A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery. With a Short Explanation of Some of the Principal Natural Phenomena. For the Use of Schools and Families. Enlarged and Revised Edition.

CHAPTER XVII.

AR­CHI­TEC­TURE, SCULP­TURE, USE OF MON­EY, NAV­IGA­TION.

What is meant by Ar­chi­tec­ture?

The art of build­ing or erect­ing ed­ifices fit for the habi­ta­tion of man, to de­fend him from the weath­er, and for his do­mes­tic com­fort and con­ve­nience; for de­vo­tion, trade, and oth­er pur­pos­es, and for the use of civ­ilized life in ev­ery ca­pac­ity.

_Ca­pac­ity_, state, con­di­tion.

Is not this an art of great an­tiq­ui­ty?

It is al­most as an­cient as hu­man so­ci­ety; the changes of the sea­sons first led men to build them­selves huts or cab­ins, in­to which they might re­tire for shel­ter; in pro­cess of time, their man­ner of build­ing grad­ual­ly im­proved, and habi­ta­tions were con­struct­ed of more state­ly forms and el­egant pro­por­tions, and greater skill and va­ri­ety were dis­played in their or­na­ments Hence arose the Five Or­ders or man­ners of build­ing.

Of what were the first huts com­posed?

Prob­ably of the branch­es of trees driv­en in­to the ground, and cov­ered with mud and stub­ble; at length, as men be­came more ex­pert, they placed trunks of trees up­right, and laid oth­ers across them to sus­tain the out­er cov­er­ings; from this they took the hint of a more reg­ular ar­chi­tec­ture, and built ed­ifices of brick and stone; the trunks of trees which sup­port­ed their dwellings gave them a no­tion of pil­lars or columns, which they af­ter­wards erect­ed of more durable ma­te­ri­als. Among un­civ­ilized tribes at this day, some re­side un­der­ground, hav­ing their dirty dwellings en­tire­ly closed dur­ing the win­ter months; in warmer re­gions, their habi­ta­tions are built of stakes, leaves, and turf, in the shape of a sol­dier's tent. In Africa, their kraals or huts are con­struct­ed in this man­ner, but of a cir­cu­lar form, with a hole at the top to let out the smoke. In many of the South Sea Is­lands, the na­tives, when first dis­cov­ered, had pro­gressed still fur­ther, hav­ing learnt to el­evate the roofs on poles, and to fill in the sides of their hous­es with boughs or rush­es, mud or sods.

_Prob­ably_, most like­ly.

_Ed­ifice_, a build­ing.

_No­tion_, idea.

_Durable_, last­ing.

What peo­ple are rep­re­sent­ed by the an­cient writ­ers as hav­ing brought the art of Build­ing to a greater state of per­fec­tion?

The in­hab­itants of the city of Tyre, to whom Solomon had re­course for work­men to build the Tem­ple. Isa­ias, in his twen­ty-​third chap­ter, speaks of the Tyr­ians and Egyp­tians, as hav­ing brought it to a great de­gree of mag­nif­icence; as may be drawn from the var­ious ac­counts hand­ed down to us, and the re­mains of their obelisks, pyra­mids, &c.

What is an Obelisk?

A very high and slen­der four-​sid­ed pyra­mid, raised as an or­na­ment in some pub­lic place; and fre­quent­ly cov­ered with in­scrip­tions and hi­ero­glyph­ics.[16] This kind of mon­ument ap­pears to be very an­cient; they were first made use of to de­clare to pos­ter­ity the prin­ci­pal pre­cepts of phi­los­ophy; to mark the hours of the day by the shad­ows which they cast on the ground; and, in af­ter-​times, to im­mor­tal­ize the ac­tions of heroes, and per­pet­uate the mem­ory of per­sons beloved.

[Foot­note 16: See Chap­ter XIV.]

_In­scrip­tion_, some­thing writ­ten or en­graved.

_Hi­ero­glyph­ics_, em­blems by which words were im­plied. They were used be­fore the in­ven­tion of al­pha­bets.

_Im­plied_, sig­ni­fied, de­not­ed.

_Pos­ter­ity_, suc­ceed­ing gen­er­ations, de­scen­dants.

_Im­mor­tal­ize_, to ren­der im­mor­tal,--which means nev­er-​dy­ing; to per­pet­uate the mem­ory of any­thing.

What is a Pyra­mid?

A sol­id, mas­sive ed­ifice, ris­ing from a square, tri­an­gu­lar, or oth­er base, grad­ual­ly di­min­ish­ing in size till it ends in a point at the top. Like the obelisk, pyra­mids were some­times erect­ed to pre­serve the mem­ory of sin­gu­lar events, or to trans­mit to fu­ture ages the glo­ry and mag­nif­icence of princes; but of­ten­er as fu­ner­al mon­uments and re­cep­ta­cles for the dead, par­tic­ular­ly kings.

_Tri­an­gu­lar_, three-​sid­ed, hav­ing three an­gles.

_Di­min­ish­ing_, grow­ing small­er.

_Re­cep­ta­cle_, the place in which a thing is de­posit­ed.

Is it known who were the erec­tors of these Build­ings?

