PHOTOGRAPHY-ITS ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND PRESENT STATE. 447 to the day is wanting to render this pro- and to which I give the name of Heliogcess as useful as it is elegant." raphy, consists in producing spontaneously, by the action of light, with gradations of tints from black to white, the images re describes his process, and says:-"The plate thus prepared may be immediately submitted to the action of the luminous fluid in the focus of the camera. But even after having been thus exposed a length of time sufficient for receiving the impression of external objects, nothing is apparent to show that these impressions exist. No further investigation of the subject appears to have been made for many years. The failure on the part of Wedg-ceived by the camera obscura." He then wood and Davy was due entirely to the want of these chemical agents, which were afterward employed as the fixing materi- | als. Hyposulphate of soda was not discovered by Sir John Herschel until 1819, when he at once detected and described the habitudes of the salts of silver in connection with hyposulphuric acid. Iodine was not known before 1812, when it was discovered by Courtois, a manufacturer of saltpetre at Paris; and bromine was a yet later discovery, by M. Balard, of Montpelier. Without these agents photography could not have advanced beyond the point at which Wedgwood and Davy left it. The next opera The forms of the future picture remain still invisible. tion, then, is to disengage the shrouded imagery, and this is accomplished by a solvent." In 1829, iodine was first employed by Niepce and Daguerre to "black the resinIn 1814 M. Niepce, of Chalons, on the ous plates on which the heliographic picSaône, turned his attention to the chemi- tures were obtained." Daguerre appears, cal agency of light, his object being "to however, to have noticed some peculiarity fix the images of the camera obscura;" in the action of the light on silver plates, and he discovered the peculiar property of as Niepce, in a letter to him, speaks of solar radiations in altering the solubility "a decoction of thlapsi (shepherd's purse), of several resinous substances. By spread- fumes of phosphorus, and particularly of ing bitumen on a glass or metal plate, and sulphur, as acting on silver in the same placing this in the camera obscura, Niepce way as iodine, and that caloric produced found that in five or six hours a dormant the same effect by oxydizing the metal, image was impressed on the plate, which for from this cause proceeded in all these was rendered evident by placing the pre-instances this extreme sensibility to light.” pared material in any solvent of the bitumen or resin employed. This development of a dormant image has been patented as though it were a new discovery of Mr. Fox Talbot, whereas it was known exactly twenty years before he commenced an experiment on the subject. Niepce resided at Kew in 1827; and still pursuing the subject, he produced many of these pictures, some of which are still in the possession of his friends in this country. They possess much of the air of daguer- | réotypes, but are necessarily imperfect as pictures when compared with the photographs which we are now producing. In 1824, Daguerre commenced his researches, employing, as Wedgwood had, the nitrate and chlorid of silver. In 1826, Niepce and Daguerre became acquainted, and they pursued their inquiries together; and in 1829, Niepce communicated his processes to Daguerre, from which communication we must make a few extracts of great importance in the history of photography :— Niepce died in 1833; and in January, 1839, Daguerre's great discovery was announced, and specimens were shown to the élite of Paris. In July following, a bill passed the Chamber of Deputies securing to M. Daguerre a pension for life of 6,000 francs, and to M. Isidore Niepce, the son of the originator of Heliography, a pension of 4,000 francs, as the purchase price of the secret of the process of Daguerréotype-for the glory of endowing the world of science and of art with one of the most surpassing discoveries that honor their native land.” “This discovery France has adopted; from the first moment she has cherished a pride in liberally bestowing it—a gift to the whole world." Such was the language of M. Arago, and we find M. Duchâtel saying, “the invention does not admit of being secured by patent, for as soon as published all might avail themselves of its advantages." Notwithstanding these assertions, made no doubt with the utmost honesty, by these distinguished Frenchmen, we find M. Da "The discovery which I have made, guerre trafficking in the English patent market; and on the 15th of July, 1839, Mr. Miles Berry patents for "a certain foreigner residing in France," this process which her Minister declares cannot be patented. The Daguerréotype patent has nearly expired, and, from the circumstance that some points of legality remain undecided, it may already be regarded as having run its period. On the 31st of January, 1839, Mr. Fox Talbot published "Some