Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853

Simplicity of Calotype Process.—The session of the Photographic Society was commenced with a paper from our original correspondent, Dr. Diamond, under the above title. Our journal having led to such facilities of question and answer, has induced many of our readers to ask upon several points additional instructions, some of which we have ourselves thought might have been made more clear and having written to Dr. Diamond he has promised us a revised copy for our next Number. Replying to some of our Querists, he says, "The plain photographic facts are correct; but I wrote the paper on the morning of the day on which the Society met, and was not aware it was to be printed in the Journal until I received my copy."

Albumenized Paper.—As my only object writing on this subject was to communicate to others the plan which I had found in practice most successful, I think it necessary to correct some points of misapprehension which it is evident your correspondent K. N. M. has fallen into, Vol. viii., p. 501.

In the process I recommended, the paper, if cockled up, readily becomes flat and even if kept in a portfolio or any similar receptacle; and as I never float my paper to sensitize it, I have not the inconvenience of the silver solution becoming spoiled by particles of the albumen. The 100 grains to the ounce for the solution I do not find more extravagant when applied, as I have indicated, with a glass rod, than one of 30 grains to the ounce when the paper is floated, because in the former case I use only just enough to cover the paper, viz. forty-five minims to a half-sheet of Canson's paper, and there is no loss from any portion adhering to the dishes, evaporation, or filtering. This is far more than would be imagined when only a sheet or two of paper is required at one time. Lastly, with regard to the strokes being visible after printing the positive, I do not find them so in general, though occasionally such a thing does happen when sufficient care has not been taken in the preparation; but I find striæ quite as visible on two positives prepared by Dr. Diamond himself, which he kindly gave me: however, I will forward a sample of my paper for your judgment, and also a portion for K. N. M. if he will take the trouble of trying the same.

    Geo. Shadbolt.

New Developing Mixture.—Having for some months past used the following developing mixture, and finding it very bright and easily applied, I beg to offer it to your notice. It does not cost more than three farthings per ounce, and therefore may be worth the consideration of beginners. I do not know a better where the metallic appearance is not desired.

No. 1. Pyrogallic acid 2 grains.

Glacial acetic acid 1 drachm.

Water 1 oz.

No. 2. Protosulphate of iron 10 grains.

Nitric acid 2 drops.

Water 1 oz.

To six drachms of No. 2. add two of No. 1.

I pour it on, but do not return it to the bottle, as it is apt to spoil if so used.

    T. L. Merritt.

Queries on the Albumenized Process.—Allow me to put a few questions through your valued paper.

In the albumen process on glass, Messrs. Ross and Thomson, in Thornthwaite's Guide, recommend 10 drops of sat. solution of iodized potassa to each egg. Now is it meant ten drops, or ten minims? If the former, a drop varies with the bottle and quantity of liquid in it; and ten drops are nearly half the bulk of ten minims, generally speaking. Then as to the egg: an egg in this country is only at most 6

; in England an egg appears twice as large.—Could you state the general bulk of an egg in England, and to what quantity by bulk or weight of albumen the 10 drops or minims are to be applied? When I say an egg is only 6

, I mean the white of one.

    A Subscriber.

Bombay.

Replies to Minor Queries

Poems in connection with Waterloo (Vol. vii., p. 6.).—A correspondent of the Naval and Military Gazette of November 19, 1853, signing himself "M.A., Pem. Coll., Oxford," has pointed out an error into which I had fallen "respecting the elm-trees at and connected with Waterloo."

I certainly was given to understand, when I received the monody, that it was written by the public orator on the death of his son who fell at Waterloo: whereas it clearly appears by the obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine, that Ensign William Crowe, first battalion, 4th foot, son of the public orator at Oxford, was killed at the attack upon New Orleans Jan. 8, 1815.

I hasten to acknowledge my mistake, though I am glad that the two copies of verses found place in your columns.

    Braybrooke.

Richard Oswald (Vol. viii., p. 442.)—Your Querist will find many letters to and from him in Franklin's Memoirs. He was for some years a merchant in the city of London. In 1759 he purchased the estate of Auchincruive, in the county of Ayr, and died there in 1783. No memoir of him has ever been published. He was for many years an intimate friend of Lord Shelbourne, who sent him to Paris in 1782, and again in 1783, to negotiate with Franklin, with whom he had been for some time acquainted. During the Seven Years' War he acted as commissary-general to the allied armies under the Duke of Brunswick, who said of him in the official despatches, that "England had sent him commissaries fit to be generals, and generals not fit to be commissaries."

