Various

“ The reason for making the separation between the cameras greater than that between the two eyes, is exceedingly simple. The stereograph is to be looked at much nearer than the object itself, and consequently is to be seen under a much larger angle than it is viewed by the two eyes in nature. Hence the two pictures should be taken at the angle under which they are to be observed in the stereoscope. Suppose the object to be 50 feet distant, then of course it is seen by the two eyes under an angle of 21⁄2 inches in 50 feet, or 1 in 240. ”

“ If those who so egregiously blunder are to be spared the castigation justly merited, we see by late occurrences to what it may lead; and your correspondent, in my judgment, is conferring a favour on all true lovers of our great poet by exposing pretension and error, from whatever quarter it may come,—a duty which has been sadly neglected in some late partial reviews of Mr. Collier's "clever" corrector. ”

“ First, in regard to the chloride of gold, I always find, and I believe such is the experience of many photographers, that all salts of gold, though they heighten the effect at first, have a slow, but sure, destructive action on the picture.
Next, I find that acetic acid, by generating sulphurous acid, has a similar effect, and my care was to try and make a solution which should be free from these defects. I first take my positive, which, as a general rule, I print at least half as dark again as the shade required. ”

“ And they say that if a man will listen of a still night about those old shafts, he may hear the ghosts of them at working, knocking, and picking, as clear as if there was a man at work in the next level."—Yeast ”

“ To our equal surprise and vexation at times, we find the ancients possessed of degrees of physical knowledge with which we were mostly or entirely unacquainted ourselves. I need not appeal in proof of this to that extraordinary operation of chemistry, by which Moses reduced the golden calf to powder, and then give it mingled with water as a drink to the Israelites; an operation the most difficult in all the processes of chemistry, and concerning which it is a sufficient honour for the moderns to say, that they have once or twice practised it. ”

“ Wilkinson: "I obtain all the information I can from every source; then try, and judge for myself." Hence the present letter.
I regret to be obliged to differ from Mr. Shadbolt, but there is a point in his communication which appears to me to arise from a misconception of the stereoscopic problem. He says (p. 557.) , "for distant views there is in nature scarcely any stereoscopic effect." Now, surely visual distance is merely visual stereosity; for, to see an object solid is merely to see its parts in relief, some of them appearing to project or recede from the others. ”

“ Dyce has pronounced it to be "villainous;" and it must be confessed that it has nothing but a slight similarity to the old word to recommend it. Mr. Dyce himself has favoured us with three suggestions; the first two in his Remarks on Collier and Knight's Shakspeare, in 1844, where he says—
"That ways (the last syllable of run-aways) ought to be days, I feel next to certain; but what word originally preceded it I do not pretend to determine:
'Spread thy close curtain, love-performing Night! ”

“ But the same defect exists in all monophotographic representations, though in a less degree, and consequently less apparent than in views to which a sense of distance is essential. In portraits, the features appear slightly flattened; and until photographers are able to overcome this, the chief of all obstacles to perfection, it is idle to talk of the art giving a correct rendering of nature. ”

“ Gallo-nitrate of Silver.—Can you inform me what the true nature of the decomposition is which takes place after a short time in the gallo-nitrate solution of silver? and if there be any ready means of rendering the silver it contains again available for photographic use?
Sir W. Newton, in the description of his calotype process, says: "Bring out with the saturated solution of gallic acid, and when the subject begins to appear, add the aceto-nitrate of silver solution." ”

“ I have read that white cattle resembling the wild cattle of Chillingham exist in Italy, and that it has been doubted whether our British wild cattle are descendants of an aboriginal race, or were imported by ecclesiastics from Italy. ”

“ Our means secure us; and our mere defects
Prove our commodities."
Does not Shakspeare here use secure as a verb, in the sense "to make careless?" If so, the passage would mean, "Our means," that is, our power, our strength, make us wanting in care and vigilance, and too self-confident. Gloucester says, "I stumbled when I saw;" meaning, When I had eyes I walked carelessly; when I had the "means" of seeing and avoiding stumbling-blocks, I stumbled and fell, because I walked without care and watchfulness. Then he adds, "And our mere defects prove our commodities." ”

“ And when it is remembered that the law of an ordinary convex lens is, the farther the object from the lens the nearer the focus, and, vice versâ, the nearer the object the farther the focus, it becomes evident that by such an instrument distant objects must be made to appear near, and near objects distant, and nature consequently mangled. ”

“ There is not a word said about the bride's left hand, the right is alone mentioned; and why should the man hold her right hand with his left, but that with his right hand he may the more easily place the ring, first on the thumb, then on the other fingers of her right hand, until it arrives at its ideal destination?
While I am upon this subject, allow me to point out another singular direction given in a rubric in this same "Ordo ad faciendum Sponsalia." When the woman is, as we term it, given away, if she be a spinster, she is to have her hand uncovered ”

“ But there is great diversity of opinion as to the extent of the angles requisite for producing the precise stereoscopic or distantial effect of nature. For myself I prefer Professor Wheatstone's rule, 1 in 25 for objects beyond 50 feet distant. For portraits I find the best angle 1 in 10 when the sitter is 10 feet off, and for busts about 1 in 5 when placed about 5 or 6 feet from the cameras. ”

“ Can you inform me whether Dr. Johnson had, or ever exercised, the right referred to in virtue of his M.A. degree (conferred on the publication of the Dictionary) , or of the higher academical dignity to which his name has given such a world-wide celebrity?
Cantabrigiensis.
Battle of Villers en Couché.—Some of your correspondents, better versed than myself in military matters, will doubtless render me assistance by replying to this Query. Where can I find a copious and accurate account of the battle, or perhaps I should rather say skirmish, of Villers en Couché? ”

