thee spoil,
When he thy sides did batter,
with more to the same purpose. "_Time was_," said he, "I know that,
Brazen face, without your telling, I know Time was, and I know what
things there was when Time was, and if you speak no wiser, no Master
shall be waked for me." Thus _Miles_ talked and sung till another half
hour was gone, then the Brazen head spake again these words, "_Time is
past_:" and therewith fell down, and presently followed a terrible
noise, with strange flashes of fire, so that _Miles_ was half dead with
fear. At this noise the two Fryers awaked, and wondered to see the whole
room so full of smoke, but that being vanished they might perceive the
Brazen head broken and lying on the ground: at this sight they grieved,
and called _Miles_ to know how this came. Miles half dead with fear,
said that it fell down of itself, and that with the noise and fire that
followed he was almost frighted out of his wits: Fryer _Bacon_ asked him
if he did not speak? "Yes," quoth _Miles_, "it spake, but to no purpose.
I'll have a Parrot speak better in that time than you have been teaching
this Brazen head." "Out on thee, villain," said Fryer _Bacon_, "thou
hast undone us both, hadst thou but called us when it did speak, all
England had been walled round about with Brass, to its glory, and our
eternal fames: what were the words it spake?" "Very few," said _Miles_,
"and those none of the wisest that I have heard neither: first he said,
'_Time is_.'" "Hadst thou called us then," said Fryer _Bacon_, "we had
been made for ever." "Then," said _Miles_, "half an hour after it spake
again and said '_Time was_.'" "And wouldst thou not call us then?" said
_Bungy_. "Alas!" said _Miles_, "I thought he would have told me some
long Tale, and then I purposed to have called you: then half an hour
after, he cried '_Time is past_,' and made such a noise, that he hath
waked you himself, methinks." At this Fryer _Bacon_ was in such a rage,
that he would have beaten his man, but he was restrained by _Bungy_:
but nevertheless for his punishment, he with his Art struck him dumb for
one whole month's space. Thus that great work of these learned Fryers
was overthrown (to their great griefs) by this simple fellow.
HOW FRYER BACON BY HIS ART TOOK A TOWN, WHEN THE KING HAD LAIN BEFORE IT
THREE MONTHS, WITHOUT DOING IT ANY HURT.
In those times when Fryer _Bacon_ did all his strange tricks, the Kings
of _England_ had a great part of _France_ which they held a long time,
till civil wars at home in this Land made them to lose it. It did chance
that the King of England (for some cause best known to himself) went
into _France_ with a great Army, where after many victories, he did
besiege a strong Town, and lay before it full three months, without
doing to the Town any great damage, but rather received the hurt
himself. This did so vex the King, that he sought to take it in any way,
either by policy or strength: to this intent he made Proclamation, that
whosoever could deliver this Town into his hand, he should have for his
pains ten thousand Crowns truly paid. This was proclaimed, but there was
none found that would undertake it: at length the news did come into
_England_ of this great reward that was promised. Fryer _Bacon_ hearing
of it, went into _France_, and being admitted to the King's presence, he
thus spake unto him: "Your Majesty I am sure hath not forgot your poor
servant _Bacon_, the love that you showed to me being last in your
presence, hath drawn me for to leave my Country and my Studies, to do
your Majesty service: I beseech your Grace, to command me so far as my
poor Art or life may do you pleasure." The King thanked him for his
love, but told him that he had now more need of Arms than Art, and
wanted brave Soldiers rather than learned Scholars. Fryer _Bacon_
answered, "Your Grace saith well; but let me (under correction) tell
you, that Art oftentimes doth these things that are impossible to Arms,
which I will make good in few examples. I will speak only of things
performed by Art and Nature, wherein there shall be nothing Magical: and
first by the figuration of Art, there may be made Instruments of
Navigation without men to row in them, as great ships, to brook the Sea,
only with one man to steer them, and they shall sail far more swiftly
than if they were full of men: Also Chariots that shall move with an
unspeakable force, without any living creature to stir them. Likewise,
an Instrument may be made to fly withal, if one sit in the midst of the
Instrument, and do turn an engine, by which the wings being Artificially
composed, may beat air after the manner of a flying Bird. By an
Instrument of three fingers high, and three fingers broad, a man may rid
himself and others from all Imprisonment: yea, such an Instrument may
easily be made, whereby a man may violently draw unto him a thousand
men, will they, nill they, or any other thing. By Art also an Instrument
may be made, wherewith men may walk in the bottom of the Sea or Rivers
without bodily danger: this _Alexander_ the Great used (as the Ethnic
philosopher reporteth) to the end he might behold the Secrets of the
Seas. But Physical Figurations are far more strange: for by that may be
framed Perspects and Looking-glasses, that one thing shall appear to be
many, as one man shall appear to be a whole Army, and one Sun or Moon
shall seem divers. Also perspects may be so framed, that things far off
shall seem most nigh unto us: with one of these did _Julius Cæsar_ from
the Sea coasts in _France_ marke and observe the situation of the
Castles in _England_. Bodies may also be so framed, that the greatest
things shall appear to be the least, the highest lowest, the most secret
to be the most manifest, and in such like sort the contrary. Thus did
_Socrates_ perceive, that the Dragon which did destroy the City and
Country adjoining with his noisome breath, and contagious influence, did
lurk in the dens between the Mountains: and thus may all things that are
done in Cities or Armies be discovered by the enemies. Again, in such
wise may bodies be framed, that venemous and infectious influences may
be brought whither a man will: In this did _Aristotle_ instruct
_Alexander_; through which instruction the poyson of a Basiliske, being
lifted up upon the wall of a City, the poyson was conveyed into the
City, to the destruction thereof: Also perspects may be made to deceive
the sight, as to make a man believe that he seeth great store of riches
when there is not any. But it appertaineth to a higher power of
Figuration, that beams should be brought and assembled by divers
flections and reflections in any distance that we will, to burne
anything that is opposite unto it, as is witnessed by those Perspects or
Glasses that burn before and behind. But the greatest and chiefest of
all figurations and things figured, is to describe the heavenly bodies,
according to their length and breadth in a corporal figure, wherein they
may corporally move with a daily motion. These things are worth a
kingdom to a wise man. These may suffise, my royal Lord, to shew what
Art can do: and these, with many things more, as strange, I am able by
Art to perform. Then take no thought for winning this Town, for by my
Art you shall (ere many days be past) have your desire."
The King all this while heard him with admiration: but hearing him now,
that he would undertake to win the Town, he burst out in these speeches:
"Most learned _Bacon_, do but what thou hast said, and I will give thee
what thou most desirest, either wealth or honour, choose what thou wilt,
and I will be as ready to perform, as I have been to promise."
"Your Majesty's love is all that I seek," said the Fryer, "let me have
that, and I have honour enough, for wealth, I have content, the wise
should seek no more: but to the purpose. Let your Pioneers raise up a
mount so high, (or rather higher), than the wall, and then you shall see
some probability of that which I have promised."
This Mount in two days was raised: then Fryer _Bacon_ went with the King
to the Top of it, and did with a perspect shew to him the Town, as
plainly as if he had been in it: at this the King did wonder, but Fryer
_Bacon_ told him, that he should wonder more, ere next day noon: against
which Time, he desired him to have his whole Army in readiness, for to
scale the wall upon a signal given by him, from the Mount. This the King
promised to do, and so returned to his Tent full of Joy, that he should
gain this strong Town. In the morning Fryer _Bacon_ went up to the Mount
and set his Glasses, and other Instruments up: in the meantime the King
ordered his Army, and stood in a readiness for to give the assaults:
when the signal was given which was the waving of a flag. Ere nine of
the clock Fryer _Bacon_ had burnt the State-house of the Town, with
other houses only by his Mathematical Glasses, which made the whole Town
in an uproar, for none did know how it came: whilst that they were
quenching of the same, Fryer _Bacon_ did wave his flag: upon which
signal given, the King set upon the Town, and took it with little or no
resistance. Thus through the Art of this learned man the King got this
strong Town, which he could not do with all his men without Fryer
_Bacon's_ help.
HOW FRYER BACON BURNT HIS BOOKS OF MAGIC AND GAVE HIMSELF TO THE STUDY
OF DIVINITY ONLY; AND HOW HE TURNED ANCHORITE.
Now in a time when Fryer _Bacon_ kept his Chamber (having some great
grief) he fell into divers meditations: sometimes into the vanity of
Arts and Sciences: then would he condemn himself for studying of those
things that were so contrary to his Order and Soul's health; and would
say that Magic made a Man a Devil; sometimes would he meditate on
Divinity; then would he cry out upon himself for neglecting the study of
it, and for studying Magic: sometime would he meditate on the shortness
of man's life, then would he condemn himself for spending a time so
short, so ill as he had done his: so would he go from one thing to
another and in all condemn his former studies.
And that the world should know how truly he did repent his wicked life,
he caused to be made a great fire; and sending for many of his Friends,
Scholars, and others, he spake to them after this manner: "My good
Friends and fellow Students, it is not unknown unto you, how that
through my Art I have attained to that credit, that few men living ever
had. Of the wonders that I have done, all England can speak, both King
and Commons: I have unlocked the secret of Art and Nature, and let the
world see those things, that have layen hid since the death of Hermes,
that rare and profound Philosopher: My Studies have found the secrets of
the Stars; the Books that I have made of them, do serve for Precedents
to our greatest Doctors, so excellent hath my Judgement been therein. I
likewise have found out the secrets of Trees, Plants and Stones, with
their several uses; yet all this knowledge of mine I esteem so lightly,
that I wish that I were ignorant, and knew nothing: for the knowledge of
these things, (as I have truly found) serveth not to better a man in
goodness, but only to make him proud and think too well of himself. What
hath all my knowledge of nature's secrets gained me? Only this, the loss
of a better knowledge, the loss of divine Studies, which makes the
immortal part of man (his Soul) blessed. I have found, that my knowledge
has been a heavy burden, and has kept down my good thoughts: but I will
remove the cause which are these Books: which I do purpose here before
you all to burn." They all intreated him to spare the Books, because in
them there were those things that after-ages might receive great benefit
by. He would not hearken unto them but threw them all into the fire, and
in that flame burnt the greatest learning in the world. Then did he
dispose of all his goods; some part he gave to poor Scholars, and some
he gave to other poor folks: nothing he left for himself: then caused he
to be made in the Church-wall a Cell, where he locked himself in, and
there remained till his death. His time he spent in Prayer, Meditation
and such Divine Exercises, and did seek by all means to persuade men
from the study of Magic. Thus lived he some two years space in that
Cell, never coming forth: his meat and drink he received in at a window,
and at that window he did discourse with those that came to him; His
grave he digged with his own nails, and was laid there when he dyed.
Thus was the Life and Death of this famous Fryer, who lived the most
part of his life a Magician, and died a true penitent sinner and an
Anchorite.
When Hester had finished reading, one of the boys said that if people
believed such things as that, he thought the wonder was that they made
any progress at all. Uncle Fritz said that in matters which make up what
we call science, they did not make much progress. The arts of the world
do not seem to have advanced much between the days of Solomon and those
of William the Conqueror.
"As you see," said Uncle Fritz, "an inventor was set down as a magician.
I think you can remember more instances."
Yes. Almost all the young people remember that in Marco Polo's day there
was a distinguished Venetian engineer with the armies of Genghis Khan,
whose wonderful successes gave rise, perhaps, to the story of
Aladdin.[5] The scene of his successes was Pekin; and it is to be
remembered that the story of Aladdin is not properly one of the Arabian
Nights, and that the scene is laid in China.
This led them to trying to match the wonders of Aladdin and of the
Arabian Nights by the wonders of modern invention; and they pleased
themselves by thinking of marvels they could show to unlearned nations
if they had the resources of Mr. Edison's laboratory.
"Aladdin rubbed his lamp," said Blanche. "You see, the lamp was his
electrical machine; and when he rubbed it, the lightnings went flying
hither and thither, and said, 'Here we are.'"
"That is all very fine," said Jack Withers; "but I stand by the Arabian
Nights, after all, and I think I shall, till Mr. Edison or the Taunton
locomotive shop will make for me some high-stepper on whose back I may
rise above the clouds, pass over the length and breadth of
Massachusetts, descend in the garden where Blanche is confined by the
hated mistress of a boarding-school in Walpole, and then, winning her
ready consent, can mount again with her, and before morning descend in
the garden of a beautiful cottage at Newport. We will spend six weeks in
playing tennis in the daytime, dancing in the Casino in the evenings,
and in sailing in Frank Shattuck's yacht between whiles. Then, and not
till then, would I admit that the Arabian Nights have been outdone by
modern science."
They all laughed at Jack's extravaganza, which is of a kind to which
they are beginning to be accustomed. But Mabel stuck to her text, and
said seriously, that Uncle Fred had said that what people now called
science sprung from the workshops of these very magicians. "The
magicians then had all the science there was. And if magic had not got a
bad name, should we not call the men of science magicians now?"
Uncle Fritz said yes to all her questions, but he said that they did not
cover the whole matter. The difference between a magician and a man of
science involves these habits: the magician keeps secret what he knows,
while the man of science discloses all he learns. Then the magician
affected to have spiritual power at command, while the man of science
only affects to use what he calls physical powers. Till either of them
tell us how to distinguish spiritual forces from physical forces, the
second distinction is of the less importance. But the other has made all
the difference in the world between the poor magic-men and the
science-men. For, as they had seen with Friar Bacon, the magic-men have
had their stories told by most ignorant people, seeing they did not
generally leave any records behind them; but the men of modern science,
having chosen to tell their own stories, have had them told, on the
whole, reasonably well, though generally stupidly.
