Literary Chat.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume III, 1 October 1900, Page 72

Literary Chat.

By Danvers Ha.mber

During the last few months books about famous soldiers and works dealing with military matters have been issued with great rapidity. For many of them there can only be an ephemeral notoriety, but there are some which must attain a lasting popularity. Amongst the latter is Mr. Alexander Innes Shand's Life of General John Jacob, Commandant of the Bind Irregular Horse. Mr. Shand, who has seen much service as a war correspondent, is well known as the author of Ihe War in the Peninsula. His Life of General Sir Edward Hamley is another excellent book for the student of military history, as well as an interesting record of the doings of a brilliant soldier. And in his latest work Mr. Shand gains further laurels. He does justice to General Jacob, who was one of the men who foresaw the Indian Mutiny, and were laughed at as croakers. General Jacob was a man of many parts. He founded a town — Jacobabad — he raised a regiment, he proved himself to be an admirable administrator, and was a born fighter. Then he was also a skilled mechanician, and Mr. Shand says he was one of the first, if not the first, to see the advantages of rifled over unrifled arms. I quote the author on the question of firearms :

— " In his workshop the deft craftsman amused himself with such trifles as his complicated clock. But his serious attention had for long been directed to more important studies, in which he anticipated the later inventions which were to bring firearms to their present approach to perfection and revolutionise tactics with the use of artillery. In an article contributed to the Calcutta Review, Frere describes his friend as 'by education and natural bent a mathematician of-, the highest order/ unsurpassed as

artilleryman, engineer, sportsman, and soldier.' In the first memorandum formally addressed to the authorities in Bombay, in 1854, Jacob says : ' Having been a diligent amateur mechanic from childhood, I have for twenty-five years paid much attention to the improvement of rifled firearms, with which I have, during the past ten years, been carrying on a great variety of experiments on a scale almost unequalled, even by public bodies, elsewhere.' The experiments had begun in 1844. For some time a range of 200 yards in cantonments sufficed, but very soon he had to betake himself to the open desert, where butts were erected up to a distance of 2,000 yards. The earliest trials were made with the two-grooved rifle, and he discovered obvious defects in the rifling and the bullet which ' render it quite unfit for the army.' If the ball were loose it was at liberty to roll, and so discounted the advantages of rifling. if it fitted tightly, the difficulty of loading was great, and therefore the double groove was rejected. A four-grooved weapon was found to be wholly free from these defects, but endless experiments were made on the ammunition, and it was only after a long series of comparative failures that what he considered an ideal ball was evolved. Briefly, it was cylindrical at the base, shaping into a pointed cone ; it was weighted in front instead of at the base ; even while fitting loosely it gave a strong hold on the grooves of the gun ; the charge of powder was reduced in inverse ratio to the weight, and, above all, the twist of the rifling could be increased to any extent without danger of ' stripping ' — that is, of the ball being driven from the barrel without following the curve of the grooves. It had a straight trajectory up to a flight of

1,200 yards, and percussion shells of similar shape — ' the most formidable missiles ever invented by man ' — had equal accuracy. Another invention was an explosive bullet, which fired combustibles at six miles' distance, and burst well up to 1 ,400 yards. Jacob argued that if his inventions were adopted, the whole art of war must necessarily be revolutionised. ' Judging from our practice at Jacobabad, it seems certain that two good riflemen so armed could in ten minutes annihilate the best battery of field artillery now existing.' Consequently the field guns must also be rifled, for then all the batteries were smooth bores. Tn that case shrapnel shells shaped like the ideal bullet would be fully effective at upwards of 5,000 yards. He went further; he said, 'I am deliberately of opinion, as an old artillery officer as well as a mechanic, that a fourgrooved rifled iron gun of a bore of four inches in diameter, weighing not less than twenty-four cwt., could be made to throw shot to a distance of ten miles and more

with force and accui'acy.' Afterwards, as his experiments progressed, he increased the possible range to fourteen miles. As usual, his voice from the remote frontier of the Far West was as that of one crying in the wilderness. His assertions as to the possiblities of rifled artillery produced an outburst of contemptuous ridicule."

Later on Jacob insisted on ati'ial, and he sent a two-grooved rifle for comparison with his own from Jacobabad, and a letter of explanation stating that a new four-grooved rifle would be sent from London. The experts overlooked his letter, and never saw his four-grooved gun. When he died the Spectator wrote : " England has lost another of her bravest and noblest sons. John Jacob, a chevalier sans peur and sans reproche, the. brilliant swordsman, the originator of a military system, the skilful inventor, the only Englishman who has founded and given his name to a town in India, for ten years the lonely and vigilaut sentinel of the frontier of our Indian Empire, is no more. In the very flower and vigour of his manhood he has been struck

down by brain fever ; a frame of iron, an unconquerable soul, which had ondured for years immeuse labour under tho burning sun of the Sind desert, and harder still, had waged perpetual battle with tho ' Ephosian wild beasts ' of official blindness, routine and stupidity, snddenly gave way under tho pressure on tho brain. Thus John Jacob has died, a martyr to his devotion to duty. . . The death is an irreparable loss to the Empire." « The pronounciation of tho English language often leads to clergymen being asked to christen children with singularly-sounding names. I heard the following story tho other day : — A country parson, upon asking a woman for her child's name, was told " Enough." " Enough ?" queried the parson. " Enough !" cried the father. Quoth the clergyman, " But I can't call your child Enough ; it's no name at all." " But it's in the Bible," said the mother. " Oh, yes, its in the Bible," protested the father. " Where ?" demanded the parson. Thoreupon a Bible was produced, and tho father hunted for the place. Presently he found it, and with pride in his voice exclaimed, " There 'tis." And the name was Enoch ! +~ It was only to be expected that sooner or later some funny fellow would furnish some " Limericks " on Golf. In a recent Londoner there are several possessing tho merit of wit, and a good many somewhat meritricious. This one about a young man " whose note was ostentatious inefficiency is good." " There was a young man of Belleek, Who always approached with a cleok , With a niblick he'd putt, Use a spooa in a rut, But his " waggle " was simply unique." Here is another, which may be said to apply to the man whose note is exuberant and imaginative verbosity :

