They are useless, because they cannot effect the object they have in view; and they are pernicious, because they prevent the emigration of those whose emigration would be a benefit.

The observations we have already made are sufficient, of themselves, to show the impolicy of the statutes preventing the exportation of Machinery. Of what possible use can it be to prevent the exportation of any article, when we cannot prevent the emigration of the artisans by whom that article is manufactured? Our restrictions are not really injurious to our foreign rivals, but to ourselves. The superiority to which we have attained in manufacturing industry, is owing partly to the comparative freedom of our constitution, to the absence of all oppressive feudal privileges, and to our greater security of property and of personal liberty, and partly to the advantages of our situation and our abundant supplies of coal. Most certainly we have not risen to opulence by the aid of restrictive laws and prohibitory regulations, but in despite of them. Instead of accelerating, they have clogged and retarded our progress. Were the freedom of industry established, our artisans would, at no distant period, become the makers of machinery for every country in the world. Nor would this be in the least degree injurious to our own manufacturers. They would then, as now, enjoy all those moral and natural advantages to which their present prosperity is entirely owing; while a new source of wealth and fortune would be opened to support and enrich another, and a very numerous class of their fellow-citizens. Our prohibitions do not prevent the French and Germans from obtaining the very best machines. No such thing. Their only effect is, to deprive our artisans of the opportunity of producing them, and consequently of the profit they would make on their sale, or, which is the same thing, to impoverish them for the sake of enriching the artisans of Normandy and Saxony !

Parliament has wisely resisted repeated solicitations to prohibit or fetter the exportation of cotton yarn: and it has done so on the ground, that such a prohibition would contribute infinitely more to encourage the factories on the Continent than to increase the sale of British cotton goods. Now the case with respect to machinery is precisely similar. By prohibiting its exportation, we do not increase the consumption of British manufactures on the Continent; we only force the inhabitants to construct machines for themselves, and to become our rivals and competitors in a branch of industry of which we should otherwise enjoy an almost exclusive monopoly !

VOL. XXXIX. NO. 78.

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ART. IV. A Critical Inquiry into Ancient Armour, as it existed in Europe, but particularly in England, from the Norman Conquest to the reign of King Charles II.; with a Glossary of Military Terms, &c. By SAMUEL RUSH MEYRICK, LL. D. 3 vols. 4to. Jennings. London, 1823.

W E rise from the perusal of this book, strongly inclined to dispute Mr Burke's pathetic announcement, that the age of chivalry is gone-or very glad, at least, to find that such ample memorials of it have been preserved. A Critical Inquiry into Ancient Armour,' in three vast quarto volumes, does indeed carry with it a note of alarm:-but while the splendour of its decorations is well calculated to excite curiosity, the novel character of its contents, the very curious extracts from rare MSS. in which it abounds, and the pleasing manner in which the author's antiquarian researches are prosecuted, will, if we mistake not, tempt many who take up the work in idleness, to peruse it with care. As a laborious and zealous antiquary, Dr Meyrick has been for some time well known to the public; and we should have been disposed to augur very favourably of his success in such a work as this, from two or three papers of his that we remember to have seen in the Archæologia. The substance of the Observations on the "Lorica Catena" of the Romans, > * seems to be embodied in this Inquiry; but though these are clever. and minute, they are not to be compared, in point of extent, arrangement, science, or utility, with the work now in question. The first three attributes, we suppose, will be generally conceded-but, as many people may boggle at the last, we must say a word, in passing, in defence of it. 1st, It for the first time supplies to our school of Art, correct and ascertained data for costume, in its noblest and most important branchhistorical painting; 2d, It affords a simple, clear, and most conclusive elucidation of a great number of passages in our great dramatic poets,-aye, and in the works of those of Greece and Rome, '-against which commentators and scholiasts have been trying their wits for centuries; 3d, It throws a flood of light upon the manners, usages, and sports of our ancestors, from the time of the Anglo-Saxons down to the reign of Charles the Second; and, lastly, It at once removes a vast

number of idle traditions and ingenious fables, which one compiler of history, copying from another, has succeeded in transmitting through the lapse of four or five hundred years.

It is not often the fortune of a painful student of antiquity to conduct his readers through so splendid a succession of scenes and events, as those to which Dr Meyrick here successively introduces us But he does it with all the ease and gracefulness of an accomplished Cicerone. We see the haughty nobles and the impetuous knights-we are present at their arming-assist them to their shields-enter the well-appointed lists with them -and partake the hopes and fears, the perils, honours and successes, of the manly tournaments. Then we are presented to the glorious damsels, all superb and lovely, in velours and 'clothe of golde, and dayntie devyces, bothe in pearls and emerawds, sawphyres and dymondes '-and the banquet, with the serving-men and bucklers, servitors and trenchers, and shields of brawn, and goodly dolphins, and barbecued boars, and spiced wines-kings and queens under gorgeous canopies of statelords and ladies footing it to high corantos-pageants, high as the massive roofings of the royal halls, suddenly and slowly wheeled in with all the cumbersome and motley pride of rude magnificence-showing, haply, a frowning tower and delicious gardens; trees of green velvet and gold brocade; fruits of emerald and amethyst and silver;-this costly fabric (and demesne) preceded by a salvage man, armed with a club'-and then soft musicke,' to which the castle opens, from battlement to base, allowing free egress to the twelve fayre maydens,' who (you are to suppose) have been long imprisoned therein, and are now released by the beautiful conqueror of the wild men; to wit, a blooming youth, hight Amour Loyaul." These are the festivals to which we are here admitted; and while we have the very knights in their proper armour, surcoats, &c. before us, blazing in gold and silver, we feel as if the age of chivalry, if once gone, had returned in its glory, and are transported back to the sentiments as well as the scenes which it inspired.

