The Sun.
London, England, 1865-07-13 00:00:00

EWSPAPER
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for in in both days' trial her dec s
as steady as the platform of a gun battery% shBl.l.
The difference between daylight and darkness is
not greater than would be the difference in the work-
ing of 12-ton broadside guns in such exceptionably
smooth-water weather as the Minotaur has hitherto
experienced and in a sea which would give her a roll
of at least 15 degrees each way. Under these latter
conditions 12-ton guns must be tried before they
can be pronounced suitable guns for the broadside
armament of our ironclads. The chances, judging
from what has taken place on board the Minotaur,
are in favour of their successful working even in so
great a roll as 15 deg., providing iron carriages take
the place of wood, and an officer of Captain Key's
great experience is allowed to have carte blanche in
all the details of fittings, &c. ; but the trial has yet
to be made, and is at the same time of too important
a nature to permit of any great delay in its being
made. The four midship ports of the Minotaur (two
on each side of the main deck) were constructed
only for what is termed the 100-pounder rifled gun
—that is, the 7-inch muzzle-loading shunt rifled gun,
and are therefore quite unsuitable for the 12-ton
10.5-inch gun, for several reasons. The port is
wrong in form, in the first instance, in being square.
If monster ordnance are to be fired on the broad-
sides of our ships through small ports, the ports
should be built oval in lieu of square, to allow of
extreme training and elevation being given to the
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with the upper portsill when the gun is firneadlic.oonwThtiancget
position of the port, as regards elevation from the deck,
is also unsuitable to the 12-ton
gun, the lower sill of
the port requiring to be raised some six inches, and
thus covering in the fighting bolt with armour, the
upper sill being at the same time raised, enlarged,
and rounded in outline. The cost of these altera-
tions to four ports amidships in the Minotaur's main
deck would no doubt be great, but if the ship carries
the guns at all they must be made, and greater
space must be given for working the guns than exists
at present by closing up an intermediate port be-
tween the two guns on each side. It will be a
grand step towards the efficiency of broadside ships
if they can carry each a few of these 12-ton guns,
and a still more important step if they are found
capable of working them effectually in a moderate
roll in the Atlantic. Taking it for granted that the
broadside ships do eventually carry 12-ton guns we
may treble the weight for turrets, and say they will
carry 36-ton guns. A few on these 12-ton guns
must close our present notice of the Minotaur and
her experimental firing. It has been the custom to
call them indifferently 300 and 150 pounders, when,
in fact, they are in reality neither. They are now
being used in firing 1501 b. round shot, waiting the
decision of the authorities as to their rifling, but
they cannot be kept at this smooth-bore shooting,
owing to the softness of the metal in the bore of all
such wrought-iron coil-built guns. In illustration
of this we may state that during the recent firing
from the guns of the Royal Sovereign two rounds of
" case" shot were fired from one of the guns in the
foremost turret, which so ploughed up the metal in
the bore of the gun that case shot will not be fired
from them again. The authorities are now under-
stood to have determined to fit the whole of the 12-
ton guns with steel tubes, rifled, reducing the
diameter of the gun's bore from 10.5 to 9 inches,
and firing a 2201 b. elongated shot with one-fifth its
weight in powder, thus reducing our 12-ton 10.5 in.
(expected) 300-pounder to a 12-ton 9in. 200-
pounder.

Royal Visit to Aldershot, and Grand

Review.

Yesterday morning his Royal Highness the Prince
of Wales, accompanied by his Royal Highness
Prince Arthur, and his Royal Highness the Duke of
Cambridge, his Serene Highness the Prince of Saxe
Weimar, the Prince of Orange, the Duke of Brabant,
and Prince Teck, visited Aldershot, when a grand
military display by the troops at the station took

