J. N. C.
299. Infantry Firing.
—Can any of your correspondents refer me to authentic instances of the comparative numbers of rounds of cartridges fired in action, with the number of men killed? I think I have read it in Sir W. Napier's History of the Peninsular War, and also in The Times, but omitted to make a note. I have some recollection of 60,000 rounds beings fired, and only one man killed! and another instance of 80,000, and twenty-five killed! Any remarkable instances of the inefficiency of musketry fire will be acceptable.
H. Y. W. N.
Replies.
THE REVEREND RICHARD FARMER.
(Vol. iv., p. 379.)
Assuming that the principal ATROCITIES of the reverend Richard Farmer are his Essay on the learning of Shakespeare, and the substance of a note on Hamlet, Act V. Sc. 2., I shall transcribe, as a hint to the lovers of manly criticism, a general character of that writer, a character of his Essay, and the note in question:—
1. "His knowledge is various, extensive, and recondite. With much seeming negligence, and perhaps in later years some real relaxation, he understands more and remembers more about common and uncommon subjects of literature, than many of those who would be thought to read all the day and meditate half the night. In quickness of apprehension and acuteness of discrimination I have not often seen his equal."—Samuel PARR.
2. "It [the Essay on the learning of Shakespeare] may in truth be pointed out as a master-piece, whether considered with a view to the sprightliness and vivacity with which it is written, the clearness of the arrangement, the force and variety of the evidence, or the compression of scattered materials into a narrow compass; materials which inferior writers would have expanded into a large volume."—Isaac REED.
3. "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew [them how we will.] Dr. Farmer informs me, that these words are merely technical. A wool-man, butcher, and dealer in skewers, lately observed to him, that his nephew (an idle lad), could only assist him in making them;"—'he could rough-hew them, but I was obliged to shape their ends.' [To shape the ends of wool-skewers, i.e. to point them, requires a degree of skill; any one can rough-hew them.] Whoever recollects the profession of Shakespeare's father, will admit that his son might be no stranger to such a term [such terms]. I have [frequently] seen packages of wool pinn'd up with skewers.—STEEVENS.