The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-12-06 00:00:00

Blackwood.

It does the heart good to meet with the name of Walter
Savage Landor. He may be classed as one of the deepest
thinkers of the day. He " opens the ball " this month with
an imaginary conversation between Southey and Porson.
The verses written after a visit to the grave of Sir Walter
Scott possess merit. " The Stranger in London " is by no
means equal to those that have preceded it, either in depth
of thought. observation, or style. In the " Poems and Bal-
lads of Schiller, No. 1V.," we are presented with many
charming specimens of his genius. A review of Mr. Jobn
Burnet's edition of Sir Joshua Reynolds' discourses will be
read with interest. " Dickens' American Notes " next
come under notice. The critic cuts Boz up in so friendly
and kindly a way, that it will tend considerably to assist the
sale of the work rather than retard it. In the review of the
" Lays of Ancient Rome, by Thos. Babington Macaulay,"
the creamy parts of his book are brought before us. The
description of the death of Virginia is charmingly written.
Mr. Macaulay's work ought to have a great sale, if we may
judge of the rest of the contents by the merits of what
Blackwood extracts. This number contains the third part
of " Ricardo Made Easy, or what is the radical difference
between Ricardo and Adam Smith."

THE DUBLIN PUBLICATIONS. CURRY AND CO.

Our Mesa•
Coombe Abbey.
The Commissioner.

" Our Mess" has arrived at a conclusion : it has been a
smartly written, well sustained story, replete with character,
anecdote, and humour. It will not he fair to tell the denoutr-
ment. The description of Frescatis, and the terrible scenes
enacted there, are powerfully narrated. Madame de Roni's
grand entertainment is capitally hit off, nor is the account of
Mons. de Roni's leg-of-pork dinner without merit. The
illustrations, of which there are four, are cleverly executed.
We are promised two new talesl from the pen of Harry Lor-
requer, to begin the next year,—" Burke of Ours," and the
" Loiterings of Arthur O'Leary."

" The Commissioner" is also concluded. This tale, for sin-
gularity and eccentricity has not been equalled since the Tale
of a Tub and Gulliver's Travels appeared ; not that we for
one instant place it on a footing with those incomparable
works. It contains many very smart hits at the follies and
vices of the day, and although the incidents are exaggerated
beyond the possibility of occurrence, there is food enough for
laughter, stuff enough to stare at, and wisdom enough to re-
member. The illustrations have been excellent throughout,
of which the present number contains four.
" Coombe Abbey" has reached its eighth number, the
story progresses with considerable interest, the incidents and
characters happily exhibit the manners of the times at which
the story is fixed. This work, we believe, is from the pen of
a lady.

a peasant sees
FOWLING S • g
practised here. If after our manner never
stands with his mouth open, seeany one shoot flying, he
staring with astonishment,. not
at the skill of the sportsman, but at its folly in.spending.so
much ammunition, which is
gle bird. He believes, as is really expensive on a sin-
ttetcase,. that more skill
is required to shoot with his rifle carries. the smallest
quantity. of powder, and
.a single ball about the size of a swan-
shot, with that extraordinary precision necessary so as not to
they
p
perforate the fur. In this, perhaps, excel anpeople
living : if they do shoot, though they prefer to trap y even the
black-cock, gelinottes, and coq de bruyere, they
al ways strike
the bird on the head, and this at a distance of two or three
hundred paces. They snare even the double beeasspee,riaodbird
eed with. Whenu
weo f a
re acquainted
whiche ci u tabu
hardly known in England,are
flights in Russia and Siberia, and which are. in our estimation
superior to any sort of game
they shoot, they approach the object first on all fours, and
then crawl on their stomachs till they are at a proper distance'
for firing. They have usually two rests to their rifle, which
they fix in the snow or ground when not frozen, and having
taken a steady aim, rarely if ever miss. To an Englishman
these rifles do appear, to be sure, the most extraordinary ma_
chines, and few would have the courage to use them. They
prove, however, that success depends much more out heh skill
of the sportsman than the excellence of his arms, ic,p-
deed, we have long since found out in many other countries.
We bad with us one of Lancaster's tube-guns, for which the
amateurs would have given more than the prime cost, but
more out of curiosity than for use. The common rifle-bar-
rels are made at Tobolsk, are very heavy, and have a very
small bore. The grooves are round instead of perpendicular,
and the ball, which is cut instead of cast, is forced in and the
edges rounded off in ramming down. The lock is large and
awkward-looking, the springs on the outside, that of the cock
clumsy and not tempered : the whole machine works so
slowly, that you may see the trigger stop and move on again
during the progress of the cock towards the pan. The charge
does not contain fifty grains of powder. In the event of a
spring breaking, the chasseur readily replaces it by one of
wood, generally of larch, which answers his purpose equally
well, an he is thus independent of the gunmaker. With all
these imperfections, as we have said before, they rarely or
never miss, and always hit an aminal whose fur is precious
through the muzzle. Rifles of this sort cost here twenty-five
roubles, powder five roubles a pound, and lead is also dear.—
Vottrell's Recollections of Siberia,