(Vol. vi., p. 460.)

The Query confirms Professor De Morgan's excellent article in The Companion to the Almanack for 1853, "On the Difficulty of correct Description of Books." The manuscript note cited by H. J., though curiously inaccurate, guided me to the book for which he inquires. I copy the title-page: "Die BetrÜbte Pegnesis, den Leben, Kunst, und Tugend-Wandel des Seelig-Edeln Floridans, H. Sigm. von Birken, Com. Pal. CÆs. durch 24 Sinnbilder in Kupfern, zur schuldigen nach-Ehre fÜrstellend, und mit Gesprach und Reim-Gedichten erklÄrend, durch ihre Blumen-Hirten. NÜrnberg, 1684, 12mo." I presume the annotator, not understanding German, and seeing "Floridans" the most conspicuous word on the title-page, cited him as the author; but it is the pastoral academic name of the late Herr Sigmond von Birken, in whose honour the work is composed. The emblem, with the motto "Bis fracta relinquor," at p. 249. (not 240.), is a tree from which two boughs are broken. It illustrates the death of Floridan's second wife, and his determination not to take a third. The chess-board, plate xiv. p. 202., has the motto, "Per tot discrimina rerum," and commemorates Floridan's safe return to Nuremberg after the multitudinous perils ("die Schaaren der Gefahren") of a journey through Lower Saxony. They must have been great, if typified by the state of the board, on which only a black king and a white bishop are left—a chess problem!

I bought my copy at a book-sale many years ago, and, after reading a few pages, laid it aside as insufferably dull, although it was marked by its former possessor, the Rev. Henry White, of Lichfield, "Very rare, probably unique." On taking it up to answer H. J.'s Query, I found some matter relating to the German academies of the seventeenth century, which I think may be interesting.

Mr. Hallam (Literature of Europe, IV. v. 9.) says:

"The Arcadians determined to assume every one a pastoral name and a Greek birthplace; to hold their meetings in some verdant meadow, and to mingle with all their own compositions, as far as possible, images from pastoral life; images always agreeable, because they recall the times of primitive innocence. The poetical tribe adopted as their device the pipe of seven reeds bound with laurel, and their president, or director, was denominated General Shepherd or Keeper—Custode Generale."

He slightly mentions the German academics of the sixteenth century (III. ix. 30.), and says:

"It is probable that religious animosities stood in the way of such institutions, or they may have flourished without obtaining much celebrity."

The academy of Pegnitz-shepherds ("PegnitzshÄfer-orden") took its name from the little river Pegnitz which runs through Nuremberg. Herr Sigmond von Birken was elected a member in 1645. He chose Floridan as his pastoral name, and the amaranth as his flower. In 1658 he was admitted to the Palm Academy ("Palmen-orden"), choosing the name Der Erwacsene (the adult?), and the snowdrop. In 1659, a vacancy having occurred in the Pegnitz-Herdsmen ("Pegnitz-Hirten") he was thought worthy to fill it, and in 1679 he received the diploma of the Venetian order of the Recuperati. He died in 1681. This, and what can be hung upon it, is Die BetrÜbte Pegnitz, a dialogue of 406 pages. It opens with a meeting of shepherds and shepherdesses, who go in and out of their cottages on the banks of the Pegnitz, and tell one another, what all seem equally well acquainted with, the entire life of their deceased friend. It would not be easy to find a work more clumsy in conception and tasteless in execution. Herr von Birken seems to have been a prosperous man, and to have enjoyed a high pastoral reputation. His works are enumerated, but the catalogue looks ephemeral. There is, however, one with a promising title: Die Trockene Trunkenheit, oder die Gebrauch und Missbrauch des Tabacks. His portrait, as "Der Erwachsene," is prefixed. It has not a shepherd-like look. He seems about fifty, with a fat face, laced cravat, and large flowing wig. There are twenty-four emblematical plates, rather below the average of their time.

As so secondary a town as Nuremberg had at least three academies, we may infer that such institutions were abundant in Germany, in the seventeenth century: that of the Pegnitz shepherds lasted at least till the beginning of the eighteenth. In Der ThÖrichte Pritschmeister, a comedy printed at Coblenz, 1704, one of the characters is "Phantasirende, ein Pegnitz SchÄffer," who talks fustian and is made ridiculous throughout. The comedy is "von Menantes." I have another work by the same author: Galante, Verliebte, und Satyrische Gedichte, Hamburg, 1704. I shall be very glad to be told who he was, as his versification is often very good, and his jokes, though not graceful, and not very laughable, are real.