account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing;" and on the 21st of February, 1839, he gave the mode of preparing the paper employed. This included a mode of covering paper with chlorid of silver, which he rendered, by repeated washings, sufficiently sensitive for the camera obscura. There we have the same agent used as Davy recommended to Wedgwood, and employed himself, there being scarcely any difference in the manipulation recommended. Mr. Talbot advised the fixing of these pictures by a solution of common salt; but this was of the most imperfect kind the pictures turning blue in the white parts after the slightest exposure. The next publication in order of date, of any novelty, was that of Sir John Herschel to the Royal Society, 14th of March, 1839, which was followed by his admirable memoir on the "Chemical Action of the Rays of the Solar Spectrum," &c., read 20th February, 1840. In the first of these, Sir John Herschel recommends the use of the hyposulphate of soda as a fixing agent; and, in the second, he advises its being used hot for iodid of silver, as heing less soluble in it than the chlorid. Sir John Herschel also introduced the use of the hydriodate of potash for the purpose of converting the dark oxyd into iodid of silver; and what is still more to the purpose, published the peculiarities of "iodized paper." We quote his words:"The preparation of this paper (with hydriodate of potash and nitrate of silver) is very variable in its results, according to the strength of the solutions used. If strong solutions of the hydriodate be used, it is nearly or quite insensible; if weak, the reverse." At the meeting of the British Association at Plymouth, in July, 1841, Mr. Robert Hunt made a communication "On the influence of the Ferrocyanate of Potash on the Iodid of Silver, producing a highly sensitive photographic preparation," in which he gave particular directions for the preparation of iodized paper, as follows: -"Highly glazed letter-paper is washed over with a solution of one drachm of nitrate of silver to an ounce of distilled water; it is quickly dried, and a second time washed with the same solution. It is then, when dry, placed for a minute in a solution of two drachms of the hydriodate of potash in six ounces of water, placed on a smooth board, gently washed, by allowing some water to flow over it, and dried in the dark, at common temperatures." Iodized paper was also employed by Mr. Ryan, Lassaigne, and others, from which it appears quite certain that any dealer in photographic materials may make and sell any of the iodized papers prepared as published by Sir John Herschel, Mr. R. Hunt, or others, previously to the date of the Calotype patent. In Sir John Herschel's paper, already referred to, we find particular mention of the use of gallic acid as an exciting agent; but this able experimentalist says that he failed" of any marked success in this line, with the somewhat problematical exception of gallic acid and its compounds." (To be concluded in our next.) REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS OF OPINIONS. -The only rational aim of rewards and punishments is to encourage and repress those actions or events to which they are applied. When they have no tendency to produce these effects, it is evidently absurd to apply them; since it is an employment of means which have no connection with the end to be produced. In this predicament is the application of rewards and punishments to the state of the understanding, or, in other words, to opinions. The allurements and the menaces of power are alike incapable of establishing opinions in the mind, or eradicating those which are already there. They may draw hypocritical professions from avarice and ambition, or extort verbal renunciations from fear and feebleness; but this is all they can accomplish. The way to alter belief is not to address motives to the will, but arguments to the intellect. To do otherwise, to apply rewards and punishments to opinions, is as absurd as to raise men to the peerage for their ruddy complexions, to whip them for the gout, and hang them for the scrofula. THE CHURCH IN THE CATACOMBS. THERE HE walls of the Lapidarian Gallery at Rome, (as noticed in a former article,) being covered with inscriptions belonging to professors of the rival religions, we may trace a contrast between the Pagan, and that of Christian society, in the ancient metropolis. The funeral lamentation expressed in neatly engraved hexameters, the tersely worded sentiments of stoicism, and the proud titles of Roman citizenship, attest the security and resources of the old religion. Farther on, the whole heaven of Paganism is glorified by innumerable altars, where the epithets, Unconquered, Greatest, and Best, are lavished upon the worthless shadows that peopled Olympus. Here and there are traces of complicated political orders; tablets containing the names of individuals composing a legion or cohort; legal documents relating to property, and whatever belongs to a state, such as the Roman empire in its best times is