Lacock Abbey, Chippenham
March 17. 1841
Dear Sir
I remember that I said in my last letter <1> to you, that Photography remained in status quo. It happened singularly enough that immediately afterwards I discovered the process to which I have given the name of Calotype – I have printed a brief account of it, & I trust that you received a copy which I sent you. <2>
I enclose a specimen which had been much liked by the artists in London, it is the portrait of a young man, <3> done in one minute. The background is an ivied cloister. I have taken a patent for the Calotype, but nevertheless intend that the use of it shall be entirely free to the scientific world. I was going to send a paper to the Royal Society, explaining the process, but having been told that there are doubts whether the paper would be printed in the Transactions (on account of the patent) I have written to Christie <4> to request him to let me know from authority whether such is the case. If so, I shall not send the paper at all, but communicate it to some other scientific body, probably the French Institute. <5> There appears to me to be no end to the prospect of scientific research which Photography has opened up.
I have read with much pleasure your enthusiastic address to the Astronomical Society on the parallax of the stars. <6> Many reflexions are suggested by the passage p. 90 ending
The distance of every individual body in the universe from us is therefore necessarily admitted to be finite.
Although I do not know what to oppose to this assertion, still its admission is attended with very great difficulties. For if the material universe be finite, then is it but as a mere speck in illimitable space. Everywhere else, extends darkness without end – The mind finds it difficult to acquiesce in this belief, and though I know not what, I think there must be a fallacy in the passage I have quoted.
The work so ably begun by Bessel, <7> ought now to be the prime object of astronomy.
Would not such telescopes as Ld Oxmantown’s <8> be of great assistance in detecting the parallax?
Yours very truly
H. F. Talbot
Sir J. Herschel Bart
Collingwood
Hawkhurst
Kent
Notes:
1. See Doc. No: 04133.
2. WHFT published two articles in February on the Calotype: ‘Calotype (Photogenic) Drawing’, The Literary Gazette and Journal of belles lettres, science and art, n.1256, 13 February 1841, p. 108; and ‘Fine Arts: Calotype (Photogenic) Drawing’, The Literary Gazette and Journal of belles lettres, science and art, n.1258, 27 February 1841, pp. 139–140. The circular mentioned was a private offprint of both letters, Two letters on Calotype Photogenic Drawing. Reprinted from the Literary Gazette. See Larry J. Schaaf, Sun Pictures Three: The Harold White Collection (New York: Hans P. Kraus, Jr, 1987) p. 83, item 113. See Doc. No: 04213 for Herschel's acknowledgement of receiving it - if WHFT enclosed a note with the ciruclar, this has not been located.
3. This portrait of Nicolaas Henneman (1813–1898), Dutch, active in England; WHFT’s valet, then assistant; photographer, Schaaf 2559, taken in the cloisters of Lacock Abbey, 23 February 1841, was shown to the members of the Academie des Sciences 15 March 1841. Herschel’s print was donated to the Science Museum, London (1943–33/5) by his son, the Rev. John Herschel, in 1943. See Larry J. Schaaf, The Photographic Art of William Henry Fox Talbot (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), p.112.
4. This letter to Samuel Hunter Christie (1784–1865), mathematician & Secretary of the Royal Society, not located.
5. That is, the Academie des Sciences.
6. John Frederick William Herschel, ‘An Address … february 12, 1841, on Presenting the Honorary Medal to M. Bessel’, Royal Astronomical Society Memoirs, v.12, 1842, pp. 442–454.
7. Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784–1846), astronomer, was given the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society for his research on the annual parallax of the double star 61 Cygni.
8. William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse (1800–1867), astronomer & MP. Until his father’s death in 1841, and his acquisition of the title, he was known as Lord Oxmentown.