Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/269

 2"d S. N 13., MAB. 29. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

accidents occur -when a print, immersed in the gallic acid, has been forgotten, or where the reducing action of the bath has been too great. I was induced to search for a method of restoring such negatives, and I have found an easy, and, as I think, novel one.

" Immerse in common water negatives, either .new or old, and which have either been re-waxed or not ; leave them some hours, so that they may be slightly impreg- nated with water, notwithstanding the wax, then plunge them into a tolerably full bath of

Water - 100 parts

Iodide of potassium - - - 5 do.

The action is slow, but continuous. It requires sometimes as much as twenty-four hours, but it can be easily stopped at any moment.

" Immerse the negative for a few minutes in the bath of h-fposulphite of soda, wash and wax it.

" It is not easy to explain the action that takes place. This process has been in use for a year, and the action of potash upon photographs being known, I thought at first that the iodide that I had used contained an excess of that alkali, and that the lightening of the picture which took place, was due to its effect. I have repeated the ex- periment with specimens of iodide of potassium obtained from different sources, and not having too alkaline a re- action, and they have all given the same result. One may, I think, attribute it to the decomposition of the iodide of potassium b^ contact with the air,' the iodine slowly volatilising, and the potash set free acting on the photograph, and producing the effect observed.

" I leave it to those experimenters who have the time to try a bath of potash, which will perhaps produce the same result, if sufficiently diluted.

"It is equally easy to lighten negatives that have been strengthened by terchloride of gold, and which in that bath have become completely obliterated by a blueish- black covering." M. DE LA BLANCHERE.

ta

" Vent Creator Spiritus " (2 nd S. i. 148.) I hasten to correct a stupid blunder into which I find I have fallen. The hymn to which the reference should have been is not " Veni Creator Spiritus," but " Veni Sancte Spiritus." I regret that one wrong word perverts the whole.

B. H. COWPER.

Newcourfs " Repertorium." In "N. & Q." (l rt S. xii. 381.) is a note on Cole's annotated copy of this valuable work. I find, from the Catalogue of the library of James West, Esq., President of the Royal Society, sold on March 29, 1773, and the twenty-three following days, there are two other annotated copies ; one containing manuscript additions by Peter Le Neve, Norroy, bought by Mr. Fox for 9s. 6d. ; and another copy with manuscript notes and acMitions by Bishop Kennett, bought by Mr. Gough for 13s.

J. YEOWELL.

> " His golden locks" frc. (1 st S. xii. 450.) The lines referred to by PELICANUS AMERICANUS, as quoted in Thackeray's Newcomes, are by George Peele, who wrote in the latter half of the sixteenth

century. They are taken from a poem entitle^ Polyhymnia, being " a description of a Triumph at Tilt, held before Queen Elizabeth in the Tilt Yard at Westminster, in 1590 ; " and they form the first (and I think by far the best) of three stanzas, which I subjoin, in case you should think them worth insertion :

" The aged Itlan-at-Arms.

" His golden locks time hath to silver turned ;

O time too swift, swiftness never ceasing I His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned,

But spurned in vain ; youth waneth by increasing. Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen ; Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.

, " His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,

And lovers' songs be turned to holy psalms ; A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,

And feed on prayers, which are old age's alms : But though from court to cottage he depart, His saint is sure of his unspotted heart.

" And when he saddest sits in homely cell,

He'll teach his swains this carol for a song ; ' Blessed be the hearts that wish my Sovereign well,

Cursed be the souls that think her any wrong.' J3oddess, allow this aged man his right, To be your beadsman now, that was your knight."

Vide Robert Bell's Annotated Edition of the English Poets, " Songs from the Dra- matists," p. 60.

R. (3.)

Frere, or Freer Family (2 nd S. i. 75.) Can MR. FABER furnish me with any further particu- lars of the Perthshire family of this name ? What is^he earliest period to which they can be traced in Perthshire ?

I shall be happy to assist MR. FABER'S re- searches by any means in my power, but I cannot at present, either of myself or by inquiry amongst other members of the family, verify the tradition to which he alludes.

MR. FABER states not whether the Innernethy estate passed to the Moncrieffe family by inherit- ance or by purchase. GEO. E. FRERE.

Sir J. Smith of Grothill and Kings Cramond (2 nd S. i. 134.) Upon looking into that very curious and valuable historical work, entitled The Antient and Modern State of the Parish of Cra- mond, by J. P. Wood, Edinburgh, 1794, 4to., I found it there stated, that

" The old house of ' Kings Cramond ' was built about the year 1640, by Sir John Smith of Grotthill, the most considerable proprietor in the parish, and a person of no small consequence in his days. In 1640, he was nomi- nated one of the supervisors of the Covenant ; in 1641, the Parliament of Scotland appointed him one of the com- missioners for the Treaty Of Ripon ; in 1642 and 1643, he served the office of Lord Provost of Edinburgh ; and in 1649, he was made a commissioner for the excise, and for revising the laws and acts of Parliament. He flourished here many years in great splendour, having a numerous family of children and grandchildren ; but his affairs at last falling into disorder, he was obliged, when near