These are the _inimitable_ perfections of a picture, drawn by the rays of light as the only pencil in nature’s hand, and which are finished in a moment; for no sensible interval elapses before the painting is completed, when the ground on which it is painted is prepared and adjusted. In comparison of such a picture, the finest productions of the most celebrated artists, the proportions of Raphael, the natural tints and colouring of Titian, and the shadowing of the Venetians, are but coarse and sorry daubings, when set in competition with what nature can exhibit by the rays of light passing through a single lens. The Camera obscura is at the same time the painter’s assistant, and the painter’s reproach. From the picture it forms he receives his best instructions, and is shown what he should endeavour to attain; and hence, too, he learns the imperfections of his art, and what it is impossible for him to imitate. As a proof of this, the picture formed in the dark chamber will bear to be magnified to a great extent, without defacing its beauty, or injuring the fineness of its parts; but the finest painted landscape, if viewed through a high magnifier will appear only as a coarse daubing.
The following scheme will illustrate what has been now stated respecting the dark chamber. EF represents a darkened room, in the side of which, IK, is made the circular hole V, in which, on the inside, is fixed the scioptric ball. At some considerable distance from this hole is exhibited a landscape of houses, trees, and other objects, ABCD, which are opposite to the window. The rays which flow from the different objects which compose this landscape, to the lens at V, and which pass through it, are converged to their respective foci, on the opposite wall of the chamber HG or on a white moveable screen placed in the focus of the lens, where they all combine to paint a lively and beautiful picture of the range of objects directly opposite, and on each side, so far as the lens can take in.
Though I have said, that a scioptric ball and socket are expedient to be used in the above experiment, yet where such an instrument is not at hand, the lens may be placed in a short tube made of pasteboard or any other material, and fixed in the hole made in the window shutter. The only imperfection attending this method is, that the lens can exhibit those objects only which lie directly opposite the window.