young idea how to shoot, as Milton's Midas says. Amnum, sir; but, says I, while I am in my prime, shall I be tied to your la'ship's apron-string? Why, some of I not correck?"

Thoroughly, sir; but I am sorry that you prefer these fine mornins you may break all to pieces, smash. songs to plays."

"Oh, sir, wiser men even have considered playing quite as a secunduin artem, below all the others; but the muse of amateuring is creditable as a relaxation to those who may encounter a more orrida bella. That reminds me of the dooke, my dear Wellington, the yero of Waterloo, I may say "

to the toone of thirty thousand; or your dressy daugh-
ter may run through every farden on't, my lady, al-
ways having company, or out visiting. Give me my
'oods and liberty."

Miss Tidmarsh was unlucky in not suiting the taste of such a cousin,” said I.

"No doubt of it, very true, sir, but disgustibus non

"You have enjoyed his grace's personal inter-disputandum; it's no use arguing with one's antipacourse?" I said.

Ad honores, I have had that honor, on business once for five minutes; but I was remembering an adventure, founded on his extrawnry recollection of faces; he's as bad as the royal family; in course you know the faculty is quite on the Georgium Sidus.Well, sir, the dooke is as notorious. Yes, there was in the Peninsular a particular officer he had seen perform in Madrid, a black, not a Negro servant, more like Massinger's Oronoko; bless me, that I should forget the name! "Tis written by Young; I've seen him do the villain myself, at Doory Lane Theatur, London, when I was in England. Samba, in the Vengeance, that's it, sir, but if you can refresh my memory as to the anecdote, shall rest obleeged."

"I believe you allude to when Wellington, reconnoitering behind some bushes, heard a splash in the river close to him, the aide-de-camp fancied him surprised by the enemy, but his Grace, on ascertaining that Captain Kent and his company of Rifles were fording the stream, said, 'Oh, 'tis only Zanga washing

the soot off.""

"So he did, sir, very true, upon my honour; yes, and in a few words from you, there I have it, short yet concise. Well, I had always heard that you were good company! You was not in Spain, I take it, sir?" "Had not that honores, sir, to misquote your slipsop."

"Sir, many thanks. On my arrival, being sent to bring up stores, I was taken prisoner, but escaped, and glad enough I was, for a grimmer old Castallion than my lockum tenum jailer you never saw; then I caught a fever, and was like to have made a sick transit of it: the hospital was so crammed we could neither sit nor lie in comfort; we were all in a complete jam satis. Poor Highlanders, sir, scarce decent, their's is the nastiest costume!"

"They are very proud, nevertheless, in sporting the garb of old Gael."

“Ay, ay, sir, that's a good coverslut for their poverty; what old Gale wore, because he couldn't afford new smalls, they wear the save the siller, as they call it, sir; it's mere penury and stinginess. Some of their warm men do wear trews, you know; take my word for it, captain, 'tis necessitas non habit legs."

You are severe, Mr. Tidmarsh," I said. "Very true, sir, no doubt of it. Spain was my first spice of war. But for that sperit of proud independence which marks us all, sir, I had little need to brave the battle-field. My aunt, Lady Tidmarsh, has a house in Russell-square, her concern is in the city; she can leave me a good, fat legacy-a summum bo

thies. You should see my intended, quite another
guess kind of gal, I assure you. If you'll believe me,
no pride in her. So out of the common, the wole af-
fair; that's what I like. I met her first at a daunse;
in course, handed her refreshments, got leave to call
next day, and hope she'd caught no cold, talk of the
weather, and so forth. Well, sir, we got on quite snug
and chatty; and her mammar, the perfit lady, at once
Come, Mr. T.,' says she, we'll
presses me to stay.
make no stranger of you; we don't kip fashionable
urs-no ceremony-never stand upon forms-take
us all in the family way, and make yourself at home,
though there, I dare say, you'd have a better meal,
but not an 'artier welcome.' Well, sir, this was
genteel; a very clever woman she is. So, when the
cloth was laid, though there was the best of every
think, as if nothink was good enough for me, she kip
on apologizing: 'I hope you'll put up with our hum-
ble fare, it must be very dull for you,' and in the
evening, when we tead, Miss asked was mine agreea-
ble, and all that; and promised to scrape an acquaint-
ance with my cousin, and get her to bring her work,
come early, and spend the day. Such encouragement
so filled me with hope, that I popped and was ex-
cepted. Yes, sir, and I go home to be the happy man,
a turtle-dove, sir, a Darby and a Joan, as the dear old
King and Queen, as long as he was statu quo, set us
all an exempli gratia."

"So should desert in arms be crowned!" said I.

"That's Moore's idear, if I'm correck," continued Mr. Tidmarsh. "Surely so; a real genius, sir; inspired, as every body calls him. His Anacreon—such facility. A man of no birth, I believe, tho'?"