    J. H. E.

Grammont's Marriage (Vol. viii., p. 461.).—In one of the notes to Grammont, originally, I believe, introduced by Sir W. Scott in his edition, but which appears at p. 415. of Bohn's reprint, we are told on the authority of the Biographia Gallica, vol. i. p. 202.:

"The famous Count Grammont was thought to be the original of The Forced Marriage. This nobleman, during his stay at the court of England, had made love to Miss Hamilton, but was coming away from France without bringing matters to a proper conclusion. The young lady's brothers pursued him, and came up with him near Dover, in order to exchange some pistol shot with him. They called out, 'Count Grammont, have you forgot nothing at London?' 'Excuse me,' answered the Court guessing their errand, 'I forgot to marry your sister; so lead on, and let us finish that affair.'"

My object in this communication is to supply an omission in Mr. Steinman's very interesting Notes, who does not show, as he might have done, how the letters of M. de Comminges prove the truth of this story. For, from the passage quoted by Mr. Steinman from the letter to the king, dated Dec. 20-24, 1663, it is evident that the count was about on that day to leave England "without bringing matters to a proper conclusion;" while that he married the lady within a day or two of that date may fairly be inferred from the announcement on Aug. 29-Sept. 8, 1664, that "Madame la Comtesse de Grammont accoucha hier au soir d'un fils." Mr. Steinman's omission was probably intentional; I have supplied it in the hope that the date and place of the marriage may now be ascertained, and for the purpose of expressing my hope that we shall soon be favoured by Mr. Steinman's return to this subject.

    Horace Walpole, Jun.

Life (Vol. vii., p. 429.).—Let me give A. C. the testimony of two poets and a philosopher in support of the "general feeling" about the renewal of life, which will surely bear down the authority of three writers mentioned by him.

Cowper's notion may be gathered from the couplet:

"So numerous are the follies that annoy
The mind and heart of every sprightly boy."

Kirke White must have had a similar idea:

"There are who think that childhood does not share
With age the cup, the bitter cup, of care;
Alas! they know not this unhappy truth,
That every age and rank is born to ruth."

The next four lines may also be attentively considered. I quote from his "Childhood," one of his earliest productions by the way—but what production of his was not early?

Still more decidedly, however, on the point speaks Cicero (de Senectute):

"Si quis Deus mihi largiatur ut ea hâc ætate repuerescam, et in cunis vagiam, valde recusem."

The following passage is also at A. C.'s service, provided you can find space for it, and there are "no questions asked" as to its whereabouts:

"I have heard them say that our childhood's hours are the happiest time of our earthly race; and they speak with regret of their summer bowers, and the mirth they knew in the butterfly chase; and they sorrow to think that those days are past, when their young hearts bounded with lightsome glee, when, by none of the clouds of care o'ercast, the sun of their joy shone cheerily. But, oh! they surely forget that the boy may have grief of his own that strikes deep in his heart; that an angry frown, or a broken toy, may inflict for a time a cureless smart; and that little pain is as great to him as a weightier woe to an older mind. Aye! the harsh reproof, or unfavoured whim, may be sharp as a pang of a graver kind. Then, how dim-sighted and thoughtless are those, who would they were frolicsome children and free; they should rather rejoice to have fled from the woes that hung o'er them once so heavily. In misfortune's rude shocks the practised art of the man may perchance disclose relief; but the child, in his innocence of heart, will bow 'neath the stroke of a trifling grief."

    W. T. M.

Hong Kong.

Muscipula (Vol. viii., p. 229.—The Name Lloyd.—Besides the translation of this poem by Dr. Hoadly, of which a note in Dodsley informs us that the author, Holdsworth, said it was "exceedingly well done," I have before me another, printed in London for R. Gosling, 1715, with an engraved frontispiece, illustrative of the triumphant reception of Taffy's invention. The depredations of the mouse are illustrated in the various figures around, as cheeses burrowed through, even the invasion of a sleeping Welshman's very ερκος οδοντων, &c. The title is, The Mouse-Trap, a Poem done from the original Latin in Milton's Stile:

"Ludus animo debet aliquando dari,
Ad cogitandum melior ut redeat tibi"—Phæd.

Both translations are in blank verse, but that of the latter is very blank indeed, and possesses little in common with Milton's style, except the absence of rhyme. It thus begins:

"The British mountaineer, who first uprear'd
A mouse-trap, and engoal'd the little thief,
The deadly wiles and fate inextricable,