30 Mrs. Cameron's Photographs. 



we should need a much more extensive and intimate know- 

 ledge of those which preceded the present races, in order to 

 show that their relationship was that of descent. All we can 

 now say is, that the present races closely resemble their imme- 

 diate predecessors, and are more and more unlike the shells 

 of older geological times. One fact is very apparent, that 

 a great many have become extinct because they could not 

 change and adapt themselves to new external conditions. 

 Many have also become extinct in the regions where they once 

 abounded, but still linger, in diminished numbers, in out-of- 

 the-way localities, where the hostile influences were less 

 severe. 



MRS. CAMERON'S PHOTOGRAPHS. 



In a former number we made some remarks on Photography 

 as a Fine Art, and spoke of the success which had attended 

 Mrs. Cameron's efforts to produce works more in accordance 

 with the productions of great painters, than had hitherto been 

 done by mechanical and chemical means. Since then we have 

 examined a great many of this lady's photographs, and the 

 high opinion we formed of them, not only on account of their 

 individual merit, but also as tending to found a distinct school 

 of photography, characterized by very remarkable qualities, — 

 artistic and manipulative, have been cotinrined. Like all in- 

 novators, Mrs. Cameron has had, and we might say has still, 

 much prejudice to overcome; but if oar readers will pay a 

 visit to her portfolios, which may be seen at the well-known 

 establishment of Messrs. Colnaghi, we are quite sure that 

 those who possess the greatest knowledge of pictorial art, 

 and the finest perceptions of beauty, will be the warmest 

 in their admiration, and the loudest in their praise. Finely 

 executed works by photographers of established reputa- 

 tion, no doubt exhibit qualities of a very meritorious kind, but 

 it is very rarely that they produce anything like the feelings 

 and sensations which arise in our minds, on contemplating 

 pictures of, or fine engravings after, such artists as Correggio, 

 Van Dyck, or Sir Joshua Reynolds. We accept the human 

 face done into photography, as a species of translation into a 

 language, imperfectly capable of expressing the required ideas, 

 and rendering them, so far as it can do so, rather by an 

 artificial and non-natural idiom, than by a simple and satisfactory 

 phrase. Many things that add a charm to the countenance, 

 such as the very delicate gradations of light and shade, which 



