from the French *Baionnette*, and so called from the place where it is said to have been first made, a kind of triangular dagger, made with a hollow handle and a shoulder, to fix on the muzzle of a firelock or musket, so that neither the charging nor firing is prevented by its being attached to the piece. At first the bayonet was screwed into the muzzle of the barrel, and consequently could not be used so long as a fusillade continued. The original invention as well as the subsequent improvement of this weapon is due to the French, who were also the first to employ it, and, according to Folard, gained important advantages in consequence, before the use of it became general. Its great advantage consists in rendering the musket a pike, and thus providing the soldier with a weapon which he can at all times employ, either to resist an attack of cavalry, or to charge the enemy's infantry. Guibert, in his *Essai Général de Tactique*, has proposed a method of exercising soldiers in a species of fencing or tilting with the bayonet; and the French infantry, who are still disciplined very much according to the system of this tactician, receive some instruction of the kind he has recommended. But we are inclined to agree in opinion with Mauvillon (*Essai sur l'Influence de la Poudre à Canon dans l'Art de la Guerre Moderne*), that a soldier can never tilt or fence to any purpose with an instrument so cumbrous and so difficult to be handled as a firelock, since the utmost he can do is to make one thrust, and even that cannot be effected with any degree of ease or certainty. Steadiness and determination constitute all that is necessary to render the bayonet effectual. This weapon was formerly called dagger; and in some old English authors it is written bagonet, by which name it is still known among the common soldiers.