GUNPOWDER. 171 



The Moors, we hare seen, who had settled in Spain, arc esteem, 

 ed by some to have been the first persons who used gunpowdrr in 

 the practice of war ; they also brought into Europe a great many 

 Arabian books, and introduced a taste for chemistry into different 

 countries, about the time in which Bacon nourished. It is con. 

 fessed, on all hands, that Bacon was no stranger to Arabian litera- 

 ture ; a great part of his optical disquisitions, being evidently 

 borrowed from Alhazen (he Arab ; and it is not a supposition 

 wholly void of probability, that he derived his knowledge of the 

 composition of gunpowder from the same source. As to his know, 

 ledge of the use of it in war, he certainly had some idea of it; for 

 he intimates, that cities and armies might be destroyed by it iu 

 various ways : but it is not equally certain that he had any specific 

 notion of the manner of using gunpowder, which unquestionably 

 prevailed soon after his death. 



It is one thing to throw out a conjecture concerning the effects 

 which might be produced by the proper ^plication of a known 

 substance ; another, to describe the means of applying it. There 

 are substances in nature, from a combination of which it is possible 

 to destroy a ship, or a citadel, or an army, by a shower of liquid 

 fire spontaneously lighted in the air ; every person who is aware of 

 the dreadful fiery explosion which attends the mixture of two or 

 three quarts of spirit of turpentine with strong acid of nitre, must 

 acknowledge the tru h of the assertion ; but the simple knowledge 

 of the possibility of effecting such a destruction, is a very different 

 matter from the knowledge of its practicability ; though future ages 

 may, perhaps, invent as many different ways of making these sub. 

 stances unite in the air, so as to fall down in drops of fire, as hare 

 been invented of making gunpowder a sa instrument of the des- 

 truction of our species since the time of Bacon. 



From the accounts given of the attempts of Salmoneus and Cali- 

 gula to imitate thunder and lightning, some have been of opinion 

 that gunpowder was known to the ancients* ; be that as it may, 

 we cannot hesitate in admitting that it has been long known in vari. 

 ous parts of Asia. It would be useless to cite a variety of autho. 

 rities in proof of this point ; 1 will content myself with that of Lord 

 Bacon : " Certain it is, that ordnance was known in the city of 



S*-e Dotens' Enquiry into the Ducoveriet of the Modern*, p. 263. English 



