n, who was the inventor of lamps; and of
Prometheus, who had rendered them service by the fire which he had
stolen from heaven. Another feast to Bacchus was celebrated by a grand
nocturnal illumination, in which wine was poured forth profusely to all
passengers. A feast in memory of Ceres, who sought so long in the
darkness of hell for her daughter, was kept by burning a number of
torches.

Great illuminations were made in various other meetings; particularly
in the Secular Games, which lasted three whole nights; and so carefully
were they kept up, that these nights had no darkness.

In all their rejoicings the ancients indeed used fires; but they were
intended merely to burn their sacrifices, and, as the generality of them
were performed at night, the illuminations served to give light to the
ceremonies.

Artificial fires were indeed frequently used by them, but not in public
rejoicings; like us, they employed them for military purposes; but we
use them likewise successfully for our decorations and amusement.

From the latest times of paganism to the early ages of Christianity, we
can but rarely quote instances of fire lighted up for other purposes, in
a public form, than for the ceremonies of religion; illuminations were
made at the baptism of princes, as a symbol of that life of light in
which they were going to enter by faith; or at the tombs of martyrs, to
light them during the watchings of the night. All these were abolished,
from the various abuses they introduced.

We only trace the rise of _feux-de-joie_, or fireworks, given merely for
amusing spectacles to delight the eye, to the epocha of the invention of
powder and cannon, at the close of the thirteenth century. It was these
two inventions, doubtless, whose effects furnished the ideas of all
those machines and artifices which form the charms of these fires.

To the Florentines and the Siennese are we indebted not only for the
preparation of powder with other ingredients to amuse the eyes, but also
for the invention of elevated machines and decorations adapted to
augment the pleasure of the spectacle. They began their attempts at the
feasts of Saint John the Baptist and the Assumption, on wooden edifices,
which they adorned with painted statues, from whose mouth and eyes
issued a beautiful fire. Callot has engraven numerous specimens of the
pageants, triumphs, and processions, under a great variety of grotesque
forms:--dragons, swans, eagles, &c., which