ARTILLERY, in the most appropriate application of the word, means the can non, mortars, howitzers, and other large 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 LISTA, CATAPULTA, &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 men 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, 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 Halcle has long since given documents, to shew that the Chinese wall was in exist ence 200 years before the commence ment of the Christian zera; and conse quently, for the reason before stated, the use of cannon most have been of at least equal antiquity. And there is a strong probability that the invention was of a much more remote date ; as it is not like ly that cannon, immediately after the dis covery of gunpowder, would have been brought to sufficient perfection for wall service ; or that a very new invention would have been alluded to in the nomi nation of the pieces used in the game of chess, peculiar to China.
It is so far from an impossibility that the same thing may have been invented by different persons in various parts of the world, that no fact is better proved to have frequently occurred ; but to invent an im portant matter, and to bring it into gene ral use, are distinct affairs, and seldom fall to the lot of the same person.