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Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign
Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign Author:John Ashton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VIII. Death of Lord Norbury—Birth of photography—Experimental street pavements— Forecast of the Queen's marriage—Sad story of Lady Flora Hastings—Stor... more »y of a climbing boy—Van Amburgh—Embanking the Thames—Victoria Park —Robbery of gold dust. In a book, professedly of Gossip, politics should be strictly kept in the background—but at this time Ireland was seething with sedition. Still I should hardly have adverted to it, had not the deliberate and brutal murder of the Earl of Norbury, on I Jan., set all tongues wagging. His Lordship was walking in the shrubbery, near his own house at Kil- beggan, in the county of Meath, talking to his steward, and pointing out to him some trees he wished to have cut down, when some miscreant, behind a hedge, fired a blunderbuss loaded with swan shot at him, and he fell, mortally wounded. He lived for 43 hours afterwards—but his assassin ran away and escaped; nor, in spite of large rewards offered, was he ever discovered. Photography may be said to have been practically born early in this year, for, on 7 Jan., the French Academy reported on the invention of M. Daguerre, by which the pictures of the camera lucida were rendered permanent. All former attempts may be regarded as scientific dilletanteism and nothing more. The earliest known pictures caused by light on a sensitive surface were made by Thomas Wedgwood (a son of Josiah, the famous potter), whose researches were published in 1802 in the Journal of the Royal Institution, under the title : " An account of a Method of copying Paintings upon Glass, and making Profiles by the agency of Light upon Nitrate of Silver: with Observations by H. Davy." Afterwards, came Nicephore Niepce, of Chalon sur Saone, who produced permanent light pictures in 1814, and he and Daguerre went into partne...« less