divine council as in a human parliament. There with enthusiasm for beauty, and overflowing with are orators of the celestial government, and respect and tenderness for female worth, could tribunes of the condemned angels, who demand ever have composed such verses. the head of the Most High as Milton clamored for that of Charles the First. All this, despite M. Lamartine says in one place, "When we the genius of the poet, is void of philosophy and examine the archives and visit the libraries full of tediousness. It is, in fact, the dream of a of the Italian sovereign, it is curious to obpuritan who has fallen asleep over the first pages serve how frequently, in the correspondence

of his Bible.

The versification alone redeems the inanity of of the most eminent writers of that age, we the fable. It recals, even to the rhythm, Homer, find the name mentioned of this young EngVirgil, and Racine. But Milton, notwithstand lishman, the friend of the muses who speaks ing his posthumous renown as the first epic and even writes in muse the language of writer of England, remains even in that position Torquato, and who promises to his native at an immeasurable distance from Shakspeare, land a great orator, a great politician, and a who reminds us of no one, but who translates great poet." We suspect that M. Lamartine nature instead of following sacred legends. * *here speaks with indiscreet vagueness about It is impossible to read without overpowering the numerous notices of Milton still extant in admiration the tender and pathetic scenes of the Italian archives. Had he published some of first appearance of Eve to Adam, and of Adam to these, his sketch would have possessed greater Eve, in the garden of innocence: neither can we peruse without a thrill of chaste enjoyment the interest. As it is, he has given to his counpare but impassioned conversations between the trymen some account of one who is not much two earliest lovers of the human race. The his- known and seldom understood in France, torian who accuses Milton of never having re- though to English readers, such a memoir garded women but as domestic drudges, calumni- of Milton will afford little satisfaction. ates human nature. No heart but one teeming

From the United Service Magazine.

ON THE ATTAINMENT OF EXTREME RANGE
FROM LONG GUNS.

BY LIEUTENANT COLONEL PARKINSON.

shaped projectile made to fit the bore of the gun the base of the cone, and this groove packed in with little windage, a groove might be made at the same manner as a steam-engine piston, the packing confined in its place by an iron ring around it; passing the projectile into the gun, ALTHOUGH among eastern nations guns of this ring would get pushed off by the muzzle, great magnitude for defensive purposes have for and pass on to the handle of the rammer, or on a long period found favor, it is only the modern to the hand, inserting the cone projectile into art of war that has brought to the consideration the muzzle of the gun. For spherical shot, a of the great powers of Europe the advantage of circular iron wad or wheel, with circumference guns of great calibre and the greatest possible grooved, and packed steam-piston fashion, the range, but with all the desire to attain the latter, packing secured by a ring as before stated, or by one of the first principles, total prevention of a cross lanyard, to be cut when safe within the windage, appears to be neglected. I am aware muzzle of the gun, would answer for long-range that of late years the subject is more attended to guns; but to obtain extreme range, without a than formerly, and that it is now an acknowledg-gas-tight projectile, is as futile an attempt as to ed fact, that the propulsion is greater in propor-expect to work a steam-engine without a steamtion to diminution of windage, but the total ex- tight piston. Indeed, all other guns should have clusion of windage appears to have been either at least a cut wire ring passed in before the ball, overlooked or considered an impossibility. The exceeding in thickness the difference between expansion of steam and the elastic fluid from ball and bore, and fitting tight round the interior ignited gunpowder are each about 2000; the ex-of the gun, so as to fill up any space between it pansion being the same, we may conclude that and the ball, thus to obviate windage, and conthe tenuity and power of resistance are equal. sequent deficiency of range, power, and peneWith even the smallest, the most inferior steam-tration. engine, it is considered essential that the piston It being a rule that extension of range is in should be packed perfectly steam tight, so that any escape of steam is impossible, as such escape would destroy power. Now, if we consider the gun as the cylinder containing the motive power and the ball as the piston, or body to be moved in the cylinder with the full force of the whole expansive or explosive power, it will be evident that the ball should be packed as carefully gastight as the piston is steam-tight. To a cone

proportion to increase of calibre, and density of shot, so will it be found a fact, that even the greatest present range will be increased by the total exclusion from escape of the elastic fluid, previous to the release of the projectile from the mouth of the gun.

