Dear Sir,
Having been from home for a few days, I have not been able sooner to thank you for your liberal supply of Calotypes. They are singularly beautiful, and those of Old Title Pages &c shew the wonderful power of the art.<1>
I have just had your Photographic Work on Scotland <2> put down in the list of books to be ordered for our University Library.
I have shewn your Box of Calotypes to Dr Adamson <3> and Dr Methven <4> who are greatly delighted with them. I hope you have seen those of Dr Methven in the hands of Sir William Burnett. <5> The next line you write me be so good as let me know this, and what you think of them.
We have been all very much struck with the Copy of the Page of the Phil. Mag., <6> and also with the copies of drawings by Old Masters, and we should look forward with great pleasure to the appearance of your New Work. <7>
Dr Methven and I have been occupied today in taking a Negative from a Positive Calotype of me by Collen <8> which is admired much. We have taken it both by the positive & the negative Process, <9> & we think the former the best. Which do you consider the best way, & what is the best form of process?
I am Dear Sir Ever Most Truly yrs
D Brewster
St Leonards College
St Andrews
Feby 25th 1845
Henry Fox Talbot Esqr
&c &c
Notes:
1. In the days before photocopiers and scanners, WHFT's ability to precisely copy printed text was an important application. Plate 9 in The Pencil of Nature, 'Fac-simile of an Old Printed Page' is one example.
2. WHFT, Sun Pictures in Scotland (London: Published by subscription in 1845).
3. Dr John Adamson (1809–1870), physician and pioneer of photography. See A. D. Morrison-Low, ‘Dr John Adamson and Robert Adamson: An Early Partnership in Scottish Photography’, The Photographic Collector, v. 2, 1983, pp.198–214.
4. William Lambert Methven, R.N. (d. St Andrews, 29 November 1861).
5. Sir William Burnett (1779–1861), M.D., F.R.S.
6. Probably Philosophical Magazine, s.3 v. 14 no. 6, March 1839, p.196, which contains Talbot’s ‘Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing’. Several negatives of this survive, and prints are common in Talbot collections.
7. Probably the second fascicle of WHFT, The Pencil of Nature (London: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, June 1844–April 1846 [issued in six fascicles]), published 29 January 1845. For a discussion of images considered for inclusion, see Larry J.Schaaf, Introductory Volume to the Anniversary Facsimile of H. Fox Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature (New York: H. P. Kraus Jnr, Inc., 1989), pp.35–38.
8. Henry Collen (1800–1879), miniature painter, calotypist & spiritualist, London.
9. See Doc. No: 05201.