Dear Sir,
I beg to thank you most warmly for the very interesting specimens of your Photogenic Drawings. <1> During the last month I have been almost every day proposing to ask from you Duplicates of those you sent me formerly, viz, two side views of Lacock Abbey &c &c which I had been induced to give away.
When on a visit to Lord Gray of Kinfauns <2> I shewed him the specimens referred to, and tho’ he had one of Daguerre’s <3> which had newly arrived from Paris, yet yours on Paper excited a greater Interest. Lord and Lady Ruthven, <4> who I think you know, were of the party, and I was so liberal as to divide your Gift between Lord Gray & his visitors.
You have now amply rewarded me for my liberality, but I am still anxious to have copies of the Side views of Lacock Abbey, so as to complete the Set.
When in Edinr lately I assisted in executing some views by Daguerre’s method, and have ordered a Camera Obscura <5> for the purpose of working myself. In so far as you wish to reveal of your methods I should like to have your method as perfectly as you have no objection to communicate it. Is it true that Crown Glass, as an intermedium, actually increases the force of the efficacious rays transmitted? If the fact, as stated in the last No of the Phil. Mag., <6> is true, the Crown glass must absorb rays, that neutralise or destroy the influence of the efficacious rays; for it is impossible, one should think, that it could communicate a new property to the rays which it transmits.
I hope you have some thoughts of being at Glasgow in Sept. <7>
I am, Dear Sir, Ever Most Faithfully yrs
D Brewster
H.F. Talbot Esqr
Notes:
1. Brewster showed ‘many specimens of Photogenic Drawings, executed under the management of Mr Fox Talbot’ at a meeting of the St Andrews Literary and Philosophical Society on 6 July 1840.
2. Francis Gray, 14th Lord Gray of Kinfauns (1765–1842). Kinfauns is near Perth.
3. Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1787–1851), French artist, showman & inventor.
4. James Ruthven, 5th Lord Ruthven (1777–1853), and his wife Mary Ruthven (née Campbell)(1789–1885).
5. Probably from the Edinburgh optician, Thomas Davidson (1798–1878), scientific instrument maker and Daguerreotypist. He was the author of The Art of Daguerreotyping, with the Improvements of the Process and Apparatus (Edinburgh: 1841). See Doc. No: 04163.
6. Charles Thornton Coathupe, ‘On Certain Modifications of the Powers of Heat and Light when Transmitted through Glass’, Philosophical Magazine, s. 3, v. 16, no. 105, June 1840, pp. 467–471.
7. For the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, to be held in Glasgow from 17 September 1840.