A short discourse.--The Shuttlecock.--The solution of two problems connected with its flight.--The Windmill.--The Smoke-jack.--A toy constructed on the same principle.--The Bow and Arrow.--Archery.--The arrival of Isabella Villers.

Mr. Twaddleton, on his arrival at the lodge, on the following morning, was informed that Miss Villers was expected at Overton in the evening.

“Your account of that young lady,” observed the vicar, “has greatly prepossessed me in her favour; I only hope that she is not too blue.”

“I care not how blue the stockings of a lady may be,” said Mr. Seymour, “‘provided her petticoats be long enough to hide them;’ and from my knowledge of Miss Villers, I can assure you, exalted as are her attainments, they are so veiled by feminine delicacy and reserve, that they may insidiously win, but will never extort our homage.”

“Ay, ay,” exclaimed the vicar; “I perfectly agree with you in your idea of feminine perfection--short tongues and long petticoats, Mr. Seymour.--But where are my little playmates?”

“I left Tom and Fanny on the terrace, a short time since,” replied Mr. Seymour, “very busily engaged in the game of shuttlecock and battledoor.”

“The shuttlecock is an ancient sport,” observed Mr. Twaddleton. “It is represented in a manuscript as far back as the fourteenth century: and it became a fashionable game amongst grown persons in the reign of James the First.”

“It is a very healthy pastime,” said Mr. Seymour, “and, in my opinion, is admirably calculated for females; for, it expands the chest, while it creates a graceful pliancy of the limbs.”

“I entirely agree with you; it is the only game with which I am acquainted, in which muscular exercise is gained without compromising gracefulness. But see, here come the two young rogues.”

“Papa,” exclaimed Tom, “I have been considering whether there is any philosophy in the game of shuttlecock.”

“There are two circumstances connected with its flight,” replied his father, “which certainly will admit of explanation upon scientific principles; and I should much like to hear whether you can apply them for that purpose. The first is its spinning motion in the air; the second, the regularity with which its base of cork always presents itself to the battledoor; so that, after you have struck it, it turns round, and arrives at your sister’s battledoor in a position to be again struck by her, and sent back to you.”

“I perfectly understand what you mean; but I really am not able to explain the motions to which you allude,” said Tom.

“The revolution of the shuttlecock, about its axis, entirely depends upon the impulse of the wind on the oblique surfaces of its feathers; so that it is often necessary to trim the feathers of a new shuttlecock, before it will spin.”

“I understand you, papa; the force of the wind, by striking the oblique feathers, is resolved into a perpendicular and parallel force, as you explained to us, when we considered the action of the wind upon the kite.”

“Exactly; every oblique direction of a motion is the diagonal of a parallelogram, whose perpendicular and parallel directions are the two sides. Having settled this point, let us consider the second; viz. how it happens that the cork of the shuttlecock always presents itself to the battledoor.”

“I should think,” said Tom, “that the cork points to the battledoor for the same reason that the weathercock always points to the wind.”

“Admirably illustrated!” exclaimed his father; “the cork will always go foremost; because the air must exert a greater force over the lighter feathers, and therefore retard their progress. While we are upon this subject, I will introduce to your notice some contrivances which are indebted to this same principle for their operation. In the first place, there is the arrow; can you tell me, Louisa, the use of the feathers which are placed round its extremity?”

“To make its head proceed foremost in the air, by rendering its other end lighter, and therefore more sensible to the resistance of the air,” replied Louisa.

