The Critic Volume 25 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. Excerpt: ... title which clearly and correctly gave the key-note of his theme. The title of this work is a misnomer; moreover, the book is interspersed with illustrations having no conceivable relevancy to the text. For instance, in the midst of the account of the action between the Monitor and the Merrimac, fought in 1862, we find a picture of the English battle ship Nile, built in 1886. Again, the author is at times somewhat too technical for the general reader, and altogether too careless, not to say inaccurate, for the student of naval history. In the discussion of the battle of Lissa it is stated that the Italians took no steps to "mask " the Austrian fleet (Vol. I., p. 220). On page 248 we are told that the Austrian fleet should have been "crushed or masked." Hence, "to mask," as here used, is the homonym of " to crush," or its alternate. To crush an opponent is to put him hors decombat; but just how, in a military or a naval sense, an enemy's fleet is to be "masked," we are left to conjecture. In Vol. II., page 153, we are told that, in the tactical formation called the "line of breast," the broadside fire of the ships is " masked." On page 154 it is said that "the broadside fire of all the ships in it--the line--except one," is "masked "; and on page 158, that " ships will mask one another's fire." Hence, "to mask" is to screen. The Austrian fleet, therefore, should have been screened On page 230, the author, in speaking of Tegetthoff (not Tegett// as in the text), says: "That he might not be taken off his guard, he sailed in fighting order." This was "in two bow and quarter lines," "having the intention to...