[in another hand] Laycock Ab n^r Chippenham

31 Sackville S^t
May 16/46

Dear Sir

I request your acceptance of a copy of my photographic work called Sun Pictures in Scotland.^<1>

This has not been published but the copies were distributed by private subscription.

The loose plates accompanying the book I request you to present to the lady you say takes such an interest in the art.- ^<2>

It will be curious to compare my 2^d plate, the Monument to Walter Scott at Edinburgh, with the view of the same contained in your copy of M^r Hill's splendid work.^<3>

My view was taken much nearer, and therefore the details of architecture are more discernable.

Yours very try
H. F. Talbot

J. Murray Esq

[overleaf, in another hand:]
May 16 . 1846 Talbot H F.

Notes:

1. This publication was inspired by the growing interest in Sir Walter Scott's writings and was largely promoted by Talbot's mother, Lady Elisabeth Feilding. It had the same format as Talbot's The Pencil of Nature, containing twenty-three original photographic prints. It had a title page and contents list but no text. One hundred copies were printed.

2. The "lady" is identified in Doc no 05656 as Elizabeth Rigby (1809-1893). In 1857, by then Lady Eastlake, Rigby published her powerful and influential analysis of the art under "Photography," London Quarterly Review, April 1857, pp. 442-468.

3. The Edinburgh-based calotypists David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson took numerous views of the emerging Scott Monument, many of them from a distance, establishing the context of the monument within the city. Examples from the Glasgow University collection can be seen at http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/hillandadamson/index.html The 'splendid work' was almost certainly one of the grand albums assembled by Hill that included original salted paper prints from calotype negatives. It appears that Murray had only temporary custody of this album, not permanent ownership, and that later in the year it was passed on to Sir Charles Eastlake; see Murray's letter to D.O. Hill at http://www.sshop.arts.gla.ac.uk/php/transcription.php?id=13