"What a pity we have not Solomon's books of science!" said John Tolman.
"It is one of the greatest of pities that such books as those were not
kept. It seems as if people would have built on such foundations, and
that Science would have marched from step to step, instead of beginning
over and over again. But we do have Pliny's Natural History, as he chose
to call it. Far from building on that as a foundation, the Dark Ages
simply accepted it. And there are blunders or sheer lies in that book,
and in Aristotle's books, and Theophrastus's, and other such, which have
survived even to our day."
The children were peeping into the collection from which the Friar Bacon
stories had been read, and they lighted on these scraps about the
supposed life of Virgil. To the people of the Dark Ages Virgil was much
more a man of magic than a poet.
HOW VIRGILIUS WAS SET TO SCHOOL.
As Virgilius was born, then the town of Rome quaked and trembled: and in
his youth he was wise and subtle, and was put to school at Tolentin,
where he studied diligently, for he was of great understanding. Upon a
time the scholars had licence to go to play and sport them in the fields
after the usance of the old time; and there was also Virgilius thereby
also walking among the hills all about: it fortuned he spied a great
hole in the side of a great hill wherein he went so deep that he could
not see no more light, and then he went a little further therein, and
then he saw some light again, and then went he forth straight: and
within a little while after, he heard a voice that called, "Virgilius,
Virgilius;" and he looked about, and he could not see no body; then
Virgilius spake and asked, "Who calleth me?" Then heard he the voice
again, but he saw nobody: then said he, "Virgilius, see ye not that
little board lying beside you there, marked with that word?" Then
answered Virgilius, "I see that board well enough." The voice said, "Do
away that board, and let me out thereat." Then answered Virgilius to the
voice that was under the little board, and said, "Who art thou that
talkest me so!" Then answered the devil: "I am a devil, conjured out of
the body of a certain man, and banished till the day of judgement,
without I be delivered by the hands of men. Thus, Virgilius, I pray you
to deliver me out of this pain, and I shall shew unto thee many books of
necromancy, and how thou shalt come by it lightly and know the practise
therein, that no man in the science of necromancy shall pass thee; and
moreover I shall shew and inform you so that thou shalt have all thy
desire, whereby methinks it is a great gift for so little a doing, for
ye may also thus all your friends helpen, and make your enemies
unmighty." Through that great promise was Virgil tempted; he had the
fiend shew the books to him that he might have and occupy them at his
will. And so the fiend shewed him, and then Virgilius pulled open a
board, and there was a little hole, and thereat crawled the devil out
like an eel, and came and stood before Virgilius like a big man; thereat
Virgilius was astonished and marvelled greatly thereof that so great a
man might come out at so little a hole; then said Virgilius, "should ye
well pass into the hole that ye came out of?" "Yea, I shall well," said
the devil.--"I hold the best pledge that I have, ye shall not do it."
"Well," said the devil, "thereto I consent." And then the devil crawled
into the little hole again, and as he was therein, Virgilius covered the
hole again, and so was the devil beguiled, and might not there come out
again, but there abideth still therein. Then called the devil dreadfully
to Virgilius and said, "What have ye done?" Virgilius answered, "Abide
there still to your day appointed." And from thenceforth abideth he
there. And so Virgilius became very cunning in the practise of the black
science.
HOWE THE EMPEROR ASKED COUNSEL OF VIRGILIUS, HOW THE NIGHT RUNNERS AND
ILL DOERS MIGHT BE RID-OUT OF THE STREETS.
The emperor had many complaints of the night runners and thieves, and
also of the great murdering of people in the night, in so much that the
emperor asked counsel of Virgilius, and said: "That he hath great
complaints of the thieves that runneth by night for they kill many men;
what counsel, Virgilius, is best to be done?" Then answered Virgilius to
the emperor, "Ye shall make a horse of copper and a copper man upon his
back, having in his hands a flail of iron, and that horse, ye shall so
bring afore the towne house, and ye shall let cry that a man from
henceforth at ten of the clock should ring a bell, and he that after the
bell was rung in the streets should be slain, no work thereof should be
done." And when this cry was made the ruffians set not a point, but kept
the streets as they did afore and would not let therefor; and as soon as
the bell was rung at ten of the clock, then leaped the horse of copper
with the copper man through the streets of Rome, insomuch that he left
not one street in Rome unsought; and as soon as he found any man or
woman in the street he slew them stalk dead, insomuch that he slew above
two hundred persons or more. And this seeing, the thieves and
night-runners how they might find a remedy therefor, thought in their
minds to make a drag with a ladder thereon; and as they would go out by
night they took their ladders with them, and when they heard the horse
come, then cast they the drag upon the houses, and so went up upon their
ladders to the top of the houses, so that the copper man might not touch
them; and so abide they still in their wicked doing. Then came they
again to the emperor and complained, and then the emperor asked counsel
of Virgilius; and Virgilius answered and said, "that then he must get
two copper hounds and set them of either side of the copper horse, and
let cry again that no body after the bell is rung should depart out of
their house that would live." But the night walkers cared not a point
for that cry; but when they heard the horse coming, with their ladders
climbed upon the houses, but the dogs leaped after and tore them all in
pieces; and thus the noise went through Rome, in so much that nobody
durst in the night go in the street, and thus all the night-walkers were
destroyed.
HOW VIRGILIUS MADE A LAMP THAT AT ALL TIMES BURNED.
For profit of the common people, Virgilius on a great mighty marble
pillar, did make a bridge that came up to the palace, and so went
Virgilius well up the pillar out of the palace; that palace and pillar
stood in the midst of Rome; and upon this pillar made he a lamp of
glass that always burned without going out, and nobody might put it out;
and this lamp lightened over all the city of Rome from the one corner to
the other, and there was not so little a street but it gave such light
that it seemed two torches there had stand; and upon the walls of the
palace made he a metal man that held in his hand a metal bow that
pointed ever upon the lamp for to shoot it out; but always burned the
lamp and gave light over all Rome. And upon a time went the burgesses'
daughters to play in the palace and beheld the metal man; and one of
them asked in sport, why he shot not? And then she came to the man and
with her hand touched the bow, and then the bolt flew out, and brake the
lamp that Virgilius made; and it was wonder that the maiden went not out
of her mind for the great fear she had, and also the other burgesses'
daughters that were in her company, of the great stroke that it gave
when it hit the lamp, and when they saw the metal man so swiftly run his
way; and never after was he no more seen; and this foresaid lamp was
abiding burning after the death of Virgilius by the space of three
hundred years or more.
It is on the wrecks and ruins recorded in such fables as these that
modern science is builded.
IV.
BENVENUTO CELLINI.
"Now we will leave the fairy tales," said Uncle Fritz, "and begin on
modern times."
"Modern times means since 1492," said Alice,--"the only date in history
I am quite sure of, excepting 1866."
"Eighteen-hundred and sixty-six," said John Goodrich,--"the _Annus
Mirabilis_, celebrated for the birth of Miss Alice Francis and Mr. J.
G."
"Hush, hush! Uncle Fritz wants to say something."
"We will leave the fairy tales," said poor chicken-pecked Uncle Fritz,
"and begin with Benvenuto Cellini. Who has seen any of his work?"
Several of the girls who had been in Europe remembered seeing gold and
silver work of Benvenuto Cellini's in the museums. Uncle Fritz told them
that the little hand-bell used on his own tea-table was modelled at
Chicopee, in Massachusetts, from a bell which was the design of
Benvenuto Cellini; and he sent for the bell that the children might see
how ingenious was the ornamentation, and how simply the different
designs were connected together.
He told Alice she might read first from Vasari's account of him.
Vasari's book, which the children now saw for the first time, is a very
entertaining one. Vasari was himself an artist, of the generation just
following Michael Angelo. He was, indeed, the contemporary of Raphael.
But he is remembered now, not for his pictures, nor for his work in
architecture, both of which were noted in his time, but for his lives of
the most excellent painters, sculptors, and architects, which was first
published in 1550. Benvenuto Cellini was born ten years before Vasari,
and here is a part of Vasari's life of him.
LIFE OF BENVENUTO CELLINI.
Benvenuto Cellini, citizen of Florence, born in 1500, at present a
sculptor, in his youth cultivated the goldsmith's business, and had no
equal in that branch. He set jewels, and adorned them with diminutive
figures, exquisitely formed, and some of them so curious and fanciful
that nothing finer or more beautiful can be conceived. At Rome he made
for Pope Clement VII. a button to be worn upon his pontifical habit,
fixing a diamond to it with the most exquisite art. He was employed to
make the stamps for the Roman mint, and there never have been seen finer
coins than those that were struck in Rome at that period.
After the death of Pope Clement, Benvenuto returned to Florence, where
he made stamps with the head of Duke Alessandro, for the mint,
wonderfully beautiful. Benvenuto, having at last devoted himself to
sculpture and casting statues, made in France many works, while he was
employed at the Court of King Francis I. He afterwards came back to his
native country, where he executed in metal the statue of Perseus, who
cut off Medusa's head. This work was brought to perfection with the
greatest art and diligence imaginable.
Though I might here enlarge on the productions of Benvenuto, who always
shewed himself a man of great spirit and vivacity, bold, active,
enterprising, and formidable to his enemies,--a man, in short, who knew
as well how to speak to princes as to exert himself in his art,--I shall
add nothing further, since he has written an account of his life and
works, and a treatise on goldsmith's work as well as on casting statues
and many other subjects, with more art and eloquence than it is possible
for me to imitate. I shall therefore content myself with this account of
his chief performances.
Benvenuto was quite proud of his own abilities as a writer. Very
fortunately for us he has left his own memoirs. Here is the
introduction.
BENVENUTO'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
"It is a duty incumbent on upright and credible men of all ranks, who
have performed anything noble or praiseworthy, to record, in their own
writing, the events of their lives; yet they should not commence this
honorable task before they have passed their fortieth year. Such at
least is my opinion, now that I have completed my fifty-eighth year, and
am settled in Florence.
"Looking back on some delightful and happy events of my life, and on
many misfortunes so truly overwhelming that the appalling retrospect
makes me wonder how I reached this age, in vigor and prosperity, through
God's goodness, I have resolved to publish an account of my life.
"My grandfather, Andrea Cellini, was still living when I was about
three years of age, and he was then above a hundred. As they were one
day removing a water-pipe, a large scorpion, which they had not
perceived, came out of it. The scorpion descended upon the ground and
had got under a great bench, when I, seeing it, ran and caught it in my
hand. This scorpion was of such a size that whilst I held it in my
little hand, it put out its tail on one side, and on the other darted
its two mouths. I ran overjoyed to my grandfather, crying out,
'Grandfather, look at my pretty little crab!' The good old man, who knew
it to be a scorpion, was so frightened, and so apprehensive for my
safety, that he seemed ready to drop down dead, and begged me with great
eagerness to give the creature to him; but I grasped it the harder and
cried, for I did not choose to part with it. My father, who was in the
house, ran to us upon hearing the noise, and, happening just at that
instant to espy a pair of scissors, he laid hold of them, and, by
caressing and playing with me, he contrived to cut off the head and tail
of the scorpion. Then, finding I had received no harm from the venomous
reptile, he pronounced it a happy omen."
* * * * *
His father taught him to play upon the flute, and wished him to devote
himself to music; but his own inclinations were different.
"Having attained the age of fifteen, I engaged myself, against my
father's inclinations, with a goldsmith named Antonio di Sandro, an
excellent artist and a very worthy man. My father would not have him
allow me any wages; for this reason, that since I voluntarily applied
myself to this art, I might have an opportunity to withdraw whenever I
thought proper. So great was my inclination to improve, that in a few
months I rivalled the most skilful journeyman in the business, and began
to reap some fruits from my labor. I continued, however, to play
sometimes, through complaisance to my father, either upon the flute or
the horn; and I constantly drew tears and deep sighs from him every time
he heard me. From a feeling of filial piety, I often gave him that
satisfaction, endeavoring to persuade him that it gave me also
particular pleasure.
"Once when I was staying at Pisa, my father wrote to me in every letter
exhorting me not to neglect my flute, in which he had taken so much
pains to instruct me. Upon this, I entirely lost all inclination to
return to him; and to such a degree did I hate that abominable flute,
that I thought myself in a sort of paradise in Pisa, where I never once
played upon that instrument."
* * * * *
At the age of twenty-three (in 1523), Cellini went to Rome, where he did
much work for the Pope, Clement VII.
"About this time so dreadful an epidemic disease prevailed in Rome, that
several thousands died every day. Somewhat terrified at this calamity, I
began to indulge myself in certain recreations, as the fancy took me. On
holidays I amused myself with visiting the antiquities of that city, and
sometimes took their figures in wax; at other times, I made drawings of
them. As these antiquities are all ruinous edifices, where a number of
pigeons build their nests, I had a mind to divert myself among them with
my fowling-piece, and often returned home laden with pigeons of the
largest size. But I never chose to put more than a single ball into my
piece, and in this manner, being a good marksman, I procured a
considerable quantity of game. The fowling-piece was, both on the inside
and the outside, as bright as a looking-glass. I likewise made the
powder as fine as the minutest dust, and in the use of it I discovered
some of the most admirable secrets that ever were known till this time.
When I had charged my piece with a quantity of powder equal in weight to
the fifth part of the ball, it carried two hundred paces, point blank.
"While I was enjoying these pleasures, my spirits suddenly revived. I no
longer had my usual gloom, and I worked to more purpose than when my
attention was wholly engrossed by business; on the whole, my gun turned
rather to my advantage than the contrary.
