Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
April 27 / 61

Dear Sir

I have just read in the Times that you have been elected one of the Trustees of the British Museum – Allow me to offer my Congratulations on this well deserved honour.

I remember sending to you formerly a M.S. copied by photography, taken from my Lacock Cartulary. I have now found the means of engraving such objects photographically, which of course ensures permanancy to the impressions – I enclose in this letter a specimen of a line engraving representing a mansion in Scotland. You will observe that every line of the original is faithfully rendered by the photographic Art, so that any one would take it for an ordinary engraving, altho’ in fact it has not been touched by an engraver’s tool. This process is of course applicable to much more important things than this little specimen. All works of archæology can be thus copied –

I remain Yours faithfully
H. F. Talbot

Sir T. Phillipps Bar^t