“ Is not the fact of young ladies popularly considering and calling the third finger of the right hand the engaged finger, and wearing a ring on that finger when engaged, a confirmation of your correspondent's idea, that at this "betrothal" or "espousals" (compare the phrase "his espoused wife" of Mary before her marriage with Joseph) the ring was placed in the right hand; at the marriage ceremony on the left?
Sc.
WINDFALL. (Vol. vii., p. 285.)
W. W. is desirous of interpreting windfall, as necessarily from its origin denoting a gain. He is, perhaps, expecting a handsome bequest ”

“ It is the difficulty of producing this effect in landscapes, by the ordinary camera process, that renders views taken by such means so deficient in air, or, as the artists term it, aerial perspective, most distant objects seeming almost as near as those in the foreground. ”

“ Pollock's iodide of silver, but as being {16}more convenient, as immediately on being added it decomposes some of the chloride of silver, and forms iodide of silver. I am happy to find that Mr. Pollock confirms me in the use of this salt; which I had long thought to improve the tone of my pictures. The liquid, which will become rapidly very dark coloured, must be set aside in an open vessel in a warm place for some weeks, e.g. till, when a positive is placed in it, left for a short time, and then washed with water, it shows clean and not mottled in the light. ”

“ Collier's folio having substituted—
"That enemies eyes may wink,"
Mr. Dyce, in his recent Few Notes, properly rejects that reading, and submits another conjecture of his own, founded on the supposition that the word roving having been written illegibly, roavinge was mistaken for run-awayes, and proposes to read—
"That roving eyes may wink." ”

“ Manchester.
The following extracts from Sir Francis Palgrave's History of Normandy and England, vol. i. p. 696., explain the origin of the word "Hurrah," respecting which one of your correspondents inquires:
"It was a 'wise custom' in Normandy, established by Rollo's decree, that whoever sustained, or feared to sustain, any damage of goods or chattels, life or limb, was entitled to raise the country by the cry of haro, or haron, upon which cry all the lieges were bound to join in pursuit of the offender,—Haron! ”

“ Miners, as a class, are peculiarly susceptible of impressions of the unseen world, and the superstitions entertained by them in different parts of the world would form a curious volume. Is there any work on Cornish folk lore which alludes to this superstition respecting the Jews? ”

“ In the "Alter Index sive Glossarium" of Ainsworth's Dictionary is the verb "Securo, as ... to live carelessly." In the "Verba partim Græca Latinè scripta, partim barbara," &c., is "Securo, as securum reddo."
The means of the hare in the fable for the race (that is, her swiftness) secured her; the defects of the tortoise (her slowness) proved her commodity.
F. W. J.
MANNERS OF THE IRISH.
The following are extracts from a MS. volume of the sixteenth century, containing, inter alia, notes of the Manners and Superstitions of the {5}Celtic Irish. ”

“ ON THE PASSAGE FROM "KING LEAR." (Vol. vii., p. 592.)
Will you allow me to suggest to your ingenious Leeds correspondent (whose communications would be read with only the more pleasure if they evinced a little more respect for the opinions of others) that before he asserts the existence of a certain error which he points out in a passage in King Lear to be "undeniable," it would be desirable that he should support this improved reading by other passages from Shakspeare, or from cotemporary writers, in which the word he proposes occurs? ”

“ We are perhaps ourselves somewhat to blame for this, from our strong indisposition to exercise our editorial privilege of omission. Our notice of the subject will, we are sure, be sufficient to satisfy our contributors of the inconvenience which must result to themselves as well as to us from the indulgence in too great license of the pen. We know that when men write currente calamo, words and phrases are apt to escape, the full application of which is not observed, until, as Charles Lamb said, "print proves it;" ”

“ If we refer to Bacon we shall be reminded of Johnson's warning, that by "hasty detruncation the general tendency of a sentence may be changed." The sentence here so hastily detruncated, stands thus in the Essay:
"The Spartans were a nice people in point of naturalisation, whereby while they kept their compasse, they stood firme. But when they did spread, and their boughes were becommen too great for their stemme, they became a windfall upon the suddaine. 'Potentia eorum subito corruit.'"
They, in Johnson's mutilated sentence, refers to the boughs ”

“ The older commentators do not attempt to change the word run-awayes, but seek to explain it. Warburton says Phœbus is the runaway. Steevens has a long argument to prove that Night is the runaway. Douce thought Juliet herself was the runaway; and at a later period the Rev. Mr. Halpin, in a very elegant and ingenious essay, attempts to prove that by the runaway we must understand Cupid.
Mr. Knight and Mr. Collier have both of them adopted Jackson's conjecture of unawares, and have admitted it to the honour of a place in the text, but Mr. ”

“ No allusion is made in this account to Sir Thomas Ailesbury. Your correspondent Mr. Warden says, that "the story has usually been told of the wife of Sir Thomas Ailesbury," and that it may be true of her. Will he have the kindness to furnish a reference to the version of the story in which Sir Thomas Ailesbury is said to have married the tubwoman?
L.
House-marks (Vol. vii., p. 594.) .—I do not know whether α. recollects the frequent occurrence of marks upon sheep in this country. Although I have often seen them, I cannot just now describe one accurately. ”

“ Nor is it essential that perfect horizontality or parallelism of the cameras should be maintained in copying trees. For buildings, however, it is absolutely necessary that the cameras be kept straight. ”

“ The truth of the matter is (and I am indebted to Mr. Fitchett Marsh's clear and succinct dissertation in the Miscellany of the Chetham Society for the information) , the poet's widow was daughter of Mr. Randle Minshull, of Wistaston in the county of Chester, whose great-great-grandfather, a younger son of Minshull of Minshull, settled on a small estate there in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and so founded the house of Minshull of Wistaston. Milton was introduced to his Cheshire wife by his friend Dr. ”