ART 



ART 



n an indolent and inactive stupidity. .By 

 the English laws, a stranger, being- an ar- 

 tificer in London, &c. shall not keep above 

 two stranger servants ; but he may have 

 as many English servants and apprentices 

 as he can get. And as to artificers in 

 wool, iron, steel, brass, or other metal, 

 &c. persons contracting with them to go 

 out of the kingdom into any foreign coun- 

 try are to be imprisoned three months, 

 and fined in a sum not exceeding one 

 hundred pounds. And such as going 

 abroad, and not returning on warning 

 given by our ambassadors, &.c. shall be 

 disabled from holding lands by descent 

 or devise, from receiving- any legacy, &c. 

 and be deemed aliens. Penalty of 50Ctf. 

 and of imprisonment for twelve months, 

 for the first offence ; and for the second, 

 of WOOL and of imprisonment for two 

 years ; is also inflicted on persons seduc- 

 ing artificers to go abroad. 



A stranger-artificer in London shall not 

 keep more than two stranger servants. 

 2 Hen. VIII. c. 16. Persons coniracting 

 with artificers in wool, iron, steel, brass, 

 or other metals, &.c. to go to any foreign 

 country, shall be imprisoned three months. 

 5 Geo. 1. c. 27: and if any person shall 

 contract with, or encourage any artificers 

 employed in printing callicoes, cottons, 

 muslins, or linens of any sort, or in mak- 

 ing any tools or utensils for such manu- 

 factory, to go out of Great Britain to any 

 port beyond the seas, he shall forfeit 5i/0/. 

 and be committed to the common gaol 

 of the county for 12 months, and until 

 such forfeiture shall be paid. 22 Geo. HI. 

 c. 60. sect. 12. 



ARTILLERY, in the most appropriate 

 application of the word, means the can- 

 non, mortars, howitzers, and other lar.^e 

 pieces for discharging shot and shells by 

 the expansive force of inflamed gunpow- 

 der, as used in the land service. In a 

 more enlarged sense, the word denotes 

 engines of war of all sorts, ancient and 

 modern, by which darts, stones, bullets, 

 &c. were shot forth in battle. See BAL- 

 XISTA, CATAPTJLTA, &c. 



Artillery, or cannon and mortars, is ge- 

 nerally supposed to have been first used 

 in Europe by the Venetians, in the siege 

 of Claudia Jesse, now called Chioggia, in 

 1366 ; and in their wars with the Genoese, 

 1379. But Edward the Third is known 

 to have used cannon at the battle of Cres- 

 sy, in 1346, and at the siege of Calais, in 

 1347. And facts that will be mentioned 

 give reason to suppose that it was par- 

 tially used in this quarter of the world 

 before that period. A treatise of the fa- 

 mous Roger Bacon, written in 1280, is the 



first European publication which meii- 

 tions the composition of gunpowder, and 

 proposes its use in war; the invention is, 

 however, most commonly, though unjust- 

 ly, attributed to Bartholdus Schwartz, a 

 German, in 1320. Bacon only proposed 

 the use of the unconfined flame of gun- 

 powder as a mode of annoying an enemy; 

 but Schwartz is supposed to have disco- 

 vered its application in projecting heavy 

 bodies, from an accidental explosion of 

 some in a common mortar, in which he 

 had mixed its ingredients together, hav- 

 ing blown off an heavy stone cover to a 

 considerable distance; and it is imagined 

 that the mortars now used for throwing 

 shells derived their name from their re- 

 semblance to those used by chemists, in 

 one of which the above accident occur- 

 ring 1 , had first suggested the use that 

 might be made in war of metallic vessels 

 of a somewhat similar form. 



The little which was formerly known 

 of Asiatic history, and the undeserved ne- 

 glect with which it is still treated, made 

 the above account of the origin of cannon 

 satisfactory hitherto. But to consider the 

 invention of cannon as an European in- 

 vention, at the present period, when we 

 have such authentic documents of their 

 use in China many centuries before they 

 were thought of in this part of the world, 

 would be wilfully to sacrifice truth to the 

 childish vanity, that leads Europeans too 

 often to arrogate an imaginary superiori- 

 ty, in every thing, over the inhabitants of 

 the more early civilized states of the east- 

 ern hemisphere. 



If the testimony of the Chinese them- 

 selves is not sufficient on this point, the 

 fact of their famed great wall being fur- 

 nished with embrasures, fitted in such a 

 manner for cannon as to leave no doubt 

 of their having been in use at the time of 

 its erection, sufficiently proves it. To 

 which an additional argument may be 

 added, from their very ancient game of 

 chess, in which pieces have been used 

 from remote antiquity, designating en- 

 gines of war whose power was derived 

 from gunpowder. Mr. Irwin, in his paper 

 on the Chinese Game of Chess, in the 

 Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, 

 proves that gunpowder was in common 

 use in China 371 years after Confucius^ 

 or 161 years before Christ ; and Du 

 Halde has long since given documents, to 

 shew that the Chinese wall was in exist- 

 ence 200 years before the commence- 

 ment of the Christian sera; and conse- 

 quently, for the reason before stated, the 

 use of cannon must have been of at least 

 equal antiquity. And there is a strong 



