When this had been read to the company, Mr. Jonathan Buck enquired, What do you call your old shooting iron? Every rifle has a name.'

'Tinderbox,' said Gill, and a very good name for the old flintand-steel affair.'

Fill your glasses, gentlemen, and drink Success to Tinderbox,' with three cheers.'

The meeting then separated.

Colonel Chalmer next sent this note.

Woolwich, 6th April, 1843. 'SIR, -- We shall be very glad to see you on Monday at two o'clock as you propose.

Mention my name to the porter at the gate of the Royal Arsenal; I will have a N. C. Officer waiting there to shew you the Practiceground, where you will find me.

I am your most obedient servant,

'J. CHALMER.'

Thus the hint about Tinderbox was thrown away, and Mr. Jonathan Buck's notions were in a fair way to be realised; for it was clear that some comical result would ensue, but what that result might be was yet dimly hidden in the mists of futurity.

In the pursuit of an arduous profession which obliged him to reflect on many problems, H. had attached himself to that of the Resolution of Deflecting Forces as one of the most important dynamic problems that have hitherto baffled the mathematicians and artillery officers of Europe. The irregular impulses that a round shot receives before it passes out of the gun, throw it, sooner or later, wide of the mark. Rifled guns resolve some of these forces, but not all.

It is important to learn what a ball has been doing during its flight. The fragments explain the force of projection, but if the shot is fired at a low velocity and permitted to impinge lightly on the target, much may be discovered by comparing the stamp of the ramrod with the point of actual contact. The centre of the ramrod point should be only a few degrees from the point that touches the target. This angle may be found in

every gun.

Year after year had H. studied the causes of deflection and examined the flight of shot to learn how to resolve deflecting forces. With him the shot was everything, the gun only a necessary incumbrance independent of the problem. Anything that would throw a ball was welcome, and when one gun burst in his face, and another faithfully promised to do likewise, he only regretted the necessity of using such evil-minded things as

guns in the problem. The officers of the Select Committee allowed in their letter that he had entered fully and scientifically' into this important problem; but when they wrote to borrow his gun, he only felt regret that he could not place at the disposal of the field officers of the Select Committee of the Board of Ordnance a better gun than the humble and unworthy but too highly honoured and flattered Tinderbox.

How this gracious gun conducted itself on the Practice-ground at Woolwich in the hands of one of the best marksmen in the army, will be shewn in our next.

OLD PICTURES AND NEW FRAMES.

It happened, a short time ago, that the monotony of my secluded life in a little village was somewhat broken by an invitation to an evening party at the house of one of the most considerable gentlemen-farmers in the neighbourhood. Whether I was indebted for the honour, in a place remarkable for its incivility to strangers, to the circumstance of having been 'So great a blockhead as to write a book,'

or to what other cause it was attributable I know not, but, as I was heartily weary of my own society, and had long been preferring mentally the prayer

Grant me, ye gods, a friend in my retreat,

To whom to say that solitude is sweet'

I gladly accepted an invitation which would lead at least to an acquaintance with my neighbours.

The lady was the village heiress, and a personage of no slight importance, employed a milliner at York to make up her dresses, wore a real silk-velvet bonnet, kept no less than two servants, besides a boy, who occasionally was transformed from a ploughboy and swineherd into a tiger, and set the fashions for at least a mile round. She felt of course a due consciousness of the dignity of her situation, and being something of a politician in her way, maintained the balance of power' among the lesser luminaries by most admirable management, extending her hand cordially to the doctor's wife, whom she had, on their last meeting, scarcely recognized, and just curtsying on the entrance of another dame with whom she had spent all the previous evening in confidential gossip.

I soon discovered that my hosts were strict Methodists, and cards, dancing, and music were things prohibited. I was dismayed, but I found that scandal was not considered contraband, and presently all tongues were in full career discussing the histories, manners, and dress of their neighbours, the faux pas

of their servants, the intention to change at Martinmas, the latest additions to the stable or the poultry-yard, and all the little interesting topics in a farmer's life. Meanwhile, as every one but myself was deeply engaged in the conversation, and I, being alike profoundly ignorant of persons and things, could take no part in it, I was glad to escape into a corner of the room, out of reach of the fumes of tobacco and the steams of 'hot with' and 'cold without,' which by this time graced the board.

Putting on my glasses I amused myself by looking at the various pictures that graced the walls. With one exception they were family portraits, and represented Mr. and Mrs. Winton and their parents at different stages of life; they were soon examined; but there was a very large painting in a gaudy gilt frame which completely rivetted my attention. The tone of colouring, the admirable attitudes of the figures, the expressive countenances-all spoke of a master-hand, and roused my curiosity to a closer inspection. The scene depicted was a banquet, a regal one apparently, for the figure at the head of the table was crowned, and a profusion of golden vessels stood on the board. It was eastern too; thus far was sufficiently clear; but I could not comprehend the story. All had risen in evident horror and amazement from the table, and were gazing with intense curiosity and fear on something which ought to have been, but was not, visible. After trying in vain to solve the mystery, I turned to the lady of the house, and asked, with that hesitation one feels in perpetrating something which will be sure to create a laugh at our expense, 'What the painting was designed to represent?'

