Mar. 3. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



171 



gem, than which the art of engraving " can no 

 farther go." James Spence Harbt. 



PHOTOGEAPHIC COKBESPONDENCE, 



Copying Photographs.— TY^Q Italian figure and medal- 

 lion makers have an ingenious and laudable mode of 

 cheating one another. Signor Pilferini, for instance, buys 

 a set of casts from rare medals of Signor Factorini, the 

 first publisher. Signor Pilferini easily obtains sulphur 

 moulds from these casts after treating them with boiled 

 oil. The moulds yield new casts and enable Pilferini to 

 undersell Factorini. Of course the former employs some 

 middle man (who is unsuspected) to deal with the latter, 

 and it is hard for the purchaser to say which casts came 

 from the original moulds. 



Something of this sort is going onwith praiseworthy 

 imitation among photographers. It is found that albu- 

 menized paper gives admirable negatives. I have seen 

 such taken from natural ferns by superposition. You have 

 only therefore to get a good positive — dismount it, copy 

 it on albumenized paper, and you have a negative which 

 will give copies very nearly equal to the original. I have 

 been asked why I clid not so copy some of the pictures 

 in my collection by one of our best photographers, by way 

 of a' feeler, to know -whether I Avould allow such as I 

 possess to be so copied. But I have been long deaf in one 

 ear, and chose to be deaf of that ear. However, I know I 

 am wrong ; for why should we allow ourselves to be out- 

 done in rascality by so beggarly a set as these Italians ? 



Anticopy. 



Ancient Lens. — The following extract from The Athe- 

 fUBum of 17th February (p. 201.), is interesting as showing 

 that it is by no means impossible that photography may 

 have been known to the ancients ; and therefore should 

 find a record in that part of " N. & Q." which is devoted 

 to that interesting art. 



" In the Museo Borbonico of Naples," writes a corre- 

 spondent, who has just returned from Italy, " and in the 

 celebrated chamber which contains the engraved gems — 

 gold and jewellery — found at Pompeii, I observed a lens of 

 greenish glass, double convex, and of about three inches 

 diameter. This, the custode informed me, upon inquiry, 

 had been discovered within the last week or two in the 

 new excavations at Pompeii (the street in which stands 

 the house of the musicians). A slight flakiness of surface 

 — the general manifestation of decay in glass — is re- 

 markable on this, I believe, unique relic of antiquity. 

 One would be, perhaps, inclined to suppose its use that of 

 a burning-glass rather than of an optical instrument. It 

 is very lenticular in section ; and I am not aware that any 

 notices of optic glasses have come down to us in classic 

 literature." L. M. B. 



Mr. Lake Pnce's Photographs. — We have received 

 copies of four beautiful photographs recently published 

 by Mr. Lake Price. They 'are entitled Ginevra ; The 

 Baron's Welcome ; Retour de Chasse ; and The Court Cup- 

 board, and are copies of the pictures exhibited by this 

 gentleman at the Photographic Exhibition, where they 

 form, as we before observed, some of the most interesting 

 objects in the room. These specimens are of an entirely 

 new character, being marked by great artistic feeling, 

 and great taste both in the grouping and in the arrange- 

 ment of the various objects of art and vertu introduced as 

 accessories. Mr. Price seems destined to add to the 

 reputation which he has already acquired as an accom- 

 plished artist, by the skill which he is displaying in this 



new and interesting department of what in Ms hands 

 may well be called Art. 



Fading of Photographs. — The fading of photographs is, 

 in my opinion, the most fatal blow which misfortune has 

 dealt to the art. Bad pictures are not half so injurious. 

 A purchaser has means of exercising his judgment of the 

 value of a picture the moment he sees it ; but he has no 

 means of testing its durability. I have an early picture of 

 Mr. Fox Talbot's, which has a faded border all round 

 where it was attached to the card-board. I have also had 

 melancholy proofs of the truth of what has been said 

 about the chemical action of some papers. Whether such 

 papers be used for mounting, or form the leaves of the 

 book in which you put your pictures, those pictures be- 

 come partially bleached. A friend of mine, who is not 

 only a good photographer but an excellent chemist, is 

 terribly afraid of paste. He says he is sure that his paste, 

 though simply and carefully prepared, has helped to 

 destroy his pictures. He therefore betook himself to clean 

 gum arable. Upon this representation, some time ago, I 

 tried the gum arable, applying it all over the backs of the 

 pictures. It did not turn dark (as I had been told by 

 some that it would), and up to this time the pictures re- 

 main unchanged. If the gum arable be in itself innocent, 

 surely it may also be preservative ; that is, it may form a 

 wall between the picture and the mounting, so as to pro- 

 tect the former against chemical ingredients that may 

 exist in the latter. N. 



30it$liti to Minav €iutviti. 



Psalms printed in Neio England (Vol. xi_., 

 p. 153.). — A copy of this most rare volume is 

 among Bishop Tanner's books in the Bodleian 

 Library. The full title and a collation will be 

 found in Archdeacon Cotton's account of Editions 

 of the Bible and Parts thereof in English, printed 

 at Oxford, at the University Press, 1852, in 8vo. 

 This very valuable and correct manual is not as 

 generally known as it deserves ; but to all persons 

 interested in early translations of the Old and 

 New Testament, or the Psalms, or in the various 

 editions of the same, no authority can be more 

 relied on, and no information can be more satis- 

 factory, than will be found in Dr. Cotton's book. 



In consulting the volume to which I have re- 

 ferred, it must be borne in mind that Dr. Cotton 

 does not profess to record editions of the authorised 

 translation (unaccompanied by notes or having 

 some peculiarity) after the year 1611 ; nor does he 

 enumerate editions of the Psalms, as translated by 

 Sternhold and Hopkins, after 1700, nor of Brady 

 and Tate's version after 1728. 



This is a necessary caution, since in more than 

 one bookseller's catalogue you sometimes meet 

 with " not noticed by Dr. Cotton," when if he had 

 noticed the volume in question he would have de- 

 parted from his original design. P- B. 



Raleigh's " Silent Lover " (Vol. xi., p. 101.). — 

 The lines given by T, Q. C, which he justly de- 

 scribes as " graceful," are by Sir Walter Raleigh. 

 The poem is entitled The Silent Lover, and con- 