"All Italy was now up in arms, and the Constable Bourbon, finding there
were no troops in Rome, eagerly advanced with his army towards that
capital. Upon the news of his approach, all the inhabitants took up
arms. I engaged fifty brave young men to serve under me, and we were
well paid and kindly treated.
"The army of the Duke of Bourbon having already appeared before the
walls of Rome, Alessandro del Bene requested that I would go with him to
oppose the enemy. I complied, and, taking one of the stoutest youths
with us,--we were afterwards joined by another,--we came up to the walls
of Campo Santo, and there descried that great army which was employing
every effort to enter the town at that part of the wall to which we had
approached. Many young men were slain without the walls, where they
fought with the utmost fury; there was a remarkably thick mist.
"Levelling my arquebuse where I saw the thickest crowd of the enemy, I
discharged it with a deliberate aim at a person who seemed to be lifted
above the rest; but the mist prevented me from distinguishing whether he
were on horseback or on foot. I then cautiously approached the walls,
and perceived that there was an extraordinary confusion among the
assailants, occasioned by our having shot the Duke of Bourbon; he was,
as I understood afterwards, that chief personage whom I saw raised above
the rest."
* * * * *
The Pope was induced by an enemy of Benvenuto, the Cardinal Salviati, to
send for a rival goldsmith, Tobbia, to come to Rome. On his arrival both
were summoned into the Pope's presence.
"He then commanded each of us to draw a design for setting a unicorn's
horn, the most beautiful that ever was seen, which had cost 17,000
ducats. As the Pope proposed making a present of it to King Francis, he
chose to have it first richly adorned with gold; so he employed us to
draw the designs. When we had finished them we carried them to the Pope.
Tobbia's design was in the form of a candlestick; the horn was to enter
it like a candle, and at the bottom of the candlestick he had
represented four little unicorns' heads,--a most simple invention. As
soon as I saw it, I could not contain myself so as to avoid smiling at
the oddity of the conceit. The Pope, perceiving this, said, 'Let me see
that design of yours.' It was the single head of a unicorn, fitted to
receive the horn. I had made the most beautiful sort of head
conceivable, for I drew it partly in the form of a horse's head, and
partly in that of a hart's, adorned with the finest sort of wreaths and
other devices; so that no sooner was my design seen but the whole Court
gave it the preference."
* * * * *
Benvenuto continued to make many beautiful things for Pope Clement VII.
up to the time of his death. That Pope was succeeded in the papal chair
by Cardinal Farnese (Paul III.), on the 13th of October, 1534.
"I had formed a resolution to set out for France, as well because I
perceived that the Pope's favor was withdrawn from me by means of
slanderers who misrepresented my services, as for fear that those of my
enemies who had most influence might still do me some greater injury.
For these reasons I was desirous to remove to some other country, and
see whether fortune would there prove more favorable to me. Leaving
Rome, I bent my course to Florence, whence I travelled on to Bologna,
Venice, and Padua."
He reached Paris, with two workmen whom he took with him from Rome,
"without meeting any ill accident, and travelling on in uninterrupted
mirth." But being dissatisfied with his reception there, he returned
instantly to Rome, where his fears were realized; for he was arrested by
order of the Pope, and made a prisoner in the Castle of St. Angelo.
"This was the first time I ever knew the inside of a prison, and I was
then in my thirty-seventh year. The constable of the Castle of St.
Angelo was a countryman of mine, a Florentine, named Signor Giorgio
Ugolini. This worthy gentleman behaved to me with the greatest
politeness, permitting me to walk freely about the castle on my parole
of honor, and for no other reason but because he saw the severity and
injustice of my treatment.
"Finding I had been treated with so much rigor in the affair, I began to
think seriously about my escape. I got my servants to bring me new thick
sheets, and did not send back the dirty ones. Upon their asking me for
them, I answered that I had given them away to some of the poor
soldiers. I pulled all the straw out of the tick of my bed, and burned
it; for I had a chimney in the room where I lay. I then cut those sheets
into a number of slips each about one third of a cubit in width; and
when I thought I had made a sufficient quantity to reach from the top to
the bottom of the lofty tower of the Castle of St. Angelo, I told my
servants that I had given away as much of my linen as I thought proper,
and desired they would take care to bring me clean sheets, adding that I
would constantly return the dirty ones.
"The constable of the castle had annually a certain disorder which
totally deprived him of his senses; and when the fit came upon him, he
was talkative to excess. Every year he had some different whim: one time
he fancied himself metamorphosed into a pitcher of oil; another time he
thought himself a frog, and began to leap as such; another time he
imagined he was dead, and it was found necessary to humor his conceit by
making a show of burying him; thus he had every year some new frenzy.
This year he fancied himself a bat, and when he went to take a walk, he
sometimes made just such a noise as bats do; he likewise used gestures
with his hands and body, as if he were going to fly. His physicians and
his old servants, who knew his disorder, procured him all the pleasures
and amusements they could think of, and as they found he delighted
greatly in my conversation, they frequently came to me to conduct me to
his apartment, where the poor man often detained me three or four hours
chatting with him.
"He asked me whether I had ever had a fancy to fly. I answered that I
had always been very ready to attempt such things as men found most
difficult; and that with regard to flying, as God had given me a body
admirably well calculated for running, I had even resolution enough to
attempt to fly. He then proposed to me to explain how I could contrive
it. I replied that when I attentively considered the several creatures
that fly, and thought of effecting by art what they do by the force of
nature, I did not find one so fit to imitate as the bat. As soon as the
poor man heard mention made of a bat, he cried out aloud, 'It is very
true! a bat is the thing.' He then addressed himself to me, and said,
'Benvenuto, if you had the opportunity, would you have the heart to make
an attempt to fly?' I answered that if he would give me leave, I had
courage enough to attempt to fly by means of a pair of wings waxed over.
He said thereupon, 'I should like to see you fly; but as the Pope has
enjoined me to watch over you with the utmost care, I am resolved to
keep you locked up with a hundred keys, that you may not slip out of my
hands.' I said, before all present, 'Confine me as close as you please,
I will contrive to make my escape, notwithstanding.'"
At night, with a pair of pincers which he had secured, he removed the
nails which fastened the plates of iron fixed upon the door, imitating
with wax the heads of the nails he took out, so that their absence need
not be seen.
"One holiday evening, the constable being very much disordered, he
scarce said anything else but that he was become a bat, and desired his
people that if Benvenuto should happen to escape, they should take no
notice of it, for he must soon catch me, as he should doubtless be
better able to fly by night than I; adding, 'Benvenuto is only a
counterfeit bat, but I am a bat in real earnest.'
"As I had formed a resolution to attempt my escape that night, I began
by praying fervently to Almighty God that it would please him to assist
me in the enterprise. Two hours before daybreak, I took the iron plates
from the door with great trouble. I at last forced the door, and having
taken with me my slips of linen, which I had rolled up in bundles with
the utmost care, I went out and got upon the right side of the tower,
and leaped upon two tiles of the roof with the greatest ease. I was in a
white doublet, and had on a pair of white half-hose, over which I wore a
pair of little light boots, that reached half-way up my legs, and in one
of these I put my dagger. I then took the end of one of my bundles of
long slips, which I had made out of the sheets of my bed, and fastened
it to one of the tiles of the roof that happened to jut out. Then
letting myself down gently, the whole weight of my body being sustained
by my arm, I reached the ground. It was not a moonlight night, but the
stars shone with resplendent lustre. When I had touched the ground, I
first contemplated the great height which I had descended with so much
courage, and then walked away in high joy, thinking I had recovered my
liberty. But I soon found myself mistaken, for the constable had caused
two pretty high walls to be erected on that side. I managed to fix a
long pole against the first wall, and by the strength of my arms to
climb to the top of it. I then fastened my other string of slips, and
descended down the steep wall.
"There was still another one; and in letting myself down, being unable
to hold out any longer, I fell, and, striking my head, became quite
insensible. I continued in that state about an hour and a half, as
nearly as I can guess. The day beginning to break, the cool breeze that
precedes the rising of the sun brought me to my senses; but I conceived
a strange notion that I had been beheaded, and was then in purgatory. I
recovered by degrees my strength and powers, and, perceiving that I had
got out of the castle, I soon recollected all that had befallen me. Upon
attempting to rise from the ground, I found that my right leg was
broken, three inches above the heel, which threw me into a terrible
consternation. Cutting with my dagger the part of my string of slips I
had left, I bandaged my leg as well as I could. I then crept on my hands
and knees towards the gate with my dagger in my hand, and effected my
egress. It was about five hundred paces from the place where I had had
my fall to the gate by which I entered the city. It was then broad
daylight. As I happened to meet with a water-carrier, who had loaded his
ass, and filled his vessels with water, I called to him, and begged he
would put me upon the beast's back, and carry me to the landing-place of
the steps of St. Peter's Church. I offered to give him a gold crown,
and, so saying, I clapped my hand upon my purse, which was very well
lined. The honest waterman instantly took me upon his back, and carried
me to the steps before St. Peter's Church, where I desired him to leave
me and run back to his ass.
"Whilst I was crawling along upon all four, one of the servants of
Cardinal Cornaro knew me, and, running immediately to his master's
apartment, awakened him out of his sleep, saying to him, 'My most
reverend Lord, here is your jeweller, Benvenuto, who has made his escape
out of the castle, and is crawling along upon all four, quite besmeared
with blood.' The cardinal, the moment he heard this, said to his
servants, 'Run, and bring him hither to my apartment upon your backs.'
When I came into his presence the good cardinal bade me fear nothing,
and immediately sent for an excellent surgeon, who set the bone,
bandaged my leg, and bled me. The cardinal then caused me to be put into
a private apartment, and went directly to the Vatican, in order to
intercede in my behalf with the Pope.
"Meanwhile the report of my escape made a great noise all over Rome; for
the long string of sheeting fastened to the top of the lofty tower of
the castle had excited attention, and the inhabitants ran in crowds to
behold the sight. By this time the frenzy of the constable had reached
its highest pitch; he wanted, in spite of all his servants, to fly from
the same tower himself, declaring there was but one way to retake me,
and that was to fly after me. He caused himself to be carried into the
presence of his Holiness, and began a terrible outcry, saying that I had
promised him, upon my honor, that I would not fly away, and had flown
away notwithstanding."
The Cardinal Cornaro, however, and others interceded for Benvenuto with
the Pope, on account of his courage, and the extraordinary efforts of
his ingenuity, which seemed to surpass human capacity. The Pope said he
had intended to keep him near his person, and to prevent him from
returning to France, adding, "I am concerned to hear of his sufferings,
however. Bid him take care of his health; and when he is thoroughly
recovered, it shall be my study to make him some amends for his past
troubles." He was visited by young and old, persons of all ranks.
After this, Benvenuto went once more to France, where he was received
with high consideration by Francis I., who gave him, for his home and
workshop in Paris, a large old castle called the Nesle, of a triangular
form, close to the walls of the city. Here, with workmen brought with
him from Italy, he began many great works.
"Being thus become a favorite of the king, I was universally admired. As
soon as I had received silver to make it of, I began to work on the
statue of Jupiter, and took into my service several journeymen. We
worked day and night with the utmost assiduity, insomuch that, having
finished Jupiter, Vulcan, and Mars in earth, and Jupiter being pretty
forward in silver, my shop began to make a grand show. Just about this
time the king made his appearance at Paris, and I went to pay my
respects to him. When his Majesty saw me, he called to me in high
spirits, and asked me whether I had anything curious to show him at my
shop, for he intended to call there. I told him of all I had done, and
he expressed an earnest desire to see my performances; and after dinner
that day, all the nobility belonging to the Court of France repaired to
my shop.
"I had just come home, and was beginning to work, when the king made his
appearance at my castle gate. Upon hearing the sound of so many hammers,
he commanded his retinue to be silent. All my people were at work, so
that the king came upon us quite unexpectedly. As he entered the saloon,
the first object he perceived was myself with a large piece of plate in
my hand, which was to make the body of Jupiter; another was employed on
the head, another again on the legs, so that the shop resounded with the
beating of hammers. His Majesty was highly pleased, and returned to his
palace, after having conferred so many favors on me that it would be
tedious to enumerate them.
"Having with the utmost diligence finished the beautiful statue of
Jupiter, with its gilt pedestal, I placed it upon a wooden socle, which
scarce made any appearance, and within that socle I fixed four little
globes of wood, which were more than half hidden in their sockets, and
so contrived that a little child could with the utmost ease move this
statue of Jupiter backwards and forwards, and turn it about. I took it
with me to Fontainebleau, where the King then resided. I was told to put
it in the gallery,--a place which might be called a corridor, about two
hundred paces long, adorned and enriched with pictures and pieces of
sculpture, amongst them some of the finest imitations of the antique
statues of Rome. Here also I introduced my Jupiter; and when I saw this
great display of the wonders of art, I said to myself, 'This is like
passing between the pikes of the enemy; Heaven protect me from all
danger!'
"This figure of Jupiter had a thunderbolt in his right hand, and by his
attitude seemed to be just going to throw it; in his left I had placed a
globe, and amongst the flames I had with great dexterity put a piece of
white torch. On the approach of night I lighted the torch in the hand of
Jupiter; and as it was raised somewhat above his head, the light fell
upon the statue, and caused it to appear to much greater advantage than
it would otherwise have done. When I saw his Majesty enter with several
great lords and noblemen, I ordered my boy to push the statue before
him, and this motion, being made with admirable contrivance, caused it
to appear alive; thus the other figures in the gallery were left
somewhat behind, and the eyes of all the beholders were first struck
with my performance.
