The first of these, which is the first book printed in Ireland, is extremely rare. I believe only two copies are certainly known to exist; one of which is in the library of Trinity College, Dublin; and the other in that of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Both are in very fine condition. The second is in my possession. The book is quite perfect; but some wiseacre has carefully erased the date. The Almanac for xxvi Yeares tells nothing, being for the years 1603 to 1628. But the book contains a prayer for "Frederick, the Prince Elector Palatine, and the Lady Elizabeth, his wife, with their hopeful issue." He married the princess in 1613; and in 1619 he was elected King of Bohemia, and thenceforward would be prayed for under his higher title. If the Sunday letter in the calendar is to be trusted, the book was printed (according to De Morgan's Book of Almanacs) in 1617. The Dublin Society of Stationers was established in that year; and it is not unlikely that they commenced their issues with a Prayer-Book. I have never seen nor heard of another copy, with which I might compare mine, and thus ascertain its date. The third, of 1637, is reported; but I have never met with it. H. COTTON. Thurles. ETYMOLOGY OF PEARL. (Vol. vi., p. 578.) see The inquiry of your correspondent IFIGFOWL respecting the etymology of the word pearl does not admit of a simple answer. The word occurs in all the modern languages, both Romance and Teutonic: perla, Ital. and Span. ; perle, French and German, whence the English pearl. Adelung in v. believes the word to be of Teutonic origin, and considers it as the diminutive of beere, a berry. Others derive it from perna, the Latin name of a shell-fish (see Ducange in perlæ; Diez, Grammatik der Romanischen Sprachen, vol. i. p. 235.). Neither of these derivations is probable: it is not shown that beere had a diminutive form, and perna was a local and obscure name: Pliny, N. H. xxxii. ad fin. Salmasius (Exercit. Plin., p. 40. ed. 1689) thinks that perla is formed from perula, for sperula, the diminutive of sphæra. A more probable origin is that the word is formed from the Latin pirum, as suggested by Diez, in allusion to the pear-shaped form of the pearl. Ducange in v. says that the extremity of the nose was called pirula nasi, from its resemblance to the form of a pear. But pirus was used to denote (Ducange in v.); and this seems to have been a boundary-stone, made in a pyramidal shape the origin of the singular expression pirula nasi, as being something at the extremity. Another supposition is, that the word perla is derived from the Latin perula, the diminutive of pera, a wallet, A wallet was a small bag hung round the neck; and the word perula, in the sense of a small bag, occurs in Seneca and Apuleius. The analogy of shape and mode of wearing is sufficiently close to suggest the transfer of the name. Perula and perulus are used in Low Latin in the sense of pearl. Ducange cites a passage from a hagiographer, where perula means the white of the eye, evidently alluding to the colour of the pearl. The choice seems to lie between perula as the diminutive of pera or of pirum. Neither derivation is improbable. It is to be observed that the modern Italian form of pirum, the fruit of the pear, is pera; the modern feminine noun being, as in numerous other cases, formed from the plural of the Latin neuter noun (see Diez, ib. vol. ii. p. 19.). The analogy of unio (to which I shall advert presently) supports the derivation from the fruit; the derivation from pera, a wallet, is, on merely linguistical grounds, preferable. The Greek name of pearl is μapyapírns, originally applied to a precious stone, and apparently moulded out of some oriental name, into a form suited to the Greek pronunciation. Scott and Liddell in v. derive it from the Persian murwari. Pliny, H. N. ix. 56., speaking of the pearl, says: Apud Græcos non est, ne apud barbaros quidem inventores ejus, aliud quam margarita." The Greek name Margarita was used by the Romans, but the proper Latin name for the pearl was unio. Pliny (ibid.) explains this word by saying that each pearl is unique, and unlike every other pearl. Ammianus Marcellinus (lib. xxiii. ad fin.) thinks that pearls were called uniones, because the best were found single in the shell; Solinus (c.53.) because they were always found single. The more homely explanation of Salmasius seems, however, to be the true one; namely, that the common word for an onion, growing in a single bulb, was transferred to the pearl (Exercit. Plin., pp. 822-4.; Columella de R. R. xii. 10.). The ancient meaning of unio is still preserved in the French ognon. L. Your correspondent asks the "etymon of our English word pearl." It would not be uninteresting to learn, at the same time, at what period pearl came into general use as an English word? Burton, who wrote his Anatomy in the reign of James I., uses the word union (from the Latin unio) instead of pearl (Anat. Melanc., vol. ii. part 2. sec. 3. mem. 3., and ib., p. 2. sec. 4. mem. 1. subs. 4.). In the latter passage he says: "Those smaller unions which are found in shells, amongst the Persians and Indians, are very cordial, and most part avail to the exhilaration of the heart." The Latin term unio differs from "margarita," in so far as it seems to have been applied by Pliny to distinguish the small and ill-shaped pearls from the large round and perfect, which he calls 66 margarita." And in his ninth book, c. 59., he defines the difference philologically, as well as philosophically. Philemon Holland, who published his translation of Pliny in 1634, about thirteen years after Burton published