“Very well answered; that is, unquestionably, one of the objects of the wings of an arrow; but there is also another, that of rifling it, or steadying its progressive motion, by causing it to revolve around its axis. If you will look at this arrow, you will perceive that the feathers are placed nearly, but not quite, in planes passing through it; if the feathers were exactly in this plane, the air could not strike against their surfaces when the arrow is in motion: but, since they are not perfectly straight, but always a little aslant, the air necessarily strikes them, as the arrow moves forward; by which force the feathers are turned round, and with them the arrow or reed; so that a motion is generated about its axis; and its velocity will increase with the obliquity of the feathers. You will therefore observe that, in order to enable the feathers to offer a necessary resistance to the air, they must possess a certain degree of stiffness or inflexibility. It was on this account that Roger Ascham,^[46] and other skilful artists in the days of archery, preferred the feathers of a goose of two or three years old, especially such as drop of themselves, for pluming the arrow; and the importance, as well as the theory of this choice, is confirmed by a curious observation of Gervase Markham,^[47] who says that ‘the peacock feather was sometimes used at the short butt; yet, seldom or ever, did it keep the shaft either right or level!’”(43)

“That is intelligible enough,” said Tom, “the feather of the peacock must have been so flexible as to have yielded to the slightest breath of air; and now, as we are upon the subject of the arrow, do explain to us the action of the bow.”

“I shall readily comply with your request, before we part; but I am desirous, at present, of following up the subject before us, and of taking into consideration some other instruments which owe their motions to the action of the air upon oblique surfaces.”

“Suppose,” said the vicar, “you explain to them the action of the wind upon the sails of the mill.”

“I should like to hear something about the windmill,” observed Tom; “and, perhaps, Mr. Twaddleton can tell us who invented the machine.”

“The invention is not of very remote date,” replied the vicar. “According to some authors, windmills were first used in France in the sixth century; while others maintain that they were brought to Europe in the time of the crusades, and that they had long been employed in the East, where the scarcity of water precluded the application of that powerful agent to machinery.”

“I had intended,” said Mr. Seymour, “to have entered very fully upon the subject of the windmill; for, although it is a very common machine, its construction is much more ingenious than is generally imagined; it must also be allowed to have a degree of perfection, to which few of the popular engines have yet arrived: but to do ample justice to my subject, I should require several models which are not yet in readiness; besides, Tom’s holidays have nearly passed away; I must therefore postpone the examination of the mill to some future opportunity, and content myself, at present, with an explanation of its sails.”

“And let me tell you,” observed the vicar, “that if you succeed in this one object, you will accomplish a task which has occupied years of mechanical research. The angle which the surface of the sails ought to make with their axis, in order that the wind may have the greatest effect, or the degree of weathering, as the millwrights call it, is a matter of nice enquiry, and has much engaged the thoughts of the mathematicians.”

“My remarks upon that subject will be very general,” said Mr. Seymour; “I shall explain the principle, without entering into the minutiÆ of its applications. The vertical windmill, which is the kind in most common use, consists, as you well know, of an axis, or shaft, placed in the direction of the wind, and usually inclining a little upwards from the horizontal line. At one end of this, four long arms, or yards, are fixed perpendicular to the axis, and across each other at right angles; these afford a surface, on which a cloth can be spread to receive the action of the wind. To conceive why these sails should revolve by the force of the wind, we must have recourse to the theory of compound motion. It is very evident that, if a mill exposed directly to the wind should have its four sails perpendicular to the common axis in which they are fitted, they would receive the wind perpendicularly, an impulse which could only tend to overturn them; there is a necessity, therefore, to have them oblique to the common axis, that they may receive the wind obliquely, when their effort to recede from it causes them to tarn round with the axis; and the four sails being all made oblique in the same direction, thus unite their efforts for the common object.”

“You have not yet told us what degree of obliquity the sail ought to make with the wind,” said the vicar.

“The same as the kite ought to make, fifty-four degrees and forty-four minutes,” replied Mr. Seymour.

“Do you not remember, papa, when we were last in London, you pointed out to us a curious mill on the banks of the river, which went without any sails?”

“You allude to the horizontal mill at Battersea.”

“I remember it was at Battersea,” observed Louisa; “and I dare say, papa, that you recollect the strange story which the waterman, who rowed us down the river, told Tom and myself. He said ‘that, when the Emperor of Russia was in London, he took a fancy to the neat little church at Battersea, and determined to carry it off to Russia; and that for this purpose he had sent a large packing-case; but, as the inhabitants refused to let the church be carried away, the case remained on the spot where it was deposited.’”