H. B. C.

U. U. Club.

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MARRIAGES EN CHEMISE.—MANTELKINDER.—LEGITIMATION.

(Vol. vi., pp. 485. 561.)

The popular error on the legal effect of marriage en chemise is, I think, noticed among other vulgar errors in law in a little book published some twenty years ago under the name of Westminster Hall, to which a deceased lawyer of eminence, then young at the bar, was a contributor. I believe the opinion to be still extensively prevalent, and to be probably founded, not exactly in total ignorance, but in a misconception, of the law. The text writers inform us that "the husband is liable for the wife's debts, because he acquires an absolute interest in the personal estate of the wife," &c. (Bacon's Abridgment, tit. "Baron and Feme.") Now an unlearned person, who hears this doctrine, might reasonably conclude, that if his bride has no estate at all, he will incur no liability; and the future husband, more prudent than refined, might think it as well to notify to his neighbours, by an unequivocal symbol, that he took no pecuniary benefit with his wife, and therefore expected to be free from her pecuniary burdens. In this, as in most other popular errors, there is found a substratum of reason.

With regard to the other vulgar error, noticed at the foot of Mr. Brooks' communication (p. 561.), that "all children under the girdle at the time of marriage are legitimate," the origin of it is more obvious. Every one knows of the "legitimatio per subsequens matrimonium" of the canonists, and how the barons assembled in parliament at Merton refused to engraft this law of the Church on the jurisprudence of England. But it is not perhaps so well known that, upon such a marriage the premature offspring of the bride and bridegroom sometimes used to perform a part in the ceremony, and received the nuptial benediction under the veil or mantle of the bride or the pallium of the altar. Hence the children so legitimated are said to have been called by the Germans Mantelkinder. The learning on this head is to be found in Hommel's Jurisprudentia Numismatibus Illustrata (LipsiÆ, 1763), pp. 214-218., where the reader will also find a pictorial illustration of the ceremony from a codex of the NovellÆ in the library of Christian Schwarz. The practice seems to have been borrowed from the form of adopting children, noticed in the same work and in Ducange, verb. "Pallium, Pallio cooperire;" and in Grimm's Deut. Rechts Alterth., p. 465.

Let me add a word on the famous negative given to the demand of the clergy at Merton. No reason was assigned, or, at least, has been recorded, but a general unwillingness to change the laws of England. As the same barons did in fact consent to change them in other particulars, this can hardly have been the reason. Sir W. Blackstone speaks of the consequent uncertainty of heirship and discouragement of matrimony as among the causes of rejection,—arguments of very questionable weight. Others (as Bishop Hurd, in his Dialogues) have attributed the rejection to the constitutional repugnance of the barons to the general principles of the canon and imperial law, which the proposed change might have tended to introduce,—a degree of forethought and a range of political vision for which I can hardly give them credit, especially as the great legal authority of that day, Bracton, has borrowed the best part of his celebrated Treatise from the Corpus Juris. The most plausible motive which I have yet heard assigned for this famous parliamentary negative on the bishops' bill at Merton, is suggested (quod minimÈ reris!) in an Assistant Poor-Law Commissioner's Report (vol. vi. of the 8vo. printed series), viz. that bastardy multiplied the escheats which accrued to medieval lords of manors.

E. Smirke.

A venerable person whose mind is richly stored with "shreds and patches" of folk-lore and local antiquities, on seeing the "curious marriage entry" (p. 485.), has furnished me with the following explanation.

It is the popular belief at Kirton in Lindsey that if a woman, who has contracted debts previous to her marriage, leave her residence in a state of nudity, and go to that of her future husband, he the husband will not be liable for any such debts.

A case of this kind actually occurred in that highly civilised town within my informant's memory; the woman leaving her house from a bedroom window, and putting on some clothes as she stood on the top of the ladder by which she accomplished her descent.

