Dear Sir/
I received quite safe the prisms & Lenses from Utzschneider as forwarded by you, with your letter, <1> and I lose no time in thanking you for the trouble you have been at respecting them – and shall, the first time I go to Town pay into your Banker’s the amount 25:3:7 which you have been so obliging as to disburse on my acct. <2> The Prisms are really beautiful and I am rejoiced to see that the art of glass making is not lost.
Have you heard of Fresnel’s death. <3> I fear it is an event too probable in itself not to be true, though my information is not fully to be depended on, & I have seen no mention of it in any public print – but all public interest is now so absorbed in our greater loss <4> that a mere man of science however eminent drops out of the world unnoticed.
I remain my dear Sir Yours very Truly
J F W Herschel
PS. I have given up the idea of applying to Munich at present for an object glass having purchased of Mr South <5> his 7 feet Equatorial the object glass of which is 5 inches in aperture & a very good one.
I was very unlucky to be in Town when you passed Slough. I hope to be more fortunate another time.
H. F. Talbot Esqr
Lacock Abbey
near Chippenham
Somerset
Notes:
1. WHFT ordered these lenses and prisms from Joseph von Utzschneider (1763–1840), German instrument maker. He left them at Herschel’s home in Slough on 2 August but missed Herschel himself. [See Doc. No: 01580].
2. On 6 September 1827, Herschel recorded in his accounts book that he “paid into Hammersleys to Acct of H.F. Talbot Esq. for instruments from Munich (for Hussey and self, NB my share = ~ £25.” MO889, Accounts Diary, HRHRC.
3. Augustine Jean Fresnel (1788–1827), the noted French physicist, died on 14 July.
4. This is probably a reference to the Greek Wars of Indepedence; the 1827 Treaty of London would eventually lead to the destruction of the Egyptian fleet by a combined British, French, and Russian fleet on 20 October 1828. An alternative possibility could be the death of George Canning (1770–1827), Prime Minister of Britain for only 3 months who died on 8 August.
5. Sir James South (1785–1867), astronomer.