"The king immediately cried out: 'This is one of the finest productions
of art that ever was beheld. I, who take pleasure in such things and
understand them, could never have conceived a piece of work the
hundredth part so beautiful!'"
* * * * *
Cellini, however, who was exacting and sensitive, became dissatisfied
with the treatment of the King of France; and, leaving his workmen at
his tower of the Nesle, he returned to Italy, and engaged in the service
of Cosmo de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who assigned him a house to
work in.
His chief performance here was a bronze statue of Perseus for the fine
square before the Palazzo Vecchio. After many drawbacks, doubts, and
difficulties,--
"I now took courage, resolving to depend on myself, and banished all
those thoughts which from time to time occasioned me great inquietude,
and made me sorely repent my ever having quitted France. I still
flattered myself that if I could but finish my statue of Perseus, all my
labors would be converted to delight, and meet with a glorious and happy
reward.
"This statue was intended to be of bronze, five ells in height, of one
piece, and hollow. I first formed my model of clay, more slender than
the statue was intended to be. I then baked it, and covered it with wax
of the thickness of a finger, which I modelled into the perfect form of
the statue. In order to effect in concave what the wax represented in
convex, I covered the wax with clay, and baked this second covering.
Thus, the wax dissolving, and escaping by fissures left open for the
purpose, I obtained, between the first model and the second covering, a
space for the introduction of the metal. In order to introduce the
bronze without moving the first model, I placed the model in a pit dug
under the furnace, and by means of pipes and apertures in the model
itself, I meant to introduce the liquid metal.
"After I had made its coat of earth, covered it well, and bound it
properly with irons, I began by means of a slow fire to draw off the
wax, which melted away by many vent-holes,--for the more of these are
made, the better the moulds are filled; and when I had entirely stripped
off the wax, I made a sort of fence round my Perseus, that is, round the
mould, of bricks, piling them one upon another, and leaving several
vacuities for the fire to exhale at. I next began gradually to put on
the wood, and kept a constant fire for two days and two nights, till,
the wax being quite off and the mould well baked, I began to dig a hole
to bury my mould in, and observed all those fine methods of proceeding
that are proscribed by our art. When I had completely dug my hole, I
took my mould, and by means of levers and strong cables directed it with
care, and suspended it a cubit above the level of the furnace, so that
it hung exactly in the middle of the hole. I then let it gently down to
the very bottom of the furnace, and placed it with all the care and
exactness I possibly could. After I had finished this part of my task I
began to make a covering of the very earth I had taken off; and in
proportion as I raised the earth, I made vents for it, of a sort of
tubes of baked earth, generally used for conduits, and other things of a
similar nature.
"I had caused my furnace to be filled with several pieces of brass and
bronze, and heaped them upon one another in the manner taught us by our
art, taking particular care to leave a passage for the flames, that the
metal might the sooner assume its color, and dissolve into a fluid.
Thus, with great alacrity, I excited my men to lay on the pine-wood,
which, because of the oiliness of the resinous matter that oozes from
the pine-tree and that my furnace was admirably well made, burned at
such a rate that I was continually obliged to run to and fro, which
greatly fatigued me. I, however, bore the hardship; but, to add to my
misfortune, the shop took fire, and we were all very much afraid that
the roof would fall in and crush us. From another quarter, that is, from
the garden, the sky poured in so much rain and wind that it cooled my
furnace.
"Thus did I continue to struggle with these cross accidents for several
hours, and exerted myself to such a degree that my constitution, though
robust, could no longer bear such severe hardship, and I was suddenly
attacked by a most violent intermitting fever; in short, I was so ill
that I found myself under a necessity of lying down upon my bed. This
gave me great concern, but it was unavoidable. I thereupon addressed
myself to my assistants, who were about ten in number, saying to them:
'Be careful to observe the method which I have shown you, and use all
possible expedition; for the metal will soon be ready. You cannot
mistake; these two worthy men here will quickly make the orifices. With
two such directors you can certainly contrive to pour out the hot metal,
and I have no doubt but my mould will be filled completely. I find
myself extremely ill, and really believe that in a few hours this severe
disorder will put an end to my life.' Thus I left them in great sorrow,
and went to bed. I then ordered the maids to carry victuals and drink
into the shop for all the men, and told them I did not expect to live
till the next morning. In this manner did I continue for two hours in a
violent fever, which I every moment perceived to increase, and I was
incessantly crying out, 'I am dying, I am dying.'
"My housekeeper was one of the most sensible and affectionate women in
the world. She rebuked me for giving way to vain fears, and at the same
time attended me with the greatest kindness and care imaginable;
however, seeing me so very ill, and terrified to such a degree, she
could not contain herself, but shed a flood of tears, which she
endeavored to conceal from me. Whilst we were both in this deep
affliction, I perceived a man enter the room, who in his person appeared
to be as crooked and distorted as a great S, and began to express
himself in these terms, in a dismal and melancholy voice: 'Alas, poor
Benvenuto, your work is spoiled, and the misfortune admits of no
remedy.'
"No sooner had I heard the words uttered by this messenger of evil, but
I cried out so loud that my voice might be heard to the skies, and got
out of bed. I began immediately to dress, and, giving plenty of kicks
and cuffs to the maidservants and the boy as they offered to help me on
with my clothes, I complained bitterly in these terms: 'Oh, you envious
and treacherous wretches, this is a piece of villany contrived on
purpose; but I will sift it to the bottom, and before I die give such
proofs who I am as shall not fail to astonish the whole world.' Having
huddled on my clothes, I went, with a mind boding evil, to the shop,
where I found all those whom I had left so alert and in such high
spirits, standing in the utmost confusion and astonishment. I thereupon
addressed them thus: 'Listen, all of you, to what I am going to say; and
since you either would not or could not follow the method I pointed out,
obey me now that I am present. My work is before us; and let none of
you offer to oppose or contradict me, for such cases as this require
activity and not counsel.' Hereupon one of them had the assurance to say
to me, 'Look you, Benvenuto, you have undertaken a work which our art
cannot compass, and which is not to be effected by human power.'
"Hearing these words, I turned round in such a passion, and seemed so
bent upon mischief, that both he and all the rest unanimously cried out
to me, 'Give your orders, and we will all second you in whatever you
command; we will assist you as long as we have breath in our bodies.'
These kind and affectionate words they uttered, as I firmly believe, in
a persuasion that I was upon the point of expiring. I went directly to
examine the furnace, and saw all the metal in it concreted. I thereupon
ordered two of the helpers to step over the way to a butcher for a load
of young oak which had been above a year drying, which had been already
offered to me.
"Upon his bringing me the first bundles of it, I began to fill the
grate. This sort of oak makes a brisker fire than any other wood
whatever; but the wood of elder-trees and pine-trees is used in casting
artillery, because it makes a mild and gentle fire. As soon as the
concreted metal felt the power of this violent fire, it began to
brighten and glitter. In another quarter I made them hurry the tubes
with all possible expedition, and sent some of them to the roof of the
house to take care of the fire, which through the great violence of the
wind had acquired new force; and towards the garden I had caused some
tables with pieces of tapestry and old clothes to be placed in order to
shelter me from the rain. As soon as I had applied the proper remedy to
each evil, I with a loud voice cried out to my men to bestir themselves
and lend a helping hand; so that when they saw that the concreted metal
began to melt again, the whole body obeyed me with such zeal and
alacrity that every man did the work of three. Then I caused a mass of
pewter weighing about sixty pounds to be thrown upon the metal in the
furnace, which, with the other helps, as the brisk wood-fire, and
stirring it sometimes with iron and sometimes with long poles, soon
became completely dissolved. Finding that, contrary to the opinion of my
ignorant assistants, I had effected what seemed as difficult to raise as
the dead, I recovered my vigor to such a degree that I no longer
perceived whether I had any fever, nor had I the least apprehension of
death.
"Suddenly a loud noise was heard, and a glittering of fire flashed
before our eyes, as if it had been the darting of a thunderbolt. Upon
the appearance of this extraordinary phenomenon terror seized upon all
present, and none more than myself. This tremendous noise being over, we
began to stare at each other, and perceived that the cover of the
furnace had burst and flown off, so that the bronze began to run.
"I immediately caused the mouths of my mould to be opened; but, finding
that the metal did not run with its usual velocity, and apprehending
that the cause of it was that the fusibility of the metal was injured by
the violence of the fire, I ordered all my dishes and porringers, which
were in number about two hundred, to be placed one by one before my
tubes, and part of them to be thrown into the furnace; upon which all
present perceived that my mould was filling: they now with joy and
alacrity assisted and obeyed me. I, for my part, was sometimes in one
place, sometimes in another, giving my directions and assisting my men,
before whom I offered up this prayer: 'O God, I address myself to thee.
I acknowledge in gratitude this mercy, that my mould has been filled. I
fall prostrate before thee, and with my whole heart return thanks to thy
divine majesty.'
"My prayer being over, I took a plate of meat which stood upon a little
bench, and ate with a great appetite. I then drank with all my
journeymen and assistants, and went joyful and in good health to bed;
for there were still two hours of night, and I rested as well as if I
had been troubled with no disorder.
"My good housekeeper, without my having given any orders, had provided a
good capon for my dinner. When I arose, which was not till about noon,
she accosted me in high spirits, and said merrily, 'Is this the man that
thought himself dying? It is my firm belief that the cuffs and kicks you
gave us last night when you were quite frantic and possessed, frightened
away your fever, which, apprehending you should fall upon it in the same
manner, took to flight.' So my whole poor family, having got over such
panics and hardships, without delay procured earthen vessels to supply
the place of the pewter dishes and porringers, and we all dined together
very cheerfully; indeed, I do not remember having ever in my life eaten
a meal with greater satisfaction or a better appetite. After dinner, all
those who had assisted me in my work came and congratulated me upon what
had happened, returned thanks to the Divine Being for having interposed
so mercifully in our behalf, and declared that they had in theory and
practice learnt such things as were judged impossible by other masters.
I thereupon thought it allowable to boast a little of my knowledge and
skill in this fine art, and, pulling out my purse, satisfied all my
workmen for their labor.
"Having left my work to cool during two days after it was cast, I began
gradually to uncover it. I first of all found the Medusa's head, which
had come out admirably by the assistance of the vents. I proceeded to
uncover the rest, and found that the other head--I mean that of
Perseus--was likewise come out perfectly well. I went on uncovering it
with great success, and found every part turn out to admiration, till I
reached the foot of the right leg, which supports the figure. I found
that not only the toes were wanting, but part of the foot itself, so
that there was almost one half deficient. This occasioned me some new
trouble; but I was not displeased at it, as I had expected this very
thing.
"It pleased God that as soon as ever my work, although still unfinished,
was seen by the populace, they set up so loud a shout of applause, that
I began to be somewhat comforted for the mortifications I had undergone;
and there were sonnets in my praise every day upon the gate, the
language of which was extremely elegant and poetical. The very day on
which I exhibited my work, there were above twenty sonnets set up,
containing the most hyperbolical praises of it. Even after I had covered
it again, every day a number of verses, with Latin odes and Greek poems,
were published on the occasion,--for it was then vacation at the
University of Pisa, and all the learned men and scholars belonging to
that place vied with each other in writing encomiums on my performance.
But what gave me the highest satisfaction was that even those of the
profession--I mean statuaries and painters--emulated each other in
commending me. In fact, I was so highly praised, and in so elegant a
style, that it afforded me some alleviation for my past mortification
and troubles, and I made all the haste I could to put the last hand to
my statue.
"At last, as it pleased the Almighty, I completely finished my work, and
on a Thursday morning exhibited it fully. Just before the break of day
so great a crowd gathered about it, that it is almost impossible for me
to give the reader an idea of their number; and they all seemed to vie
with each other who should praise it most. The duke stood at a lower
window of the palace, just over the gate, and, being half concealed
within side, heard all that was said concerning the work. After he had
listened several hours, he left the window highly pleased, and sent me
this message: 'Go to Benvenuto, and tell him from me that he has given
me higher satisfaction than I ever expected. Let him know at the same
time that I shall reward him in such a manner as will excite his
surprise.'"
* * * * *
The manuscript of Benvenuto's Life is not carried much farther. The
narrative breaks off abruptly in 1562, when Cellini was in the
sixty-second year of his age. He does not appear from this time to have
been engaged in any work of much importance. After the execution of his
grand achievement of the Perseus, the narrative of his life seems to
have been the most successful of all the labors of his declining years.
On the 15th day of February, 1570, this extraordinary man died. He was
buried, by his own direction, with great funeral pomp. A monk who had
been charged to compose the funeral sermon, in praise both of his life
and works and of his excellent moral qualities, mounted the pulpit and
delivered a discourse which was highly approved by the whole academy and
by the people. They struggled to enter the chapter, as well to see the
body of Benvenuto as to hear the commendation of his good qualities.
V.
BERNARD PALISSY.
Two or three of the girls had dabbled a little in painting on porcelain,
and several of them had become interested in various sorts of pottery.
Mabel had been at Newburyport, on a visit with some friends who had a
potter's wheel of their own; and she had turned for herself, and had had
baked, some vases and dishes which she had brought home with her.
This tempted them all to make a party, in which several of the boys
joined, to go to the Art Museum and see the exquisite pottery there, of
different sorts, ancient and modern. There they met one of the gentlemen
of a large firm of dealers in keramics; and he asked them to go through
their magnificent establishment, and see the collection, which is one of
great beauty. It shows several of the finest styles of manufacture in
very choice specimens.