K. P. D. E.

In that amusing work, Burn's History of the Fleet Marriages, p. 77., occurs the following entry:—"The woman ran across Ludgate Hill in her shift;" to which the editor has added this note:—"The Daily Journal of 8th November, 1725, mentions a similar exhibition at Ulcomb in Kent. It was a vulgar error that a man was not liable to the bride's debts, if he took her in no other apparel than her shift."

J. Y.

Saffron Walden.

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EDITIONS OF THE PRAYER-BOOK PRIOR TO 1662.

(Vol. vi., pp. 435. 564.)

As Mr. Sparrow Simpson invites additions to his list from all quarters, I send him my contribution: and as I see that he has included translations of our Liturgy into other languages, I do the same:

All the foregoing editions are in the Bodleian Library. I may add to them the following three:

The first of these, which is the first book printed in Ireland, is extremely rare. I believe only two copies are certainly known to exist; one of which is in the library of Trinity College, Dublin; and the other in that of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Both are in very fine condition.

The second is in my possession. The book is quite perfect; but some wiseacre has carefully erased the date. The Almanac for xxvi Yeares tells nothing, being for the years 1603 to 1628. But the book contains a prayer for "Frederick, the Prince Elector Palatine, and the Lady Elizabeth, his wife, with their hopeful issue." He married the princess in 1613; and in 1619 he was elected King of Bohemia, and thenceforward would be prayed for under his higher title. If the Sunday letter in the calendar is to be trusted, the book was printed (according to De Morgan's Book of Almanacs) in 1617. The Dublin Society of Stationers was established in that year; and it is not unlikely that they commenced their issues with a Prayer-Book. I have never seen nor heard of another copy, with which I might compare mine, and thus ascertain its date.

The third, of 1637, is reported; but I have never met with it.

H. Cotton.

Thurles.

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ETYMOLOGY OF PEARL.

(Vol. vi., p. 578.)

The inquiry of your correspondent Ifigfowl respecting the etymology of the word pearl does not admit of a simple answer. The word occurs in all the modern languages, both Romance and Teutonic: perla, Ital. and Span.; perle, French and German, whence the English pearl. Adelung in v. believes the word to be of Teutonic origin, and considers it as the diminutive of beere, a berry. Others derive it from perna, the Latin name of a shell-fish (see Ducange in perlÆ; Diez, Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen, vol. i. p. 235.). Neither of these derivations is probable: it is not shown that beere had a diminutive form, and perna was a local and obscure name: see Pliny, N. H. xxxii. ad fin. Salmasius (Exercit. Plin., p. 40. ed. 1689) thinks that perla is formed from perula, for sperula, the diminutive of sphÆra. A more probable origin is that the word is formed from the Latin pirum, as suggested by Diez, in allusion to the pear-shaped form of the pearl. Ducange in v. says that the extremity of the nose was called pirula nasi, from its resemblance to the form of a pear. But pirus was used to denote a boundary-stone, made in a pyramidal shape (Ducange in v.); and this seems to have been the origin of the singular expression pirula nasi, as being something at the extremity. Another supposition is, that the word perla is derived from the Latin perula, the diminutive of pera, a wallet. A wallet was a small bag hung round the neck; and the word perula, in the sense of a small bag, occurs in Seneca and Apuleius. The analogy of shape and mode of wearing is sufficiently close to suggest the transfer of the name. Perula and perulus are used in Low Latin in the sense of pearl. Ducange cites a passage from a hagiographer, where perula means the white of the eye, evidently alluding to the colour of the pearl.

The choice seems to lie between perula as the diminutive of pera or of pirum. Neither derivation is improbable. It is to be observed that the modern Italian form of pirum, the fruit of the pear, is pera; the modern feminine noun being, as in numerous other cases, formed from the plural of the Latin neuter noun (see Diez, ib. vol. ii. p. 19.). The analogy of unio (to which I shall advert presently) supports the derivation from the fruit; the derivation from pera, a wallet, is, on merely linguistical grounds, preferable.

