1 Hillside Crescent
March 30 1859
Dear Sir,
I beg to send you my best thanks for your most liberal and valuable present of so many examples of your new photoglyphs<.> They gain upon one I find at every additional examination, & when taken in hand with a strong magnifying glass, leave little to wish for further; for they then exhibit details which no handwork could, & which photography itself could scarcely excel. The windows in various houses in the Parisian view are a wonder in their way; but the countenance of Charles IV at Prague is the chief feature that proves photoglyphy already fully able to give the public such details of foreign places, not only as travellers never brought home before; but such as, if they do not <aim?> themselves to bring home in future, they will be considered to have failed in the most important part of their profession. The ornamentation on the great bell of Moscow is likewise a wonder in its way, but one could fancy that much more easily than the grandeur of expression so well shown in Charles IV, for while it appears eminently human and decidedly great, it is so convincingly that of a great man of another race of men to those who people our own country, that one feels at once that no English tourist or artist cleverly sketching off the scene, would have been able to convey so much that speaks of the mind and history of the people of Prague, as is contained in about a tenth of an inch square of that remarkable photoglyph
Yours very truly
C. Piazzi Smyth
<at foot of p.1:>
H. F. Talbot Esqre