them, having much decreased, which is attributed in a great measure, if not entirely, to this alteration. The different mode of drying the lead adopted is (if I understand the matter right) that instead of laying it on chalk it is now poured into earthen-ware pans, and left to dry in them. The lead does not undergo nearly so much handling as before, and the fine particles of it, which used to float in great abundance about the room, are not perceived in such dense clouds as they used to be; this dust entering the mouth was one principal cause of the diseases to which the workmen were liable. By means of your miscellany, I wish to give publicity to the above circumstance; and should any of your readers be able and willing to give me any further particulars respecting this manufacture, which may be conducive to the health of those employed in it, they will much oblige A CONSTANT READER. LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS. By C. and A. Conrad and Co. 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D. consisting of The History of America, A rols. Of Charles V. 3 vols. Of Scotland, 2 vols. Of India, 1 vol SELECT REVIEWS. FOR SEPTEMBER, 1809. FROM THE LITERARY PANORAMA. Scloppetaria; or Considerations on the Nature and Use of Rifle Barrel Guns; with Reference to their forming the Basis of a permanent System of national Defence, agreeable to the Genius of the Country. By a Corporal of Riflemen. 8vo. pp. 251. Price 9s. London, 1808. WE understand that this book is written by Henry Beaufoy, Esq. son of Mark Beaufoy, Esq. of Hackney Wick, F. R. S. and colonel of the 1st royal regiment of Tower Hamlets' militia. The earl of Moira has been properly selected as the patron of this work, both as an eminent mili. tary character, and as being constable of the tower of London, and lord lieutenant of that portion of the county of Middlesex which comprehends the Tower Hamlets. The perusal of this volume has given us great pleasure. Its contents are truly interesting. They are the result of science combined with practice; and bear honourable testimony to the ingenuity and perseverance of Mr. Beaufoy; to the judicious selection of experiments, and to the acuteness with which conclusions have been drawn, and corollaries deduced. The author by no means runs riot with his subject. He does not ascribe to the rifle barrelled gun, properties which it does not possess; nor does he wish to substitute it for all other offensive weapons. He certainly wishes to make expert riflemen of all our volunteers; but then he would not rely upon riflemen only in a pitched battle. He would mix them, in due VOL. II. proportion, with regular troops armed with our English muskets, and, above all, our English bayonet; a weapon irresistible, when urged home by the muscular arm of our gallant countrymen-witness Maida;-witness Vimeira ;-witness Corunna!— Mr. Beaufoy says, it is not intended to urge the indiscriminate use of riflebarrelled guns, "but to render troops armed with them, as a distinct and cooperative force, more general and important; where the musket ends or begins, the rifle commencing or leaving off. For the fact is, that in any other view they become a nullity. The moment a rifleman suffers himself to be closed, his weapon becomes of less use than the common musket; since the delay in loading would now be injurious, and the exactness unnecessary." Again, in another place, he observes: "To conceive their excellence, never theless, it is not necessary, with the ordinary spirit of enthusiastick theorists, to attribute to them more than their own certain qualities; to render the extensive use of rifle corps, here recommended, effectual, it must be unfailingly kept in view, that they are to be regarded as a species of troops entirely distinct from every other, though acting with, and perhaps mutually dependent on all of them. He who shall expect from them the ordi T nary duties of the battalion, or artillery, or even of light infantry, will be disappointed, though in proper situations they will effect more than either. In close combat, or where the bayonet is alone to be employed, they are useless; for the meanest musket in numbers will be sufficient. In storming parties, they will be also ineflicient; since, as observed by the intelligent author already mentioned, in the agitation necessarily occasioned by the violence of such moments, they will be unequal to that cool and steady fire, on which their whole purpose depends; a circumstance, perhaps, proved by their similar employment at Buenos Ayres and Montevideo. For similar reasons the confounding them with mere light infantry, or attributing to them a character of still greater celerity, as when they have been made to run by the side of the cavalry!