The Greek name of pearl is a??a??t??, originally applied to a precious stone, and apparently moulded out of some oriental name, into a form suited to the Greek pronunciation. Scott and Liddell in v. derive it from the Persian murwari. Pliny, H. N. ix. 56., speaking of the pearl, says: "Apud GrÆcos non est, ne apud barbaros quidem inventores ejus, aliud quam margaritÆ." The Greek name Margarita was used by the Romans, but the proper Latin name for the pearl was unio. Pliny (ibid.) explains this word by saying that each pearl is unique, and unlike every other pearl. Ammianus Marcellinus (lib. xxiii. ad fin.) thinks that pearls were called uniones, because the best were found single in the shell; Solinus (c. 53.) because they were always found single. The more homely explanation of Salmasius seems, however, to be the true one; namely, that the common word for an onion, growing in a single bulb, was transferred to the pearl (Exercit. Plin., pp. 822-4.; Columella de R. R. xii. 10.). The ancient meaning of unio is still preserved in the French ognon.

L.

Your correspondent asks the "etymon of our English word pearl." It would not be uninteresting to learn, at the same time, at what period pearl came into general use as an English word? Burton, who wrote his Anatomy in the reign of James I., uses the word union (from the Latin unio) instead of pearl (Anat. Melanc., vol. ii. part 2. sec. 3. mem. 3., and ib., p. 2. sec. 4. mem. 1. subs. 4.). In the latter passage he says "Those smaller unions which are found in shells, amongst the Persians and Indians, are very cordial, and most part avail to the exhilaration of the heart."

The Latin term unio differs from "margarita," in so far as it seems to have been applied by Pliny to distinguish the small and ill-shaped pearls, from the large round and perfect, which he calls "margaritÆ." And in his ninth book, c. 59., he defines the difference philologically, as well as philosophically. Philemon Holland, who published his translation of Pliny in 1634, about thirteen years after Burton published the first edition of his Anatomy, uses the word pearl indifferently as the equivalent both of margarita and unio.

Query: Was the word union generally received in England instead of pearl in Burton's time, and when did it give place to it?

J. Emerson Tennant.

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"MARTIN DRUNK."

(Vol. v., p. 587.)

Has not the following song something to do with the expression "Martin drunk"? It is certainly cotemporary with Thomas Nash the Elizabethan satirist, and was long a favourite "three man's" song. It is copied from Deuteromelia, or the Second Part of Musick's Melodie, 4to., 1609:

Edward F. Rimbault.

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GÖTHE'S REPLY TO NICOLAI.

(Vol. vi., p. 434.).

Had M. M. E. gone to the fountain-head, and consulted GÖthe's own statement in his autobiography, he would have seen in the Werke, vol. xxvi. p. 229., that Mr. Hayward's note was not written with that writer's usual care. GÖthe does not say that his reply to Nicolai's Joys of Werter, though circulated only in MS., destroyed N.'s literary reputation: on the contrary, he says that his squib (for it was no more) consisted of an epigram, not fit for communication, and a dialogue between Charlotte and Werter, which was never copied, and long lost; but that this dialogue, exposing N.'s impertinence, was written with a foreboding of his sad habit, afterwards developed, of treating of subjects out of his depth, which habit, notwithstanding his indisputable merits of another kind, utterly destroyed his reputation. This was most true: and yet all such assertions must be taken in a qualified sense. Nearly thirty years after this was written I partook of the hospitality of N. at Berlin. It was in 1803, when he was at the head, not of the Berlin literati, but of the book-manufactory of Prussia. He was then what, afterwards and elsewhere, the Longmans, Murrays, Constables, Cottas, and Brockhauses were,—the great publisher of his age and country. The entrepreneur of the Neue Deutsche Bibliothek may be compared with the publishers of our and the French great CyclopÆdias, and our Quarterly Reviews.

It was unfortunate for the posthumous reputation of the great bibliopolist that he, patronising a school that was dying out, made war on the athletes of the rising school. He assailed nearly every great man, philosopher or poet, from Kant and GÖthe downwards, especially of the schools of Saxony, Swabia, and the free imperial cities. No wonder that he became afterwards what Macfleckno and Colly Cibber had been to Dryden and Pope. In some dozen of the Xenien of GÖthe and Schiller, in 1797, he was treated as the Arch-Philistine.

