a parallel series of names on a broader and more sonorous field—­the field of heavy artillery, the ponderous Wiard being full brother to the liliputian Sharpe.  Rifled cannon certainly present problems far more complicated than the small-arm.  They can by no means be considered, as yet, so near perfection.  It is boldly maintained by many experts, both here and in England, that the “smashing” power at point-blank range of such smooth-bores as the Rodman 12-inch and 15-inch is greater than that of the rifle of the same weight.  The question is so closely involved with that of armor-plates for ships and ports, and that with buoyancy and other naval requirements, and economy and stability on land, that a long period must elapse ere the reaching of fixed conclusions.  Within the present generation wooden line-of-battle ships, with sails alone, have ruled the wave.  These have given place to the steam-liners that began and closed their brief career at Sebastopol and Bomarsund; and the prize-belt is now borne, among the bruisers of the main, by the mob of iron-clads, infinitely diverse of aspect and some of them shapeless, like the geologic monsters that weltered in the primal deep.  Which of these is to triumph ultimately and devour its misshapen kindred, or whether they are not all to go down before the torpedo, that carries no gun and fires no shot, is a “survival-of-the-fittest” question to be solved by Darwins yet to come.  But it is tolerably safe to say that where the best shooting is to be done it will continue to be done with the conico-cylindrical missile, spirally revolving around the line of flight; that is, with the arrow-rifle.

EDWARD C. BRUCE.

TWO MIRRORS.

  My love but breathed upon the glass,
    And, lo! upon the crystal sheen
  A tender mist did straightway pass,
    And raised its jealous veil between.

  But quick, as when Aurora’s face
    Is hid behind some transient shroud,
  The sun strikes through with golden grace,
    And she emerges from the cloud;

  So from her eyes celestial light
    Shines on the mirror’s cloudy plain,
  And swift the envious mist takes flight,
    And shows her lovely face again.

  When o’er the mirror of my heart,
    Wherein her image true endures,
  Some misty doubt doth sudden start,
    And all the sweet reflex obscures,

  There beams such glow from her clear eyes
    That swift the rising mists are laid;
  And, fixed again, her image lies,
    All lovelier for the passing shade.

F.A.  HILLARD.

MALCOLM.

BY GEORGE MACDONALD, AUTHOR OF “ANNALS OF A QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD,” “ROBERT FALCONER,” ETC.  CHAPTER LXIV.

THE LAIRD AND HIS MOTHER.