The author in a neat and sensible Preface, lays it down as an axiom, that defensive arms clearly follow the character of the instruments of assault;' and he adverts to the war mat of the South Sea Islanders, and the wicker shields of the Japanese, as instances equally in point with the European cuirass of antiquity; each of these defences being suitable to the weapons of assault peculiar to the nation or people among whom they obtained. It is ingeniously suggested, that

The pleasures and dangers of the chase, were, perhaps among the first of human pursuits that suggested the use of armour. In the fair fields of that beautiful creation which never taught man war,— he would find, when inflamed by his own passions, suggestions both of offensive and defensive warfare, upon which he has rarely improved. The mailed tortoise, the scaly shields of fish, even the beautiful lapping over of feathers in the plumes of birds, afforded him specimens of well contrived protection; while, from the boar, the bull, the ram, or the sagacious and tenacious cat, he might obtain lessons, not to be despised, of powerful and skillful assault. We know, in fact, that a certain disposition of the shields, in imitation of the folds of tortoise shell, was in use among the Greeks; and is alluded to, in a curious Treatise on the Duties of the Foot-soldier in the 14th century. A floating" boar," armed with iron, and pushed forward with oars, is recommended, in the same treatise, in sea-fights. The battering "ram" long retained a name and figure, indicative of his origin; and has transferred, in modern times, no small portion of his merits, with its etymon, to the ram-rod. And the "prickly cat" (felis echinata), we are told was one of the best kind of arms, and most useful for the defenders of castles. SHE could even be set upon her prey with success; being armed with "oaken teeth" and "curved nails," which, when the enemy approached, might be thrown upon him, and " serve to bring up one or more into the walls.

Preface, p. 11, 12.

The following appears to be among the most capricious accidents that ever occurred in the annals of philology.

Nor, it is hoped, will the etymologist despise our aid, when we instance "dag dag" as signifying a pistol; while "pistolese" implies a dagger; and semi-targe a corruption of "scymitar; as showing that conclusions should not be too readily formed from sounds. The main object of the work, however, is explained to be

To establish that chronology of costume with respect to ancient arms and armour, which has hitherto been so imperfectly regarded, alike by writers, painters, and dramatists of modern times. The refined taste which, with regard to other matters of costume, has been so happily cultivated in this country, during the present reign, has not only given a general stimulus to the arts, but introduced into paintings and scenic representations of all kinds, an historical correctness with which our ancestors were unacquainted. Good drawing and correct colouring, fine acting with well delivered sentences, are now considered as insufficient without chronological accuracy. Though, in every other respect claiming our applause, Alexander and Statira in brocade and velvet, are as offensive on the canvass, as that conqueror in a gold lace coat and wig; and his favourite, in a corresponding habit, at the theatre.' Such absurdities, however, are now banished. ' .... And why, in respect to

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armour, should a similar accuracy be deemed unworthy of regard? In all the paintings since the time of Charles I., the warriors, of whatever age, are represented in the military costume of that period, and yet, as great a variety has existed in armour; and it is as characteristic of successive eras, as in other habiliments. The truth is, artists have neither understood the subject themselves, nor been able to find sources of information elsewhere. The modern practice is to draw from the collection in the Tower; and yet, notwithstanding the pretence, there is not a suit there, older than the time of Henry VII.'...........' The materials for the present undertaking have been copies (accurate as far as possible to obtain them), of ancient seals, illuminations, painted glass and monuments; which, when chronologically arranged, have been compared with extracts from historians and poets, from wills, inventories of armour and royal ordinances: And here, the author would acknowledge the kindness of his friend Major Smith-(his coadjutor in "the Costume of the Original Inhabitants of the British Isles,") in the loan of his memoranda and drawings; the useful hints of his much esteemed friend, that most able and critical antiquary, Francis Douce, Esq.; and the valuable communications on all that relates to Scotch armour, from one no less to be admired for his private virtues than his boundless talents, his good friend Sir Walter Scott, Bart.'

The introduction,' which sets out with the declaration, that 'armour had its origin in Asia,' occupies 77 pages of the first volume, and gives a succinct but satisfactory account of its ancient condition and peculiarities among the Egyptians, Lybians, and Ethiopians;-the Jews, Philistines, Phoenicians, and a number of other barbarians, down to the Grecians, Etruscans, Samnites, Romans, and a vast number of other nations of antiquity, as well as among the Gauls, the Germans, the Scandinavians, the Anglo-Saxons, the Franks, Tungrians, Anglo-Danes, Norwegians, and Britons. This part contains. seven beautiful outline engravings, (from drawings by Dr Meyrick) of Græco-Egyptian, Asiatic, Grecian, Etruscan, Roman, British, Saxon and Danish arms and armour. The GræcoEgyptian and Roman arms are drawn as well as grouped, with a correctness and taste highly creditable to this gentleman's talents as an artist. In the third page of the Introduction, our author, treating of the Ethiopians, says, the heads of their javelins were made of goat's horns sharpened.' It is perhaps a curious coincidence, and we therefore mention it, that the Pandarams or Senasseys of Hindostan, (a class of religious, who are, by profession, pilgrims to the various Pagodas, and form one of the many tribes of naked sages, or Gymnosophists' with which that sultry peninsula abounds),