may be worth while to join two pages together, as the paper is very thin. As the preparation on the glasses never wears out, causes no dirt, may be altered, improved, and retouched at any time, and only requires the care not to break them, it may be the means of employing women and children. It will give rise to new employment to the artist, in making original designs on glass, as well as copies from pictures; it will be a source of amusement to the amateur; and an elegant employment for ladies, particularly to those who can paint or draw. It is perfectly available to those who wish to publish a limited number of illustrations, with manuscripts, where it would not be worth the expense of employing engraving, or printing. Every pane of glass in the windows of a house may be occupied, by having a back-board to fit the frames, and layers of flannel, or wadding, to make the contact perfect, and the house being darkened is the more favourable for the preparation of the paper, and fixation of the photographic drawings."

Mr. Talbot remarks, that photographic drawings obtained in this way "resemble more than any others the productions of the artist's pencil; and for such they have been generally mistaken, because they give, not mere outlines only, but all the details of the figures perfectly well shaded."-" Designs thus produced will become much more common, and even more generally applicable than lithography, because all the means are more readily accessible, whilst it will receive its rank as an art, and be excellent in proportion to the skill of the artist, as a draftsman with the etching needle. The size need no longer be kept down by that of the printing-press, as the size of the glass can alone limit the size of the design. This is a real and valuable discovery, applicable to a thousand purposes. Beautiful imitations of washed bistre drawings may be produced by stopping out the light on the glass by black varnish, which will obstruct the transmission of light in proportion to the thickness with which the varnish is laid on; and specimens like fine mezzo-tinto prints have been produced by this process.-Literary Gazette.

11. Dr. Fyfe's mode of obtaining Photographic copies requiring no correction of the Shadow.

At a meeting of the Society for the Encouragement of the Useful Arts, held at the Royal Hotel, Princes-street, Edinburgh, Dr. Fyfe described a process for obtaining photographic drawings requiring no correction of the shadow, or having the lights and shadows untransposed. The paper is first saturated with phosphate of silver instead of nitrate. When a drawing is required, this phosphate-paper is immersed in a solution of the iodide of potass, and while still moist exposed to the light, with the object, the

impression of which is to be taken, placed on it, and left till the whole of the paper exposed becomes yellow, and when removed it exhibits a distinct representation of the object. In this process there is a tendency of the iodide to convert the dark phosphate to yellow iodide of silver, which it does instantly when the solution is strong, but very slowly when it is weak, unless it is exposed to light, and then the action goes on rapidly. It was observing this that induced Dr. Fyfe to try the influence of light on phosphatepaper besmeared with iodide of potass, by which he was led to the discovery. Of course when an object which allows the light to pass through it differently, is put on the paper, those parts on which the denser portions of the object are placed still retain their darker colour, the other parts are tinged, just according to the transmission of the light. When impressions thus prepared are kept, they gradually begin to fade, owing to the continued action of the iodide of potass, and hence the necessity of submitting them to a preservative process. After numerous trials, that which seemed to answer best was merely immersing them in water for a few minutes, and in some cases even allowing a stream of water to flow gently on them, so as to wash out the whole of the iodide of potassium not acted on-in this way the agent which tends to discolour the blackened phosphate, seems to be removed.

12. Fidelity of the Photographs. To give some idea of the fidelity of the photographic copies, we shall mention a few examples :-" It is so natural," says Mr. Talbot, " to associate the idea of labour with great complexity and elaborate detail of execution, that one is more struck at seeing the thousand florets of an agrostis, (bent-grass,) depicted with all its capillary branchlets, (and so accurately, that none of all this multitude shall want its little bivalve calyx, requiring to be examined through a lens,) than one is by the picture of the large and simple leaf of an oak or a chesnut. But in truth the difficulty is in both cases the same. The one of these takes no more time to execute than the other; for the object which would take the most skilful artist days or weeks of labour to trace or to copy, is effected by the boundless powers of natural chemistry in the space of a few seconds."

Mr. Talbot having held a photographic copy of a piece of beautiful lace-work, at the distance of a few feet from some persons whom he asked whether it was not a good representation, they replied that they were "not to be so easily deceived, for it was evidently no picture, but a real piece of lace."

