accordance with the principle now explained. In principle it has no
advantage over the cosmorama or the show box, to compensate for the
great expense incurred, but that many persons may stand before it at a
time, all very near the true point of sight, and deriving the pleasure
of sympathy in their admiration of it, while no slight motion of the
spectator can make the eye lose its point of view."

_The Colosseum._

"A round building of prodigious magnitude has lately been erected in the
Regent's Park, in London, on the walls of which is painted a
representation of London and the country around, as seen from the cross
on the top of St. Paul's Cathedral. The scene taken altogether is
unquestionably one of the most extraordinary which the whole world
affords, and this representation combines the advantages of the circular
view of the panorama, the size and distance of the great diorama, and of
the details being so minutely painted, that distant objects may be
examined by a telescope or opera-glass.

"From what has now been said, it may be understood, that for the purpose
of representing still-nature, or mere momentary states of objects in
motion, a picture truly drawn, truly coloured, and which is either very
large to correct the divergence of light and convergence of visual axes,
or if small, as viewed through a glass, would affect the retina exactly
as the realities. But the desideratum still remained of being able to
paint motion. Now this too has been recently accomplished, and in many
cases with singular felicity, by making the picture transparent, and
throwing lights and shadows upon it from behind. In the exhibitions of
the diorama and cosmorama there have been represented with admirable
truth and beauty such phenomena as--the sun-beams occasionally