M. M. E. characterises him as the "friend" and "fellow-labourer" of Lessing. Now Lessing was incomparably the most eminent littÉrateur of the earlier part of that age,—the man who was the forerunner of the philosophers, and whose criticisms supplied the place of poetry. The satirists of the Xenien affect to compassionate Lessing, in having to endure a companion so forced on him as Nicolai was, whom they speak of as a "thorn in the crown of the martyr." The few who care for the literary controversies of the age of GÖthe in Germany will be greatly assisted by an edition of the Xenien, with notes, published at Dantzig, 1833.

H. C. R.

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PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE.

Processes upon Paper.—The favourable manner in which the account I have given of the Collodion process has been received, not only by your readers in general, as has been evinced by many private letters, but also by the numerous correspondents it has drawn forth, induces me, after some little delay, to request space for a description of the following processes upon paper. In giving these I wish it to be understood that I may offer but little that is original, my object being to describe, as plainly as I possibly can, these easy methods, and to make no observation but what I have found to be successful in my own hands. I have had the good fortune to obtain the friendship of some of the most successful photographers of the day; and taking three very eminent ones, I find they have each some peculiarities in his mode of manipulation, varying with each other in the strength of the solutions employed, and producing results the most agreeable to their respective tastes. Reviewing these different processes in my own mind, and trying with patience the various results, I conclude that the following quantities are calculated to produce an adequate degree of sensibility in the paper, and yet to allow it to be prepared for the action of light for many hours previous to its use, and yet with more certainty than any other I am acquainted with. I think I may always depend upon it for twenty-four to thirty-six hours after excitement, and I have seen good pictures produced upon the third day. I believe it is a rule which admits of no contradiction, that the more you dilute your solution, the longer the excited paper will keep; but in proportion to its diminished sensibility, the time of exposure must be prolonged, and therefore I am, from this waste of time and other reasons, disposed to place much less value upon the wax-paper process than many do.

The process I am about to describe is so simple, and I hope to make it so intelligible to your non-photographic readers, that a perfect novice, using ordinary care, must meet with success; but should I fail doing so upon all points, any information sought through the medium of "N. & Q." shall meet with explanation from myself, if not from other of your experienced correspondents, whose indulgence I must beg should the communication be deemed too elementary, it being my earnest desire to point out to archÆologists who are desirous of acquiring this knowledge, how easily they themselves may practise this beautiful art, and possess those objects they would desire to preserve, in a far more truthful state than could be otherwise accomplished.

I have not myself met that uniform success with any other paper that I have with Turner's photographic of Chafford Mills: a sheet of this divided into two portions forms at the same time a useful and also a very easily-managed size, one adapted for most cameras, forming a picture of nine inches by seven, which is adequate for nearly every purpose. Each sheet being marked in its opposite corners with a plain pencil-mark on its smooth side (vide antÈ, p. 372.), the surface for all future operations is in all lights easily discerned. In my instructions for printing from collodion negatives, a form of iodized paper was given, which, although very good, is not, I think, equal to the following, which is more easily and quickly prepared, exhibits a saving of the iodide of potassium, and is upon the whole a neater mode.

Take sixty grains of nitrate of silver and sixty grains of iodide of potassium; dissolve each separately in an ounce of distilled water; mix together and stir with a glass rod. The precipitate settling, the fluid is to be poured away; then add distilled water to the precipitate up to four ounces, and add to it 650 grains of iodide of potassium, which should re-dissolve the precipitated iodide of silver, and form a perfectly clear solution; but if not, a little more must be carefully added, for this salt varies much, and I have found it to require 720 grains to accomplish the desired object.

The fluid being put into a porcelain or glass dish, the paper should be laid down upon its surface and immediately removed, and being laid upon a piece of blotting-paper with the wet surface uppermost, a glass rod then passed over it to and fro ensures the total expulsion of all particles of air, which will frequently remain when the mere dipping is resorted to. When dry, this paper should be soaked in common water for three hours, changing the water twice or thrice, so as to remove all the soluble salts. It should then be pinned up to dry, and, when so, kept in a folio for use. I have in this manner prepared from sixty to eighty sheets in an evening with the greatest ease. It keeps good for an indefinite time, and, as all experienced photographers are aware, unless you possess good iodized paper, which should be of a primrose colour, you cannot meet with success in your after-operations. Iodized paper becomes sometimes of a bright brimstone colour when first made; it is then very apt to brown in its use, but tones down and improves by a little keeping.