the first edition of his Anatomy, uses the word pearl indifferently as the equivalent both of margarita and unio. Query: Was the word union generally received in England instead of pearl in Burton's time, and when did it give place to it? J. EMERSON TENNANT. "6 MARTIN DRUNK." (Vol. v., p. 587.) Has not the following song something to do with the expression "Martin drunk"? It is certainly cotemporary with Thomas Nash the Elizabethan p. 229., that Mr. Hayward's note was not written with that writer's usual care. Göthe does not say that his reply to Nicolai's Joys of Werter, though circulated only in MS., destroyed N.'s literary reputation: on the contrary, he says that his squib (for it was no more) consisted of an epigram, not fit for communication, and a dialogue between Charlotte and Werter, which was never copied, and long lost; but that this dialogue, exposing N.'s impertinence, was written with a foreboding of his sad habit, afterwards developed, of treating of subjects out of his depth, which habit, notwithstanding his indisputable merits of another kind, utterly destroyed his reputation. This was most true: and yet all such assertions must be taken in a qualified sense. Nearly thirty years after this was written I partook of the hospitality of N. at Berlin. It was in 1803, when he was at the head, not of the Berlin literati, but of the book-manufactory of Prussia. He was then what, afterwards and elsewhere, the Longmans, Murrays, Constables, Cottas, and Brock-the great publisher of his age and country. The entrepreneur of the Neue Deutsche Bibliothek may be compared with the publishers of our and the French great Cyclopædias, and our Quarterly Reviews. hauses were, It was unfortunate for the "posthumous reputation of the great bibliopolist that he, patronising a school that was dying out, made war on the athletes of the rising school. He assailed nearly every great man, philosopher or poet, from Kant and Göthe, downwards, especially of the schools of Saxony, Swabia, and the free imperial cities. No wonder some little delay, to request space for a description of the following processes upon paper. In giving these I wish it to be understood that I may offer but little that is original, my object being to describe, as plainly as I possibly can, these easy methods, and to make no observation but what I have found to be successful in my own hands. I have had the good fortune to obtain the friendship of some of the most successful photographers of the day; and taking three very eminent ones, I find they have each some peculiarities in his mode of manipulation, varying with each other in the strength of the solutions employed, and producing results the most agreeable to their respective tastes. Reviewing these different processes in my own mind, and trying with patience the various results, I conclude that the following quantities are calculated to produce an adequate degree of sensibility in the paper, and yet to allow it to be prepared for the action of light for many hours previous to its use, and yet with more certainty than any other I am acquainted with. I think I may always depend upon it for twenty-four to thirty-six hours after excitement, and I have seen good pictures produced upon the third day. I believe it is a rule which admits of no contradiction, that the more you dilute your solution, the longer the excited paper will keep; but in proportion to its diminished sensibility, the time of exposure must be prolonged, and therefore I am, from this waste of time and other reasons, disposed to place much less value upon the wax-paper process than many do. that he became afterwards what Macfleckno and Colly Cibber had been to Dryden and Pope. In The process I am about to describe is so simple, some dozen of the Xenien of Göthe and Schiller, and I hope to make it so intelligible to your nonin 1797, he was treated as the Arch-Philistine. photographic readers, that a perfect novice, using ordinary care, must meet with success; but should I fail doing so upon all points, any information sought through the medium of "Ñ. & Q." shall meet with explanation from myself, if not from other of your experienced correspondents, whose indulgence I must beg should the communication be deemed too elementary, it being my earnest desire to point out to archæologists who are desirous of acquiring this knowledge, how easily they themselves may practice this beautiful art, and possess those objects they would desire to preserve, in a far more truthful state than could be otherwise accomplished. M. M. E. characterises him as the "friend" and "fellow-labourer" of Lessing. Now Lessing was incomparably the most eminent littérateur of the earlier part of that age, - the man who was the forerunner of the philosophers, and whose criticisms supplied the place of poetry. The satirists of the Xenien affect to compassionate Lessing, in having to endure a companion so forced on him as Nicolai was, whom they speak of as a "thorn in the crown of the martyr." The few who care for the literary controversies of the age of Göthe in Germany will be greatly assisted by an edition of the Xenien, with notes, published at Dantzig, 1833. H. C. R. PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE. Processes upon Paper.