Essex.
_Positives on Glass._--Sometimes, when your sitter is gone, and you hold
your portrait up to the light to examine its density, you find in the face
and other parts which are dark, so viewed, minute _transparent_ specks,
scarcely bigger than a pin's point. When the picture is backed with black
lacquer, you have consequently small _black_ spots, which deform the
positive, especially when viewed through a lens of short focus. A friend of
mine {452} cures this defect very easily. After having applied the amber
varnish, he stops out the spots with a little oil-paint that matches the
lights of the picture; of course the paint is put upon the varnished side
of the glass. When the paint is dry, the black lacquer is carried over the
whole as usual.