This prepared them to see Japanese work. And when Uncle Fritz heard of
this, he asked Professor Morse, of Salem, if he would show them his
marvellous collection of Japanese pottery. Professor Morse lived in
Japan under very favorable auspices, and he made there a wonderful
collection of the work of the very best artists. So five or six of the
young people went down to Salem, at his very kind invitation, and saw
there what is one of the finest collections in the world.
All this interested them in what now receives a great deal of attention,
the manufacture and ornament of pottery. The word _keramics_ is a word
recently added to the English language to express the art of making
pottery and of ornamenting it.
When Uncle Fritz found that they really wanted to know about such
things, he arranged that for one afternoon they should read about
BERNARD PALISSY THE POTTER.
Bernard Palissy was born, about 1510, in the little town of Biron, in
Périgord, France. He became not only a great artist, but a learned
physician, and a writer of merit.
Born of poor parents of the working-class, he had to learn some trade,
and early applied himself to working glass, not as a glazier, but
staining it and cutting it up in little bits, to be joined together with
lead for the colored windows so much used in churches. This was purely
mechanical work; but Bernard's ambition led him to study drawing and
color, that he might himself design and execute, in glass, scenes from
the Bible and lives of the saints, such as he saw done by his superiors.
When he was old enough, curious to see the world and learn new things,
he took a journey on foot through several provinces of France, by
observation thus supplying the defects of his early education, and
reaping a rich harvest of facts and ideas, which developed the qualities
of his intelligence.
It was at this time that the Renaissance in Art was making itself felt
throughout Europe. Francis I. of France encouraged all forms of good
work by his patronage; and wherever he went the young Palissy was
animated and inspired by the sight of beautiful things.
_Faience_, an elegant kind of pottery, attracted his attention. This
appeared first in the fourteenth century. The Arabs had long known the
art of making tiles of clay, enamelled and richly ornamented. They
brought it into Spain, as is shown in the decorations of the Alhambra at
Seville and elsewhere. Lucca della Robbia in Italy first brought the art
to perfection, by making figures and groups of figures in high relief,
of baked clay covered with shining enamel, white, tinted with various
colors. The kind of work called _majolica_ differed from the earlier
faience by some changes in the material used for the enamel. In the
middle of the sixteenth century remarkable historical paintings were
executed in faience, upon huge _plaques_. All the cities of Italy vied
with each other in producing wonders in this sort of work; it is from
one of them, Faenza, that it takes its name. The method of making the
enamel was a deep secret; but Bernard Palissy, with long patience and
after many failures, succeeded in discovering it,--or, rather, in
inventing for himself a new method, which in some respects excelled the
old.
Palissy was the author of several essays, or "Discourses;" and from one
of these, written in quaint old French, we have his own account of his
invention.
He married and settled down in the year 1539 with a good income from his
intelligent industry. He had a pleasant little house in the country,
where, as he says, "I could rejoice in the sight of green hills, where
were feeding and gambolling lambs, sheep, and goats."
An incident, apparently slight, disturbed this placid domestic
happiness. He came across a cup of enamelled pottery, doubtless from
Italy. "This cup," he says, "was of such beauty, that, from the moment I
saw it, I entered into a dispute with myself as to how it could have
been made."
Enamel is nothing more than a kind of glaze colored with metallic acids,
and rendered opaque by the mixture of a certain quantity of tin. It is
usually spread upon metal, when only it is properly called enamel; but
this glaze can also be put upon earthenware. It makes vessels
water-tight, and gives them brilliancy of surface. To find out how to do
this was to make a revolution in the keramic art.
In France, in the sixteenth century, the only vessels, such as jugs or
vases, were made either of metal, wood, or coarse porous pottery,
through which water could penetrate; like the goulehs of the Arabs, or
the cantaras of the Moors, which are still used for fresh water to
advantage, since the evaporation of the drops keeps the water cold.
Many attempts had been made to imitate the beautiful and costly vases of
China; but no one succeeded until the potters of Italy found out how to
make faience. The discovery was hailed as a most valuable one. The
princes who owned the works guarded their secret with jealous care,--to
betray it would have been punished by death; so that Bernard Palissy had
no hope of being taught how it was done, even if he should go to the
places in Italy where the work was carried on.
"But," he says, "what others had found out, I might also discover; and
if I could once make myself master of the art of glazing, I felt sure I
could elevate pottery to a degree of perfection as yet unknown. What a
glory for my name, what a benefit to France, if I could establish this
industry here in my own land!"
He turned and turned the cup in his fingers, admiring the brilliant
surface. "Yes," he said at last; "it shall be so, for I choose! I have
already studied the subject. I will work still harder, and reach my aim
at last."
Exceptional determination of character was needed for such an object.
Palissy knew nothing about the component parts of enamels; he had never
even seen the process of baking clay, and he had to begin with the very
simplest investigations. To study the different kinds of earth and clay,
to acquire the arts of moulding and turning, and to gain some knowledge
of chemistry, all these were necessary. But he did not flinch, and
pursued his idea with indomitable perseverance.
"Moving only by chance," he says, "like a man groping in the dark, I
made a collection of all the different substances which seemed at all
likely to make enamel, and I pounded them up fine; then I bought earthen
pots, broke them into small bits, numbered these pieces, and spread over
each of them a different combination of materials. Now I had to have a
furnace in which to bake my experiments. I had no idea how furnaces were
usually made; so I invented one of my own, and set it up. But I had no
idea how much heat was required to melt enamels,--perhaps I heated my
furnace too much, perhaps not enough; sometimes my ingredients were all
burned up, sometimes they melted not at all; or else some were turned to
coal, while others remained undisturbed by the action of the fire."
Meanwhile the resources of the unlucky workman were fast diminishing;
for he had abandoned his usual work, by which he earned his living, and
kept making new furnaces, "with great expense and trouble, and a great
consumption of time and firewood."
This state of affairs much displeased his wife, who complained bitterly,
and tried to divert her husband from an occupation which earned for him
nothing but disappointment. The cheerful little household changed its
aspect; the children were no longer well-dressed, and the shabby
furniture and empty cupboards betrayed the decay which was falling upon
the family. The father saw with profound grief the wants of his
household; but success seemed ever so near to him, that he could not
bear to give it up. His hope at that time was but a mirage; and for long
afterwards, in this struggle between intelligence and the antagonism of
material things, ill fortune kept the upper hand.
One day, tired out by his failures, it occurred to him that a man
brought up to baking pottery would know how to bake his specimens better
than he could.
"I covered three or four hundred bits of broken vase with different
compounds, and sent them to a _fabrique_ about a mile and a half from my
house. The potters consented to put my patterns with their batch for the
oven. Full of impatience, I awaited the result of this experiment. I was
on hand when my specimens came out. I looked them anxiously all over;
not one was successful!
"The heat had not been strong enough, but I did not know this; I saw
only one more useless expense of money. One of the workmen came to me
and said, 'You will never make anything out of this; you had better go
back to your own business.'"
Palissy shook his head; he had still in his possession some few valuable
articles, souvenirs of happier days, which he could sell to renew his
experiments. In spite of the reproaches of his wife, he bought more
ingredients and more earthenware, and made new combinations.
Failure again! However, he would not be beaten. Some friends lent him a
little money; he sat up at night to make new mixtures of different
substances, all prepared with such care that he felt sure some of them
must be good. Then he carried them again to the potters, whom he urged
to the greatest care. They only shrugged their shoulders, and called him
"crack brain;" and when the batch was done, they brought the results to
Palissy with jeers. Some of the pieces were dirty white; others green,
red, or smoked by the fire; but all alike in being dull and worthless.
It was over. Discouragement took possession of Palissy. "I returned
home," he says, "full of confusion and sadness. Others might seek the
secret of enamels. I must set to work and earn money to pay my debts and
get bread for the family."
Most luckily for him at this time, a task was given him by government,
for which he was well suited, and which brought him good pay. The king,
Francis I., having had, like many another sovereign, some difficulty
with his faithful subjects in the matter of imposts, now found it
necessary to make a new regulation of taxes; and for this, among other
things, an inspection of the salt marshes on the coasts of France was
needed, in order to name the right sums for taxation, and a knowledge of
arithmetic was required as well. Palissy was appointed; and to the great
delight of his family, who thought that his mind would now be forever
diverted from the search for enamel, he set forth to explore the islands
and the shores of France. He drew admirable outlines of the forms of the
salt marshes, and wrote with eloquence upon the sublimity of the sea.
Ease and comfort came back. His task was ended; but debts were paid, and
plenty of money remained.
The first thing he saw on returning home, alas! was the cup,--his joy
and despair. "How beautiful it is! how brilliant!" he exclaimed; and
once more he threw himself into the pursuit of the elusive enamel.
It was easy to see that the so much admired faience of Italy was simply
common baked clay, covered with some substance glazed by heat, but so
composed as to adhere to the surface after it had cooled. But what
substance? He had tried all sorts of materials; why had none of them
melted? Palissy at length decided that the fault had been in using the
common potter's furnace. Since the materials were to be vitrified by the
process, they should be baked like glass. He broke up three dozen pots,
pounded up a great quantity of different ingredients, and spread them
with a brush on the fragments; then he carried them to the nearest
glass-works. He was allowed to superintend the baking himself; he put
the specimens in the oven, and passed the night attending the fire. In
the morning he took them out. "Oh, joy! Some of the compounds had begun
to melt; there was no perfect glaze, only a sign that I was on the right
road."
It was, however, still a long and weary one. After two more years,
Palissy was still far from the discovery of enamelling, but during this
time he was acquiring much knowledge. From a simple workman he had
become a learned chemist. He says himself, "The mistakes I made in
combining my enamels taught me more than the things which came right of
themselves."
There came a time, which he had once more resolved should be the last,
when he repaired to the glass-works, accompanied by a man loaded with
more than three hundred different patterns on bits of pottery. For four
hours Bernard gloomily watched the progress of baking. Suddenly he
started in surprise. Did his eyes deceive him? No! it was no illusion.
One of the pieces in the furnace was covered with a brilliant glazing,
white, polished, excellent. Palissy's joy was immense. "I thought I had
become a new creature," he says. "The enamel was found; France enriched
by a new discovery."
Palissy now hastened to undertake a whole vase. For many and large
pieces there was not room enough at his disposition in the ovens of the
glass-works. He did not worry about that, for he was quite sure he could
construct one of his own. He decided, too, at once to model and fashion
his own vases; for those which he bought of the potters, made of coarse
and heavy forms, no longer suited his ambition. He now designed forms,
turned and modelled them himself. Thus passed seven or eight months. At
last his vases were done, and he admired with pride the pure forms given
to the clay by his hands. But his money was giving out again, and his
furnace was not yet built. As he had nothing to pay for the work, he did
all the work himself,--went after bricks and brought them himself on his
back, and then built and plastered with his own hands. The neighbors
looked on in pity and ridicule. "Look," they said, "at Master Bernard!
He might live at his ease, and yet he makes a beast of burden of
himself!"
Palissy minded their sarcasms not at all. His furnace was finished in
good time, and the first baking of the clay succeeded perfectly. Now the
pottery was to be covered with his new enamel. Time pressed, for in a
few days there would be no more bread in the house for his children. For
a long time he had been living on credit, but now the butcher and baker
refused to furnish anything more. All about him he saw only unfriendly
faces; every one treated him as a fool. "Let him die of hunger," they
said, "since he will not listen to reason."
His wife was the worst of all. She failed to see any heroism in the
obstinacy or perseverance of her husband,--no wonder, perhaps, with the
sight of her suffering children before her eyes. She went about reciting
her misfortunes to all the neighborhood, very unwisely, as she thus
ruined the credit of her husband, his last and only resource.
Palissy was already worn out by so much manual labor, to which he was
little accustomed; nevertheless, he worked by night, and all night long,
to pound up and prepare the materials for his white enamel, and to
spread it upon his vases. A report went abroad, caused by the sight of
his lamp constantly burning, that he was trying to coin counterfeit
money. He was suspected, despised, and avoided, and went about the
streets hanging his head because he had no answer to make to his
accusers.
The moment which was to decide his life arrived. The vases were placed
in the furnace, and for six continuous days and nights he plied the
glowing fire with fuel. The heat was intolerable; but the enamel
resisted, nothing would melt, and he was forced to recognize that there
was too little of the glazing substance in the combination to vitrify
the others. He set to work to mix another compound, but his vases were
spoiled; he borrowed a few common ones from the pottery. During all this
delay he did not dare to let the fire go out, it would take so much wood
to start it again. Once more the newly covered pots were placed in the
intense furnace; in three or four hours the test would be completed.
Palissy perceived with terror that his fuel was giving out. He ran to
his garden, tore up fences, and cut down trees which he had planted
himself, and threw all these into the two yawning mouths of the furnace.
Not enough! He went into the house, and seized tables, chairs, and
bureaus; but the house was but poorly furnished, and contained but
little to feed the flames. Palissy returned. The rooms were empty, there
was absolutely nothing more to take; then he fell to pulling up the
planks of the floor. His wife, frightened to death, stood still and let
him go on. The neighbors ran in, at the sound of the axe, and said, "He
must be a fool!"
But soon pity changed to admiration. When Palissy took the vases from
the furnace, the common pots which all had seen before dull and coarse,
were of a clear pearly white, covered with brilliant polish.
So much emotion and fatigue had told upon the robust constitution of
Palissy. "I was," he says, "all used up and dried up on account of such
toil, and the heat of the furnace. It was more than a month since I had
had a dry shirt on my body, and I felt as if I had reached the door of
the sepulchre."
