In the first plate of this work I have represented an angle of this
building. Here we have a view of the Gateway and central portion of the
College. It was taken from a window on the opposite side of the High
Street. In examining photographic pictures of a certain degree of
perfection, the use of a large lens is recommended, such as elderly
persons frequently employ in reading. This magnifies the objects two or
three times, and often discloses a multitude of minute details, which were
previously unobserved and unsuspected. It frequently happens,
moreover—and this is one of the charms of photography—that the operator
himself discovers on examination, perhaps long afterwards, that he has
depicted many things he had no notion of at the time. Sometimes
inscriptions and dates are found upon the buildings, or printed placards
most irrelevant, are discovered upon their walls: sometimes a distant
dial-plate is seen, and upon it—unconsciously recorded—the hour of the day
at which the view was taken.
[PLATE XIV. THE LADDER.]