No; it is a cu­ri­ous fact that the Egyp­tian pyra­mids, so cel­ebrat­ed for their size and great an­tiq­ui­ty, should have the time of their erec­tion and the names of their founders wrapt in such com­plete mys­tery. All the dif­fer­ent au­thors who have writ­ten con­cern­ing them, dis­agree in their ac­counts of those who built them, and noth­ing cer­tain is known of their his­to­ry.

_Founder_, one who es­tab­lish­es or erects.

_Mys­tery_, pro­found se­cresy.

What oth­er na­tions ex­celled in the art of Build­ing?

The Greeks and Ro­mans, from whom we de­rive it, al­so great­ly ex­celled in this art. Gre­cian ar­chi­tec­ture was in its high­est glo­ry un­der Per­icles. Among the Ro­mans, it ar­rived at its great­est per­fec­tion un­der the Em­per­or Au­gus­tus. The five or­ders of or­na­men­tal ar­chi­tec­ture in­vent­ed by the an­cients, at dif­fer­ent times, and on dif­fer­ent oc­ca­sions, are of Gre­cian and Ital­ian ori­gin. They are the Tus­can, the Doric, the Ion­ic, the Corinthi­an, and the Com­pos­ite; each pos­sess­ing its pe­cu­liar form and beau­ty, and found in all the prin­ci­pal build­ings of the Chris­tian world.

_Chris­tian_, pro­fess­ing the re­li­gion of Christ; the term is ap­plied to those who be­lieve our Lord Je­sus Christ to be the on­ly true God and Saviour of the world.

Who was Per­icles?

A cel­ebrat­ed Athe­ni­an states­man, or­ator, and gen­er­al, who gained sev­er­al vic­to­ries over the Lacede­mo­ni­ans and oth­er en­emies of his coun­try.

Are all the species of or­na­men­tal build­ing con­fined to those na­tions al­ready men­tioned?

By no means; be­sides the Gre­cian and Ro­man or­ders, oth­er civ­ilized na­tions pos­sess their sep­arate styles; as the Hin­doos, Chi­nese, Moors, &c.; and noth­ing can be more grand, har­mo­nious, and pic­turesque, than each of these in the beau­ti­ful spec­imens which are to be seen in their sev­er­al coun­tries. The Sax­ons, al­so, had a sim­ple style of ar­chi­tec­ture, dis­tin­guished by se­mi-​cir­cu­lar arch­es, and mas­sive plain columns; the Nor­mans, too, in­vent­ed a beau­ti­ful kind called the Goth­ic, dis­tin­guished by its light­ness and the num­ber of its or­na­ments, and by its point­ed arch­es and pil­lars carved to im­itate sev­er­al com­bined to­geth­er; the Goth­ic style is found in many old cathe­drals.

_Hin­doos_, in­hab­itants of Hin­dostan, in In­dia.

_Moors_, in­hab­itants of Mo­roc­co, a king­dom of Bar­bary, in Africa.

_Har­mo­nious_, cor­re­spond­ing in all its parts with equal beau­ty and el­egance.

_Pic­turesque_, like a pic­ture.

_Sax­ons_, in­hab­itants of Sax­ony, a por­tion of Ger­many.

_Se­mi-​cir­cu­lar_, on­ly half cir­cu­lar.

De­scribe the Five Or­ders of Ar­chi­tec­ture.

The Tus­can (from Tus­cany,) is the most sim­ple and de­void of or­na­ment, and its columns or pil­lars are plain and mas­sive. The Doric (from the Do­ri­ans, in Greece,) is durable and no­ble in ap­pear­ance, hav­ing its columns plain like the Tus­can, but the up­per parts more or­na­men­tal. The Ion­ic, (from Iona, in Greece,) is nei­ther so plain as the Doric, nor so rich­ly el­egant as the Corinthi­an; but is dis­tin­guished from the first two or­ders by hav­ing its columns or pil­lars flut­ed in­stead of plain, and the up­per part of them (called the cap­itals,) adorned by the fig­ures of rams' horns carved on them. The Corinthi­an is very rich and del­icate, with flut­ed pil­lars, and the tops beau­ti­ful­ly or­na­ment­ed with leaves, &c. The in­ven­tion of this or­der is as­cribed to Cal­li­machus, a Corinthi­an sculp­tor. The Com­pos­ite is com­pound­ed of the oth­er four; it is very much like the Corinthi­an, and is al­so called the Ro­man or Ital­ian or­der.

_De­void_, free from, des­ti­tute.

What is Sculp­ture?

The art of cut­ting or carv­ing wood, stone, and oth­er ma­te­ri­als; and form­ing of them var­ious fig­ures or rep­re­sen­ta­tions of men, beasts and oth­er ob­jects. The term is most­ly lim­it­ed to carv­ing im­ages or stat­ues in stone. This art is of great an­tiq­ui­ty; the sa­cred writ­ings in­form us of it in many pas­sages, as for in­stance in those in which are men­tioned La­ban's im­ages, car­ried away by Rachel; the gold­en calf of the Is­raelites, &c. Sculp­ture as an art is prob­ably more an­cient than paint­ing.