“It is not a bad story,” said her father; “for the mill certainly, both in size and figure, may be imagined to resemble a gigantic packing-case. The mill, of which you are speaking, has been taken down, in consequence of its use having been superseded by the introduction of steam. It was erected by Captain Hooper, who also built a similar one at Margate. It consisted of a circular wheel, having large boards or vanes fixed parallel to its axis, and arranged at equal distances from each other. Upon these vanes the wind could act, so as to blow the wheel round; but had it acted upon the vane at both sides of the wheel, at once, it is evident that it could not have had any tendency to turn it round; hence, one side of the wheel was sheltered, while the other was submitted to the full action of the wind. For this purpose it was enclosed within a large cylindrical framework, furnished with doors or shutters, on all sides, to open at pleasure and admit the wind, or to shut and stop it. If all the shutters on one side were open, whilst all those on the opposite side were closed, the wind, acting with undiminished force on the vanes at one side, whilst the opposite vanes were under shelter, turned the mill round; but whenever the wind changed, the disposition of the blinds was altered, to admit the wind to strike upon the vanes of the wheel in the direction of a tangent to the circle in which they moved.”

“Well; have you any other machine to explain to your scholars?” asked the vicar; “for,” continued he, “I am anxious to present them with a bow and arrow which I have provided for their amusement.”

“I will, if you please, first describe to them the mechanism of the smoke-jack; and I am desirous of doing so, as I have a very pleasing experiment to exhibit, which is founded upon the same principle.”

Mr. Seymour then described the more common form of this machine. It consisted, he said, of a number of vanes, of thin sheet-iron, arranged in a circle, as here represented, but all set obliquely at a proper angle of inclination. Its action was explained in the following manner:--When a fire is kindled in the chimney, the air which, by its rarefaction, immediately tends to ascend, strikes on the surfaces of the inclined vanes, and by a resolution of forces, similar to that already explained, causes the spindle, to which they are affixed, to turn round, and consequently communicates the same motion to the spit. The brisker the fire becomes, the quicker will the machine move, because in that case, the air ascends with greater rapidity.

“I will now exhibit to you a mechanical amusement which is founded on the same principle,” said Mr. Seymour. “Fetch me the piece of pasteboard which lies on the library table.”

The pasteboard was produced, and Mr. Seymour described upon it a spiral, similar to that which is represented in the annexed figure. The spiral was cut out, and extended, by raising the centre above the first revolution. It was then suspended upon a small spit of iron, which had been previously prepared; by applying the centre or summit of its spiral to its point. The whole was now placed on the top of a warm stove, (the application of a lamp would have answered the same purpose,) and the machine, to the great delight and astonishment of the children, soon put itself in motion, and turned without the assistance of any apparent agent. The agent, however, in this case, was the air, which being rarefied by the contact of a warm body, ascended, and thus produced a current. The accompanying sketch may render this experiment more intelligible to the reader.

The vicar observed that, to him, the experiment was perfectly novel; although he remembered having seen what he now supposed must have been a similar contrivance, but which, until that moment, he had always considered as the effect of clockwork.

“And what might that have been?” asked Mr. Seymour.

“The revolution of a serpent, which I noticed in several windows in London, during a late illumination.”

“Undoubtedly; it was nothing more than a spiral, so painted as to resemble that reptile, and which owed its motion to the action of air heated by a lamp placed beneath it.”

“Now, then,” exclaimed the vicar, “let us direct our attention to the bow and arrow; see the present I have provided for you, Tom!”

So saying, the worthy clergyman produced a bow and a number of arrows, together with a target; which, at his desire, had been sent from London.

“I think,” observed Mr. Seymour, “that you should accompany your gift with some account of archery, or the art and exercise of shooting with the bow and arrow.”

“That will I readily do,” replied Mr. Twaddleton; who accordingly proceeded as follows:--

“The bow is the most ancient and universal of all weapons, and has been found to obtain amongst the most barbarous and remote nations. In the days of David the practice of the bow would appear to have been so general, that it was not unfrequently made use of as a figure of speech. Israel, when blessing his sons, says of Joseph, ‘the archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him; but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong, by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob.’”