In spite of the success which he had now attained, our potter had by no
means reached the end of his misfortunes. He sold his vases, but could
not get much for them, as there were but a few, of poor shapes; for
those which he had modelled himself had all failed to take the enamel,
and the successful ones were only common things, bought on credit. The
small sum which he got by selling them was not enough by any means to
cover his expenses, pay his debts, and restore order to the house from
which pretty much everything was burned up for firewood in his furnace.
However, he was supported and happy in the thought of his success. He
said to himself: "Why be sad, when you have found what you were seeking
for? Go on working, and you will put your enemies to shame."
Once more he succeeded in borrowing a little money. He hired a man to
help him; and for want of funds, he paid this man by giving him all his
own good clothes, while he went himself in rags. The furnace he had made
was coming to pieces on account of the intense heat he had maintained in
it for six days and nights during his last experiment. He pulled it to
pieces with his own hands, working with fingers bleeding and bound up in
bandages. Then he fetched water, sand, lime, and stone, and built by
himself a new furnace, "without any help or any repose. A feverish
resolution doubled my strength, and made me capable of doing things
which I should have imagined impossible."
This time the oven heats admirably, the enamels appear to be melting.
Palissy goes to rest, and dreams of his new vases, which must bring
enough to pay all his debts; his impatient creditors come in the morning
to see the things taken from the furnace. Palissy receives them
joyfully; he would like to invite the whole town.
When the pieces came out of the oven, they were shining and beautiful;
but--always but!--an accident had deprived them of all value. Little
stones, which formed a part of the mortar with which the furnace was
built, had burst with the heat, and spattered the enamel all over with
sharp fragments cutting like a razor, entirely spoiling it of course.
Still, the vases were so lovely in form, and the glaze was so beautiful,
that several people offered to buy them if they could have them cheap.
This the proud potter would not bear. Seizing the vases, he dashed them
to the ground; then utterly worn out, he went into the house and threw
himself on the bed. His wife followed him, and covered him with
reproaches for thus wasting the chance of making a few francs for the
family. Soon he recovered his elasticity, reflecting "that a man who has
tumbled into a ditch has but one duty, and that is to try to get out of
it."
He now set to work at his old business of painting upon glass, and after
several months had earned enough to start another batch of vases. Of
these, two or three were successful and sold to advantage; the rest were
spoiled by ashes which fell upon the enamel in the furnace while it was
soft. He therefore invented what he called a "lantern" of baked clay, to
put over the vases to protect them in baking. This expedient proved so
good that it is still used.
The enamel once discovered, it would be supposed that all trouble was
over; but it is not enough to invent a process,--to carry it out, all
sorts of little things have to be considered, the least of which, if not
attended to, may spoil all the rest. These multiplied accidents, with
all the privations and sufferings he had undergone, were attacking the
health of Palissy. He says in his simple style,--
"I was so used up in my person, that there was no shape or appearance of
curve on my arms or legs; my so-called legs, indeed, were but a straight
line, so that when I had gartered my stockings, as soon as I began to
walk, they were down on my heels."
His enamelled pottery now began to make a living for its inventor, but
so poor a living that many things were wanting,--for instance, a
suitable workshop. For five or six years he carried on the work in the
open air; either heat, rain, or cold spoiled many of his vases, while he
himself, exposed to the weather, "passed whole nights at the mercy of
rain and cold, without any aid, comfort, or companionship except that
of owls screeching on one side and dogs howling on the other.
Sometimes," he continues, "winds and tempests blew with such violence
inside and outside of my ovens, that I was obliged to leave, with a
total loss of all they contained. Several times when I had thus left
everything, without a dry rag upon me, on account of the rain, I came in
at midnight or daybreak without any light, staggering like a drunken
man, all broken down at the thought of my wasted toil; and then, all wet
and dirty as I was, I found in my bedroom the worst affliction of all,
which makes me wonder now why I was not consumed by grief." He means the
scolding and reproaches of his wife.
But the time came when his perseverance was rewarded, and his pottery
brought him the fame and money he deserved. He was able to make new
experiments, and add to the value of his discovery. Having obtained the
white enamel, he had the idea of tinting it with all sorts of colors,
which he did successfully. He then began to decorate his faience with
objects modelled from nature, such as animals, shells, leaves, and
branches. Lizards of a bright emerald color, with pointed heads and
slender tails, and snakes gliding between stones or curled upon a bank
of moss, crabs, frogs, and spiders, all of their natural colors, and
disposed in the midst of plants equally well imitated, are the
characteristic details of the work of Palissy.
These perfect imitations of Nature were taken actually from Nature
herself. Palissy prepared a group of real leaves and stones, putting the
little insects or animals he wished to represent in natural attitudes
amongst them. He fastened these reptiles, fishes, or insects in their
places by fine threads, and then made a mould of the whole in plaster of
Paris. When it was done, he removed the little animals from the mould
so carefully that he could use them over and over again.
Thus, after sixteen years passed in untiring energy, sixteen years of
anxiety and privation, the artist triumphed over all the obstacles
opposed to his genius. The humble potter, despised of all, became the
most important man in his town. His productions were sought for eagerly,
and his reputation established forever.
His life henceforth was not free from events, but these were not
connected with his invention. His fame came to the knowledge of the
queen mother Catherine de Médicis; for Francis I. was no longer living,
and Charles IX. had succeeded Francis II. upon the throne. He was
summoned to Court, and employed to build grottos, decorated with his
designs, by personages of distinction,--one especially for the queen
herself, which he describes in his Discourse of the "Jardin Delectable."
He was in Paris at the time of the terrible massacre of St. Bartholomew,
where, as he was a Huguenot, he would doubtless have perished but for
the protection of the queen, who helped him to escape with his family.
Later, however, in the midst of the troubles and terrors of the time, he
was thrown into the Bastille; and there he died, an old man of eighty
years.
VI.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
"We call the Americans a nation of inventors," said Fergus. "How long
has this been true?"
"That is a very curious question," said Uncle Fritz. "You remember we
were talking of it before. When I go back to think of the hundred and
fifty years before Bunker Hill, I think there must have been a great
many inglorious Miltons hidden away in the New England towns. Really,
the arts advanced very little between 1630 and 1775. Flint-locks had
come in, instead of match-locks. But, actually, the men at Bunker Hill
rested over the rail-fence old muskets which had been used in Queen
Anne's time; and to this day a 'Queen's arm' is a provincial phrase, in
New England, for one of these old weapons, not yet forgotten. That
inability to improve its own condition comes to a people which lets
another nation do its manufacturing for it. You see much the same thing
in Turkey and French Canada. Just as soon as they were thrown on their
own resources here, they began to invent."
"But," said Fergus, "there was certainly one great American inventor
before that time."
"You mean Franklin,--the greatest American yet, I suppose, if you mean
to measure greatness by intellectual power and intellectual achievement.
Yes; Franklin's great discovery, and the inventions which followed on
it, were made twenty-five years and more before Bunker Hill."
"What is the association between Franklin and Robinson Crusoe?" asked
Alice. "I never read of one but I think of the other."
Uncle Fritz's whole face beamed with approbation.
"You have started me upon one of my hobbies," said he; "but I must not
ride it too far. Franklin says himself that De Foe's 'Essay on Projects'
and Cotton Mather's 'Essay to do Good' were two books which perhaps gave
him a turn of thinking which had an influence on some of the events in
his after life. And you may notice how an 'Essay on Projects' might
start his passion for having things done better than in the ways he saw.
The books that he was brought up on and with were books of De Foe's own
time,--none of them more popular among reading people of Boston than De
Foe's own books, for De Foe was a great light among their friends in
England.
"If Robinson Crusoe, on his second voyage, which was in the year 1718,
had run into Boston for supplies, as he thought of doing; and if old
Judge Sewall had asked him to dinner,--as he would have been likely to
do, for Robinson was a godly old gentleman then, of intelligence and
fortune,--if there had been by accident a vacant place at the table at
the last moment, Judge Sewall might have sent round to Franklin's father
to ask him to come in. For the elder Franklin, though only a
tallow-chandler,--and only Goodman Franklin, not _Mr._ Franklin,--was a
member of the church, well esteemed. He led the singing at the Old South
after Judge Sewall's voice broke down.
"Nay, when one remembers how much Sewall had to do with printing, one
might imagine that the boy Ben Franklin should wait at the door with a
proof-sheet, and even take off his boy's hat as Robinson Crusoe came
in."
Here Bedford Long put in a remark:--
"There are things in Robinson Crusoe's accounts of his experiments in
making his pipkins, which ought to bring him into any book of American
inventors."
"I never thought before," said Fergus, "that De Foe's experiences in
making tiles and tobacco-pipes and drain-pipes fitted him for all that
learned discussion of glazing, when Robinson Crusoe makes his pots and
pans."
"Good!" said Uncle Fritz; "that must be so.--Well, as you say, Alice,
there are whole sentences in that narrative which you could suppose
Franklin wrote, and in his works whole sentences which would fit in
closely with De Foe's writing. The style of the younger man very closely
resembles that of the older."
"And Franklin would have been very much pleased to hear you say so."
"He was forever inventing," said Uncle Fritz. "As I said, he was worried
unless things could be better done. If he was in a storm, he wanted to
still the waves. If the chimney smoked, he wanted to make a better
fireplace. If he heard a girl play the musical-glasses, he must have and
make a better set."
"And if the house was struck by lightning, he went out and put up a
lightning-rod."
"He had a little book by which people should make themselves better; for
he rightly considered that unless a man could do this, he could make no
other improvement of much account."
And when Uncle Fritz had said this, he found the passage, which he bade
John read to them.
FRANKLIN'S METHOD OF GROWING BETTER.
"I made a little book in which I allotted a page for each of the
virtues. [He had classified the virtues and made a list of thirteen,
which will be named below.] I ruled each page with red ink, so as to
have seven columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column
with a letter for the day. I crossed these columns with thirteen red
lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one
of the virtues, on which line and in its proper column I might mark, by
a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been
committed respecting that virtue upon that day. The thirteen virtues
were: 1. TEMPERANCE; 2. SILENCE; 3. ORDER; 4. RESOLUTION; 5. FRUGALITY;
6. INDUSTRY; 7. SINCERITY; 8. JUSTICE; 9. MODERATION; 10. CLEANLINESS;
11. TRANQUILLITY; 12. CHASTITY; 13. HUMILITY. Each of these appears, by
its full name or its initial, on every page of the book. But the full
name of one only appears on each page.
"My intention being to acquire the habitude of these virtues, I judged
it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at
once, but to fix it on one of them at a time, and when I should be
master of that, then to proceed to another,--and so on, till I should
have gone through the thirteen; and as the previous acquisition might
facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arranged them with that
view. Temperance first, as it tends to procure that coolness and
clearness of head which is so necessary where constant vigilance has to
be kept up, and a guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of
ancient habits, and the force of perpetual temptations."[6] And so he
goes on to show how Temperance would prepare for Silence, Silence for
Order, Order for Resolution, and thus to the end.
Here is the first page of the book, with the marks for the first six of
the virtues.
+--------------------------------+
| TEMPERANCE. |
+--------------------------------+
| EAT NOT TO DULNESS. |
| |
| DRINK NOT TO ELEVATION. |
+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | S.| M.| T.| W.|Th.| F.| S.|
| T. | | | | | | | |
| S. | * | * | | * | | * | |
| O. | * | * | * | | * | * | * |
| R. | | | * | | | * | |
| F. | | * | | | * | | |
| I. | | | * | | | | |
| S. | | | | | | | |
| J. | | | | | | | |
| M. | | | | | | | |
| C. | | | | | | | |
| T. | | | | | | | |
| C. | | | | | | | |
| H. | | | | | | | |
+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
"I determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the virtues
successively. Thus, in the first week my great guard was to avoid every
the least offence against _Temperance_, leaving the other virtues to
their ordinary chance, only marking every evening the faults of the
day. Thus, if in the first week I could keep my first line, marked T,
clear of spots, I supposed the habit of that virtue so much
strengthened, and its opposite weakened, that I might venture extending
my attention to include the next, and for the following week keep both
lines clear of spots. Proceeding thus to the last, I could go through a
course complete in thirteen weeks, and four courses in a year. And like
him who having a garden to weed does not attempt to eradicate all the
bad herbs at once, which would exceed his reach and his strength, but
works on one of the beds at a time, and, having accomplished the first,
proceeds to the second, so I should have, I hoped, the encouraging
pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress I made in virtue, by
clearing successively my lines of their spots, till in the end, by a
number of courses, I should be happy in viewing a clean book, after a
thirteen weeks' daily examination."
Uncle Fritz said that this plan of Franklin's had been quite a favorite
plan of different people at the end of the last century. Richard Lovell
Edgeworth, and Mr. Day, and a good many of the other reformers in
England, and many in France, really thought that if people only knew
what was right they would all begin and do it. They had to learn, by
their own experience or somebody's, that the difficulty was generally
deeper down.
There was a man, named Droz, who published a little book called "The Art
of being Happy," with tables on which every night you were to mark
yourself, as a school-mistress marks scholars at school, 10 for truth, 3
for temper, 5 for industry, 9 for frugality, and so on.[7]
"But in the long run," said Uncle Fritz, "there may be too much
self-examination. If you really look up and not down, and look forward
and not back, and loyally lend a hand, why, you can afford to look out
and not in, in general."
Fergus brought the talk back to the lightning-rod, and asked where was
the earliest hint of it.
The history seems to be this. In the year 1747 a gentleman named
Collinson sent to Franklin, from England or Scotland, one of the glass
tubes with which people were then trying electrical experiments.
Franklin was very much interested. He went on repeating the experiments
which had been made in England and on the Continent of Europe. With his
general love of society in such things, he had other glass tubes made,
and gave them to his friends.
