[2] The powder and shot chargers may be regulated by weighing the powder with a sixpence, and the shot with four half-crowns. The shooter must not adopt these proportions if smaller shot is used, as they would not only cause the gun to recoil, but would be dangerous. [3] If the gun shoots too close, and does not recoil, the quantity of powder may be increased. If it shoots too close and recoils, the quantity of shot must be reduced. If it spreads shot too much and does not recoil, the quantity of shot may be increased. If it spreads shot too much and recoils, the powder must be reduced. [4] When these proportions are used, the gun recoils least with the No. 2 and most with the No. 7 charge. * * * * * REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. _Joseph Rushbrook, or the Poacher._ By Captain Marryatt, _Author of Peter Simple_, _Jacob Faithful_, etc. etc. _Two Volumes. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart._ It has been well said that “the success of certain works may be traced to sympathy between the author’s mediocrity of ideas, and mediocrity of ideas on the part of the public.” In commenting on this passage, Mrs. Gore, herself a shrewd philosopher, observes that, whether as regards men or books, there exists an excellence too excellent for general favor. To “make a hit”—to captivate the public eye, ear, or understanding without a certain degree of merit—is impossible; but the “hardest hit” is seldom made, indeed we may say _never_ made, by the highest merit. When we wrote the word _seldom_ we were thinking of Dickens and the “Curiosity Shop,” a work unquestionably of “the highest merit,” and which at a first glance appears to have made the most unequivocal of “hits”—but we suddenly remembered that the compositions called “Harry Lorrequer” and “Charles O’Malley” had borne the palm from “The Curiosity Shop” in point of what is properly termed _popularity_.