C. F. PARKINSON. Appleton Hall, Sunderland.

From The Spectator. PHOTOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS OF

SCRIPTURE.*

whom, both here and elsewhere, the artist does better than grown men and women. It appears a mistake and a weakening of the subject to confine the swarming reptiles to the floor of the palace. Goats and Coneys are a capital

and so are "the two Young Roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies "-only that they want the vivacious beauty of expression which would suit the subject. Apes and Peacocks are full of life, and present brilliancy

THERE is something eccentric about this handsome volume. The designs are the work study-strictly in the line of natural history; of a lady known as J. B., and doubtless an amateur; but they are published not as engravings, but as photographs-taken, we presume from designs in Indian-ink or sepia. They are essentially illustrations of animal-life, but a Scriptural aspect is given to them, and softness in the rendering of plumage withsometimes by actual representation of an inci- out the least vestige of trick. Jezebel eaten dent from the Bible, sometimes merely from by Dogs is one of the most remarkable of the their treating animals mentioned there. The set for drawing, and equally so for deep truth "Naturalist who supplies the letter-press, J. of canine expression. It is repulsive, but so W., of Woodville, Edinburgh, does not con- gravely and simply done as not to be disgustfine himself either to natural history or to ing. In the drawing of desolated Rabbah, Bible-elucidation, but adds, in a spirit of im-classic details of architecture are a mistake. partiality, quotations from Byron, from Ma- The Babylonian houses "full of doleful creacaulay's Roman Lays, and anything else which tures" has a brace of wonderful owlets; while turns up. As regards this part of the book, lizards dart between the ivy-leaves, a jackal we think by far the best thing to do would moans, a hyæna grins, vultures perch, a raven have been to give simply all the passages, or swoops, and a couple of wild-goats butt in grim all those of peculiar importance, in which the good-fellowship. The Stork, the Crane, and animal selected is mentioned in the Bible; the Swallow, is the reverse of this: the domeswhich could be reading at once curious, valu-tic creatures nesting in man's habitation, and able, and pertinent.

feeding their young on his roof. The scene Apart from singularity of scheme, the book here is Dutch, and everything is lighted with is remarkable in an artistic sense. The great a quiet happiness. Still better-perhaps the quality of the designs is the extreme serious- best in the book-is the Hen gathering her ness with which they are done. J. B. has chickens under her wings. It may be called worked her very best; delineating with accu- perfection of its kind; as minutely true as racy, finishing every part of her subject care- Wolf's things of the same sort, and broader in fully, and displaying observation, capacity, feeling. The vegetative accessories are as and thought, in a quiet, uncommon degree. good as the bipedal principals. The Herd of Fancy and subject spinning are discarded; the Swine at Gadara which "ran violently down object is to give thorough studies of the ani- a steep place into the sea was a very diffimals with an interesting association. The cult subject to treat-verging on the artistimanner is firm, free, and definite-masculine cally grotesque, and even ludicrous; but J. in the right way for a lady's productions to be B., without sacrificing a tittle of characteristic 80. We have no doubt that J. B. is a wo-truth, makes one feel the typical uncleanness man of strong sense; she is certainly an able of the brutes rather than attend to their sprawartist.

ling, huddling carcases, or hear their grunts and squeaks. It is another instance of the saving power of resolute unquestioning fidelity in an ugly subject.

The series consist of twenty designs. It commences with the return of the Dove to the Ark; in the background the raven feeding on some carrion, while mountain-tops begin to Some of the designs we have omitted to appear above the flood. The Raven himself mention individually-mostly because of their forms the subjects of the second design; the less merit, though a portion of these also detruth with which the drifting of corpses of man serve careful examination. Of a few previous and beast is represented being noticeable. productions by J. B. we saw two about ChristThe scape-goat is portrayed carrying off the mas time last year, and recognized in her people's sins "into a land not inhabited," something above commonplace. Those, howthrough a solemn darkening twilight. In the ever, gave little idea of the muturity developed Plague of Frogs, two or three of the human in this series, which is, as we started with sayfigures a point of which J. B. is not mistress ing, remarkable. We are glad also to see in the same way as of animals-have well-con-photography tried, as we had before heard it sidered action. These figures are children, suggested, as a medium for placing designs before the public. The experiment is con

er.

* Illustrations of Scripture by an Animal-Paint-clusive of its agreeable propriety, as well as With Notes by a Naturalist, Photographed of its necessary and entire exactness to the by Thomas Constable and Co., Edinburgh. Pub

lished by Hamilton, Adams and Co., and Acker-original.

mann and Co.

Such a blue inner light from her eyelids out-
broke,

You looked at her silence and fancied she spoke;
When she did, so peculiar, yet soft was the tone;
Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her
My Kate.

alone;

I doubt if she said to you much that could act
As a thought or suggestion—she did not at-

Or these two splendid gift books it would be uncourteous to speak critically of the first, and impertinent to pass any critical judgment, except that of sincere admiration, on the last. And truly, of Christmas offerings it is more our duty to describe adornments in the way of illustrations, printing and binding. The edition of Longfellow's "Golden Legend," forms a beautiful companion volume to the illustrat-In the sense of the brilliant and wise, I infer; ed edition of his "Hyperion" of last year. 'Twas her thinking of others made you think of her; The pages are similarly embossed, with fifty equally charming wood engravings by Birket Foster and Jane E. Hay, and the paper is of the same delicate creamy tint.