known to have been. The first glance at the opposite wall is enough to show that, as St. Paul himself expressed it, "not many mighty, not many noble," were numbered among those whose epitaphs are there displayed; some few indeed are scarcely to be distinguished from those of the Pagans opposite, but the greater part betray by their execution haste and ignorance. An incoherent sentence, or a straggling misspelt scrawl, inscribed upon a rough slab destined to close a niche in caverns where daylight could never penetrate, tells of a persecuted, or at least, oppressed community. There is also a simplicity in many of these slight records not without its charm; as in the annexed:: "BIRGINIVS PARVM STETIT AP. N." (Virginius remained but a short time with us.) The slabs of stone used for closing Christian graves average from one to three feet in length. In this they differ remarkably from the sepulchral tablets of the Pagans, who, being accustomed to burn their dead, required a much smaller covering for the cinerary urn. The letters on Christian monuments are from half-aninch to four inches in height, and colored in the incision with a pigment resembling Venetian red. Whether this pigment originally belonged to all the letters, is uncertain many are now found without VOL. I, No. 5.—FF it. The orthography of these epitaphs is generally faulty, the letters irregular, and the sense not always obvious. Another difference between the inscriptions belonging to the Pagans and Christians of the early centuries, is too remarkable to be passed by unnoticed. While the heathen name consisted of several essential parts, all of which were necessary to distinguish its owner, the Christians in general confined themselves to that which they had received in baptism. Thus the names of Felix, Sevas, Philemon, and Agape, are found on tombs, unaccompanied by any of the other designations which belong to those individuals as members of a Roman family. Occasionally we meet with two, and perhaps even three names on their monuments, as Aurelia Agapetilla Largia Agape; but these are not common. The first believers, when not forced by the multiplicity of persons christened alike, to add a further distinction, appear to have regarded their Christian name as the only one worthy of preservation on their sepulchers. The merely classical student will not find much to repay his perusal of these simple records; but they serve a higher purpose than he has in view, inasmuch as they express the feelings of a body of Christians, whose leaders alone are known to us in history. The Fathers of the Church live in their voluminous works: the lower orders are only represented by these simple records, from which, with scarcely an exception, sorrow and complaint are banished; the boast of suffering, or an appeal to the revengeful passions, is nowhere to be found. One expresses faith, another hope, a third charity. The genius of primitive Christianity," to believe, to love, and to suffer," has never been better illustrated. These " sermons in stones," are addressed to the heart, and not to the head-to the feelings rather than to the taste; and possess additional value from being the work of the purest and most influential portion of the "Catholic and Apostolic Church" then in exist ence. The student of Christian archæology must never lose sight of the distinction between the actual relics of a persecuted Church, and the subsequent labors of a superstitious age. When Christianity, on the cessation of its troubles, emerged from Shepherd, bearing on his shoulders the recovered sheep, by which many an illiterate believer expressed his sense of personal salvation. One, according to his epitaph, "sleeps in Christ;" another is buried with a prayer that "she may live in the Lord Jesus." But, most of all, the cross, in its simplest form, is employed to testify the faith of the deceased; and, whatever ignorance may have prevailed regarding the letter of Holy Writ, or the more mysterious doctrines contained in it, there seems to have been no want of apprehension of that sacrifice whereby alone we obtain remission of our sins, and are made partakers of the kingdom of heaven. these recesses, and walked boldly on the 99.66 Perhaps it may safely be asserted, that the ancient Church appears in the Lapidarian Gallery, in a somewhat more favorable light, than in the writings of the Fathers and historians. It may be that the sepulchral tablet is more congenial to the display of pious feeling than the controversial epistle, or even the muchneeded episcopal rebuke. Besides the gentle and amiable spirit everywhere breathed, the distinctive character of these remains is essentially Christian; the name of Christ is repeated in an endless variety of forms, and the actions of his life are figured in every degree of rudeness of execution. The second Person of the Trinity is neither viewed in the Jewish light of a temporal Messiah, nor degraded to the Socinian estimate of a mere example, but is invested with all the honors of a Redeemer. On this subject there is no reserve, no