place.
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales was at-
tended by Lieut. General Knollys, Comptroller of
the Household, and Major Grey and Col. Curzon,
and Major Kean were in attendance on the Duke
of Cambridge.
The royal party arrived by special train at Farn-
borough station of the South Western Railway at
10 o'clock, where they were received by Lieut.-Gen.
Sir W. Pennefather, commanding the Aldershot
division, and the officers composing his staff, and
proceeded through the encampment on Cove Com-
mon. The party then rode on to Bricksbury Hill,
where the division, to the strength of 8,897, had
formed up as follows :—Royal Horse Artillery on
the right in open column of batteries, the cavalry
in close column of squadrons, the field batteries in
the centre, and infantry (12 battalions) on the left
in contiguous quarter-distance column. The front
line of the troops was formed by the officers of the
several corps and regiments on the ground near the
colours, as is usual at royal inspections of troops.
The whole faced northwards. The weather was
pleasantly tempered by the breeze which prevailed.
The party were received with the usual honours.
The troops were then inspected by the royal visitors,
after which the division marched past in regular
order.

The march past was performed in a most steady
and brilliant manner, and elicited frequent marks of
approbation from the royal visitors. In the case of
the Royal Horse Artillery, cavalry, and field bat-
teries, the united bands of the Cavalry Brigade (six
in number) formed up in a similar manner, and played
those regiments past. The marching past of the
artillery and cavalry was executed in open column
of batteries and squadrons at a walk, and that of the
infantry in open column of grand divisions in quick
time. In the case of the Royal Engineer train,
the Royal visitors were evidently much pleased with
their appearance. The cavalry and artillery after-
wards trotted past in open column of squadrons,
the splendid appearance of the troops in this last
movement being very fine. The dust was raised in
tremendous clouds. All the movements of the
troops, acting as two armies, were gone through
with a precision that excited the utmost admiration.
The field movements were concluded at half-past
two.

Immediately on the conclusion of the review, the
Royal and distinguished party proceeded to the
Guards' Enclosure, Cove Common, where luncheon
was provided in the officers' mess of the Ist batta-
lion Grenadier Guards, and having partaken of
this returned to town.

There was an immense number of spectators on
the ground, amongst whom were the Duke of Man-
chester, the Earl of Bradford, the Lord Bishop of
Winchester, Lady Pennefather, and the principal
residents of the surrounding country.
The troops were under arms more than five hours,
and but few accidents, and those of a trifling cha-
racter, occurred.

GLUCK.—The facts of Gluck's life may be to
in a paragraph. He was the son of a Bohemian
forest-guard, born and trained in an atmosphere of wild
national music. He received some education in Prague
from masters whose names are little known (Czernahorsky's
wasthe btews
et )n. t y He
yearsw a so
fi nagVei,ehnonawians tthe yearakenol,le7r36. into Wltmheyn,
bhye
a patron whom ho found there, Count Melzi, and was
placed in the hands of Sammartini (one of the greatest
theorists of his time.) After writing eight Italian operas
for Milan, Cremona, Venice, and Turin, he was invited to
London during the disastrous year 1745. Failing to pro-
duce any effort here, ho returned to Vienna, and wrote
profusely for the opera-house of that capital, to Italian and
French text, apparently making little advance till the year
1761. In that year Gluck produced his ballet "Dom
Juan," at Vienna, in the following year his " Orfeo,"
and six years later " Alceste," the famous dedication of
which opera to the Grand Duke of Tuscany has caused
more misapprehension, and done more mischief (this is
saying much) than any dramatic preface of apology or
attack in being—Victor lingo's to his suppressed " Crom-
well " not forgotten. How Gluck followed the fortunes of
Marie Antoinette, whose music-master he had been—how
invited by her to Paris, he there produced his two
Iphigenias ("en Aulide" and "en Tauride,") and his
" Armida"—how the tremendous battle ensued between the
partisans of French and Italian opera, the philosophic and
sensual connoisseurs, not, it may be, unwilling to mortify
the Austrian Princess through her prot‘gd, are matters
familiar to every one who has looked into any history of
modern music, or any set of memoirs concerning the
stormy, feverish years which preceded the first Revolution.
Dickens's "All the Year Rouad."

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