"Of a very old, high, and talented race," said I and full of comic humor. Sir Thomas More, on the very day of his death, could not keep his counte

nance."

"Ah! there I have you, captain! because his ead— it was caput mortuum with him, poor gent!-was not apprized of his connexion, though, with the other Thomas."

Easily traced, Mr. Tidmarsh. Sir Thomas and his brother, Hamilton Moore, whose system of navigation you may have seen, left one, a son, Francis Moore, physician, the other, a daughter, Hannah, authoress of the sacred dramas. That branch of the family did not introduce the second O into the name Anacreon is their only child till these two married.

alive. Sir John, you know, fell at Corunna.”

"No doubt of it; I declare that's very true, though I never heard of it before. Well, in my poor judgment, the son knows more about Venus than ever his father

did, in spite of his almanack; but, as a moral man, ¡nished as if he had not known, when he began his sir, I can't but wish that he had taken more after his journey, where it was to end. pious mother."

"I give you my word here we are, really, and we "His prose works, at least, are unexceptionable," I must part; for affairs retain me in this place. Thanks, persevered; "vide Edward and Zeluco." dear sir, I must say, for your good company."

THE RIFLE, AND ITS USE.

MR. EDITOR,-The rifle is an American weapon. I better, or as good as my own-and so long as I make From the discovery of the utility of the grooved bar- other people understand me, why I shall be satisfied. rels in imparting a rapid rotation to the flight of the I have stated that the rifle is an American weapon bullet, and counteracting thereby every diverging in--it is so, and a thorough knowledge of its use ought fluence, the rifle has been used in the defence of to be universally disseminated. There are many exliberty. The ancient Germans, the original inventors, cellent shots in my neighborhood, who can plank it established a corps of yagers, whose execution terri- into a dollar at eighty yards, but know nothing about fied the invaders of their country, and drove them the allowance to be made for the force of a side wind from the land. Andreas Hofer, the innkeeper, with a at a longer distance, or the rising and falling of the handful of Tyrolese peasants, resisted the army sent bullet, according to the nature of the charge of pow by Napoleon to subdue them; the rifles of the der. I mean to put it to them in plain language, and mountaineers kept at bay the veteran soldiers of that if the old hands refuse to buy your book, and read my conquering force, and obliged the best troops of Bava-writings, why we must see what we can do with the ria to surrender. The women and children employed young ones. themselves in loading the rifles of the men, who were attacking the cavalry with pitchforks, flails and clubs. General Moreau's retreat from Franconia in 1796 was compelled by the rifles of the foresters. He entered the country with the pride of a conqueror, but the Franks hovered round him like a nest of infuriated wasps, and, stung by rifle bullets, and starved by the Germans' possessing themselves of his supplies, he was driven, with his numerous force, across the Franconian circle to the borders of his native land. The peasant boys of the district boasted of having picked off dozens of Frenchmen by their rifle shots. The Prussian youths, in the last regenerating struggle against the French yoke, grasped in death their rifled pieces, but were thickly covered with the bodies of their enemies.

The use of the rifle was promulgated in this country by the descendants of the original inventors, the German yagers, who, emigrating to this land of promise, disseminated, as backwoodsmen, the practice of the rifled gun. During the revolutionary war, small bodies of American marksmen hung on the flanks and rear of the British force, and, with their rifles, destroyed hundreds without exposing themselves. The English ministry imported several corps of Hessian and Anspach yagers, but the German sharp-shooters, as they were called, were unable to compete with the woodcraft of the western men. In the last war, the glory of the rifle was achieved at the battle of New Orleans; and the smooth bore lowered its muzzle for

ever.

Rifles of thirty-six inches in the barrel, should have, at least, a three-quarter, if not a whole, turn in the grooves cut in the interior of the barrel. If there is any deficiency in this spiral turn, the rifle cannot be made to shoot with certainty, particularly at a long distance-say over one hundred and fifty yards. I know that very few persons wish for certainty of aim over eighty or a hundred yards for shooting in the woods, but rifles that do not impart a rotary motion to a bullet for the full range of three to four hundred yards, are less useful than smoothbores, since a ball from the latter reaches the mark quicker than one fired from a rifle.

An increase in the quantity of powder used for the charge, will not increase the length of the rotary motion. It will most likely cause the bullet to "cross the rifling," as it is called—that is, discharge the bullet with such force, as to strip off the particles of lead which had entered the grooves, and compel it straight out of the barrel with no more precision than if it had been discharged from a shot gun. Not only must the force of the powder be strictly apportioned to the weight of the pellet and the rifling of the gun, but the grooves must be properly and judiciously contrived, not too far apart, nor yet too close, but affording a sufficient hold of the bullet to secure its receiving a spiral motion, free from a violent under friction.