“Its earliest application was probably for the purpose of obtaining food,” observed Mr. Seymour.

“Your conjecture has the weight of testimony,” replied the vicar; “when Isaac sent Esau to the forest, he said, ‘Take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver, and thy bow, and go out to the field, and take me some venison:’^[48] and it is even a question, whether the Saxon bow was ever used by the Anglo-Saxons and Danes for any other purpose than that of procuring food, or pastime; for the representation of this bow, in an ancient manuscript^[49] of the tenth century, shows it to have been very differently constructed from what one might expect in a military weapon; in size, too, it was a mere toy, compared with the bow of succeeding ages.”

“There can be no doubt that the bow and arrow were employed for the purpose of killing animals for food from the earliest times; but its principal interest is derived from its military applications; will you, therefore, give us a sketch of its history, and confine yourself to its practice as a warlike instrument in England?”

“And may I also beg of you, my dear sir,” added Mrs. Seymour, “to explain the different terms which are employed to denote its parts and applications; such information will be, just now, highly acceptable to me, as I am reading some romances, in which those terms are constantly occurring.”

“You shall be obeyed, madam,” replied the vicar, with a courteous smile.

“We are, probably, indebted to the Norman conquest for the introduction of the bow and arrow as a hostile weapon; but, before I enter upon that subject, it is necessary to state, that the bows in use in England, have been of two kinds, the common or long bow, and the cross bow. The former does not require any description from me, the latter, or Arbalet, as it was called, (from Arbalesta, i.e. arcu-balista, a bow with a sling,) consists of a steel bow, fastened upon a stock, and is discharged by means of a catch, or trigger, which probably gave rise to the lock upon the modern musket.”

“Excuse the interruption,” said Mrs. Seymour, “but do allow me to ask whether Arquebusade does not derive its name from its having been formerly applied to wounds inflicted by the cross-bow or Arbalet?”

“I thank you, madam; that etymology is entirely new to me, and will explain the medical name, Aqua vulneraria, which has been applied to that spirit.”

The vicar now proceeded without further interruption.

“The invention of cross-bows is said by ancient writers to have come from the Sicilians. They were first used in England by the Normans at the battle of Hastings; and a quarrel or bar-bolt (which is synonymous with the arrow of the long-bow) was the immediate cause of Harold’s death. In the reign of Stephen, in 1139, the second council of Lateran prohibited their use; and some historians assert, that they were not again used in this country till the reign of Richard I., whose death, occasioned by one at Chaluz, was considered as a judgment on his impiety. From the death of Richard till the splendid victories of Edward III., we hear little of the cross-bow as a military weapon. Its use appears to have been principally confined to the sieges of fortified places, and to sea-fights. In 1346, at the battle of Cressy, a large body of Genoese soldiers, who were particularly expert in its management, were in the service of the French; but at the commencement of the action, a sudden shower wetted the strings, and prevented the archers from doing their usual execution, while the English were still capable of annoying their enemies by the long-bow with complete success: both this victory and that of Poictiers, ten years afterwards, were chiefly ascribed by the English to their archers. In 1403, at the battle of Shrewsbury, where Hotspur was slain, the archers on both sides did terrible execution; and the victory of Agincourt, in 1417, was entirely owing to their skill. Under Edward IV. an ordinance was made, that every Englishman and Irishman, dwelling in England, should have a bow of his own height, to be made of yew, wych, hazel, ash, or any other seasonable tree, according to their power. By Henry VII. and his son Henry VIII. the use of the cross-bow was entirely forbidden; and a penalty of ten pounds was to be inflicted on every man in whose house one might be found. From this time they seem to have been chiefly used for killing deer.^[50] Henry VIII. compelled every father to provide a long-bow and two arrows for his son at seven years old. Edward VI., Elizabeth, and James, all encouraged archery: John Lyon, who founded Harrow school in 1590, two years before his death, drew up rules for its direction, whereby the amusements of the scholars were confined to ‘driving a top, tossing a hand-ball, running, and shooting.’ The last mentioned diversion is in a manner insisted on by the founder, who requires all parents to furnish their children with bow-strings, shafts, and tresters, to exercise shooting. A silver arrow used some years ago to be shot for by the young gentlemen of that school.”