What coun­try was the most high­ly cel­ebrat­ed for its sculp­ture?

Greece, which pro­duced many cel­ebrat­ed sculp­tors, of whom the most em­inent were Phidias, an Athe­ni­an, the great mas­ter of this art, who lived in the time of Per­icles, 408 years be­fore Christ; Lysip­pus, a na­tive of Sicy­on, near Corinth; and Prax­ite­les, a na­tive of Magna Gre­cia.

What event proved fa­tal to this art?

The death of Alexan­der the Great was fol­lowed by a vis­ible de­cline in all the fine arts; but the fa­tal blow to their ex­is­tence was giv­en by the suc­cess of the con­quer­ing Ro­mans, who re­duced Greece to a Ro­man province.

Was Sculp­ture al­ways per­formed in Stone?

No; at first stat­ues and oth­er fig­ures were formed of wood or baked clay, af­ter­wards of stone, mar­ble and met­als; though these last were not brought to any de­gree of per­fec­tion, till about three hun­dred years be­fore Christ. The Greeks were fa­mous for their works in ivory; the great mas­ter of the art of carv­ing stat­ues in it was Phidias.

What progress did the Ro­mans make in Sculp­ture?

Sculp­ture, dur­ing their ear­ly his­to­ry, ex­ist­ed rather as a plant of for­eign growth, par­tial­ly cul­ti­vat­ed by them, than as a na­tive pro­duc­tion of their own land. They col­lect­ed, in­deed, some of the most exquisite sam­ples of Gre­cian sculp­ture, and in­vit­ed to their cap­ital the yet re­main­ing sculp­tors of Greece, by whose labors not on­ly Rome it­self was em­bel­lished, but al­so many of the cities of Asia Mi­nor, Spain, and Gaul, then un­der the Ro­man do­min­ion; yet the taste for sculp­ture does not ap­pear to have been cul­ti­vat­ed in any mea­sure cor­re­spond­ing with the ad­van­tages thus af­ford­ed them in the study of the best mod­els of the art. The best works were pro­duced by Greek artists, and chiefly Athe­ni­an, while the at­tempts of the Ro­mans were un­skil­ful­ly ex­ecut­ed.

_Gaul_, the an­cient name of France.

_Mod­el_, pat­tern.

Did it al­ways con­tin­ue thus?

No; from the time of the Em­per­or Con­stan­tine, sculp­ture, and the rest of the fine arts, grad­ual­ly re­vived. While in­spired, per­haps, with a taste for sculp­ture by means of the scat­tered re­mains of Gre­cian art, the Ro­man artists drew, at the same time, from their own re­sources, and were by no means servile copy­ists of the sculp­tors of a for­mer age. The first acade­my of the art was found­ed at Flo­rence, in 1350, and at the close of the same cen­tu­ry, sculp­ture was firm­ly es­tab­lished in Italy, and itin­er­ant sculp­tors, not un­skil­ful in their art, wan­dered from thence to Ger­many, France, and even to Eng­land. The most em­inent mas­ter of the art was Michael An­ge­lo, born in 1474, who was al­so a painter and ar­chi­tect; from his time, to the lat­ter end of the last cen­tu­ry, sculp­ture again grad­ual­ly de­clined, but un­der Cano­va, a na­tive of Pos­sag­no, in the Vene­tian Alps, it re­vived. He was born in 1757. Be­sides the above men­tioned, were a num­ber of oth­ers of var­ious de­grees of tal­ent, as well as some still liv­ing.

_Servile_, slav­ish, mean.

_Itin­er­ant_, wan­der­ing.

When was the knowl­edge of Sculp­ture in­tro­duced in­to Eng­land?

At the time of its con­quest by the Ro­mans; but the art ap­pears to have been very rude and im­per­fect. From the time of the Nor­man in­va­sion, and still fur­ther in the time of the Cru­sades, an im­prove­ment, how­ev­er, be­gan to show it­self in British sculp­ture. But it is prob­able that most of their best ar­chi­tec­tural and sculp­tural works were ex­ecut­ed by for­eign­ers, mem­bers of those so­ci­eties of wan­der­ing sculp­tors be­fore men­tioned. Un­der Ed­ward the Third, the art ap­pears to have been much cul­ti­vat­ed by En­glish­men. It is well known that two Ital­ian sculp­tors were em­ployed in Eng­land dur­ing the six­teenth cen­tu­ry. John of Pad­ua, a pupil of Michael An­ge­lo, was mas­ter of works to Hen­ry the Eighth. In the reign of Charles the First, En­glish sculp­tors flour­ished, al­though their works are of a very low or­der.

_In­va­sion_, hos­tile en­trance up­on the rights or pos­ses­sions of an­oth­er.

_Ar­chi­tec­tural_, be­long to Ar­chi­tec­ture.

_Sculp­tural_, be­long­ing to Sculp­ture.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: GATH­ER­ING TUR­PEN­TINE BY SCRAP­ING.]

[Il­lus­tra­tion: DIS­TILL­ING TUR­PEN­TINE.]

With whom may the School of British Sculp­tors be con­sid­ered as com­menc­ing?

