Greek Fire of the Middle Ages. 23 
for he knew much of what was required for its illustration. 
Watson, better fitted still for the inquiry, has shunned it en- 
tirely, after leading us to hope that he was about to enter on it. 
It would be presumptuous to expect to render that clear 
which so many great names have thus attempted in vain, or 
abandoned as hopeless. Yet by comparing the narratives and 
descriptions of the ancient writers with each other, and with 
some collateral information, that can be brought to bear on the 
same point, it will not be very difficult to make some steps at 
least on firm ground. It will turn out, unless I am much mis- 
taken, that different inventions have been described by the samé 
name, and that the main source of the confusion can be traced 
to this cause. It may perhaps even appear, that though we 
cannot in this way reconcile all the accounts, yet that we shall 
discover what some kinds of the Greek fire really were, if we 
should still remain at a loss about others. Something too will 
be gained by divesting these accounts of the marvellous, which 
has in no small degree aided their confusion in obscuring this 
provoking subject. : 
In examining this question, it will, I think, appear that some 
of the inventions which we consider modern, are of a very dis- 
tant date; and that if we have so long remained ignorant of 
that, it is because there is scarcely a scientific writer of those 
ages to which alone we must look for this kind of information. 
It will also be seen, that there is an intimate connexion between 
the history of the Greek fire and that of gunpowder. But it is 
here intended to avoid touching on that subject as much as is 
possible, and to reserve it for a future communication. 
The common opinion is, that the Greek fire was invented 
during the reign of Constantine Pogonatus, in the year 668, by 
Callinicus, an architect of Heliopolis. Gibbon has collected 
another tale, which says that it was revealed to Constantine the 
Great by an angel, with a sacred injunction that this gift of 
heaven and peculiar blessing of the Romans, should never be 
communicated to any foreign nation. The impious attempt, it 
was said, would provoke the sudden and supernatural vengeance 
of the God of the Christians. 
