THE POINT OF VIEW AGAIN.
" Ox a dark night in the winter of the year 18—, a man might have been seen " (the writer is not G. P. R. James, but " the story is extant and written in choice" English,) " wending his way up the steep acclivity of one of the mountain ridges in the North of England. At an elevation of 2000 feet above the level of the sea a small mountain but was perched; it overlooked a deep valley where a few lowly houses marked the abodes of a rude and sim- ple people chiefly engaged in pastoral occupations." We might succeed in a three-volumed novel, for we think we have com- pletely mastered the style; but as our space is short, we must adopt another style—namely the sensible direct manner in which Sir William Armstrong told the story of his gun at Newcastle. The idea presented by his words gives a new picture of the way in which inventors carry on their experiments- " In the height of summer my experiments were for the most part car- :led on at the sea-coast, between the hours of three o'clock in the morning and al ; for after that time people began to move about, and were apt to get in the way. At other seasons I availed myself of the wild moors belong- ing to my friend Mr. Beaumont, at Allenheads, and there I had a hut con- structed on a mountain ridge, 2000 feet above the level of the sea. My tar- gets were placed upon the opposite side of a deep valley, where nothing mere valuable than grouse or lean sheep ran the risk of being shot ; and well it was that such was the case, for I had constructed an instrument for maintaining a fire upon an object (a breach, for example) after darkness had set in, and I used to awaken the denizens of the heath by firing shells at my distant target in the middle of the night ; and I may observe in pass- ing that when this instrument was fully perfected I was enabled to strike a distant object in a pitch-dark night with the same accuracy as in broad daylight." How contemptonsly the great engineer talks of the people moving about in the morning and getting " in the way." Phillis and Corydon meeting by the sea shore to inhale, fix., and to breathe vows of love, did not think that a horrid engineer only regarded them as little black specks spoiling his clear field for exercise ; or some peevish valetudinarian careful of his health and morning exercise, had no idea, that—God help his appetite if it had crossed his mind !—he was coming " in the way' of the most murderous missile ever invented. The lovely steep where Sir William's tar- gets were placed was we suppose certainly untrodden ; but if any solitary wanderer ever strayed there, we may rest assured nothing was left to tell the tale, and his fate is only registered in the ag- gregate decrease of population, in the Northern counties. What must the denizens of the deep valley have thought of the dread- ful "pother o'er their heads' ; if among them were any metro- politan visitors who had sought repose in the country, they must have wished themselves back again in their " quiet street." For our part, unaccustomed as we are to sea-beach or mountain soli- tude, we shall never again walk by the shore without fancying that the wild waves are saying, " Look out sharp for cannon balls" ; and as to lying down on a sunny cliff over a deep valley, after what this deadly engineer has confessed, we should as soon take a bath at present in the Sesia, or hope to catch trout in the Ticino during the next month.
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