The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-07 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Beautiful in Nature, Art, and Life. By An-
drew James Symiugt-4). 2 vols. Longman.
The subject selected f; :r t tese volumes is one
eminently fitted to excite the enthusiasm of the
imaginative and the interest of every cultivated
mind. It embraces all that is noble an eleva',ing
in the worlds of the Real and the Ideal, all that
charms and fascinates the senses with all that at-
tracts and moves man's deeper feelings, and it
claims a band of votaries which includes all who
have won themselves a place in the Temple of
Fame, no matter in what degree or by what profes-
sion, so long as they have won it worthily. The
author is evidently impressed by the magnitude
and harmony of his subject, and he treats it in a
fitting spirit. If his writings show the traces of
excited fervour and undisciplined enthusiasm, it is
at least only for the really beautiful and elevated,
not misled by the trappings of worldly success or
deceived by the specious soplaistries of subtle phi-
losophers. If we meet the signs of an early work
in the style and character of the volumes we find
also its freshness and vigour ; if we differ from the
degrees of literary honour conferred, we find no
carping criticism, no ungenerous disparagement.
An enthusiastic lover of the Beautiful, whether in
the marvels of Nature, the chef-d'wuvres of the
Artist, the systems of the Philosopher, or the life
of the earnest Christian, is apparent in every page;
a full sense of the harmony of all that is beautiful
with all that is good, a correct and discriminating taste
and au extended acquaintance with Literature and
Art are equally manifest, and, indeed, necessitated
by the subject. The writer soars so high above the
bounds which some narrow minds would interpose
between Art and Religion, that he loses sight of
them altogether. He perceives their fitness and
sympathy—he anticipates their eternal union. As
he gazes on the mighty shadows of the Past—as he
watches the advance of the Present—as he looks
forward to the heights which shall be climbed by
the coming ages, the limits of epoch, creed, and
country fade away from his sight, and he recognises in
the glowing colours of the Painter, in the thrilling
sounds of the great Musician, in the stately piles of
the Architect, in the wisdom of the Sage, in the
immortal words of the Poet, and, above all, in the
acted poem of a complete and high-principled life—
parts in the grand onward procession of the human
race, from the darkness of barbaric ages to the
climax of its final development. He opens his
work with an introductory essay on the Philosophy
of the Beautiful, and then proceeds to trace its
übiquitous presence in nature. It needs little logic
to trace the Divine origin and influence of this de-
partment. He then proceeds to trace its existence
and progress in Art, seeking it through Architec-
ture, Sculpture, Painting, Poetry, and Music,
and then devoting 'a final treatise to the
influence of true Christianity, uninfluenced by
sectarian feeling or formalism, in harmonising and
elevating the discordant principles of human na-
ture. It must not be supposed that the whole of
his work consists of rhapsodies on the wonders of
Art and Nature ; he treats of the rise aud develop-
ment of each art, its early origin and the careers of
its great masters, its various schools and the coun-
tries and eras in which it has most flourished. in
treating of Nature, again, he gives copious extracts
from standard writers, descriptive of some of its
marvellous effects. kis poetical quotations are
met with at every page, indeed, they are almost too
frequent, but they aregathered from such a variety
of sources and harmonize so well with the subject
that the reader can scarcely complain. The author
has rejoiced to trace the unison between great minds
and his own impressions, and hastens to secure
their testimony to the truth of his assertions and
deductions. It is in every respect a remarkable
and original production, bold in its aspirations and
unique in its character. Its tendency is to elevate
and refine, to kindle a warmer admiration for all
that is good and beautiful, to embody in one work
a faint outline of an everlasting subject. It is a
work that does honour to its writer, and when time
and experience have condensed and modified his
style, and given a more extended character to his
partialities and opinions, we shall look for other
works from his pen which shall place him high
among our prose writers. He is eminently fitted
for any that require taste and talent, and a combina-
tion, which is rare, of an enthusiastic reverence and
admiration for Art, with a sound ethical philosophy.

MALLET'S 36-INCH MORTARS AND SIIELLS.

(From the Engineer.)

