prints show a good display of rockets, also bonfires, and there are indications of primitive wheels. The same remarks apply to a very fine plate published in 1669, depicting a display given at Stockholm in honour of the investiture of Charles XI of Sweden with the Order of the Garter by the British Ambassador. This engraving carries with it a feeling of conviction that it is an actual representation of the scene, and not—as is the case with earlier and with some later work—that the artist is drawing on his imagination. In many of the earlier prints it is difficult to judge if the artist is depicting what he imagined, or monsters and scenic effects actually constructed for the display.
It is worthy of note that even in early times, speaking pyrotechnically, the value of water in enhancing the effect of fireworks seems to have been realised. The display at Stockholm we have already mentioned appears to have taken place on the sea front. Many of the larger French displays of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were fired with a foreground of water; in those at Versailles full advantage was taken of the wonderful fountains and ornamental water, the display given in celebration of the entry of Louis XIV in Paris after his marriage being given on the Seine, and many of the early English displays took place on the Thames. Probably the earliest contemporary account of any length of a firework display in England is one headed "The Manner of Fire-Workes shewed up upon the Thames" in celebration of the marriage of Prince Frederick (Elector Palatine) with the daughter of James I in 1613. We read "many artificiall concusions in Fire-Workes were upon the Thames performed.
"First, for a welcome to the beholders a peale of Ordnance like unto a terrible thunder ratled in the ayre. . . . Secondly, followed a number more of the same fashion, spredding