The small sized English rifle barrel is the best-the Yankee barrels are the worst. I have seen excellent barrels that were made in our western country; they were welded and bored with a precision that the Rifles are of ancient invention. In 1381, the city finest workman from the old country could not excel. of Augsburg in Suabia was bound to furnish thirty The French rifles are the worst in the world. The rifles in the war against the nobility-and it is recorded monsieurs seem as if they studied to impede the bul that fire arms with rifled barrels were in use at Leip-let in its transit, and increase the power of friction. zig in 1498. Many of their barrels are grooved straight up and

Now, Mr. Editor, having said all that I know in fa-down, without the slightest spiral twist. Others are vor of my favorite weapon, I am going to propose to you the transmission of a series of letters about the rifle and its use. I do not pretend to any originality in what I may have to say; I believe that I know what I am talking about, and what every body else has said about rifles, or any other sort of guns. I shall use another person's language when I think that it is

turned barely a quarter of an inch, instead of an en tire round. Some have a small piece of the barrel rifled near the muzzle-others, in the opposite extreme, have the whole length of the tube grooved with an infinity of fine grooves, like the teeth of a saw. poleon Bonaparte had a splendid looking rifle, inlaid with precious stones and metals, but grooved with

Na

saw-like zig-zags, more befitting a trepanning instrument than a ball gun. It was also case-hardened inside and out. Now, I care not how straight a tube may be bored, or how beautifully it may be rifled; the process of case-hardening must give it a curve, more or less.

Water is a woful dereiver of the sight; a small running stream will frequently bother an experienced eye; and the difference between a bright and a dull day will puzzle persons who are in reality good judges of distance. Fog or mist destroys the possibility of being correct, and very few rifle shots can make proper allowances for the glare and dazzle of a coat of snow. Firing at an object immediately under the sun, or against a bright opening in the clouds, is

sary, to become skilful with the rifle, that a man should be a close observer of nature, and intimately acquainted with the minutiae of her several effects.

With respect to using a different quantity of powder in your charges, or making the slightest alteration in loading either for a long or a short distance, I assert that it is a ridiculous and useless custom.—always a thing of uncertainty. It is therefore necesBy using a charge of uniform strength, you discover the necessary allowance to be made for a variation of distance, a knowledge of the parabola described by the bullet, and an intimacy with the powers of your rifle; but, if you are always using a different impetus, you must ever remain ignorant of these essential qualities. Besides, suppose you are charged for a long shot, and have a chance of popping at something within fifty yards, your ball will fly over your aim; and if you wish to hit your mark at a distance of two hundred yards, and must fire or lose your chance, why, if you are loaded for a near shot, your bullet strikes the ground long before it gets near the object of your fire; or else you must aim as if you were shooting at the tops of the trees. By knowing exactly how far the usual charge will carry the bullet, you very shortly become acquainted with the little varia-higher in the sight-slit as the distance becomes greater. tion that is necessary in the sight-but if you are eternally firing charges of greater or lesser force, you are always firing a strange gun.

Almost every different maker of rifles has a different manner of attaching the sights to the barrel. The usual and sufficient number is two, but many rifles have a variety of sight-leaves, as useless and perplexing as the variety of charges. Practice, the rifleman's only method of obtaining perfection, will give all that precision desirable by the most ambitious of shots, but who is to "dawdle and potter" with the three or four leaves of the sights to suit the distance of the aim? One good sight near the lock of the gun, with a slit or notch of moderate width, the narrower the better, is quite enough. Every rifle possesses a small sight-nob or corn near the muzzle; let this rise

and vice versa. You may defy all shifting sights and variorum charges, and yet be equally expert.

Carefully preserve the muzzle of your rifle from Endeavor to form a correct judgment as to dis- being battered or bruised. If the barrel is properly tances. An expert marksman, who is used to the squared, it will much assist you in correctness of prewoods and prairies, becomes perfectly bothered in the senting, during your aim, at any object square to the mountain ranges; and a mountaineer would be equal-line of elevation. ly confused in the thick depths of the old woods.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

THE

THINGS OF OTHER

BY MISS C. H. WATERMAN.

DAYS.

THE pleasant things of other days,

How have they pass'd away! How faintly to our straining gaze

Returns life's sunny ray.

As dews before the morning sun,
Gems after gems depart,
Hope's blossoms wither, one by one,
And fade upon the heart.

The voices sweet of other years,

Their tones so soft and low, That whisper'd music in our ears,

Are silent, long ago.

The hearts that shed around our own
The sunlight of their rays,
The eyes that fondly, warmly shone,

Are fled with other days.
The pleasant things of other days,
They turn them sadly back,
To trace, amid the misty haze,
Their bright and early track.

They see the light of sunny skies,
They watch the op'ning flow'rs,
And seek amid their crimson dyes,
The bloom of vanish'd hours.

