probably without any parallel in the history of literary controversies.

Let us turn to the Story of the Guns and see how Sir Emerson puts the Whitworth and Armstrong guns through their paces side by side. The first problem of getting a large gun from Mr. Whitworth that will hold large quantities of powder has been evaded by borrowing, without acknowledgment, the coil system of construction. How does Sir Emerson conduct the rest of the comparison? Zeal for Mr. Whitworth's cause makes him condescend to a curious artifice. He pits the rounds in which Armstrong guns are firing the softer castiron shot, against rounds in which Mr. Whitworth is firing steel. ·A pistol loaded with dough against a pistol loaded with lead! But Sir Emerson does not give the unsuspecting reader the least hint of this. We are left to believe, either that the guns are being fired with shot of the same metal, or else that Sir William Armstrong has no steel projectiles of his own. That Sir Emerson should draw a veil over the Armstrong steel shot, which a few months later was pronounced by the Iron Plates Committee to be the best steel shot 'they have yet seen,' and should leave us in the dark about the Armstrong steel shell-the most awful implement of destruction known in modern artillery-is simply monstrous. Worse than this, without a word as to all the experiments with the latter, he details to us the Armstrong experiments with the softer and cheaper metal, as if they were a sample of what Sir William Armstrong's gun has done.

The first experiments of importance against plates took place at Shoeburyness in November, 1862. Sir Emerson, devotes several pages to a scenic and 'sensation' account of the success of the Whitworth gun on the occasion. The morning is one of unusual brightness and beauty. The bugle sounds, the gun thunders. White flame plays over the face of the target; smoke issues from every crevice; and nature herself seems to testify to the superior virtue of Mr. Whitworth over Sir

William Armstrong. After firing the steel shot of Mr. Whitworth through the target, Sir Emerson returns to prose writing and to the Armstrong firing on the next day; at which, it is hardly necessary to state, that the smoke, the thunder, and the brightness of the morning are not required to do much duty.

On November 14, the гIO-pounder of Sir William Armstrong was fired against the uninjured parts of the same target which Mr. Whitworth had riddled the day before. The shot was a conical one of 110 lbs., cut short at the base so as to reduce it to the

weight of 68 lbs. This was fired at a range of 200 yards, and with a charge of 12 to 16 lbs. of powder. But in no case did it penetrate the plate or make any indentation exceeding 4 inches in depth, the cone being broken off, and the main body of the metal behind it crushed to pieces, (p. 303).

Sir Emerson is kind enough in the above extract to describe the shape, the weight, the charge of the Armstrong shot. Curiously enough, he omits the one material point. The shot in question was not a steel one, (App. 521). Now, when two cast-iron shot are by accident' (p. 503) fired from a Whitworth gun

instead of those of hardened steel,' Sir Emerson, with an air of superior knowledge, informs us that the error was at once detected' by 'their crumbling to pieces.' But when the Armstrong gun uses the same material, not a single line to let us know that it is the soft metal that is being used. The official report clears up the point. After paying a deserved compliment to Mr. Whitworth for calling attention to the value of hard steel, the Iron Plato Committee say

These results are of remarkable interest, as tending to show that a moderate and easily attainable velocity will suffice for the greatest effects of penetration, if the material of which the shot or shell is composed is of the requisite hardness of temper. There is, therefore, great reason to expect similar results from the guns of the service when the same material is employed.

The same trick is practised on the reader in the account of the firing against Captain Inglis's five to eightinch iron planks a few months later. Again, the Bluebook may be taken as a corrective. From the official

report we learn first that the shot Sir Emerson selects for us from the Armstrong gun is a cast-iron shot. Secondly, that of the two cast-iron shot reported on he gives us the one that did least damage. Thirdly, he suppresses altogether the effect of the other Armstrong cast-iron shot, about which the Committee thus report:-'If the shield was exposed to continued firing from such a gun, it must soon be destroyed,' (App., P. 522).

Now, on the very same, sheet in the Bluebook are narrated the rounds fired from the same Armstrong gun with steel shot and shell ten days later, also against iron plates. The steel shell went through the target at once. Of the steel shot the Committee report

The steel solid shot fired from the 300pounder shunt gun was excellent; and considering its great weight, it is decidedly the best steel shot the Committee have yet

seen.

Of these formidable missiles we hear absolutely nothing. It was reserved for Sir Emerson Tennent to write about the gunnery of the day, and to suppress all notice of the Armstrong steel shot and shell.