He had one immense advantage over the wise men of England and France, in
the superior dryness of our air, which greatly favors such experiments.
Almost any one of the young Americans who will read this book has tried
the experiment of exciting electricity by shuffling across a Brussels
carpet on a dry floor, and then lighting the gas from a gas-jet by the
spark. But when you tell an Englishman in London that you have done
this, he thinks at first that you are making fun of him. For it is very
seldom that the air and the carpet and the floor are all dry enough for
the experiment to succeed in England. This difference of climate
accounts for the difficulty which the philosophers in England sometimes
found in repeating Dr. Franklin's experiments.
When it came to lightning and experiments about that, he had another
very great advantage; for we have many more thunder-storms than they
have. In the year 1752, when Mr. Watson was very eager to try the
lightning experiments in England, he seems to have had, in all the
summer, but two storms of thunder and lightning.
Franklin made his apparatus on a scale which now seems almost gigantic.
The "conductor" of an electrical machine such as you will generally see
in a college laboratory is seldom more than two feet long. Franklin's
conductor, which was hung by silk from the top of his room, was a
cylinder ten feet long and one foot in diameter, covered with gilt
paper. In his "Leyden battery" he used five glass jars, as big as large
water-pails,--they held nine gallons each. One night he had arranged to
kill a turkey by a shock from two of these. He received the shock
himself, by accident, and it almost killed him. He had a theory that if
turkeys were killed by electricity, the meat would perhaps be more
tender.
He acknowledges Mr. Collinson's present of the glass tube as early as
March 28, 1747. On the 11th of July he writes to Collinson that they
("we") had discovered the power of points to withdraw electricity
silently and continuously. On this discovery the lightning-rod is based.
He describes this quality, first observed by Mr. Hopkinson, in the
following letter:--
"The first is the wonderful effect of pointed bodies, both in _drawing
off_ and _throwing off_ the electrical fire.
"For example, place an iron shot, of three or four inches diameter, on
the mouth of a clean, dry glass bottle. By a fine silken thread from the
ceiling, right over the mouth of the bottle, suspend a small cork ball
about the bigness of a marble; the thread of such a length, as that the
cork ball may rest against the side of the shot. Electrify the shot, and
the ball will be repelled to the distance of four or five inches, more
or less, according to the quantity of electricity. When in this state,
if you present to the shot the point of a long, slender, sharp bodkin,
at six or eight inches distance, the repellency is instantly destroyed,
and the cork flies to the shot. A blunt body must be brought within an
inch and draw a spark, to produce the same effect. To prove that the
electrical fire is _drawn off_ by the point, if you take the blade of
the bodkin out of the wooden handle, and fix it in a stick of
sealing-wax, and then present it at the distance aforesaid, or if you
bring it very near, no such effect follows; but sliding one finger along
the wax till you touch the blade, the ball flies to the shot
immediately. If you present the point in the dark, you will see,
sometimes at a foot distance and more, a light gather upon it, like that
of a firefly or glow-worm; the less sharp the point, the nearer you must
bring it to observe the light; and at whatever distance you see the
light, you may draw off the electrical fire, and destroy the repellency.
If a cork ball so suspended be repelled by the tube, and a point be
presented quick to it, though at a considerable distance, it is
surprising to see how suddenly it flies back to the tube. Points of wood
will do near as well as those of iron, provided the wood is not dry; for
perfectly dry wood will no more conduct electricity than sealing-wax.
"To show that points will _throw off_ as well as _draw off_ the
electrical fire, lay a long, sharp needle upon the shot, and you cannot
electrize the shot so as to make it repel the cork ball. Or fix a needle
to the end of a suspended gun-barrel or iron rod, so as to point beyond
it like a little bayonet; and while it remains there, the gun-barrel or
rod cannot, by applying the tube to the other end, be electrized so as
to give a spark, the fire continually running out silently at the point.
In the dark you may see it make the same appearance as it does in the
case before mentioned."
The next summer, that of 1748, the experiments went so far, that in a
letter of Franklin's to Collinson he proposed the electrical
dinner-party, which was such a delight to Harry and Lucy:--
"Chagrined a little that we have been hitherto able to produce nothing
in this way of use to mankind, and the hot weather coming on when
electrical experiments are not so agreeable, it is proposed to put an
end to them for this season, somewhat humorously, in a party of pleasure
on the banks of the _Skuylkill_. Spirits, at the same time, are to be
fired by a spark sent from side to side through the river, without any
other conductor than the water; an experiment which we some time since
performed, to the amazement of many. A turkey is to be killed for our
dinner by the _electrical shock_, and roasted by the _electrical jack_,
before a fire kindled by the _electrified bottle_; when the healths of
all the famous electricians in England, Holland, France, and Germany are
to be drank in _electrified bumpers_, under the discharge of guns from
the _electrical battery_."
It was in a letter to Collinson of the next year, 1749,--as I suppose,
though it is not dated,--that the project of the lightning-rod first
appears. It is too long to copy. The paragraphs most important in this
view are the following:--
"42. An electrical spark, drawn from an irregular body at some distance,
is scarcely ever straight, but shows crooked and waving in the air. So
do the flashes of lightning, the clouds being very irregular bodies.
"43. As electrified clouds pass over a country, high hills and high
trees, lofty towers, spires, masts of ships, chimneys, &c., as so many
prominences and points, draw the electrical fire, and the whole cloud
discharges there.
"44. Dangerous, therefore, is it to take shelter under a tree during a
thunder-gust. It has been fatal to many, both men and beasts.
"45. It is safer to be in the open field for another reason. When the
clothes are wet, if a flash in its way to the ground should strike your
head, it may run in the water over the surface of your body; whereas, if
your clothes were dry, it would go through the body, because the blood
and other humors, containing so much water, are more ready conductors.
"Hence a wet rat cannot be killed by the exploding electrical bottle,
when a dry rat may."
In a letter of 1750, based upon observations made in 1749, Franklin said
distinctly, after describing some artificial lightning which he had
made:--
"If these things are so, may not the knowledge of this power of points
be of use to mankind, in preserving houses, churches, ships, &c., from
the stroke of lightning, by directing us to fix, on the highest parts of
these edifices, upright rods of iron made sharp as a needle, and gilded
to prevent rusting, and from the foot of those rods a wire down the
outside of the building into the ground, or down round one of the
shrouds of a ship, and down her side till it reaches the water? Would
not these pointed rods probably draw the electrical fire silently out of
a cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby secure us from
that most sudden and terrible mischief?
"To determine the question whether the clouds that contain lightning are
electrified or not, I would propose an experiment to be tried where it
may be done conveniently. On the top of some high tower or steeple,
place a kind of sentry-box, big enough to contain a man and an
electrical stand. From the middle of the stand let an iron rod rise and
pass bending out of the door and then upright twenty or thirty feet,
pointed very sharp at the end. If the electrical stand be kept clean and
dry, a man standing on it, when such clouds are passing low, might be
electrified and afford sparks, the rod drawing fire to him from a cloud.
If any danger to the man should be apprehended (though I think there
would be none), let him stand on the floor of his box, and now and then
bring near to the rod the loop of a wire that has one end fastened to
the leads, he holding it by a wax handle; so the sparks, if the rod is
electrified, will strike from the rod to the wire, and not affect him."
The Royal Society "did not think these papers worth printing"!
But, happily, Collinson printed them, and they went all over Europe. The
demonstration of the lightning theory, which he had wrought out by his
own experiments, was made in France, May 10, 1752; and in Philadelphia
by Franklin with the kite in the next month, before he had heard of the
success in France. Franklin's friend Dalibard tried the French
experiment. Here is his account of it, as he sent it to the French
Academy, as Roxana translated it for the young people:--
I have had perfect success in following out the course indicated by Mr.
Franklin.
I had set up at Marly-la-ville, situated six leagues from Paris, in a
fine plain at a very elevated level, a round rod of iron, about an inch
in diameter, forty feet long, and sharply pointed at its upper
extremity. To secure greater fineness at the point, I had it armed with
tempered steel, and then burnished, for want of gilding, so as to keep
it from rusting; beside that, this iron rod is bent near its lower end
into two acute but rounded angles; the first angle is two feet from the
lower end, and the second takes a contrary direction at three feet from
the first.
* * * * *
Wednesday, the 10th of May, 1752, between two and three in the
afternoon, a man named Coiffier, an old dragoon, whom I had intrusted
with making the observations in my absence, having heard rather a loud
clap of thunder, hastened at once to the machine, took the phial with
the wire, presented the loop of the wire to the rod, saw a small bright
spark come from it, and heard it crackle. He then drew a second spark,
brighter than the first and with a louder sound! He called his
neighbors, and sent for the Prior. This gentleman hastened to the spot
as fast as he could: the parishioners, seeing the haste of their priest,
imagined that poor Coiffier had been killed by the thunder; the alarm
was spread in the village; the hail-storm which began did not prevent
the flock from following its shepherd. This honest priest approached the
machine, and, seeing that there was no danger, went to work himself and
drew strong sparks. The cloud from which the storm and hail came was no
more than a quarter of an hour in passing directly over our machine, and
only this one thunder-clap was heard. As soon as the cloud had passed,
and no more sparks were drawn from the iron rod, the Prior of Marly sent
off Monsieur Coiffier himself, to bring me the following letter, which
he wrote in haste:--
I can now inform you, Sir, of what you are looking for. The experiment
is completely successful. To-day, at twenty minutes past two, P. M., the
thunder rolled directly over Marly; the clap was rather loud. The
desire to oblige you, and my own curiosity, made me leave my arm-chair,
where I was occupied in reading. I went to Coiffier's, who had already
sent a child to me, whom I met on the way, to beg me to come. I
redoubled my speed through a torrent of hail. When I arrived at the
place where the bent rod was set up, I presented the wire, approaching
it several times toward the rod. At the distance of an inch and a half,
or about that, there came out of the rod a little column of bluish fire
smelling of sulphur, which struck the loop of the wire with an extreme
and rapid energy, and occasioned a sound like that which might be made
by striking on the rod with a key. I repeated the experiment at least
six times, in the space of about four minutes, in the presence of
several persons; and each experiment which I made lasted the space of a
_Pater_ and an _Ave_. I tried to go on; the action of the fire slackened
little by little. I went nearer, and drew nothing more but a few sparks,
and at last nothing appeared.
The thunder-clap which caused this event was followed by no other; it
all ended in a great quantity of hail. I was so occupied with what I saw
at the moment of the experiment, that, having been struck on the arm a
little above my elbow, I cannot say whether it was in touching the wire
or the rod, I was not even aware of the injury which the blow had given
me at the moment when I received it; but as the pain continued, on my
return home I uncovered my arm before Coiffier, and we perceived a
bruised mark winding round the arm, like what a wire would have made if
my bare flesh had been struck by it. As I was going back from Coiffier's
house, I met Monsieur le Vicaire, Monsieur de Milly, and the
schoolmaster, to whom I related what had just happened. They all three
declared that they smelt an odor of sulphur, which struck them more as
they approached me. I carried the same odor home with me, and my
servants noticed it without my having said anything to them about it.
This, Monsieur, is an account given in haste, but simple and true, which
I attest, and you may depend on my being ready to give evidence of this
event on every opportunity. Coiffier was the first who made the
experiment, and repeated it several times; it was only on account of
what he had seen that he sent to ask me to come. If other witnesses than
he and I are necessary, you will find them. Coiffier is in haste to set
out.
I am, with respectful consideration, Monsieur,
Yours, &c.,
[Signed] RAULET, _Prior of Marly_.
MAY 10, 1752.
"I do not understand," said Uncle Fritz, "how it happened that no one
attempted the experiment before. Franklin had proposed it, very
distinctly, in 1750. His friend Dr. Stuber says that he was waiting for
the erection of a steeple in Philadelphia. You see, the Quakers, who had
founded this city, would have none; they derided what they called
'steeple-houses,' little foreseeing what advantage could be drawn from a
steeple.
"Meanwhile, in 1750, in October, he did take a view of New York from the
'Dutch Church steeple,' which had been struck by lightning in the spring
of that year. And here he was able to confirm his theory, by seeing that
'wire is a good conductor of lightning, as it is of electricity.'"
MUSICAL GLASSES.
While some of the children were reading these electrical passages,
others were turning over the next volume; and to their great delight,
they found a picture of the "Musical Glasses."
"I never had the slightest idea what musical glasses were," said Jack;
and he spouted from Goldsmith the passage from "The Vicar of Wakefield,"
where the fashionable ladies from London talked about "Shakspeare and
the musical glasses."
"Were they Dr. Franklin's musical glasses?"
"I never thought of that," said Uncle Fritz, well pleased; "but I think
it is so. John, look and see what year 'The Vicar of Wakefield' was
written in."
John turned to the Cyclopædia, and it proved that Goldsmith wrote that
book in 1766.
"And you see," said Uncle Fritz, "that it was in 1762 that Franklin made
his improvement, and that Mr. Puckeridge, the Irish gentleman, had
arranged his glasses before. I think you would find that the instrument
gradually worked its way into fashion,--slowly, as such things then did
in England,--and that Goldsmith knew about Dr. Franklin's modification.
"I do not now remember any other place where Goldsmith's life and his
touched. But they must have known a great many of the same people.
Franklin was all mixed up with the Grub Street people."