-The favourable manner in which the account I have given of the Collodion process has been received, not only by your readers in general, as has been evinced by many private letters, but also by the numerous correspondents it has drawn forth, induces me, after I have not myself met that uniform success with any other paper that I have with Turner's photographic of Chafford Mills: a sheet of this divided into two portions forms at the same time a useful and also a very easily-managed size, one adapted for most cameras, forming a picture of nine inches by seven, which is adequate for nearly every purpose. Each sheet being marked in its opposite corners with a plain pencil-mark on its smooth side (vide ante, p. 372.), the surface for all future operations is in all lights easily discerned. In my instructions for printing from collodion negatives, a form of iodized paper was given, which, although very good, is not, I think, equal to the following, which is more easily and quickly prepared, exhibits a saving of the iodide of potassium, and is upon the whole a neater mode. Take sixty grains of nitrate of silver and sixty grains of iodide of potassium; dissolve each separately in an ounce of distilled water; mix together and stir with a glass rod. The precipitate settling, the fluid is to be poured away; then add distilled water to the precipitate up to four ounces, and add to it 650 grains of iodide of potassium, which should re-dissolve the precipitated iodide of silver, and form a perfectly clear solution; but if not, a little more must be carefully added, for this salt varies much, and I have found it to require 720 grains to accomplish the desired object. The fluid being put into a porcelain or glass dish, the paper should be laid down upon its surface and immediately removed, and being laid upon a piece of blotting-paper with the wet surface uppermost, a glass rod then passed over it to and fro ensures the total expulsion of all particles of air, which will frequently remain when the mere dipping is resorted to. When dry, this paper should be soaked in common water for three hours, changing the water twice or thrice, so as to remove all the soluble salts. It should then be pinned up to dry, and, when so, kept in a folio for use. I have in this manner prepared from sixty to eighty sheets in an evening with the greatest ease. It keeps good for an indefinite time, and, as all experienced photographers are aware, unless you possess good iodized paper, which should be of a primrose colour, you cannot meet with success in your after-operations. Iodized paper becomes sometimes of a bright brimstone colour when first made; it is then very apt to brown in its use, but tones down and improves by a little keeping. To excite this paper, dissolve thirty grains of nitrate of silver in one ounce of distilled water, and add a drachm and a half of glacial acetic acid; of this solution take one drachm, and add to it two ounces and a half of distilled water. The iodized surface of the paper may then be either floated on the surface of the aceto-nitrate of silver or exciting fluid, and afterwards a rod passed over, as was formerly done in the iodizing, or the acetonitrate may be applied evenly with a brush; but in either instance the surface should be immediately blotted off; and the same blotting-paper never used a second time for this, although it may be kept to develop on and for other purposes. It will be scarcely needful to observe that this process of exciting must be performed by the light of a candle or feeble yellow light, as must the subsequent development. The excited paper may be now placed for use between sheets of blotting-paper; it seems to act equally well either when damp or when kept for many hours, and I have found it good for more than a week. The time for exposure must entirely depend upon the degree of light. In two minutes and a half a good picture may be produced; but if left exposed for twenty minutes or more, little harm will arise; the paper does not solarise, but upon the degree of image visible upon the paper depends the means of developing. When long exposed, a solvent solution of gallic acid only applied to the exposed surfaces will be sufficient; but if there is little appearance of an image, then a free undiluted solution of aceto-nitrate may be used, in conjunction with the gallic acid, the former never being in proportion more than onethird. If that quantity is exceeded, either a brownish or an unpleasant reddish tint is often obtained. These negatives should be fixed by immersing them in a solution of hyposulphate of soda, which may be of the strength of one ounce of salt to eight ounces of water the sufficiency of immersion being known by the disappearance of the yellow colour, and when they have been once immersed they may be taken to the daylight to ascertain this. The hyposulphate must now be perfectly removed by soaking in water, which may extend to several hours; but this may be always ascertained by the tongue, for, if tasteless, it has been accomplished. If it is deemed advisablewhich I think is only required in very dark overdone pictures-to wax the negative, it is easily managed by holding a piece of white wax or candle in front of a clean iron rather hot, and passing it frequently over the surface. The superabundant wax being again removed by passing it between some clean pieces of blotting-paper. Although the minuter details can never be acquired by this mode which are obtained by the collodion process, it has the advantage of extreme simplicity, and by the operator providing himself with a bag or square of yellow calico, which he can loosely peg down to the ground when no other shade is near, to contain spare prepared papers, he can at any future time obtain a sufficient number of views, which afterwards he can develop at his leisure. It requires no liquids to be carried about with you, nor is that nice manipulation required which attends the collodion process. The wax-paper process has been extolled by many, and