With Banks, born in 1738, and Ba­con, born in 1740; these were in ev­ery re­spect En­glish artists. But the most em­inent work­er in the art which that coun­try has yet pro­duced, was John Flax­man, born in 1755. Our own coun­try al­so may boast of sculp­tors of su­pe­ri­or tal­ents, and from the beau­ti­ful spec­imens of the art which have ap­peared, the at­tain­ment of a high de­gree of ex­cel­lence in it is to be an­tic­ipat­ed.

_At­tain­ment_, the act of ar­riv­ing at or reach­ing.

_An­tic­ipat­ed_, ex­pect­ed, fore­seen.

Give me a short ac­count of this art in Ger­many, France, and Spain.

In these coun­tries, as in Eng­land and the Unit­ed States, dur­ing their ear­ly his­to­ry, many of the best works were ex­ecut­ed by Ital­ians. Ger­many ap­pears to have made lit­tle progress in sculp­ture be­fore the sev­en­teenth cen­tu­ry; since that pe­ri­od, it has pro­duced sculp­tors of some em­inence, al­though it is more cel­ebrat­ed for its writ­ers on the art, than for artists of em­inence in its prac­tice. In France, sculp­tors of some tal­ent are men­tioned as ear­ly as the six­teenth cen­tu­ry. Gi­rar­don and Puget were the most cel­ebrat­ed artists of this pe­ri­od. Span­ish his­to­ry gives a long list of na­tive sculp­tors, from the com­mence­ment of the same cen­tu­ry, but many of them are but lit­tle known be­yond their own coun­try. Berruguete, a pupil of Michael An­ge­lo, ap­pears to have found­ed the first reg­ular school of the art. Paul de Ce­spi­des, and in the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry, Philip de Cas­tro, were the most em­inent among them.

When was the use of Mon­ey first in­tro­duced?

It is not known with cer­tain­ty: there is, how­ev­er, rea­son to be­lieve that both gold and sil­ver were very ear­ly used as mon­ey in Egypt and Asia: it was af­ter­wards in­tro­duced in­to Carthage and Greece; whence it was brought to Rome; and from that city spread grad­ual­ly west­ward, through all the Ro­man do­min­ions. Be­fore the use of mon­ey was in­tro­duced, the on­ly means of trade was by barter, or the ex­change of one com­mod­ity for an­oth­er, a cus­tom long re­tained by un­civ­ilized na­tions. In time, how­ev­er, men dis­cov­ered the ne­ces­si­ty of some­thing which would en­able them to trade with greater fa­cil­ity; the first men­tion of mon­ey is in the time of Abra­ham, who, we are told in the Bible, paid “four hun­dred sides of sil­ver of com­mon cur­rent mon­ey,” for a bury­ing place.

_Cur­rent_, gen­er­al­ly re­ceived, pass­ing from hand to hand.

Where was Carthage?

Carthage, now Tu­nis, was a com­mer­cial city, sit­uat­ed on the North­ern Coast of Africa, which long con­tend­ed for the do­min­ion of the Mediter­ranean with the Ro­mans; but, af­ter three wars, it was tak­en and de­stroyed by the Ro­man gen­er­al, Sci­pio Africanus, in the year 251 be­fore Christ.

_Com­mer­cial_, car­ry­ing on com­merce or trade.

Of what sub­stances was Mon­ey usu­al­ly made?

Of met­als, es­pe­cial­ly the pre­cious met­als, be­cause they pos­sess great val­ue in small bulk; may be kept for any length of time with­out loss; and their val­ue, al­though not al­to­geth­er in­vari­able, yet, gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, changes on­ly by slow de­grees, and is less sus­cep­ti­ble of fluc­tu­ation than that of most oth­er ar­ti­cles. At dif­fer­ent times, and amongst var­ious na­tions, how­ev­er, oth­er things, in the scarci­ty of met­al, have been sub­sti­tut­ed for it, as shells, wood, leather, pa­per, or even paste­board on ex­traor­di­nary oc­ca­sions.

_Fluc­tu­ation_, un­steadi­ness; a wa­ver­ing.

Of what form was mon­ey gen­er­al­ly made?

The form of mon­ey has been more var­ious than its ma­te­ri­als; the an­cient Britons used as mon­ey, rings or bars of iron or tin; the Lacede­mo­ni­ans used iron bars quenched with vine­gar. The mon­ey of most na­tions usu­al­ly bore an im­pres­sion pe­cu­liar to them­selves, as, for in­stance, the sicle of the Jews was marked with the gold­en pot of man­na on one side, and Aaron's rod on the oth­er; oth­er coins with the fig­ures of an­imals, &c.; in shape, coins were ei­ther round, ir­reg­ular, or square.

Have the terms Mon­ey and Coin the same sig­ni­fi­ca­tion?

