ronomer.

"These things, indeed, are of antiquity and of our times, and are
certain, except the instrument for flying, which I have not seen, nor
have I known a man who has, but I know a wise man who has explicitly
excogitated it; and an infinity of other things can be made, as bridges
over rivers, can be made without columns or any support, and machines or
unheard of engines."

The ultra admirer of the ancients will see in this, if not an accurate
relation of facts, which with the exception of the flying it purports to
be, at least a wonderful perception of practicabilities; and railroads,
diving-bells, suspension-bridges, &c., will be so many circumstantial
corroborations of the correctness of his view. We, however, are rather
disposed to regard them as ingenious extravagances. Predictions of the
success of science are always on the safe side. If in the present day
one were to say, that we shall be able to see the inhabitants of
Jupiter, or even converse with them, it would be a prophecy which could
never be negatived, which might be the case if we said such things were
impossible.

Bacon's obscure intimations of gunpowder are not so clearly derived from
the same source as the receipts of Marcus Graecus and Albertus Magnus
are; but they are apparently derivatives from what was then known to a
few, of nitre compositions, and are very analogous, though not quite so
extravagant as some of his other deductions.

Bacon also speaks of a child's toy (_ludicrum puerile_) which was made
with saltpetre, the explosion of which produced a report, "quod fortis
tonitrui sentiatur excedere rugitum."

As with this, so with the greater number of Bacon's observations; they
bear reference to facts, or relations received as facts, which were at
that time either generally or partially known, and do not profess to
give to the world his own inventions, though the theories deduced from
those asserted facts are frequently the produce of his own imaginative
brain. Upon the whole, we are fully disposed to agree with Messrs
Reinaud and Fave, that the invention of gunpowder is by no means due to
Bacon.

We now pass to the Arabian manuscripts of the 13th century, to which we
have before alluded, and which constitute the principal discovery of our
authors. The same word (_baraud_) which is now used by the Arabs as
signifying gunpowder, was originally used to signify saltpetre; and even
in this application had a secondary meaning, its more pr