The vicar concluded, and received the thanks of the party for the interesting information he had afforded them.

“There is one circumstance connected with the military history of the long-bow,” said Mrs. Seymour, “which has somewhat surprised me; and that is, why it should so long have continued in estimation after the use of gunpowder.”

“That circumstance,” replied her husband, “will cease to astonish you, when you remember that, until the last century, muskets were very unwieldy instruments; they were never used without a rest; had no bayonets, and could not be so frequently discharged as they are at present.”

“Come,” said the vicar, “I perceive that the children are impatient to try their skill with their new instrument; let us walk out, and I will play the Scythian^[51] upon this occasion.”

“Now, Tom,” cried Mr. Twaddleton; “we must have an object. Let me see. Shall it be the ‘but,’ ‘pricke,’ or ‘roaver?’^[52] Come, try whether you can hit yonder gate-post. Take your bow, and here is an arrow.”

Tom took the bow, and placing the arrow on the string, was about to draw the latter, when the vicar exclaimed, “Stop--stop--you must pull back your hand to your right ear, in order to shoot the arrow; whereas you have placed the bow directly before you, and are about to return your hand to the right breast.”

“I thought,” said Tom, “that was the proper position; for I remember reading of the Amazonian women, who are said to have parted with their right breasts, lest they should prove an impediment to their using the bow.”

“I do not mean to assert,” replied the vicar, “that there is not ample classical authority for your proceeding. The Amazons undoubtedly shot their arrows in such a position; and so, in truth, did the primitive Grecians; although the ancient Persians drew the arrow to the ear, according to the fashion of later ages, and which I greatly prefer for its superior convenience. You may also recollect, as you have been lately reading ‘The Tales of a Grandfather,’ that the superiority of the English archers was ascribed to this mode of using their bows; the words of Sir W. Scott, if I rightly recollect, are these, ‘The archers of England were taught to draw the bow-string to their right ear, while other European nations only drew it to the breast.’ Now,” continued the vicar, “if you try the difference of these postures, you will find that a much longer arrow can be drawn to the ear than to the breast, because the right arm has more room.”

The party now amused themselves for some time; each shooting in his turn at the mark which was chosen for the trial; and with a success which, considering it was their first attempt, the vicar declared to be “quite marvellous.”

At the conclusion of the sport, Mr. Twaddleton informed his friends, that parochial duties required his attendance at the vestry, but Mr. Seymour told him that he should expect his company in the evening.

It was just six o’clock, when the sound of the porter’s bell, and the rolling of carriage-wheels, announced the approach of some important stranger to the lodge. It was Miss Villers. Were this a romance rather than an instructive history, we should, at once, charge our pencil with the glowing hues of the rainbow, and proceed to colour the outline which the imagination of the reader must have already sketched: but the character of the present composition fortunately renders such a task unnecessary; we say “fortunately,” for the magazines of romance have actually become insolvent from the numerous and heavy drafts of the novel-writer; the regions of fancy have been so despoiled of their blossoms, that scarcely a flower can be culled by him who would entwine a garland for the brow of his heroine; and such even as may have escaped the grasp of this voracious horde, will be found to have faded under the withering influence of those insects of literature, which, fluttering or creeping about their petals, have rendered their fragrance pestilential, and turned their honey into bitterness. Where can be found the emblem of that damask lip which, arched like the bow of Cupid, shot an unerring dart, whenever a smile relaxed its tension? We might describe the perfect symmetry of her form, but what language could convey to the mind’s eye the witcheries with which the graces had surrounded it? We might depict the features of her countenance, but how could we catch and fix the varying expressions which lighted it up with the magic glow of intelligence? We must, therefore, exercise the judgment of Timanthes, and leave the reader to the sway of his own imagination.