Meanwhile John was following up the matter in the Cyclopædia. But he did
not find "Armonica." Uncle Fritz bade him try in the "H" volume; and
there, sure enough, was "Harmonica," with quite a little history of the
invention. Mr. Puckeridge's fascinating name is there tamed down to
Pochrich, probably by some German translator. Dr. Franklin's instrument
is described, and the Cyclopædia man adds:--
"From the effect which it was supposed to have upon the nervous system,
it has been suggested that the fingers should not be allowed to come in
immediate contact with the glasses, but that the tones should be
produced by means of keys, as with a harpsichord. Such an instrument has
been made, and called the '_harpsichord harmonica_.' But these
experiments have not produced anything of much value. It is impossible
that the delicacy, the swell, and the continuation of the tone should be
carried to such perfection as in the simpler method. The harmonica,
however much it excels all other instruments in the delicacy and
duration of its tones, yet is confined to those of a soft and melancholy
character and to slow, solemn movements, and can hardly be combined to
advantage with other instruments. In accompanying the human voice it
throws it into the shade; and in concerts the other instruments lose in
effect, because so far inferior to it in tone. It is therefore best
enjoyed by itself, and may produce a charming effect in certain romantic
situations."
"'Romantic situations'! I should think so," said Mabel, laughing. "Is
not that like the dear German man that wrote this? I see myself lugging
my harmonica to the edge of the Kauterskill Falls."
"How do you know he was a German?" said Alice.
"Because, where John read 'the simpler method,' it says 'the
before-mentioned method.' No Englishman or American in his senses ever
said 'before-mentioned' if he could help himself."
"Do let us see how dear Dr. Franklin made his machine."
And the girls unfolded the old-fashioned picture, which is in the sixth
volume of Sparks's Franklin, and read his description of it as he wrote
it to Beccaria.
"Is it the Beccaria who did about capital punishment?" asked Fergus.
"No," Uncle Fritz said, "though they lived at the same time. They were
not brothers. The capital-punishment man was the Marquis _of_ Beccaria,
and that _of_ makes a great difference in Europe. This man 'did'
electricity, as you would say; and his name is plain Beccaria without
any _of_."
Then Mabel, commanding silence, at last read the letter to Beccaria. And
when she had done, Uncle Fritz said that he should think there might be
many a boy or girl who could not buy a piano or what he profanely called
a Yang-Yang,--by which he meant a reed organ,--who would like to make a
harmonica. The letter, in a part not copied here, tells how to tune the
glasses. And any one who lived near a glass-factory, and was on the
good-natured side of a good workman, could have the glasses made without
much expense.
_Letter of Franklin to J. B. Beccaria._
LONDON, July 13, 1762.
REVEREND SIR,--... Perhaps, however, it may be agreeable to you, as you
live in a musical country, to have an account of the new instrument
lately added here to the great number that charming science was already
possessed of. As it is an instrument that seems peculiarly adapted to
Italian music, especially that of the soft and plaintive kind, I will
endeavor to give you such a description of it, and of the manner of
constructing it, that you or any of your friends may be enabled to
imitate it, if you incline so to do, without being at the expense and
trouble I have been to bring it to its present perfection.
You have doubtless heard of the sweet tone that is drawn from a
drinking-glass by passing a wet finger round its brim. One Mr.
Puckeridge, a gentleman from Ireland, was the first who thought of
playing tunes formed of these tones. He collected a number of glasses of
different sizes, fixed them near each other on a table, tuned them by
putting into them water more or less, as each note required. The tones
were brought out by passing his finger round their brims. He was
unfortunately burned here, with his instrument, in a fire which consumed
the house he lived in. Mr. E. Delaval, a most ingenious member of our
Royal Society, made one in imitation of it, with a better form and
choice of glasses, which was the first I saw or heard. Being charmed by
the sweetness of its tones, and the music he produced from it, I wished
only to see the glasses disposed in a more convenient form, and brought
together in a narrower compass, so as to admit of a greater number of
tones, and all within reach of hand to a person sitting before the
instrument, which I accomplished, after various intermediate trials, and
less commodious forms, both of glasses and construction, in the
following manner.
The glasses are blown as nearly as possible in the form of hemispheres,
having each an open neck or socket in the middle. The thickness of the
glass near the brim about a tenth of an inch, or hardly quite so much,
but thicker as it comes nearer the neck, which in the largest glasses is
about an inch deep, and an inch and a half wide within, these dimensions
lessening as the glasses themselves diminish in size, except that the
neck of the smallest ought not to be shorter than half an inch. The
largest glass is nine inches diameter, and the smallest three inches.
Between these two are twenty-three different sizes, differing from each
other a quarter of an inch in diameter. To make a single instrument
there should be at least six glasses blown of each size; and out of this
number one may probably pick thirty-seven glasses (which are sufficient
for three octaves with all the semitones) that will be each either the
note one wants or a little sharper than that note, and all fitting so
well into each other as to taper pretty regularly from the largest to
the smallest. It is true there are not thirty-seven sizes, but it often
happens that two of the same size differ a note or half-note in tone, by
reason of a difference in thickness, and these may be placed one in the
other without sensibly hurting the regularity of the taper form.
The glasses being thus turned, you are to be provided with a case for
them, and a spindle on which they are to be fixed. My case is about
three feet long, eleven inches every way wide at the biggest end; for it
tapers all the way, to adapt it better to the conical figure of the set
of glasses. This case opens in the middle of its height, and the upper
part turns up by hinges fixed behind. The spindle, which is of hard
iron, lies horizontally from end to end of the box within, exactly in
the middle, and is made to turn on brass gudgeons at each end. It is
round, an inch in diameter at the thickest end, and tapering to a
quarter of an inch at the smallest. A square shank comes from its
thickest end through the box, on which shank a wheel is fixed by a
screw. This wheel serves as a fly to make the motion equable, when the
spindle with the glasses is turned by the foot like a spinning-wheel.
My wheel is of mahogany, eighteen inches diameter, and pretty thick, so
as to conceal near its circumference about twenty-five pounds of lead.
An ivory pin is fixed in the face of this wheel, and about four inches
from the axis. Over the neck of this pin is put the loop of the string
that comes up from the movable step to give it motion. The case stands
on a neat frame with four legs.
To fix the glasses on the spindle, a cork is first to be fitted in each
neck pretty tight, and projecting a little without the neck, that the
neck of one may not touch the inside of another when put together, for
that would make a jarring. These corks are to be perforated with holes
of different diameters, so as to suit that part of the spindle on which
they are to be fixed. When a glass is put on, by holding it stiffly
between both hands, while another turns the spindle, it may be gradually
brought to its place. But care must be taken that the hole be not too
small, lest, in forcing it up, the neck should split; nor too large,
lest the glass, not being firmly fixed, should turn or move on the
spindle, so as to touch or jar against its neighboring glass. The
glasses are thus placed one in another, the largest on the biggest end
of the spindle, which is to the left hand; the neck of this glass is
towards the wheel, and the next goes into it in the same position, only
about an inch of its brim appearing beyond the brim of the first; thus
proceeding, every glass when fixed shows about an inch of its brim (or
three quarters of an inch, or half an inch, as they grow smaller) beyond
the brim of the glass that contains it; and it is from these exposed
parts of each glass that the tone is drawn, by laying a finger upon one
of them as the spindle and glasses turn round.
My largest glass is G, a little below the reach of a common voice, and
my highest G, including three complete octaves. To distinguish the
glasses the more readily to the eye, I have painted the apparent parts
of the glasses withinside, every semitone white, and the other notes of
the octave with the seven prismatic colors,--viz., C, red; D, orange; E,
yellow; F, green; G, blue; A, indigo; B, purple; and C, red again,--so
that glasses of the same color (the white excepted) are always octaves
to each other.
This instrument is played upon by sitting before the middle of the set
of glasses, as before the keys of a harpsichord, turning them with the
foot, and wetting them now and then with a sponge and clean water. The
fingers should be first a little soaked in water, and quite free from
all greasiness; a little fine chalk upon them is sometimes useful, to
make them catch the glass and bring out the tone more readily. Both
hands are used, by which means different parts are played together.
Observe that the tones are best brought out when the glasses turn _from_
the ends of the fingers, not when they turn _to_ them.
The advantages of this instrument are, that its tones are incomparably
sweet, beyond those of any other; that they may be swelled and softened
at pleasure by stronger or weaker pressure of the finger, and continued
to any length; and that the instrument, being once well tuned, never
again wants tuning.
In honor of your musical language, I have borrowed from it the name of
this instrument, calling it the Armonica.
With great respect and esteem, I am, &c.,
B. FRANKLIN.
VII.
THEORISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
RICHARD LOVELL EDGEWORTH.
At the next meeting there was a slight deviation from the absolutely
expected. Bedford and Mabel desired to dispense with the regular order
of the day, and moved for permission to bring in a new inventor,
"invented by myself," said Mabel,--"entirely by myself, assisted by
Bedford. Nobody that I know of ever heard of him before. He is a new
discovery."
"Who is he?" asked Horace, somewhat piqued that there should be any one
interesting of whom he had not heard even the name.
"What did he invent?" asked Emma.
"Did he write memoirs?" asked Fergus.
"Did you ever read 'Frank'?" asked Mabel, in what is known as the
Socratic method.
There was a slight stir at the mention of this little classic. Few
seemed to be able to answer in the affirmative.
"I have read 'Rollo,'" said Horace.
"I have read 'Frank,'" said Will Withers, "and 'Harry and Lucy,' and the
'Parents' Assistant,' and 'Sandford and Merton,' and 'Henry Milner.' In
fact, there are few of those books, all kindred volumes, which I have
not read. They have had an important effect upon my later life."
"Hinc illae lachrymae," in a low tone from Clem Waters.
For Colonel Ingham, the turn taken by the conversation had a peculiar
charm. He was of the generation before the rest, and what were to them
but ghostly ideals were to him glad memories of a happy past.
"Good!" said he. "'Frank' was, in a sense, the greatest book ever
written. Do you remember that part where Frank lifted up the skirts of
his coat when passing through the greenhouse?" he asked of Mabel.
"I should think I did," said Mabel and Will. As for Bedford, he had only
a vague recollection of it. The others considered the conversation to be
trembling upon the verge of insanity.
"Perhaps," said Florence, gently, "I might be allowed to suggest that
although you have heard of 'Frank' and those other persons mentioned, we
have not. I do not think that I ever heard of an inventor named
Frank,--did he have any other name?--and I am usually considered," she
went on modestly, "tolerably well informed. Therefore the present
conversation, though probably edifying in a high degree to those who
have read 'Frank,' or who have some interest in horticulture and
greenhouses, can hardly fail to be very stupid to those of us who have
not."
"My dear child," said the Colonel, "you are right. Mabel and I, and Will
and Bedford here, are of the generation that is passing off the stage.
We look back to the things of our youth, hardly considering that there
are those to whom that period suggests Noah and his ark."
"But who is the inventor?" asked some one who thought that the
conversation was gradually leaving the trodden path.
"Oh, we had almost forgotten him," said Bedford.
"The inventor," said Mabel, producing two volumes from under her arm,
"is Mr. Richard Lovell Edgeworth, the father of Maria Edgeworth."
"What did he invent?" asked many of the company.
"He invented the telegraph."
"Well, I never knew that before."
"I thought Morse invented the telegraph."
"Didn't Dr. Franklin invent the telegraph?"
"I thought Edison--"
Other remarks were also made, showing a certain amount of incredulity.
"You mistake," said Bedford, placidly; "you are all of you under a
misapprehension. I think that you all of you allude to the electric
telegraph,--an invention of a later date than that of Mr. Edgeworth, and
one of more value, as far as practical affairs are concerned. No; Mr.
Edgeworth invented, or thinks he invented, the telegraph as it was used
in the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth,
sometimes named the Semaphore. It wasn't a difficult invention, and I
don't believe it ever came to any very practical use as constructed by
Edgeworth, though French telegraphs were very useful."
"What kind of a telegraph was it?"
"Well, it was just the kind of a telegraph that the conductor of a
railroad train is when he waves his arms to the engineer to go ahead.
There's an account of it by Edgeworth in one of these books, with
pictures to it."
"But my chief interest about Edgeworth," said Mabel, "is in his memoirs,
which are written partly by himself and partly by his daughter. They are
really very amusing. He was married five times,--once with a door-key
when he was only fourteen."
This startling intelligence roused even Colonel Ingham to demand
particulars. Was he married to all five at once? to all of them when he
was only fourteen?
"No," admitted Mabel, with some regret; "he was married to them, all at
different times, and he was divorced from the one he married at fourteen
with the door-key."
"They were only married for fun," said Bedford. "It was all a joke. They
were at a wedding, and they thought it would be funny after the real
marriage to have a mock one. So they did, and married Edgeworth to a
girl who was there. It was a real marriage, for they were afterwards
divorced."
"Well," said Sam Edmeston, "I shall be glad to hear about this
gentleman, I'm sure, though I never did hear of him before. But may I
ask why it was necessary to introduce him by means of an allusion to
'Frank' and other works which we have few of us ever read, though it is
very possible that we may some of us have heard of them?"
"I see why Mabel spoke first of 'Frank,'" said Colonel Ingham. "And I
think that she did very well to bring Edgeworth in as she has done. And
Edgeworth, though I had not thought of him before, is very fit to be one
of our inventors, not so much for his individual accomplishments, which
were little more than curious,--telegraph and all,--as for being a good
representative of his age. Those of you who know a little of the century
between 1750 and 1850 know that it was an age to which many of the
secrets of physical science were being opened for the first time.
Everybody was going back to Nature to see what he could learn from her.
This movement swept all over France and England. Every gentleman
dabbled in the sciences, and made his experiments and inventions.
Voltaire in France had a great laboratory made for him in which he
passed some years in chemical experiments. It was the age, too, of great
inventions,--of th
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