We have seen so true a photographic copy of a small-toothed comb, that we at first supposed it was a real one. A wag indeed

might find frequent sport in observing the surprise created whenever he has slyly placed a photograph of this sort upon the tablecloth or plate of an acquaintance. This would indeed put the fidelity of the photograph to as good a test as could be devised. Objects the most minute are obtained, the delicate hairs on the leaves of plants,-the most minute and tiny bivalve calyx,-nay even a shadow, the emblem of all that is most fleeting in this world, is fettered by the spell of the invention, and remains perfect and permanent long after it has been given back to the sunbeam which produced it. Mr. Talbot's photographic copies of engravings and manuscripts are so accurate that they have been mistaken for the originals.

DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.

On the difficulty of ascertaining the precise Date of the Erection of Ancient Domestic Edifices constructed of Timber and Plaster.

we

ENGLAND cannot be said to have possessed any distinct and national style of architecture since the period of the earlier half of the sixteenth century, when the perpendicular English began to give way to the strangest anomalies and absurdities; nor have many examples of the private habitations of that age which have come down to us unaltered. There can be no doubt that the Reformation gave a death-blow, for a time, to the cause of architecture. The riches of the dissolved monastaries were then appropriated or squandered, and the channel for the dispensation of money, which had once flowed through the piety of the devotee, and had been mostly employed in architectural embellishment and design, took a different and far less laudable course. Architecture, therefore, became debased, and sculpture bowed her diminished head, to assume a stiffness of character alike foreign to feeling and to judgment. When such was the lot of the palace and the temple, the lower grades of buildings partook proportionately of their revolution, and the artistical vagaries which have left us gothic canopies supported by Ionic columns, and a knight in plate armour, reposing on a shelf, above the effigy of his wife under a Corinthian entablature, may also have played such similar pranks in the construction of the cottage or the hall, as would tend to baffle the keenest inquiry of the most zealous antiquary.

C. S.

"While brooding over our misfortunes, let us look around, and we shall find many far more wretched than ourselves." It is a world of woe that we inhabit. I am in trouble; and think, perhaps, that I am more to be pitied than any one of my fellowmortals! My eye falls on a map of the

world-I pass to the smallest quarter of it, then to a remote corner, a little island--I look in vain for the town, or even the county, in which I dwell. The frozen waste of Siberia, the arid plains of Africa, contain millions far more wretched than I. Thousands of ships are ploughing the ocean, bearing their human freight all for a time, many for ever, from home and kindred: some, outcasts from their country, doomed to end their days as exiles to a foreign clime-others, victims of avarice and oppression, torn from their dear, though humble home, fated to labour worse than death for another's gain. To return to my own country-the mighty metropolis-what thousands of miserable beings are therein! Many, immersed in dungeons, perhaps condemned to die on the scaffold: countless numbers existing in hovels, or even in the streets, in the most abject misery and wretchedness. Shall I, seeing all this,-and while brooding over mine own affliction,-say "It is greater ?"

The Gatherer.

Αλφα.

Mr. Stewart's Autographs were brought before the public for sale, on Friday and Saturday last, by Mr. S. Leigh Sotheby, at his house, in Wellington street, Strand. As the collection was well known to contain many excessively rare and important State Papers, Letters, &c., the sale was attended by some of the most eminent collectors; among them we noticed Mr. Upcott, Sir Frederick Madden, Mr. Baker, &c. &c. Under the management of Mr. Sotheby, the various lots brought very good prices, the different specimens being in general in the highest state of preservation. In a sale, consisting of 370 lots, it is not to be expected we can enumerate anything like a tithe of them. The following are the prices at which some of the most interesting documents were sold :-An entire autograph letter of Mary D'Este, 21. 6s.-A valuable letter of Prince Rupert, 37. 4s.-State Papers, signed by Richard Cromwell, 3l. 13s. 6d.—An original letter, in French, from Oliver Cromwell to his agent at Versailles, dated Westmonastery, June 1654; an extraordinary and characteristic specimen of Cromwell's diplomatic genius, 51.-A letter of Henrietta Maria, addressed to the Prince of Orange, 31. 16s.-Royal Letters Missive, with the autograph of Queen Elizabeth, 47. 6s.-Autograph of King Edward VI. 4l. 6s.-Original letters signed by Napoleon, written on paper water-marked with his profile, 64. 2s. 6d.-Autograph of James II. of Scotland, attached to a letter, in Latin, 47. 2s.-A letter in French, addressed to Marmontel, the author of Belisarius, informing him of a translation of his romance into Russian; among many signatures attached, is that of the Empress Catherine, dated Sept.