They steal with soft and silent tread,,
Thro' memory's dim domain,
Like shad'wy spirits of the dead,

Mourning for life again.

The past hath op'd its mighty tomb,
And o'er the present, strays
Those spectral forms, but ah! their bloom
Has fled with other days.

The pleasant things of other days,

They never may return,
Illumin'd with those sunny rays,

That o'er youth brightly burn.
Tho' all their morning glow is o'er,
Still thro' the twilight, plays
A blessed gleam, like that of yore,
Which lighted other days.

HEAVENS! what an extraordinary face! I was in the box of the Theatre, New York,-poor as I was, I could always keep a dollar for recreation of this kind. I had seen many countenances, there and elsewhere, before, that had excited my attention; nay, I had frequently imagined myself, at last the victim of the little Divine Breechesless, and had often remained in that fearful condition of suspense and incertitude for the space of half a day, quite as long as that, certainly! But here was a combination of features and indescribability! Now 1 was in love-and that " past all surgery!"

My eyes had been roving all over the house in search of noticeable viznomies, of the feminine gender. I had taken in, at a glance or two, the entire semi-circular array of divers coloured visuals, Madonna heads and gilt combs, that glittered showily in the dress row, and was turning listlessly to the transactions of the stage, when I caught a glimpse of a profile, just before me, in the next box. I stopped leaned forward, to get a more perfect view. It was turned away again. Something kept my eye intently fixed upon that head, with its shining dark hair gathered neatly in a rolling knot, confined with a filagree silver comb, and encircled with a light golden braid, that united in a gem upon the forehead; that side face haunted me!

bustle attracted the notice of the profile, and she turned full toward the source whence it proceeded. Our eyes met; into mine was poured a flood of liquid light! Those lips were parted with a half smile; long, sweeping eye-lashes shadowed the hazel of the eyes; Love himself sported in the dimples of that cheek, and "rumpled in smiles his rosy bed;" that fair, round, indented chin-the pure Parian of the brow

"Heavens! what an extraordinary face!"

Till now, I had not known beauty. I felt the palpable forging of a link in my heart, which was to bind me-soul, life, destiny-to the fair vision before me. As she slightly blushed at my ardent gaze, and, with a lingering look, slowly turned away, I drew a deep breath, and murmured my admiration as above. The words seemed to have struck on a suspicious ear. The dark stranger turned hastily and frowned. A glance convinced me he was not of her blood! I hated him then and there; and with a look, haughty and steadfast as his own, I met the insult of his flashing eye, that gleamed, fiery black, from beneath an overhanging brow of midnight. There was beauty in that stormy face-but it was the beauty of a fallen angel! I cannot tell why, but I knew he was a bad man-I felt we were foes-I could have smitten him there! I looked eagerly at the hand of the fair unknown. For a long time her present position,—the back | On the forefinger was a plain ring! So then, she was half turned towards me,-was unchanged, and I had engaged-and doubtless to this fiend-stamped stranger. opportunity to mark the fine fall of her neck and shoulders, which were screened by a richly worked lace cape-though I could see that the throat was of dazzling whiteness; the exquisite turn of her form, as far as the waist; and the delicate beauty of a hand, that rested on the front of the box, seeming as though it might not abide the merest touch of impurity. By her side sat a gentleman, hardly old enough to allay the uneasy sensations I was beginning,-I knew not why, to experience. He was dressed with extreme richness and taste. Her brother, probably! He turned a little more towards me; there was no likeness between his singular countenance and my distinct impression of the profile! The expression emanating from the latter was as the sunshine of Heaven; this was a dark, stern beauty, and on the lip sat a haughty and hateful smile.

The box door opened noisily behind me, to admit a flaunting, flashing belle, who, stiff with silk and whalebone, and flaring in jewels, made her way to the front seat, as though the surrounding canaille must be aware that she was the daughter of B., the big broker, and her carriage drove upon Place. The

I had seen her but half an hour, and strange-I was working myself, at my own hypothesis, into a fever of fury. By heaven! I would interfere—I would quarrel with him-fight him-slay him; such a desecration should not be, for had not nature written villain on his front?

In this impotent madness my heart was still boiling, when, with a few short words, and a hasty hand, he flung a rich shawl over his companion's shoulders, and they arose and prepared to leave the box. As they passed out, one more mutual glance of defiance passed between those burning eyes and mine, and as the beautiful girl threw a hasty look towards me, I thought there was mingled with the favour in her glance an expression of beseeching anxiety-as though, with a woman's instinctive knowledge of the heart, and perhaps some of those forebodings which I myself was experiencing, she had comprehended the whole state of the case, and trembled at indefinable, yet possible, consequences.

For a moment after the door closed upon them, I sat entranced-the theatre seemed to grow dark, as though the gas had all been let down, to achieve a