Not ex­act­ly; by mon­ey is un­der­stood any mat­ters, such as met­al, wood, leather, glass, horn, pa­per, fruits, shells, &c., which have cur­ren­cy as a medi­um in com­merce. Coin is a par­tic­ular species al­ways made of met­al, and struck off ac­cord­ing to a cer­tain pro­cess called coin­ing; it is not of equal an­tiq­ui­ty with mon­ey. In fact, the very com­modi­ties them­selves were the first mon­eys, that is, were cur­rent one for an­oth­er by way of ex­change. Coin is a piece of met­al con­vert­ed in­to mon­ey, by the im­pres­sion of cer­tain marks or fig­ures there­on. The first coin­ing of sil­ver took place at Rome, two hun­dred and six­ty-​nine, and of gold, two hun­dred and six years be­fore Christ: the Ro­mans, af­ter the com­mon­wealth, stamped their coins with the im­age of the reign­ing em­per­or, which cus­tom was fol­lowed by most civ­ilized na­tions. Coins were, and are, fre­quent­ly, struck in com­mem­ora­tion of a par­tic­ular event or cel­ebrat­ed per­son.

When was the use of stamped coin in­tro­duced in­to Britain?

Af­ter the ar­rival of the Ro­mans in that is­land, the na­tives im­itat­ed them, coin­ing both gold and sil­ver with the im­ages of their kings stamped up­on them; but the Ro­mans, when they sub­dued the na­tion, sup­pressed al­so their coins, and obliged them to use their own; hence the num­ber of Ro­man coins found among the relics of an­tiq­ui­ty in that is­land.

_Sup­pressed_, put aside, hin­dered from cir­cu­la­tion.

_Relics_, re­mains.

What does the first coined mon­ey in an­cient Britain ap­pear to have been?

Cop­per mon­ey; but af­ter the ar­rival of the Sax­ons in Eng­land, scarce­ly any cop­per mon­ey was used for many cen­turies, nor did it be­come com­mon till 1672; it was first used in Scot­land and Ire­land in 1340.

What is a Mint?

A place es­tab­lished by pub­lic au­thor­ity for coin­ing mon­ey. In the Unit­ed States, the first mint was in Philadel­phia; branch­es have been es­tab­lished in oth­er parts of the Union. In most coun­tries, the priv­ilege of coin­ing mon­ey is re­gard­ed as a pre­rog­ative of the sovereign pow­er. For­mer­ly, in Great Britain, cities, towns, and even in­di­vid­uals, were al­lowed to coin mon­ey for the con­ve­nience of trade; but now this is for­bid­den, ex­cept at the Mint in the Tow­er of Lon­don.

What is meant by Nav­iga­tion?

The sci­ence or art by which the mariner is taught to con­duct his ship from one place to an­oth­er. Some, per­haps, will con­sid­er the for­ma­tion and use of the Ark, as a first step to­wards the in­ven­tion of this art; but it is an er­ro­neous idea, be­cause the di­rec­tion and means for ac­com­plish­ing this im­mense work were af­ford­ed by God, for the preser­va­tion of righ­teous Noe and his fam­ily. Be­sides, noth­ing is record­ed of any means or of any ne­ces­si­ty for its oc­cu­pants _nav­igat­ing_ it to any par­tic­ular place, or from one place to an­oth­er; no in­ten­tion of this sort is ap­par­ent, the ark be­ing mere­ly a vast shel­ter, ren­dered ca­pa­ble of float­ing on the wa­ter.

_Er­ro­neous_, wrong, in er­ror.

_Ap­par­ent_, man­ifest, made to ap­pear.

What prob­ably gave the first idea of Nav­iga­tion?

Ac­ci­dent most like­ly showed that wood al­ways floats; and on the fall­en trunk of a tree, per­haps, some one ven­tured be­yond his depth, away from the land. The trunk of a tree, hol­lowed out, for a more con­ve­nient po­si­tion of the body, formed the ca­noe, usu­al­ly found among un­civ­ilized na­tions to this day. From this rude be­gin­ning, at great in­ter­vals of time, and a slow pace of im­prove­ment, the art has at length ar­rived at its present state of ad­vance­ment.

What na­tion first ap­plied this art to the pur­pos­es of Trade?

The Pheni­cians (es­pe­cial­ly those of Tyre, their cap­ital city, and Sidon,) were the first who adapt­ed it to the pur­pos­es of com­merce, and con­struct­ed ves­sels fit to make voy­ages to for­eign coun­tries; the pover­ty and nar­row­ness of their land, as well as their vicin­ity to two or three good ports, and their nat­ural ge­nius for traf­fic, urg­ing them to seek for­eign sup­plies. We hear of them trad­ing to Ara­bia, In­dia, Per­sia, Greece, Africa, Spain, and even as far as Britain.

_Vicin­ity_, near­ness, neigh­bor­hood.

_Traf­fic_, Trade, com­merce.

Who were the Pheni­cians?

The in­hab­itants of Pheni­cia, a coun­try of Syr­ia, in Asia.

Which was the more an­cient city, Tyre or Sidon?

Sidon,--hav­ing been built, as is sup­posed, soon af­ter the Flood, by Sidon, the el­dest son of Chanaan. Tyre, about 25 miles to the south, was built about the year 1252 be­fore Christ, by a colony from Sidon. The Pheni­cians plant­ed nu­mer­ous colonies on the shores of the Mediter­ranean and the At­lantic, and dif­fused, to a great ex­tent, among their un­civ­ilized neigh­bors the arts and im­prove­ments of civ­ilized life. One of their most cel­ebrat­ed colonies was that found­ed by them on the north­ern coast of Africa; and it was this colony that built the fa­mous city of Carthage.

