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tinguished French artist, and we believe also by Mr. Eastlake, the highest authority in England; and if a new era be now seen in our horizon, with all the promise of an auroral dawn, in which the three sister arts shall simultaneously advance to perfection, it will be by the agency of photography-importing nature herself into the artist's studio, and furnishing to his imagination an exuberance of her riches.

In sculpture, advantage has not yet been taken of the peculiar help which is offered to her by photography. All the elements of statuary, and all the forms and proportions of a living figure, may be obtained from a number of azimuthal representations, or sectional outlines, taken photographically; and by means of à binocular camera, founded on the principle of Mr. Wheatstone's beautiful stereoscope, two of these azimuthal sections may be combined into a solid, with all the lights and shadows of the original figure from which they are taken. Superficial forms will thus, at his command, stand before the sculptor in three dimen sions, and he may thus virtually carry in his portfolio the Apollo Belvidere and the gigantic Sphynx, and all the statuary of the Louvre and the British Museum.

But while the artist is thus supplied with every material for his creative genius, the public will derive a new and immediate advantage from the productions of the solar pencil. The home faring man, whom fate or duty chains to his birth-place, or imprisons in his fatherland, will, without the fatigues and dangers of travel, scan the beauties and wonders of the globe, not in the fantastic or deceitful images of a hurried pencil, but in the very picture which would have been painted on his own retina, were he magically transported to the scene. The gigantic outline of the Himalaya and the Andes will stand self-depicted upon his borrowed retina-the Niagara will pour out before him, in panoramic grandeur, her mighty cataract of waters-while the flaming volcano will toss into the air her clouds of dust and her blazing fraginents.* The scene will change, and there will rise before him Egypt's colossal pyramids, the temples of Greece and Rome, and the gilded mosques and towering minarets of Eastern magnificence.†

*An accomplished traveller who ascended Mount Etna in order to take Talbotype drawings of its scenery, placed his camera on the edge of the crater, in order to get a representation of that interesting spot. No sooner was the camera fixed, and the sensitive paper introduced, than a partial eruption took place, which drove the traveller from his camera in order to save his life. When the eruption ceased, he returned to collect the fragments of his instrument, when, to his great surprise and delight, he found that his camera was not only uninjured, but contained an excellent picture of the crater and the eruption!

The drawings in the Excursions Daguerriennes, taken from the sun-pictures in the splendid gallery of M. Lerebours, contain 114 plates, representing scenes and public buildings in America, Algeria, England, Egypt, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Russia, Sardinia, Sweden, Switzerland, Savoy, Nubia, Syria, and Palestine.

Its extensive Application in the Arts and Sciences.

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But with not less wonder, and with a more eager and affectionate gaze, will he survey those hallowed scenes which faith has conse→ crated and love endeared. Painted in its cheerless tints Mount Zion will stand before him "as a field that is ploughed,"-Tyre as a rock on which the fishermen dry their nets-Gaza in her prophetic "baldness,"-Lebanon with her cedars prostrate among "the howling firs ;"-Nineveh "made as a grave," and seen only in the turf that covers it;-and Babylon the Great, the Golden City, with its impregnable walls, its hundred gates of brass, now "sitting in the dust," "cast up as an heap," covered with "pools of water," and without even the "Arab's tent" or the "shepherd's fold."* But though it is only Palestine in desolation that a modern sun can delineate, yet the seas which bore on their breast the divine Redeemer, and the everlasting hills which bounded his view, stand unchanged by time and the elements, and, delineated on the faithful tablet, still appeal to us with an immortal interest.†

But the scenes which are thus presented to us by the photographer have not merely the interest of being truthful representations they form, as it were, a record of every visible event that takes place while the picture is delineating. The dial-plate of the clock tells the hour and minute when it was drawn, and with the day of the month, which we know, and the sun's altitude, which the shadows on the picture often supply, we may find the very latitude of the place which is represented. All stationary life stands self-delineated on the photograph: The wind if it blows will exhibit its disturbing influence-the rain if it falls will glisten on the housetop-the still clouds will exhibit their everchanging forms-and even the lightning's flash will imprint its fire-streak on the sensitive tablet.

To the physical sciences Photography has already made valuable contributions. Mr. Ronalds, Mr. Collen, and Mr. Brooke have, with much ingenuity, employed it at Kew and at Greenwich to record the variations of meteorological and magnetical instruments in the absence of the observer, and Mr. Brunel has Daguerreotype pictures taken of the public works which he is carrying on, at stated times, so as to exhibit their progress, and give him as it were a power of superintendence without being per

* Dr. Keith has brought home with him from the Holy Land, about thirty Daguerreotypes of its most interesting scenery, executed by his son, Dr. George Keith, and which are now engraving for publication. Since this note was printed, we have received, and now have before us, fourteen of these beautiful engravings, representing Mount Zion, Tyre, Petra, Hebron, Askelon, Gerash, Cesaræa, Ashdod, and other interesting places.

+ See Lond. and Edin. Phil. Magazine, Feb. 1846, vol. xxviii. p. 73; and Phil. Trans., 1847, pt. I., pp. 59, 69, and Ï11.

sonally present. Sir John Herschel and other philosophers have obtained from photography much important information respecting the properties of the solar spectrum, and Dr. Carpenter has applied it with singular success in executing beautiful drawings of objects of natural history, as exhibited in the solar microscope. If the solar pencil fails in its delineations of female beauty, or of the human countenance when lighted up with joy and gladness, or beaming with the expression of feeling or intelligence, it yet furnishes to the domestic circle one of its most valued acquisitions. The flattering representations of the portrait-painter, which delight us for a while, lose year after year their likeness to the living original, till time has obliterated the last fading trace of the resemblance. The actual view of the time-worn reality overbears the recollection of early beauty, and the work of the painter, though it may be a valuable production of art, has lost its domestic charm. In the faithful picture by the sun, on the contrary, time adds but to the resemblance. The hue of its cheek never grows pale. Its unerring outline changes neither with age nor with grief, and the grave and sombre, and perchance ungainly, picture grows even into a flattering likeness, which to the filial and parental heart must become a precious possession.

