( 362 ) [ April, 
REVIEWS. 
THE STORY OF THE GUNS.* 
Wirn the din of war approaching nearer to our shores, and the political 
horizon assuming a more and more threatening aspect, it is no wonder 
that the ‘ Story of the Guns’ should have been the book of the past 
quarter. 
From the ‘ Natural History of Ceylon’ to the subject under con- 
sideration is, indeed, a great leap, and there are few men living who 
could have accomplished it more easily than Sir James Emerson Ten- 
nent ; but it would be alike unfair to our readers, and to the author 
himself, if we were to speak of this work in the same terms of un- 
qualified praise as of his former labours. Whether it has been his 
intention, in the performance of what he may have conceived to be an 
imperative duty, to expose facts with which he considers that the 
nation should be made acquainted, namely, the extravagant and un- 
warranted expenditure of money upon an imperfect weapon, or whether 
it was simply his desire to reinstate in public favour a gentleman of 
rare abilities whom he believes to have been neglected and slighted by 
our Government, we are, of course, unable to say ; but however honest 
may have been his intentions, we can assure him that he will have 
failed in creating the desired impression upon the minds of his careful 
readers. 
A book emanating from such a source, and appearing at so oppor- 
tune a period, could not fail to command attention, and the journals 
requiring literary extracts as a portion of their daily bread would 
necessarily increase its popularity and renown. But then come the 
thinkers, the men who read a work not with a view to ascertain what 
it says, but what it means; many of them, perhaps, with as strong a 
bias as the author himself, but in the opposite direction ; and to these 
the book has been in a great measure a disappointment, for it is rather 
a story of the grievances of one gun manufacturer, and a disapproval 
of the favouritism shown to another (who received his appointment 
under a ministry professing political views which were until recently 
believed to be opposed to those of the author), than what it professes 
to be, namely, a history of our scientific progress in the manufacture 
of guns and rifles. And whilst we were toiling wearily through the 
narrative of Mr. Whitworth’s wrongs and of Sir William Armstrong’s 
unwarranted promotion, couched in language whereof it is difficult to 
say which of three qualities it best conceals—official caution, the pun- 
gency that characterizes the lower house, or the polite conventionality 
* «The Story of the Guns.’ By Sir James Emerson Tennent, K.C.S., LL.D., 
F.R.S. Longmans. 