"The Keepsake,” has a dozen beautiful steel engravings, including portraits of several beautiful women, but the opening stanzas, by Mr. Francis Bennoch, scarcely impress the reader with a feeling for the beautiful in poetry. Whether it is on Lady Bolton's account that the civic Mæcenas has precedence of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, or because he is a new candidate for public laurels, we cannot say. Of the three poets, close in alphabetical_alliance if not in fame, our readers shall have specimens in succession. Of Bennoch:

ON THE PORTRAIT OF LADY BOLTON.
There's something in a beauteous face.
We cannot help but look upon it;
There's something in a form of grace
Unwritten yet in song or sonnet:
One flash of light from dusky eyes
Thrills coldest natures with surprise.

tract,

My Kate.

She never found fault with you; never implied
Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her
Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole

side

My dear one! when thou wast alive with the

rest,

I held thee the sweetest and loved thee the best;
And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part
As thy smile used to do for thyself, my sweet-
heart,

Of Bulwer

My Kate?

THE MODERN WOOER.

Since woman is blind

When her lover's before her,
Here's a peep at the mind

Of her ardent adorer.

"I am fickle, I own,"

Says, in thought, the perfidious; "But the fickle are known To be very fastidious:

BIOGRAPHIES FOR THE MILLION.

WE extract the following brief Biographies from a valuable work, shortly to be published under the sanction of the Society for the Confusion of Useless Knowledge-:

HOOD, a celebrated admiral, who, for his national services in writing " The Song of the Shirt" was made, for many years, the Editor of the Comic Annual. In this situation he was the cause of so many "lyttel gestes," that since then, many a poor punster has got his living by rob

bing Hoop. Being outlawed he lived for some time in Sherwood Forest; though we afterwards

meet with a Hood in a Convent.

ing one, for he could converse in both Hebrew and Greek. His widow married King Henry THE EIGHTH.

A ROOM IN DAMASCUS.

THE floor is of two levels; the first or lowest into which you enter, contains a fountain with several spouts of water, is paved with marble, has racks for pipes, recesses in the walls for nargelies, cups, etc., and other conveniences for the household. Here the slaves wait the will of their masters, and here you put off the slippers before you ascend to the second level, where the mats are spread and the family sitting. Over this fountain is suspended from the highest part of the ceiling a chandelier, with a great many little glass-lamps, whose various lights, mingling with the waters, and reflected from them produce a very beautiful effect.

The second level is twelve or eighteen inches higher than the first, and is the place appropriated to the family; it is often separated from the lower part by a little railing of wood or stone.— Mats are spread upon the earthen floor, and round the walls mattresses three feet or three feet and a half broad, are spread out for the accommodation of the family, upon the mats, or upon low wooden frames four or six inches in height. The ceilings are lofty and ornate; beautiful carving, interspersed with numerous little looking glasses, relieves and gratifies the eye, and very often the circular centre piece is composed of massive embossment, in which a gigantic serpent, displaying its beautiful folds and glancing eyes, seems ready to spring upon you.

the upper windows, which are of beautiful stained Let the sun now shed his golden beams through glass; let the golden letters in panels upon the walls appear in their beauty; let hundreds of little looking-glasses above and around you reflect and multiply every object and movement; place a number of richly-clothed Turks, with long beards and flowing robes, upon the divan, amidst soft mattresses and velvet cushions, with long pipes in their mouths; add to all this the unceasing murmur of falling waters, and you have a scene really beautiful, and truly Oriental.-Graham's Jordan and the Rhine.

Propaganda at Rome have led to the discovery Excavations made in lands belonging to the of a chapel near the Via Momenta, containing the tomb of Pope Alexander I., who suffered martyrdom in 116. The tomb forms an altar, and bears an inscription indicating that it was erected by a prelate in the fourth century. The chapel is in a better state of preservation than might have been expected from its antiquity,

HOLLAR, an Engraver, who made a great deal of noise in his day. His real name was JONES. PARR, a gentleman who attained an immense age and it is said that, during his life, Ten Sovereigns sat on the Throne; but, whether they were all there at once, or why they were put there at all, we leave to numismatists to discover, -though we think that it could not, at any time, take ten sovereigns to make a crown. Parr's acDEFINITION OF SPRING :- The vegetable quaintance with the dead languages was a speak- Shooting Season.

and it contains remains of beautiful decorations.