_Dif­fused_, spread abroad, scat­tered.

Did not Carthage af­ter­wards be­come as flour­ish­ing as the par­ent city of Tyre?

In time, Carthage not on­ly equalled Tyre it­self, but sur­passed it,--pur­su­ing the course the Pheni­cians had be­gun, and send­ing its mer­chant fleets through Her­cules' Pil­lars, (now the Straits of Gibral­tar,) along the west­ern coast of Africa, and north­wards, along the coast of Eu­rope, vis­it­ing par­tic­ular­ly Spain, Gaul, &c. They even un­der­took voy­ages, the sole ob­ject of which was to dis­cov­er new coun­tries and ex­plore un­known seas. The Carthagini­ans ap­pear to have been the first who un­der­took voy­ages sole­ly for the sake of dis­cov­er­ies.

Were not both these cel­ebrat­ed cities de­stroyed?

Tyre, whose im­mense rich­es and pow­er were the sub­ject of many an­cient his­to­ries, was de­stroyed by the Gre­cian Em­per­or Alexan­der the Great, and its nav­iga­tion and com­merce trans­ferred by him to Alexan­dria, a new city which he med­itat­ed mak­ing his cap­ital. Alexan­dria, in a short time, be­came the most im­por­tant com­mer­cial city in the world. Thus arose nav­iga­tion among the Egyp­tians; it was af­ter­wards so suc­cess­ful­ly cul­ti­vat­ed by them, that Tyre and Carthage (which last, as be­fore men­tioned, was sub­dued by the Ro­mans,) were quite for­got­ten.

_Trans­ferred_, re­moved.

_Cap­ital_, chief city or town in a state or king­dom.

Who was Alexan­der the Great?

The son of Philip, King of Mace­do­nia, in Greece; he was cel­ebrat­ed for his great am­bi­tion, and the num­ber of his con­quests; he over­turned the Per­sian em­pire, and sub­dued many cities and provinces in the East.

Did not Alexan­dria un­der­go the same fate as Tyre and Carthage?

Egypt was at last re­duced to a Ro­man province, af­ter the bat­tle of Ac­tium, and its trade and nav­iga­tion fell in­to the hands of the Em­per­or Au­gus­tus, in whose time Alexan­dria was lit­tle in­fe­ri­or to Rome; and the mag­azines of the cap­ital of the world were sup­plied with mer­chan­dise from the cap­ital of Egypt. Alexan­dria, how­ev­er, at last un­der­went the fate of Tyre and Carthage, be­ing sur­prised by the Sara­cens, who over­ran the north­ern parts of Africa; and though it con­tin­ued, for a while, to en­joy a con­sid­er­able por­tion of the com­merce of the Chris­tian mer­chants, it af­ter­wards re­mained in a lan­guish­ing con­di­tion: but still, even at this day, it is a place of con­sid­er­able trade.

Who were the Sara­cens?

A Ma­hommedan na­tion, oc­cu­py­ing a por­tion of what is now called Ara­bia. They ex­tend­ed their con­quests over a large por­tion of Asia, north­ern Africa, and Spain. Their name is de­rived from the word _Sara_, a desert.

What ef­fect had the Fall of the Ro­man Em­pire on Nav­iga­tion?

The fall of the Ro­man em­pire not on­ly drew along with it its learn­ing and the po­lite arts, but al­so the art of nav­iga­tion; the Bar­bar­ians, in­to whose hands the em­pire fell, con­tent­ing them­selves with en­joy­ing the spoils of those whom they had con­quered, with­out seek­ing to fol­low their ex­am­ple in the cul­ti­va­tion of those arts and that learn­ing which had ren­dered Rome and its em­pire so fa­mous.

What oth­er peo­ple, about this pe­ri­od, dis­tin­guished them­selves in the art of Nav­iga­tion?

The Sara­cens or Ara­bi­ans, whose fleets now rode tri­umphant in the Mediter­ranean; they had tak­en pos­ses­sion of Cyprus, Rhodes, and many of the Gre­cian is­lands, and ex­tend­ed their com­merce and their dis­cov­er­ies in the East, far be­yond the ut­most knowl­edge of their an­ces­tors.

What oth­er cir­cum­stance al­so pre­vent­ed com­mer­cial in­ter­course from ceas­ing al­to­geth­er?

Con­stantino­ple, though of­ten threat­ened by the fierce in­vaders, who spread des­ola­tion over Eu­rope, was so for­tu­nate as to es­cape their de­struc­tive rage. In this city, the knowl­edge of an­cient arts and dis­cov­er­ies was pre­served; and com­merce con­tin­ued to flour­ish there, when it was al­most ex­tinct in ev­ery oth­er part of Eu­rope.

_Des­ola­tion_, de­struc­tion, ru­in.

Did the cit­izens of Con­stantino­ple con­fine their trade to the Is­lands of the Archipela­go, and the ad­ja­cent coast of Asia?

