Proof of Sword Blades (Vol. iv., pp. 39. 109.).
—Without wishing to detract from the merits of an invention, which probably is superior in its effects to old modes of testing sword blades, I object to the term efficient being applied to machine-proved swords.
Because, after such proof, they frequently break by ordinary cutting; even those which have been made doubly strong and heavy—and hence unfit and useless for actual engagement—have so failed. And because machine-tried swords are liable to, and do, break in the handle.
For many reasons I should condemn the machine in question as inapplicable to its purposes. By analogous reasoning, it would not be wrong to call a candle a good thrusting instrument, because a machine may be made to force it through a deal plank.
The subject of testing sword blades is a very important one, although it has not received that degree of attention from those whom it more nearly concerns which it seems to demand.
The writer's experience has been only en amateur; but it has satisfied him how much yet remains to be effected before swords proved by a machine are to be relied upon.
E. M. M.
Thornhill Square, August 16. 1851.
Was Milton an Anglo-Saxon Scholar? (Vol. iv., p. 100.).
—Is it too much to suppose that the learned "Secretary for Forreigne Tongues" was acquainted with the Paraphrasis poetica Genesios ac præcipuarum sacræ Paginæ Historiarum, abhinc Annos MLXX. Anglo-Saxonicè conscripta, et nunc primum edita a Francisco Junius, published at Amsterdam in 1655, at least two years before he commenced his immortal poem? Hear Mr. Turner on the subject: