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Document number: 3751
Date: 14 Nov 1838
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: BREWSTER David
Collection: National Science and Media Museum, Bradford
Collection number: 1937-4827
Last updated: 1st May 2012

My Dear Sir,

I am sorry to learn that Mr Taylor <1> has conducted himself so improperly towards you, and that too on an occasion in which you were conferring a favour on the Journal. <2> – I regret that I cannot obtain any redress for you, because he has used me in a very improper and unjust manner, so unjustly indeed that I have formed a very unfavourable opinion of him.

As he has also taken no notice of Letters of mine, I found it necessary to write to his Fac Totum Mr Gyde <3> from whom I received only yesterday the proper Reply.– I would advise you therefore to write to him also.

The Journal is a disgrace to the character of British Science; & I should like to see a new one set agoing in London by some intelligent and active person.

I have left all the separate Copies of my Papers in Roxburghshire <4> otherwise I would have sent you the one on the Cause of Double Refraction. <5> You will find it however in your Copy of the Philosophical Transactions for 1830.

I have recently obtained a number of very curious and beautiful results respecting the Nature and Cause of Musci Volitantes, <6> which place this dark portion of the Physiology of the Eye in the clearest light, & are of practical value to the oculist.

I am My Dear Sir Ever Most Faithfully yrs
D Brewster

St. Leonards St Andrews
Novr 14th 1838.

P.S. The above will be my address till May

Henry Fox Talbot Esqr
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts


Notes:

1. Richard Taylor (1781–1858), publisher & naturalist.

2. Philosophical Magazine.

3. See Doc. No: 03377, Doc. No: 03378.

4. At Allerly, near Melrose, Brewster’s home from 1827 until his death.

5. D. Brewster, ‘On the production of regular double refraction in the molecules of bodies by simple pressure; with observations on the origin of the doubly refracting structure’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1830, pp. 87–96.

6. D. Brewster, ‘On the phenomena and cause of Muscæ Volitantes’, British Association for the Advancement of Science Reports, 1840 [pt 2], pp. 8–9. Muscæ volitantes (literally flying flies; also known as‘floaters’) are lines, specks etc seen in the field of vision, caused by particles in the vitreous humour of the eye.

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