To excite this paper, dissolve thirty grains of nitrate of silver in one ounce of distilled water, and add a drachm and a half of glacial acetic acid; of this solution take one drachm, and one drachm of saturated solution of gallic acid, and add to it two ounces and a half of distilled water. The iodized surface of the paper may then be either floated on the surface of the aceto-nitrate of silver or exciting fluid, and afterwards a rod passed over, as was formerly done in the iodizing, or the aceto-nitrate may be applied evenly with a brush; but in either instance the surface should be immediately blotted off; and the same blotting-paper never used a second time for this, although it may be kept to develop on and for other purposes. It will be scarcely needful to observe that this process of exciting must be performed by the light of a candle or feeble yellow light, as must the subsequent development. The excited paper may be now placed for use between sheets of blotting-paper; it seems to act equally well either when damp or when kept for many hours, and I have found it good for more than a week.

The time for exposure must entirely depend upon the degree of light. In two minutes and a half a good picture may be produced; but if left exposed for twenty minutes or more, little harm will arise; the paper does not solarize, but upon the degree of image visible upon the paper depends the means of developing. When long exposed, a saturated solution of gallic acid only applied to the exposed surfaces will be sufficient; but if there is little appearance of an image, then a free undiluted solution of aceto-nitrate may be used, in conjunction with the gallic acid, the former never being in proportion more than one-third. If that quantity is exceeded, either a brownish or an unpleasant reddish tint is often obtained. These negatives should be fixed by immersing them in a solution of hyposulphite of soda, which may be of the strength of one ounce of salt to eight ounces of water—the sufficiency of immersion being known by the disappearance of the yellow colour, and when they have been once immersed they may be taken to the daylight to ascertain this. The hyposulphite must now be perfectly removed by soaking in water, which may extend to several hours; but this may be always ascertained by the tongue, for, if tasteless, it has been accomplished. If it is deemed advisable—which I think is only required in very dark over-done pictures—to wax the negative, it is easily managed by holding a piece of white wax or candle in front of a clean iron rather hot, and passing it frequently over the surface. The superabundant wax being again removed by passing it between some clean pieces of blotting-paper. Although the minuter details can never be acquired by this mode which are obtained by the collodion process, it has the advantage of extreme simplicity, and by the operator providing himself with a bag or square of yellow calico, which he can loosely peg down to the ground when no other shade is near, to contain spare prepared papers, he can at any future time obtain a sufficient number of views, which afterwards he can develop at his leisure.

It requires no liquids to be carried about with you, nor is that nice manipulation required which attends the collodion process.

The wax-paper process has been extolled by many, and very successful results have been obtained: the paper has the undoubted advantage of keeping after being excited much longer than any other; but, from my own experience, just so much the weaker it is made, and so as to safely rely upon its long remaining useful, so it is proportionally slower in its action. And I have rarely seen from wax negatives positives so satisfactory in depth of tone, as from those which have been waxed after being taken on ordinary paper. It is all very well for gentlemen to advocate a sort of photographic tour, upon which you are to go on taking views day after day, and when you return home at leisure to develop your past proceedings: I never yet knew one so lukewarm in this pursuit as not to desire to know, at his earliest possible opportunity, the result of his labours; indeed, were not this the case, I fear disappointment would more often result than at present, for I scarcely think any one can exactly decide upon the power of the light of any given day, without having made some little trial to guide him. I have myself, especially with collodion, found the action very rapid upon some apparently dull day; whilst, from an unexplained cause, a comparatively brighter day has been less active in its photographic results. As in the previous process, I would strongly advise Turner's paper to be used, and not the thin French papers generally adopted, because I find all the high lights so much better preserved in the English paper. It may be purchased ready waxed nearly as cheap as it may be done by one's self; but as many operators like to possess that which is entirely their own production, the following mode will be found a ready way of waxing:—Procure a piece of thick smooth slate, a trifle larger than the paper to be used; waste pieces of this description are always occurring at the slate works, and are of a trifling value. This should be made very hot by laying it close before a fire; then, covered with one layer of thick blotting-paper, it will form a most admirable surface upon which to use the iron. Taking a piece of wax in the left hand, an iron well heated being pressed against it, it may rapidly be made to flow over the whole surface with much evenness, the surplus wax being afterwards removed by ironing between blotting-paper. When good, it should be colourless, free from gloss, and having the beautiful semi-transparent appearance of the Chinese rice-paper. To iodize the paper completely, immerse it in the following solution:

Iodide of potash	200 grains.
Mannite	006 drachms.
Cyanide of potash	005 grains.
Distilled water	020 ounces.