" He cleared his bunkers with a wooden putter, Outdrove his fellows with a rusty niblick, And in the club-house he had skill to utter Such fibs as would each rival golfers fib lick.**

The- bi-centenary of the poet, James Thomson, the author of The Seasons, was recently celebrated at his birthplace, the village of Bdram, near Kelso. Thomson was born in 1700, the year in which Dryden died. He came to London at the age of twenty-five. At first he had humble lodgings near Chaining Cross, afterwards residing over a milliner's shop in Bond-street. Later on he went to live at Richmond, and it is said that he wrote much of his poetry on a little tree-clad knoll in Richmond Park, not far from the Star and Garter Gate. He died at Richmond, where he had lived well liked for his modesty, and rather chaffed for his amiable indolence. I mention James Thomson in these notes because it is not generally known that he wrote " Rule Britannia," the patriotic song that the English-speaking world has been singing with great gusto during the last six months. " Rule Britannia " is a song in Thomson's "Masque of Alfred," first produced before the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1740. Perhaps Thomson's best known work — after Tlte Seasons — is The Castle of Indolence. A WORD left out makes a wonderful difference to a sentence. Lately a London daily paper, iv reviewing a book entitled Chelsea, Old\ (md Neio, had the following: — " Elizabeth lived ; with Katherine Parr in Ghelsea, after that fortunate woman's Royal husband had , been summoned from this sphere, and had married again to the handsomest man of the day, Seymour." Henry VIII. was truly a great man at matrimony, but such a wonderful marriage would seem beyond him, even after being summoned from this sphere. With " she " between "and " and " had " the sentence is complete, without it the comicality is very striking, though most certainly unintentional.

Messrs. Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., of Paternoster House, Charing Cross

Road, are re-issuing Sri Parananda's Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew. It is edited by Miss R. L Harrison, to whom the multitudinous notes were dictated. The notes undoubtedly contain very many beautiful thoughts and expressions, but Sri Parananda, in his own style, gives an interpretation that is generally understood by those who have deeply studied St. Matthew. He uses simple language, but his comments convey nothing that is new. Of this book an admirer of Miss Harrison's wrote: — "Miss Harrison's desire for spiritual knowledge led her to the East, whei-e the sun that lights the world by day and the spiritual sun that guides men who have eyes to see have always risen; and here in the East, the Voice that has spoken through her most earnest and truthful Teacher is now embodied in a handsome volume, every page of which is instinct with the Spirit of Truth. The book should be carefully studied, and with a key, the key of the Universal Brotherhood of Man, which is the same as the Fatherhood of God and the Sonship of Christ which Jesus preached. It is vain to think of the Commentary as that of a Hindu. It speaks for itself, from beyond the plane of flesh-minded creeds, even from Love infinite and pure, which transcends flesh, form and colour; nor yet is there anything in the criticism that Christ Jesus is conceived by the Commentator as ' only a Yogi,' for the goal preached by Jesus is knowledge or attainment of Truth Absolute, and the gaol of Yoga is nothing short of such attainment. They that are of the Truth will bear witness to the book before me." ♦ Apropos of the story of the actor-critic Wynn, told by Mr. Sutherland Edwards, whose book of recollections I noted last month, perhaps I may repeat the following specimen of American criticism related to me by Mr. Walter Bentley : A certain actor, with a great belief in his own powers as a tragedian, was once playing the title-role in " Othello " in a big American city. The

day after the first performance a well-known paper came out with something like the following : Last night " Othello " was staged, The production was an excellent one in many respects, for the scenery and the music were excellent. But Othello ! Mr

played lago with all his customary effectiveness. During the season he has played many parts with great success. In his latest effort he has left those other representations far behind. But Othello ! Miss was a charming Desdemona. Her fine stage presence, and especially tuneful voice, pleased everybody, while her acting was of a highly-finished nature. But Othello ! The Emilia of Miss was naturally a splendid conception. Her acting was strong and natural. But Othello ! Mr. , as Oassio, was excellent, and Mr. , as Roderigo, played the part with admirable discretion. But Othello ! Oh ! Oh ! ! Oh ! ! ! Oh ! ! ! ! Oh ! ! ! ! !— The first oh was set in pica, and the last in diamond type !

Among the minoi* poets who have latoly published volumes of verae Mr. liobort Wilson is one who has been highly praised for his dignity of thought and expression and depth of personal feeling. Messrs. Archibald Constable and Co. aro the publishers of his volume, which is entitled Laurel Leaves. The following is an example of Mr. Wilson's best style : —

IN MEMORIAM

Best in the bosom of the deep, Swoot Soul ! Its vast moon-drawn abysses be thy bod, Until the sea Christ walked give up its dead. Rest, rest as long as magnet toward the pole Shall tremble and the planet eastward roll ; The aureole of God is round thy head. Thus the last farewell, the Aye said : Thou hast achieved thy work, attained thy goal ! Be hushed the voice of wailing lost it broak The deep tranquility of thy repose. Our grief shall be as peaceful as the close Of some sweet summer eve that will not shako The dewy gossamer as it shuts the rose, And bids the mournful nightingale awake.