These observations, which apply principally to the Talbotype, were at one time especially applicable to the Daguerreotype portraits, when the sitter sat long, and when a pallid whiteness characterized all its productions. The improvement of the art, however, in the shortness of the sitting, in the tone of light and shadow, and the process of colouring the picture, has been so great that the Daguerreotype portraits have all the beauty of the finest miniatures, and are at least faithful if not flattering representa-. tions of female beauty.* The Talbotype will, we doubt not, make the same start towards perfection; and when a fine grained paper shall be made, and a more sensitive process discovered, we shall have Talbotype portraits the size of life, embodying the intellectual expression as well as the physical form of the human countenance.†

*As examples of the perfection of Engravings from Daguerreotype portraits, we may mention those of the Duke of Wellington and Dr. Chalmers, from Daguerreotypes executed by M. Claudet.

Our scientific readers will find a very interesting section on the literature of the chemical rays, Litterratur der chemischen lichtstrahlen, by Dr. Karsten, in the Fortschritte der Physik im Jahre 1845: Dargestellt von der physikalischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin. Redigirt von DR. G. KARSTEN, pp. 226-298. Berlin, 1847.

Agrarian Outrages in Ireland.

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ART. IX.-Agrarian Outrages in Ireland.

1. Letters on the Condition of Ireland. By T. C. FOSTER, Esq. Barrister-at-Law. ("The Times'" Commissioner, 1846.) 2. Returns respecting the Crown Estate in the Parish of Kilglass, in the County of Roscommon. Ordered to be Printed, 22d March, 1847. Parliamentary Papers, (59.)

3. Letters on the State of Ireland. By the EARL OF ROSSE. 1847.

THE Devon Commissioners close their important Report with the following statement :—

"We have made inquiry throughout the whole of our tour respecting the existence of Agrarian outrages.

"In Tipperary, for a long time past, and in other counties more recently, there has prevailed a system of lawless violence, which has led, in numerous instances, to the perpetration of cold-blooded murders.

"These are generally acts of revenge for some supposed injury inflicted on the party who commits or instigates the commission of the outrage.

"But the notions entertained of injury in such cases are regulated by a standard fixed by the will of the most lawless and unprincipled men in the community.

"If a tenant is removed, even after repeated warning, from land which he has neglected or misused, he is looked upon in the districts to which we are now referring, as an injured man, and the decree too often goes out for vengeance upon the landlord or the agent, and upon the man who succeeds to the farm; and, at times, a large numerical proportion of the neighbourhood look with indifference upon the most atrocious acts of violence, and, by screening the criminal, abet and encourage the crime. Murders are perpetrated at noonday on a public highway; and whilst the assassin coolly retires, the people look on and evince no horror at the bloody deed.

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"We wish it were possible to make the peasantry in those unhappy districts aware, that all measures for improvement pre-suppose the security of life and property: that the districts in which both are systematically rendered insecure, must be regarded as beyond the range of such plans of amelioration as we can suggest; and that while crimes of so fearful a character prevail, it is hopeless to expect, in reference to those districts, much practical improvement in the relation of landlord and tenant, or any security for the permanent happiness of the people."

The insecurity described in the foregoing extract from a Re

port which bears date in the early part of the year 1845, still continues in the part of the country alluded to by the Commissioners, and has extended to other counties. It is probable that within the last year fewer actual murders have been committed, but there can be no doubt that the reign of terror has not ceased -that in many districts it is now impossible to adopt any legal proceeding for the recovery of rent, or other debt, without subjecting the persons employed in serving the necessary notices to assassination. If crime is less frequent, it is because intimidation has done its work.

It is impossible to discuss this question of agrarian outrage without some preliminary considerations. Direct legislation on the subject has hitherto done but little good. Insurrection Acts and Special Commissions have had their effect in producing temporary calm. During the late distresses, outrages have been known to be meditated, but abandoned, lest the threats, every now and then made by the Government authorities, of stopping the relief works, should be carried into effect. In spite of much evidence that would seem to sustain an opposite view, we cannot persuade ourselves that there is any very distinct or pervading purpose in these strange offences, which often appear absolutely unconnected with any intelligible motive. It is scarce an answer to say, with some of the witnesses whom the Commissioners examined, that all these disturbances arise from disputes about land. Admit that they do, the fact does not account for this mode of terminating such disputes. Still less meaning has the whimsical solution of the problem, which would resolve it into a question of race, and describe the Celt as for ever untameably savage. If there were any thing in such theorywhich there is not-it has, in the case of Ireland, little foundation of fact to rest upon. It is a mistake to suppose that the bulk of the population of Ireland is Celtic. In Sir John Davis's time one-half of the inhabitants of Ireland were of English descent-in that of Molyneux, not one in a thousand, he tells us, was of Irish blood. As to names, they give us but little help. At one time the English adopted Irish names, and did what they could to destroy the evidence of their English descent-at another, the Legislature compelled the Irish to adopt English surnames. There is nothing whatever in this imagined difference of race and we are glad to believe this, as it gets rid of a mischievous fiction, too often repeated, and which can have no other effect than to produce alienation between England and Ireland. It is not probable that either the statements of Davis or of Molyneux can make any approach to accuracy; but those most disposed to dispute them should remember, that the basis of the population in England, before the Saxon invasion, was of

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