Allow it to remain three hours, taking care that air-particles are perfectly excluded, and once during the time turning over each sheet of paper, as many being inserted as the fluid will conveniently cover, as it is not injured by after keeping. It should be then removed from the iodide bath, pinned up, and dried, ready for use. When required to be excited, the paper should, by the light of a candle, be immersed in the following solution, where it should remain for five minutes:

Nitrate of silver	004 drachms.
Glacial acetic acid	004 drachms.
Distilled water	008 ounces.

Being removed from the aceto-nitrate bath, immerse it into a pan of distilled water, where let it remain about a quarter of an hour. In order to make this paper keep a week or two, it must be immersed in a second water, which in point of fact is a mere reduction of the strength of the solutions already used; but for ordinary purposes, and when the paper is to be used within three or four days, one immersion is quite sufficient, especially as it does not reduce its sensitiveness in a needless way. It may now be preserved between blotting-paper, free from light, for future use. The time of exposure requisite for this paper will exceed that of the ordinary unwaxed, given in the previous directions. The picture may be developed by a complete immersion also in a saturated solution of gallic acid; but should it not have been exposed a sufficient time in the camera, a few drops of the aceto-nitrate solution added to the gallic acid greatly accelerates it. An excess of aceto-nitrate often produces an unpleasant red tint, which is to be avoided. Instead of complete immersion, the paper may be laid upon some waste blotting-paper, and the surface only wetted by means of the glass rod or brush. The picture may now be fixed by the use of the hyposulphite of soda, as in the preceding process.

It is not actually necessary that this should be a wax-paper process, because ordinary paper treated in this way acts very beautifully, although it does not allow of so long keeping for use after excitement; yet it has then the advantage, that a negative may either be waxed or not, as shall be deemed advisable by its apparent depth of action.

Hugh W. Diamond.

Exhibition of recent Specimens of Photography at the Society of Arts.—This exhibition, to which all interested in the art have been invited to contribute, was inaugurated by a conversazione at the Society's rooms, on the evening of Wednesday, the 22nd of December: the public have since been admitted at a charge of sixpence each, and it will continue open until the 8th of January.

We strongly recommend all our friends to pay a visit to this most delightful collection. By our visit at the crowded conversazione, and another hasty view since, we do not feel justified to enter into a review and criticism of the specimens so fully as the subject requires; but in the mean time we can assure our archÆological readers that they will find there such interesting records of architectural detail, together with views of antiquities from Egypt and Nubia, as will perfectly convince them of the value of this art with reference to their own immediate pursuits. Those who feel less delight in mere antiquity will be gratified to see, for the first time, that there are here shown photographs which aim at more than the bare copying of any particular spot; for many of the pictures here exhibited may rank as fine works of art. We feel much delicacy and hesitation in mentioning any particular artist, where so many are entitled to praise, especially in some particular departments. We could point out pictures having all the minute truthfulness of nature, combined with the beautiful effects of some of the greatest painters. We must, however, direct especial attention to the landscapes of Mr. Turner, the views in the Pyrenees by Mr. Stewart, and one splendid one of the same locality by Le Gray. Mr. Buckle's views in paper also exhibit a sharpness and detail almost equal to collodion; as do the various productions of Mr. Fenton in wax paper. The effects obtained also by Mr. Owen of Bristol appear to be very satisfactory: why they are, with so much excellence, called experimental, we cannot tell. In collodion Mr. Berger has exhibited some effective portraits; and we think the success of Mr. De la Motte has been so great, that in some of his productions little remains to be desired. We cannot conclude this brief notice without directing attention to the minuteness and pleasing effect of the views in Rome by M. EugÈne Constant, which are also from collodion; as also the specimens from albumen negatives of M. Ferrier; and, lastly, to the pleasant fact that lady amateurs are now practising this art,—very nice specimens being here exhibited by the Ladies Nevill, whose example we shall hope to see followed.

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