No, they took a wider range; and, fol­low­ing the course which the an­cients had marked out, im­port­ed the pro­duc­tions of the East In­dies from Alexan­dria. When Egypt was torn from the Ro­man Em­pire by the Ara­bi­ans, the in­dus­try of the Greeks dis­cov­ered a new chan­nel by which the pro­duc­tions of In­dia might be con­veyed to Con­stantino­ple.

Did not the Bar­bar­ians, af­ter a while, turn their at­ten­tion to Nav­iga­tion and Com­merce?

No soon­er were the brave among these na­tions well set­tled in their new provinces--some in Gaul, as the Franks; oth­ers in Spain, as the Goths; and oth­ers in Italy, as the Lom­bards,--than they be­gan to learn the ad­van­tages of these arts, and the prop­er meth­ods of man­ag­ing them, from the peo­ple they had sub­dued; and that with so much suc­cess, that they even im­proved up­on them, and set on foot new in­sti­tu­tions for their ad­van­tage. To the Lom­bards, in par­tic­ular, is usu­al­ly as­cribed the in­ven­tion and use of banks, book-​keep­ing, and ex­changes. Thus the peo­ple of Italy, and par­tic­ular­ly those of Venice and Genoa, have the glo­ry of restor­ing to Eu­rope the ad­van­tages that had been de­stroyed by their own rav­ages.

_In­sti­tu­tions_, laws, reg­ula­tions.

_Ex­change_, a species of mer­can­tile trans­ac­tions by which the debts due to per­sons at a dis­tance are paid by or­der, draft, or bill of ex­change, with­out the trans­mis­sion ei­ther of mon­ey or goods.

Who were the Franks?

A peo­ple who set­tled in Gaul; from them it took the name of Fran­co­nia, or France.

Who were the Goths?

An an­cient peo­ple, who in­hab­it­ed that part of Swe­den called Goth­land; and af­ter­wards spread them­selves over great part of Eu­rope.

Who were the Lom­bards?

The Lom­bards, or Lon­go­bar­di, were, like the Franks, a na­tion of Ger­many; who, up­on the de­cline of the Ro­man Em­pire, in­vad­ed Italy, and, tak­ing the city of Raven­na, erect­ed a king­dom.

Where is Raven­na?

In Cen­tral Italy. It is the cap­ital of a province of the same name; it is an an­cient town, and the see of an arch­bish­op.

_See_, the seat of epis­co­pal pow­er; the dio­cese of a bish­op.

_Epis­co­pal_, be­long­ing to a bish­op.

_Arch­bish­op_, the pre­sid­ing bish­op of a province.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE, ITALY.]

What was the ori­gin of the city of Venice?

In the Adri­at­ic Sea were a great num­ber of marshy is­lands, sep­arat­ed on­ly by nar­row chan­nels, but well screened and al­most in­ac­ces­si­ble, in­hab­it­ed by a few fish­er­men. To these is­lands the peo­ple of Veneti (a part of Italy, sit­uat­ed along the coasts of the gulf,) re­tired when Alar­ic, King of the Goths, rav­aged Italy. These new Is­landers, lit­tle imag­in­ing that this was to be their fixed res­idence, did not, at first, think of form­ing them­selves in­to one com­mu­ni­ty, but each of the 72 is­lands con­tin­ued a long while un­der its re­spec­tive mas­ters, and formed a dis­tinct com­mon­wealth.

_Adri­at­ic Sea_, a name giv­en to the Gulf of Venice.

_Com­mon­wealth_, a re­pub­lic, a gov­ern­ment in which the supreme pow­er is lodged in the peo­ple.

What cir­cum­stance caused them to unite?

Their com­merce be­com­ing con­sid­er­able enough to awak­en the jeal­ousy of their neigh­bors, they unit­ed in a body for their mu­tu­al pro­tec­tion: this union, first be­gun in the 6th cen­tu­ry and com­plet­ed in the 8th, laid the foun­da­tion of the fu­ture grandeur of the state of Venice. From the time of this union, fleets of their mer­chant­men sailed to all the ports of the Mediter­ranean; and af­ter­wards to those of Egypt, par­tic­ular­ly to Cairo, a new city, built by the Sara­cen princes, on the banks of the Nile, where they trad­ed for spices, &c. The Vene­tians con­tin­ued to in­crease their trade by sea and their con­quests on land till 1508, when a num­ber of jeal­ous princes con­spired against them to their ru­in; which was the more eas­ily ef­fect­ed in con­se­quence of their East In­di­an com­merce, of which the Por­tuguese and French had each ob­tained a share.

_Con­spired_, unit­ed to­geth­er in a plot.

What is the sig­ni­fi­ca­tion of Mediter­ranean?

In­closed with­in land, or re­mote from the ocean. It is more par­tic­ular­ly used to sig­ni­fy the sea which flows be­tween Eu­rope and Africa.

Had not Venice a formidable ri­val in a neigh­bor­ing re­pub­lic?