* the real advantages of a rifle corps will not be obtained. But nourish ed and animated by an esprit du corps, only to be inspired by preserving them in their proper situation, they will never fail to furnish all that shall be required of them. Let them then no longer receive the censure of the battalions. Each man thus employed will feel, as the historian says of Fabius-Non ignorabat se timidum, pro cauto; imbellem, pro perito belli, haberi: at maluit ut se hostis metuerit, quam ștulti cives laudarent. Let them no longer be supposed as giving to war new horrours; but rather as tending to shorten its calamities, and to determine the conflicts of nations, by an efficiency in arms worthy of the highly civilized state of Europe, and of the world. Above all, let us remember, that whatever shall promise to enable us to maintain the independence of our own country-to preserve sacred those accumulated rights which have been created by the wisdom, or purchased by the blood of our ancestors, ought to be well considered, and if proved worthy of adoption, to be adopted with vigour. Let us never forget, that we live not alone for ourselves, but that we hold also the rights of posterity, which are not to be committed by our act." This is the language of a genuine patriot. Here the principles which have ever distinguished the Literary Panorama identify with those of our spirited young author. This was the duty of the 95th rifle regiment, at the camp formed in the suminer of, I think, 1806, on Shorncliffe heights. We shall give another quotation from the introduction, on the comparison between the musket and the rifle barrelled gun. "A musket will fire five shots to one from a rifle, as generally used. In an action of an hour, the musket then will have fired perhaps 100 shots (the numbers are indifferent, as they will always be relative) and the rifle 20. Supposing 1 in 200 shots of the musket to tell (which many will not allow by half) it must fire incessantly for more than two hours before it can be certain of taking effect, and this too, reckoning the fre quent opportunity of firing at a whole line, where deviation to the right or left would be immaterial. Allowing to the rifle, with less indulgence, a certainty of effect in but one shot of twenty, which none at all conversant with rifle shooting will admit to be sufficient, firing 20 shots in an hour, gives even then a balance in its favour of more than two to one in the number of killed, wounded, or disabled, against the objection of time lost in loading. Thus, then, taking five to one against a rifle in the first instance, because we give to the musket five times the number of shots, and adding the two to one in its favour from the number of killed and wounded, on striking the balance, it will be found to leave to the rifle a decided advantage of seven to one. In this computation, the average distance at which the rifle is to be fired is from 250 to 400 yards. "The most superficial observer will naturally see, at the same time, the comparative saving in ammunition, and be enabled to form an idea of its importance, by calculating the value of a load used for a rifle and a musket, as charged by government; by conceiving the value of a cartridge on its arrival in the East or West Indies; the different proportion of ammunition wagons; and the inconveni ence to an army of a numerous train of carriages; and be thus enabled to perceive how far the advantages arising out of these circumstances, will set off against the difference of expense between the weapons. An officer of undoubted veracity assured under his command in Egypt, fired away, the writer, that a party of light infantry 60,000 rounds in driving in that of an enemy, of which he really believed, that not above four or five were killed or wounded on the part of the enemy. "Of the utility of corps armed with ri fled barrelled guns, or of riflemen, as they are generally, though not very defi nitively called, the proofs are innumerable. As a light, erratick force concealing itself with facility, and forming an ambuscade at will, its effects are incalcula ble. "By combining the solid column, or the extended line, as now practised by the best tacticians, with considerable bodies of light troops, a mutual confidence is inspired; the former, aware that all the harassing duties of the petite guerre will be performed by the latter, and these in turn knowing that they have troops ready formed en masse, behind which they may retire when closely pressed. The origin of this idea is of no trifling date, being to be found in the relations of the Socii, the Velites, Sagittarü, and Funditores of the Romans, to the main body of their army, formed on a principle similar to that which will ultimately be mentioned in this introduction; while its modern practice will be recognised in the Hussars and Pandours of the Prussians and Austrians; the Croats of the Russians; the Albanians of the Turks, and the Arnauts serving with the Russians and British in Italy. Ever skulking and roaming about the country, they compel the enemy to be constantly on the watch and alert, in apprehension of an attack. With such troops, the enemy cannot despatch a detachment or reenforcement, or effect any movement of consequence, scarcely transmit a return, or even send a messenger, without information being conveyed by various means to the army employing them. They are dispersed in every direction; their effects are felt at distant points at the same moment; and they tend to affect the mind of an enemy by constantly presenting to him unexpected obstacles, a circumstance which will never be omitted in the consideration of a general." The passages already quoted may suffice to take off all objection to Scloppetaria, on the score of substituting the rifle for the musket. It is much to be wished, however, that our volunteers, at least, were to a man masters of the rifle. In the event of an invasion with an overwhelming French army, we suppose that our generals would decline rather than seek an opportunity of fighting a pitched battle. All authors of talent who have written on this subject, have recommended the harassing system of warfare, the petite guerre. To this the rifle is peculiarly adapted; and if in Spain, instead of engaging the columns of the enemy, as the brave patriots have done, they had carried on war upon the other principle, does