Edited by J. Traill Taylor HISTORY is once more repeating
itself. The old idea respecting the imparting of artistic merit,
so called, to photographs by the suppression of definition,
which was so ably and exhaustively discussed in London Societies
and elsewhere thirty years since, has lately again been brought
prominently to the front. It will probably remain there for a
brief period, and then be relegated to forgetfulness, as in a
previous age. The present year has seen great advances made in
the optics of the art. Certain Continental opticians, having
realised the value of the new Jena optical glass, have taken
advantage of its wonderful properties to construct lenses which,
with a comparatively large aperture, include an angle of view
much greater than has formerly been obtained, and this with a
singular degree of perfection as regards definition, flatness of
field, and freedom from astigmatisms; and English opticians,
too, are awakening to an appreciation of one of the wants of the
time implied in the for