very successful results have been obtained: the paper has the undoubted advantage of keeping after being exited much longer than any other; but, from my own experience, just so much the weaker it is made, and so as to safely rely upon its long remaining useful, so it is proportionally slower in its action. And I have rarely seen from wax negatives positives so satisfactory in depth of tone, as from those which have been waxed after being taken on ordinary paper. It is all very well for gentlemen to advocate a sort of photographic tour, upon which you are to go on taking views day after day, and when you return home at leisure to develop your past proceedings: I never yet knew one so lukewarm in this pursuit as not to desire to know, at his earliest possible opportunity, the result of his labours; indeed, were not this the case I fear disappointment would more often result than at present, for I scarcely think any one can exactly decide upon the power of the light of any given day, without having made some little trial to guide him. I have myself, especially with collodion, found the action very rapid upon some apparently dull day; whilst, from an unexplained cause, a comparatively brighter day has been less active in its photographic results. As in the previous process, I would strongly advise Turner's paper to be used, and not the thin French papers generally adopted, because I find all the high lights so much better preserved in the English paper. It may be purchased ready waxed nearly as cheap as it may be done by one's self; but as many operators like to possess that which is entirely their own production, the following mode will be found a ready way of waxing: -Procure a piece of thick smooth slate, a trifle larger than the paper to be used; waste pieces of this description are always occurring at the slate works, and are of a trifling value. This should be made very hot by laying it close before a fire; then, covered with one layer of thick blotting-paper, it will form a most admirable surface upon which to use the iron. Taking a piece of wax in the left hand, an iron well heated being pressed against it, it may rapidly be made to flow over the whole surface with much evenness, the surplus wax being afterwards removed by ironing between blottingpaper. When good, it should be colourless, free from gloss, and having the beautiful semi-transparent appearance of the Chinese rice-paper. To iodize the paper completely, immerse it in the following solution: Allow it to remain three hours, taking care that air-particles are perfectly excluded, and once during the time turning over each sheet of paper, as many being inserted as the fluid will conveniently cover, as it is not injured by after keeping. It should be then removed from the iodide bath, pinned up, and dried, ready for use. When required to be excited, the paper should, by the light of a candle, be immersed in the following solution, where it should remain for five minutes. Being removed from the aceto-nitrate bath, immerse it into a pan of distilled water, where let it remain about a quarter of an hour. In order to immersed in a second water, which in point of fact make this paper keep a week or two, it must be is a mere reduction of the strength of the solutions already used; but for ordinary purposes, and when the paper is to be used within three or four days, one immersion is quite sufficient, especially as it does not reduce its sensitiveness in a needless way. It may now be preserved between blottingpaper, free from light, for future use. The time that of the ordinary unwaxed, given in the preof exposure requisite for this paper will exceed vious directions. The picture may be developed by a complete immersion also in a saturated been exposed a sufficient time in the camera, a solution of gallic acid; but should it not have few drops of the aceto-nitrate solution added to the gallic acid greatly accelerates it. An excess of aceto-nitrate often produces an unpleasant red tint, which is to be avoided. Instead of complete immersion, the paper may be laid upon some by means of the glass rod or brush. The picture waste blotting-paper, and the surface only wetted may now be fixed by the use of the hyposulphate of soda, as in the preceding process. It is not actually necessary that this should be a wax-paper process, because ordinary paper treated in this way acts very beautifully, although it does not allow of so long keeping for use after excitement; yet it has then the advantage, that a negaadvisable by its apparent depth of action. tive may either be waxed or not, as shall be deemed HUGH W. DIAMOND. Exhibition of recent Specimens of Photography at the Society of Arts.-This exhibition, to which all interested in the art have been invited to contribute, was inaugurated by a conversazione at the Society's rooms, on the evening of Wednesday, the 22nd of December: the public have since been admitted at a charge of sixpence each, and it will continue open until the 8th of January. We strongly recommend all our friends to pay a visit to this most delightful collection. By our visit at the crowded conversazione, and another hasty view since, we do not feel justified to enter into a review and eriticism of the specimens so fully as the subject requires; but in the mean time we can assure our archæological readers that they will find there such interesting records of architectural detail, together with views of antiquities from Egypt and Nubia, as will perfectly convince them of the value of this art with reference to their own immediate pursuits. Those who feel less delight in mere antiquity will be gratified |