Public Exhibitions.

CAPTAIN HUNTLEY'S MODEL OF A SPANISH SLAVE SHIP.

AN elaborate model of one of those horrid and pestilential receptacles-a slave-ship!—is now being exhibited at the Cosmorama, Regent-street; affording a frightful illustration of the manner in which the slave-trade is carried on. It is a beautiful specimen of workmanship, and a perfect representation, on a scale of half an inch to a foot; the vessel, called the Semiramis, alius the Regulo, of about 180 Spanish tons: she is represented retreating from a ship of war. When she sailed from the river Bonny, she mustered 600 slaves, with a Spanish crew of between 70 and 80 men; being in company with another slave ship, called the Rapido: both these vessels had been narrowly watched by the Fair Rosamond, Lieut. Huntley, and the Black Joke, Lieut. Ramsey, tenders to her Majesty's frigate, the Dryad; and on the 10th of September, 1831, they fell in with the slavers, and captured them; the Regulo having upwards of 200 slaves on board; but the Rapido displayed a frightful scene of the horrors to which the African is a victim, when the safety of the slave-ship is threat ened. Being in advance of the Regulo, she was beyond the reach of the Fair Rosamond's shot, and thinking that if no slaves were found on board, she would not be detained, she re-landed about half her cargo; but the canoes not coming to her in sufficient numbers to take out the slaves, they were hurried into the river, chained together, either to be drowned, or literally torn to pieces alive, by the innumerable sharks allured to that river by the constant supply of food which they find in the dead slaves daily thrown into it. Both the vessels were carried by the Fair Rosamond to Sierra Leone, and condemued.

The above admirably-executed model represents the manner in which the slave-ships are fitted up: it shows the captain's cabin; with the slave-room for women, and the slave-room for men: the upper-deck of which two-last mentioned places are left open for the purpose of showing the spectator the frightful manner the kidnapped negro is stowed away; then

He makes his heart a prey to fell despair:
He eats not, drinks not, sleeps not, has no use
Of anything but thought; or, if he talks,
'Tis to himself, and then 'tis perfect raving:
Then he defies the world, and bids it pass;
Sometimes he gnaws his lips, then draws his mouth

Into a scornful smile."

The height between the decks, and where upwards of 650 slaves are thus placed, is only 3 feet 6 inches!

It is in the above dreadful manner, the wretched slaves are inhumanly huddled together.

of fresh air, or rather the escape of foul air, The grating-hatchways, for the admission are covered over during wet weather.

also faithfully represented in the model. The mess-places for the crew, &c., are

Captain Huntley, to whom we are indebted for the following particulars, observes:"That at least 130,000 natives of Africa are annually torn from their homes; the deaths during the voyage average about 33 in the hundred; and the survivors are sold into bondage principally in the Brazils and Cuba; from which latter place they are conveyed into Florida, Louisiana, and other states of the North American Union. It is painful,"

he

says, "to assert that this enterprising and civilized republic is extensively connected with the slave trade, by building the vessels peculiarly adapted for the purpose, selling them to the Spanish slave-dealers in Cuba, and then, sailing still under the American flag, to some of the Portuguese colonies upon the coast of Africa. A fictitious sale of the vessel then takes place to a Portuguese, and she sails immediately under her new flag upon her demoniacal intent; it is also but too certain, that as the cultivation has advanced in the Brazils, or as any new state, call has been made, and as readily answered, such as the Texas, has started up, so a fresh by inore negroes from Africa."

"The efforts of Great Britain to suppress this inhuman trade have been rendered in a great measure unavailable, first, by the determination of Portugal to retain the original treaty signed by the two governments, and which gave the latter the right to continue the slave trade to the south of the equator, Portugal demanding this right because she then had the Brazils for her colonies; she now has no colonies at all in that quarter, and, therefore, as the cause for slaving no longer exists, it is to be hoped that the British government will insist upon that right being given up, or seize Portuguese ships found exercising it, without farther reference. The next cause of the continuation of success