Of Sir Emerson Tennent's method the above may serve as prominent illustrations. There are plenty of the sort. In p. 356 a point is made by misrepresenting the powers of a Committee; in p. 252 twenty feet of water, penetrated by Mr. Whitworth, at Sir Emerson's magic touch, grew into thirty (Bluebook, App. 411). Two choice specimens, and two only, shall crown and conclude the series given here. The wrongs of Mr. Whitworth occupy a considerable portion of the Story of the Guns. Sir Emerson caps and points the whole by informing us that the House of Commons' Committee of 1863 recommended an investigation, in which,

without prejudice or partiality, the different systems, not of Sir William Armstrong and Mr. Whitworth only, &c. &c., may be fairly experimented on,' (p. 340).

For this quotation Sir Emerson gives his references, p. 8. of the Report. The sting of the quotation perishes when we learn that the

opening words which we have placed in Italics are absent from the original. Sir Emerson has introduced them as usual into his inverted commas. Nor is this all. These very words were rejected by that Committee after deliberation, as appears by consulting the Bluebook, p. xxx. Not only then has Sir Emerson made the Committee say what they did not say; he has made them say what they resolved formally ought not to be said.

One more example. We have shown with what convenience to himself Mr. Whitworth has had his heavy guns made on the coil system by the Woolwich factory. Sir Emerson possibly thinks that it would be a good thing if the Woolwich factory were once more put to so opportune a use. Possibly he scents a new grievance in the future. At all events, on p. 341 we read that the same Committee of the House of Commons, 1863, at p. 8 of their Report, suggest that The present interruption of the manufacture of Armstrong guns at Woolwich affords a good opportunity for devoting the resources of that establishment to promote renewed experiments.'

For the last time we turn to the given reference. Page 8 of the Report discloses no such paragraph. The Report of the House of Commons' Committee has no such suggestion. There is however a place where the sentence may be found. It is to be discovered buried among the rejected amendments and abortive draughts of propositions-itself negatived by the Committee without division! (Bluebook, xxx.)

Here this notice of Sir Emerson Tennent must close. Written with consummate art, given to the world with a parade of candour, the Story of the Guns stands convicted of a wholesale series of misquotations of printed documents and books equalled by few living books, and all tending to the disparagement of the work of a great inventor, whose inventions constitute the safety of the country. Does public opinion afford no protection against such literary art as this. Is the method noble? Is it ignoble? It is for the readers of this paper to decide.

IT of a loyal T has seldom happened that the

Commission has been expected with so much interest as has attached to those of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into and report upon the state of the public schools of England. The subject of the inquiry involved nothing less than the question, with all its consequences, of the moral and intellectual training of the best part of the youth of this country. It was to be discovered what were the actual means at work for this end; how far they fulfilled, and how far they fell short of, their avowed object; and in what points they might be found capable of improvement. The selection of the Commissioners gave the happiest augury of success in the work to be performed by them, and the public should be most grateful to them for the quantity and quality of what they have presented as the fruit of their inquiries. Every question in relation to the government, finance, discipline, instruction, and moral teaching of the great schools of England has been thoroughly investigated and discussed; and the four Bluebooks containing the Report and Evidence, furnish a mass of valuable matter such as has hardly ever been collected together on any subject. Indeed, they embody an extensive amount of information upon a certain department of educatio and social statistics, which will be of service to the future historian of English life and manners in the upper classes, long after their immediate object has been served.

VOL. LXIX. NO. CCCCXIV.

The Commissioners seem to have availed themselves of every means of knowledge, and have addressed their remarks to every matter connected with the main object of their investigations, leaving nothing undone that could be done to further the object in view. Indeed, it may with truth be said of them, that they have strictly applied to themselves what is their final recommendation in the case of Eton, namely,

that the system of shirking should be abolished;' for they certainly have shirked nothing themselves. They may also be congratulated on the good speed with which they have completed their task. The Commission was issued in July, 1861. In October sets of questions of a very searching and exhaustive nature (Mr. Gladstone calls them drastic) were addressed to the authorities of the five great schools submitted to the operation of the Commissioners.

In May, June, and July of 1862, the schools themselves were visited. No less than 130 witnesses were examined between May, 1862, and May, 1863. The Commissioners held 127 meetings; and in March, 1864, the Report was in the hands of the public in time for members of Parliament, schoolmasters, and schoolboys, to read it during the Easter holidays. Not, however, as a holiday task: for, although the literature of Bluebooks is not often of a very inviting character, it may be said of these folios that they afford a great variety of extremely amusing reading, apart from their solid use and grave importance. Every public schoolman rushed at first to see what was said-good or

XX