The hollow explosive pr.jestiles that we call shells or
bombs are a very old invention in the noble art of
human destruction. Under the name of " coininges"
they consisted of rudely-formed globes of plate iron I
melted together, and filled with gunpowder and all sorts
of miscellaneous " mitraille," and, were thrown to short
distances from " pierriers" (a sort of mortar) and from
catapulta, as early as 1495 at Naples, 1590 at Padua,
1520 at Heilsberg, 1522 at Rhodes, and 1542 at Bou-
longne, Libges. About the middle of the 15th century
bombs of cast iron seem to have come into use ; and,
strangely enough, an Englishman named Malthus (pro-
bably an ancestor of the great objector to the increase
of population) learned the art of throwing them from
the Dutch, and, migrating into France, perfected the
system for the French armies—being the first to throw
shells in Fiance, at the siege of La Mothe, in 1643.
The diameter of the bomb seems at that time to have
become fixed (doubtless, by mere combination of acci-
dent and habit) at 13 inches—the old Paris foot, and at
this it remains (with very few exceptional oases) down to
the present day all over Europe.
A. few spasmodic attempts to increase the size and
power of these formidable projectiles have been made at
different moments, but never with the requisite know-
ledge, practical skill of execution, or perseverance neces
sary to success : for example, 18-inch shells were thrown
by the French, at the siege of Tourney, in 1745 ; and
just a century before, the Swedes threw shells of 421bs.
weight, and holding 40 lbs. of powder. The French,
when they occupied Algiers in 1830, found numbers of
old shells of nearly 900 lbs. in weight ; and in almost
every arsenal and fortress in Europe one or two old 16-
inch and 18-inch shells are to be found as curiosities.
Scared apparently by their former abandonment —which
Antoni (Use dells Armi da Fuoco," Torino, 1780) states
arose from the awkwardness of loading, preventing more
than one discharge in 40 minutes, and from the cost and
difficulty of manufacturing large shells, owing to the
defective state of iron-founding in his time—no attempt
was made in modern days to realise the vast accession of
power that such large shells confer, until the year 1832,
when the "monster mortar," as it was then called of 20•
inch calibre, designed by Col. Paixhans (the author of
the Paixhans gun), was constructed by order of Baron
Evain, the Belgian Minister of War, and attempted to
be used by the French at the siege of the citadel of
Antwerp, but with the worst possible success. Tne
mortar, a crude cylindrical mass of cast iron, sunk in a
bed of timber weighing about 8 tone, and provided
neither with adequate means for "laying" it nor for
charging in the heavy shells, that weighed when filled
with 991b'. of powder, 1,0151b5. each, could with diffi-
culty be fired three rounds in two hours, while the shells
themselves were so badly proportioned and so ill cast,
and so ill fitted with fusees, that very few exploded at
all, and some of those that did burst near the mortar,
endangering all around.
The very few that really ranged as desired prodacnd
effects so formidable on the works of the citadel as to
have materially precipitated the capitulation. One shell
fell nearly close to the powder magazine, but did not
explode ; had it fallen upon the presumed bomb-proof
arch of the magazine, containing 300,0001bs of powder,
it would have pierced it, according to the opinion of all
the military engineers present at the siege, and so closed
the enterprise at a blow. The ill-success of this mortar
gave quietus" for several years to any attempt to
develop bombs into their legitimate office—as the means
of suddenly transferring mines into the body of fortified
places—of a power adequate to act with decisive effect
upon their works, although some years afterwards a
20 iech mortar was made in England for the Pacha of
Egypt, and proved at Woolwich, but was apparently
never experimented with.
But another circumstance still more tended to the
neglect of large shells thrown by vertical fire. After
repeated trials and many failures it was found practic-
able to throw 10-inch (and since that even 18-inch)shells
from cannon or " shell guns" by projecting them nearly
horizontally, or at such low angles that they should
" ricoohette" and roll along the ground betore they
burst ; and thus fired, it was soon seen the tatahnoir
destructive power as against troops was greates
from
fired at angles approaching 45 deg. of elevation
mortars. From this the conclusion was unfortunately
jumped at, that mortars and their vertic
vertical fir were
s
eadtni
useless, were no longer wanted, that. ashell
d
gunp nw ah
h
oas thing needful—mortars but a relatohon
fo
1 h a barbarous
disused customs. Paixhans and his n
good and useful school beyond its proper limits, and
had lost sight wholly of the all-important fact, that
horizontal shell fire, powerful as it is against troops or
shipping, is all but useless as an instrument of
destruction to the works (the earthwork and masonry,
&c.) of fortified places ; for this end weight, and the
penetrative power due to the velocity of descent in
falling from a great height, are indispensable. So
completely, however, had this been lost eight of, that
at the commencement of tse Russian
war we not only
good
had no bomb vessels, and nodesigns or models
whereon to construct them, but even scarcely any
mortars, and all were to be made at the moment when
we needed them in action.
About the latter end of 1854 the attention of Mr.
Robert Mallett, C.E., was directed to the mathematical
consideration of the relative powers of shells in propor-
tion to their increase of size or of diameter which,
strange to say, had never been attempted by any author
on military science; and his inquiries resulted in a
memoir presented by him to Government, in which he
investigated the increase of power in shells with increase
of diameter, under the heads of-1. Their penetrative
power. 2. Their increased range and greater accuracy
of fire. 3. Their explosive power. 4. Their power of
demolition, or of levelling earthworks, buildings, &c.;
and lastly, their moral effect—in every case viewing
the shell not as a weapon against troops, but
an instrument of destruction to the enemy's works.
The result so convinced Mr. Mallet of the rapid rate at
which the destructive powers of a shell increase with in-
crease of fire, that he was induced to propose to govern-