BOOKS OF THE DAY
Nostalgia on the Fifth
A History of Fireworks. By Alan St. H. Brock. (Harrap. 21s.) PYROTECHNY is under a cloud nowadays, and this book's appearance is well-timed ; for, if we cannot let off fireworks beyond the " rationed " five-bob's-worth on the Fifth, we are at least enabled nostalgically to read about them. Lately even this compensation has been denied us, Mr. Brock's previous book, Pyrotechnics, having been for some years out of print. In the interval he has collected a mass of new material ; and the present volume is likely to remain the standard work on the subject.
It is a wholly fascinating book, for Mr. Brock is not only a pyro- technist but a professional writer ; he has six novels to his credit, as well as several other works. Moreover, he is a scholar, and has ranged with an ant-like industry through the pyrotechnical literature of a dozen countries. Nor have his researches been too narrowly confined to his subject ; his quotations from contemporary sources are revealing in more than a purely specialised sense. Especially entertaining are some of the descriptions of firework-displays in Tudor times—for example, that which celebrated the coronation of Anne Boleyn. The main feature of this display was a "foyste or wafter full of ordnance, in which foyste was a great red dragon continually moving and casting forth wild fire and round about were terrible monstrous wild men casting fire and making a hideous noise." These " wild men " were none other than the mysterious " green men " from which the famous pub-sign is said to be derived ; they were invariably associated with firework-displays, and may too, perhaps (though Mr. Brock does not say so), have had some connec- tion with the " Jack-in-the-Green " of the old Whitsunday fertility rites.
The first chapter, dealing with the origins of pyrotechny, is of particular historical value. As Mr. Brock very lucidly points out, there has been too much confusion between the invention of gun- powder and its adaptation for military purposes—a very different matter. Gunpowder itself was almost certainly of Chinese (or at any rate Asiatic) origin, and was, for many centuries, used exclusively (and harmlessly) for firework-making ; it was not till the thirteenth century that Berthold Schwarz (very suitably a German) evolved the principle of the gun. The parallels with a more recently discovered and potentially far more destructive form of energy should not escape us.
The first half of Mr. Brock's book is devoted to the historical development of pyrotechny, from the earliest recorded mention of fireworks up to the present day. This is followed by a series of more " technical " chapters on the evolution of firework " mixtures " and the chemical discoveries involved. (It will surprise the uninitiated to learn that the coloured fires which arc so important a feature of fireworks as we know them were a comparatively recent invention, and were not widely used until early in the last century.) There is a highly amusing chapter on "firework accidents," which includes an account of Madame Blanchard, the intrepid lady who, ascending in an "illuminated balloon " at the Tivoli Garden, Paris, in 1819, carelessly mismanaged a Roman Candle, with deplorable results. (Mr. Brock quotes also a laconic entry in Evelyn's diaries: " The city of Moscow burnt by the throwing of squibs.") The final chapters deal with fireworks in their more utilitarian aspects, civil and military. The history of fireworks has for many centuries been linked with the history of war, though it was not till 1914 that pyrotechny became of first-rate importance in military operations. The author has provided an excellent index and bibliography and, in addition, a family-tree of the Brock dynasty, which has been professionally concerned with fireworks since before 1720. The book is beautifully produced, and abundantly illustrated in colour and half-tone—altogether a most admirable production. I have only one small complaint to make. I wish there were more pictures of unignited fireworks, and diagrams showing their internal structure. But this is a specialist's grouse (I am myself a lifelong firework addict), and Mr. Brock's book is not written for specialists. It should appeal to all who enjoy an amusing yet scholarly disserta- tion on a fascinating subject ; in fact, the only people who will not like it, I suppose, are those gloomy and atrabilious souls (and a few such do, alas, exist) who "can't bear" fireworks. They are to be
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