Genoa, which had ap­plied it­self to nav­iga­tion at the same time with Venice, and with equal suc­cess, was long its dan­ger­ous ri­val, dis­put­ed with it the em­pire of the sea, and shared with it the trade of Egypt, and oth­er parts, both of the East and West. Jeal­ousy soon broke out; and, the two re­publics com­ing to blows, there was al­most con­tin­ual war be­tween them for three cen­turies: at length, to­wards the end of the 14th cen­tu­ry, the strife was end­ed by the fa­tal bat­tle of Chioza; the Ge­noese, who till then had usu­al­ly the ad­van­tage, lost all, and the Vene­tians, al­most be­come des­per­ate, at one de­ci­sive blow, be­yond all ex­pec­ta­tion, se­cured the em­pire of the sea and their su­pe­ri­or­ity in com­merce.

_De­ci­sive_, fi­nal, con­clu­sive.

Where is Genoa sit­uat­ed?

In the north-​west­ern part of Italy. It was for­mer­ly a flour­ish­ing re­pub­lic, but be­longs now to Italy.

What event like­wise con­tribut­ed to the more rapid progress and dif­fu­sion of Nav­iga­tion and Com­merce?

The Cru­sades: for the Ge­noese, Pisans, and Vene­tians, fur­nished the fleets which car­ried those vast armies, com­posed of all the na­tions of Eu­rope, in­to Asia, up­on this wild un­der­tak­ing, and al­so sup­plied them with pro­vi­sions and mil­itary stores. Oth­er trav­ellers, al­so, be­sides those whom re­li­gious zeal sent forth to vis­it Asia, ven­tured in­to re­mote coun­tries, from mo­tives ei­ther of com­mer­cial ad­van­tage, or those of mere cu­rios­ity.

_Zeal_, de­vo­tion, en­thu­si­asm.

Who were the Pisans?

In­hab­itants of Pisa, an an­cient town of Tus­cany; it was once a great in­de­pen­dent re­pub­lic, and is still adorned with no­ble ed­ifices. Pisa has long been cel­ebrat­ed for its re­mark­able lean­ing tow­er. Tus­cany is a beau­ti­ful and fruit­ful ter­ri­to­ry of Italy; its cap­ital, un­til the year 1859, was Flo­rence.

What were the Cru­sades?

Holy wars, or ex­pe­di­tions, un­der­tak­en by the Chris­tians against the Turks and Sara­cens, to re­cov­er Pales­tine, be­tween the years 1100 and 1400.

What caus­es led to these wars?

Many cir­cum­stances con­tribut­ed to give rise to them. They were un­der­tak­en, first, with a view to pro­tect­ing the de­vout Chris­tian pil­grims, who were in the habit of fre­quent­ing the ven­er­able places where our Saviour had lived, taught, suf­fered, and tri­umphed, from the fury and avarice of the hea­thens; sec­ond­ly, with a view to get­ting pos­ses­sion of the Holy Land it­self, and of an­nex­ing it to Chris­ten­dom; and third­ly, to break down the pow­er of Mo­hammedanism, and to el­evate the Cross in tri­umph and vic­to­ry over Pales­tine.

_Avarice_, an ex­ces­sive de­sire of gain.

_An­nex­ing_, adding, join­ing.

What badge or sign was worn by those who en­gaged in the Cru­sades?

They dis­tin­guished them­selves by cross­es of dif­fer­ent col­ors, worn on their clothes; from which they took the name of Crois­es, or Cross-​bear­ers; each na­tion wore dif­fer­ent col­ors: for in­stance, the En­glish had white cross­es, the French red, and so on.

To what in­ven­tion is the art of Nav­iga­tion much in­debt­ed?

To that of the Mariner's Com­pass, in the be­gin­ning of the 14th cen­tu­ry; and from this pe­ri­od may be dat­ed the present per­fec­tion of this use­ful art.

You have giv­en me an ac­count of the restora­tion of Nav­iga­tion in South­ern Eu­rope: did not the in­hab­itants of the North al­so turn their at­ten­tion to it?

Yes: about the same time, a new so­ci­ety of mer­chants was formed in the north­ern parts, which not on­ly car­ried com­merce to the great­est per­fec­tion of which it was ca­pa­ble, till the dis­cov­ery of the In­dies, but al­so formed new codes of use­ful laws for its reg­ula­tion.

_Codes_, books or writ­ings set­ting forth cer­tain laws or rules re­spect­ing par­tic­ular sub­jects; books of civ­il laws.

Are Nav­iga­tion and Com­merce in­sep­ara­bly con­nect­ed with each oth­er?

It may be con­sid­ered as a gen­er­al max­im, that their union is so in­ti­mate, that the fall of one in­evitably draws af­ter it that of the oth­er; and that they will al­ways ei­ther flour­ish or de­cline to­geth­er may be seen, by ex­am­in­ing the rea­son of their pass­ing suc­ces­sive­ly from the Vene­tians, Ge­noese, &c., to the Por­tuguese and Spaniards, and from them to the En­glish, Dutch, &c.

_Max­im_, rule, an es­tab­lished prin­ci­ple.

_In­ti­mate_, close.

_In­evitably_, with­out pos­si­bil­ity of es­cape, un­avoid­ably.