it not seem probable that the armies of Cuesta, Castanos, Blake and Romana, might yet have remained nearly entire; and that the invading hordes, daily and hourly at tacked in a hostile country, by invisible and destructive opponents, must have been reduced to insignificance? We are bold to say, that if the Spaniards even yet adopt this mode of fighting, suited in a peculiar manner to the Fabian system [for Buonaparte is to Spain what Hannibal was to Italy] they will finally triumph over their enemies. Burgoyne's army had never capitulated at Saratoga if the Americans had been without riflemen. In the introduction to Sclophetaria, we have a very curious historical account of missile weapons in England. The glories of this island, while its "might stood upon archers," are duly characterized; and the acts of parlia ment, passed from time to time, to encourage archery, are pointed out. We observe one small oversight in this detail, p. 12, where Fortescue's learned work "De Laudibus Legum Anglia," is represented as having been written after the 33d of Henry the VIII. [1541]. Fortescue was made chief justice of the king's bench in 1442. Though he was certainly ap pointed chancellor to Henry VI. during that prince's exile in Scotland, it is not known that he ever exercised the functions of that high office in England. What led our author into this anacronism, in all probability, was this circumstance, that Fortescue's work was not published till the reign of Henry VIII. He died in 1465. The theory of the rifle barrelled gun is very happily explained by analogical reasoning; for the application of which, Quintilian is cited in a note "analogiæ hoc vis est, ut id quod dubium est, ad aliquid simile de quo non quæritur, referat; ut incerta cer composition from getting damp, by imbi. bing the moisture of the atmosphere; for it is not sufficient that the vessel in which it is kept, be in a covered situation; as a room or cupboard for example, but it should be kept so closely stopped down as to preclude the entrance of the air. If a certain quantity be first of all well dried, and the weight then nicely ascertained, if it be left for a few hours exposed in an uncovered plate, on being reweighed it will be found to have increased considerably in weight. The reason assigned is, the quantity of moisture it has attracted from the atmosphere; for if it be again dried, the weight will be found reduced to its former standard. tis probet."-The angle of aberration in the case of bullets discharged from an ordinary musket is ever consider able; but the deflection from the original line of flight, is an inconvenience which arrows shot from a bow were not found so liable. The reason has been proved to be, that the feather on the arrow gives a spinning motion to the shaft as it flies through the air, and causes it to revolve round its longitudinal axis. Turning quickly round, as much as the arrow deviates to one side in its flight, the aberration is corrected by the almost instantaneous pressure of the air on the other; and thus its vertiginous motion leads it directly from the bow to the mark. This theory is most ingeniously pursued, and, in our judgment, demonstrated, by various experiments made on bodies passing through resisting media; and it most satisfactorily appears, that the precision with which a leaden ball shot from a rifle barrelled gun hits the "The effects of the atmosphere on powobject at which it is discharged, arises der are well known to all practitioners and from the indentations which it resportsmen, and therefore it is very usual ceives in passing along the grooves for rifle shots to increase their charges in spirally worked within the barrel. damp weather, and at all events never to This theory is discussed in the three leave their loading horn on the damp first chapters; to which, and to the ground. Hence, then, the side pocket plates accompanying them, we refer used by riflemen for receiving the powder horn has a greater advantage than mere our readers. This book is illustrated convenience, inasmuch as it, from its by nine plates, exclusive of the fron situation, enables the powder to derive ticepiece, and several engravings of considerable warmth from the body, and perforated targets, showing the com- thus keeps it drier. This is confirmed by parative effects of different pieces the greater effect produced by powder, fired at various distances. These are previously made quite hot, and then executed in a style of peculiar and lighted, than if ignited at the usual tem expressive neatness; and the entire work is well worth the notice of every man in the kingdom, capable of bearing arms. There is hardly a single point, however minute, relative to the rifle gun, which is not discussed. On the subject of gunpowder we shall give a passage, because it shows a safe and easy mode of drying it, which, more generally known, may prevent dangerous accidents. "In preserving powder, the principal difficulty is to keep the saltpetre in its "Some have thought that a certain degree of moisture enabled the powder to disengage, on combustion, a greater quantity of gas than when dry; but this does not appear to be the fact. For surely, the more suddenly and rapidly the ignition takes place, the more suddenly will the vapour be produced; and as the ball is entirely propelled by the suddenness of the generation of the vapour, it should follow, that every particle of moisture contained in the grains must retard the ignition, and consequently the effect of the powder. perature. Again, we all know, that after |