From Mr. Kingsley's Alexandrian Lectures. surely be avenged upon it; but wrong must not avenge wrong, or the penalty is only passed on from one sinner to another. Whatsoever ele

STATE AND PROSPECTS OF TURKEY. It was little to be expected, that, in a history of Alexandrian philosophies, we should stumble upon any new thoughts touching the war with Russia, the prospects of King Otho, or the government of India from Leadenhall Street. Yet so it is.

The following is from the Preface:

The Turkish empire, as it now exists, seems to me an altogether unrighteous and worthless thing. It stands no longer upon the assertion of the great truth of Islam, but on the merest brute force and oppression. It has long since lost the only excuse which one race can have for holding another in subjection; that which we have for taking on ourselves the tutelage of the Hindoos, and which Rome had for its tutelage of the Syrians and Egyptians; namely the governing with tolerable justice those who cannot govern themselves, and making them better and more prosperous people, by compelling them to submit to law. I do not know when this excuse is a sufficient one. God showed that it was so for several centuries in the case of the Romans; God will show whether it is in the case of our Indian empire; but this I say, that the Turkish empire has not even that excuse to plead; as is proved by the patent fact that the whole East, the very garden of the old world, has become a desert and a ruin under the upaslight of their government.

ment of good is left in the Turk, to that we must appeal as our only means, if not of saving him, still of helping him to a quiet euthanasia, and absorption into a worthier race of successors. He is said (I know not how truly), to have one virtue left-that of faithfulness to his word. Only by showing him that we too abhor treachery and bad faith, can we either do him good or take a safe standing-ground in our own peril. And this we have done; and for this we shall be rewarded. But this is surely not all our duty. Even if we should be able to make the civil and religious freedom of the Eastern Christians the price of our assistance to the Mussulman, the struggle will not be over; for Russia will still be what she has always been, and the northern Anarch will be checked, only to return to the contest with fiercer lust of aggrandizement, to enact the part of a new Macedon against a new Greece, divided, not united, by the treacherous bond of that balance of power, which is but war under the guise of peace.

Europe needs a holier and more spiritual, and therefore a stronger union, than can be given by armed neutralities, and the so-called cause of order. She needs such a bond as in the Elizabethan age united the free states of Europe against the Anarch of Spain, and delivered the western nations from a rising world-tyranny, which promised to be even more hideous than that elder one of Rome. If, as then, England shall proclaim herself the champion of freedom As for the regeneration of Turkey, it is a by acts, and not by words and paper, she may, question whether the regeneration of any nation as she did then, defy the rulers of the darkwhich has sunk, not into mere valiant savagery, ness of this world, for the God of Light will but into effete and profligate luxury, is possible. be with her. But, as yet, it is impossible to Still more is it a question whether a regeneration look, without sad forebodings, upon the descan be effected, not by the rise of a new spiritual tiny of a war begun upon the express underidea (as in the case of the Koreish), but simply standing that evil shall be left triumphant by more perfect material appliances, and com-throughout Europe, wheresoever that evil does mercial prudence. History gives no instance, it not seem, to our own selfish shortsightedness, to seems to me, of either case; and if our attempt threaten us with immediate danger; with promto regenerate Grecce by freeing it, has been an ises, that under the hollow name of the Cause of utter failure, much more, it seems to me, would Order-and that promise made by a revolutionany such attempt fail in the case of the Turkish ary Anarch-the wrongs of Italy, Hungary, Porace. For what can be done with a people whichland, Sweden shall remain unredressed, and that has lost the one great quality which was the Prussia and Austria, two tyrannies, the one far tenure of its existence, its military skill? Let more false and hypocritical, the other even more any one read the accounts of the Turkish armies rotten than that of Turkey, shall, if they will in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth cen- but observe a hollow and uncertain neutralturies, when they were the tutors and models of all Europe in the art of war, and then consider the fact that those very armies require now to be officered by foreign adventurers, in order to make them capable of even keeping together, and let him ask himself seriously, whether such a fall can ever be recovered. When, in the age of Theodosius, and again in that of Justinian, the Roman armies had fallen into the same state; when the Italian legions required to be led by Stilicho the Vandal, and the Byzantine by Belisar the Sclav and Narses the Persian, the end of all things was at Land, and came; as it will come soon to Turkey.

But if Turkey deserves to fall, and must fall, it must not fall by our treachery. Its sins will

ity (for who can trust the liar and the oppressor ?), be allowed not only to keep their illgotten spoils, but even now to play into the hands of our foe, by guarding his Polish frontier for him, and keeping down the victims of his cruelty, under pretence of keeping down those of their own.

It is true, the alternative is an awful one; one from which statesmen and nations may well shrink: but it is a question, whether that alternative may not be forced upon us sooner or later, whether we must not from the first look it boldly in the face, as that which must be some day, and for which we must prepare, not cowardly, and with cries about God's wrath and judgments against us,—which would be abject, were they