'Belshazzar's Feast. It is a very old picture, and has been generations in Mr. Winton's family.'

'So evidently as it is the production of a master-hand,' I replied, I wonder that the cause of their fear, the writing on the wall, should not have been depicted.'

Why so it was,' replied she very composedly, but the frame had become very shabby, so Mr. Winton bought this fine handsome one very cheap at an auction, and he just cut off a few inches of the canvass to make it fit.'

Thunderstruck by the cool recital of this act of desecration, I could scarcely endure to affect to mix in the society of its perpetrators, and I gladly retreated to a corner of the room to escape the fumes of tobacco' and 'hollands' with which the apartment was becoming painfully redolent.

In a short time the combined influences of smoke and silence transported me into the land of forgetfulness, and I fancied myself wandering through the apartments of a palace until I

entered the precincts of a magnificent picture-gallery. It seemed to be the receptacle for the chef-d'œuvres of all our greatest artists; here were the Cartoons of Raphael, there the sublime mountain sketches of Salvator Rosa; portraits of the beauties of our own and other days, immortalized by the magic pencils of Rubens and Lely, Sir Joshua and Lawrence, occupied one of the walls, calling up a legion of reminiscences in the paths of history and romance. Then my attention was arrested by specimens of the Dutch school, the minute finish of Teniers, the beauties of Cuyp; and I was laughing at some of Hogarth's caricatures when I was startled by a tap on my shoulder, and a shrill voice exclaiming, Pretty things these! very pretty things! But see! I am going to improve them-look at the fine new frames I've brought!'

The speaker and his assistant (two perfect impersonations of ugliness and malignity) then began to tear the paintings from the walls, and, after taking them from their old frames, tried to place them in the new; the constant use of a large pair of shears, ruthlessly employed, alone enabled them to effect this; but they cut and clipped and destroyed, until, overcome with terror, I screamed loudly.

'Ha!' exclaimed the little man, so you don't like to see good pictures spoiled? Where have you lived never to see it done before? Don't you know that it is done every day and hour by those who think to improve a perfect painting by putting it into a worthless frame? Come with me and see the great picture-gallery-the world, and I will show you some such

scenes.'

I followed him to a splendid mansion, where reigned luxury and extravagance; a fair young girl was kneeling at the feet of a mother nearly as lovely, but whose countenance bore the look of fixed sorrow which it almost broke one's heart to witness. 'Oh mother! mother! save me,' exclaimed the girl, 'save me from this horrible marriage!'

'My own darling, I would if I could, God knows! but your father, my Isabel, he will have it so.'

But the misery, the wretchedness of marrying him while I love' she hid her face in her mother's lap as she concluded'while I love another. What would you have done, mother, if you had been forced to marry one whom you detested?'

Been happier, perhaps, than I now am, my child; yes, I grieve for you; but you know how little influence I possess ; you heard your father declare that nothing else would save him from utter ruin.'

'Yet he was once rich, mother?'

'He was indeed; his income was sufficient to gratify every

reasonable wish; but in an evil hour he became a gambler; then fled happiness, independence, love-even honesty. How ill was the place of all these supplied by the empty gorgeous glitter which he thought himself compelled to substitute for them. Soon he became irretrievably involved, and his child alone has power to save his credit.'

'It is a fearful sacrifice, my mother,' exclaimed Isabel, shuddering.

Yet in one respect, my child, your lot will be a most enviable one; you will never know that bitter crushing evilpoverty; you will not know the misery of incurring debts which it is out of your power to discharge; the dread of every single knock which may announce a dun; the remorse of seeing honest tradesmen brought to poverty through your means; you will not be haunted by the muttered curses of their starving families. Isabel, these are not imaginary evils, nor always in a wife's power to avert.'

'But, mother, I shall break another heart as well as my own. Lionel is not wealthy, but he has sufficient for comfort, and youth, health, talents, every thing I could wish.'

My prospects were not less bright, Isabel, when I married your father; but God forbid you should ever

The father entered; every feature of a once handsome countenance bloated and disfigured by intemperance and the perpetual slavery to the dominion of degrading passions; his expression varied only from sullen gloom to ferocious violence

'What, what is the matter?' exclaimed the affrighted wife. 'A cursed run of luck, as usual; to-morrow we shall be houseless and penniless, unless even he, reckless as he was, hesitated to pronounce the doom of his child; 'unless Isabel saves us.'

'Father! such misery!'

Misery! to wed a man rolling in gold! to have boundless wealth! I tell you, child, gold, GOLD is the one thing needful; the want of it is the only misery I know. Say, do you consent? or will you see your mother a beggar,-a suppliant on the parish?' The mother spoke not a word, but her gestures, her intense anxiety, pleaded not less powerfully.

The scene faded, and when I looked again my eye fell on the interior of a church, where round the altar stood the same personages, accompanied by many more. There was the hapless bride, with a face scarcely less white than her snowy robes; and by her side the gay bridegroom, a little wizard-looking old man, whose gleeful expression was in horrid contrast with the gravity visible in every other countenance. The service proceeded: the bridegroom had taken the solemn vow; the fatal