heathenish suppression the distinguishing feature of our ligion. of re We have already alluded to the "hope beyond the grave," expressed in many of the inscriptions by the use of the word cemetery, or sleeping-place, or some of its derivations. In one, we read the simple epitaph "VICTORINA DORMIT," (Victorina sleeps.) "Zoticus, laid here to sleep;" and, in a third but "Gemella sleeps in peace;" there is one peculiarly affecting, for many reasons which will suggest themselves to the reader. It is as follows: 66 PEACE. "This grief will always weigh upon me: may it be granted me to behold in sleep your revered countenance. My wife Albana, always chaste and modest, I grieve, deprived of your support, for our Divine Author gave you to me as a sacred (boon.) You, well-deserving one, having left your (relations,) lie in peace-in sleep-you will arise-a temporary rest is granted you. She lived forty-five years, five months, and thirteen days: buried in peace. Placus, her husband, made this." Nor was the hope of the Christians confined to their own bosoms. They published it abroad to all the world, in a manner which, while it provoked the scorn and malice of many, proved also a powerful inducement to others to join their community. The dismal annihilation of the soul taught by the Pagans, or the uncertain Elysium which, though received by the uneducated, was looked upon as mere matter of superstition by the learned, had On stones innumerable appears the Good in it something so utterly unsuited to the wants and longings of mankind, that the spectacle of a Christian, thoroughly assured of a future state, so blessed and so certain as to have power to draw him irresistibly toward it, through the extremest tortures, must have awakened in the heart of many a wishing, doubting Pagan, a feeling in favor of Christianity not easily suppressed. It is singularly remarkable how few are the epitaphs actually inscribed on the grave of a martyr, specifying him to be such. Those who suffered were doubtless sustained by the purest motives; they were noted for their modesty and humility, and, whatever of earthly renown attaches to them, arose from the mistaken zeal of the Church in the fifth century, when the necessity for having some relic of a martyr as a palladium to a Church was generally felt. It is to be lamented that the strong reproof of Cyprian was not received with better effect, when he exclaimed, "It is not martyrs that make the gospel, but the gospel that makes martyrs." Bearing in mind, then, how contrary to the principles and practice of the early Christians is the martyr-worship of the modern Church of Rome, the following inscriptions will be read with interest : “Primitius in peace: a most valiant martyr after many torments. Aged thirty-eight. His wife raised this to her dearest well-deserving husband." "In Christ. In the time of the Emperor Adrian, Marius, a young military officer, who had lived long enough, when with his blood he At length he rested in peace. The well-deserving set up this with tears, and in fear. On the sixth ides of December." gave up his life for Christ. The concluding sentence shows this monument to have been erected during a time of actual persecution. By the following inscription, it will be seen that the practice of the early Christian priests, with respect to marriage, did not agree with the discipline of the modern Church of Rome : "Petronia, a priest's wife, the type of modesty. In this place I lay my bones: spare your tears, dear husband and daughters, and believe that it is forbidden to weep for one who lives in God. Buried in peace on the third nones of October, in the consulate of Festus," (i. e. in 472.) It may also be stated, that those dangerous innovations of the Church of Rome, Amerimnus to Rufina, my dearest wife, the well-deserving. May God refresh thy spirit." "Nicephorus, a sweet soul, in the place of refreshment." The expression in the next example, "borne away by angels," applied by our Lord to Lazarus, can scarcely be supposed to imply a conveyance to expiatory flames: "Laurentius to his sweetest son Severus, borne away by angels on the seventh ides of January," &c. There are many symbols employed in the Catacombs, some of which are supposed to represent instruments of torture, indicating that the deceased had died a martyr; but the greater number of these symbols refer to the profession of Christianity, its doctrines, and its graces. Another class, of a purely secular description, only indicate the trade of the deceased, and the remainder represent proper names. The cross, as an emblem of our faith, is constantly used. How soon it began to be used as a symbol of Christianity, it is difficult to say; the gradual change to a crucifix, is much more easily traced; but, in undergoing this change, the original intention of the symbol is entirely lost; from being a token of joy, an object worthy of being crowned with flowers, a sign in which to conquer, it became a thing of tears and agony,a stock subject with the artist, anxious to display his power of representing anguish. |