TALBOT4839

Dear Sir,

I had begun to get very uneasy at not hearing from you, and was delighted to see again the outward indications of your pen. ¹

M^r Adamson, ² who is now established in Edin^r with crowds every day at his Studio, ³ will be very grateful for your kindness. He will send you specimens of his progress which I think will surprise and delight you.

You may probably have heard, tho’ only as a dying Echo, of the great moral event in Scotland, ⁴ of 500 Ministers quitting their manses & Glebes & Stipends ⁵ for Conscience sake, and forming a Free Church, unshackled by secular interferences. A grand historical picture is undertaken by a first rate Artist, to represent the first General Assembly of the Free Church. ⁶ I got hold of the Artist – showed him the Calotype, & the eminent advantage he might derive from it in getting likenesses of all the principal characters before they dispersed to their respective homes. He was at first incredulous, but went to Mr Adamson, and arranged with him the preliminaries for getting all the necessary Portraits.

They have succeeded beyond their most sanguine expectations. – They have taken, on a small scale, Groups of 25 persons in the same picture all placed in attitudes which the Painter desired, and very large Pictures besides have been taken of each individual to assist the Painter in the completion of his Picture.

M^r D.O. Hill the Painter is in the act of entering into Partnership with M^r Adamson, and proposes to apply the Calotype to many other general purposes of a very popular kind, & especially to the execution of large pictures representing diff^t bodies & classes of individuals.

I think you will find that we have, in Scotland, found out the value of your invention not before yourself, but before those to whom you have given the privilege of using it. I have seen one of the groups of 25 persons with our distinguished Moderator D^r Chalmers ⁷ sitting in the heart of them, and I have never seen any thing finer.

I shall be very thankful for specimens of your Calotype labours in France, ⁸ and indeed of as many specimens, whether by English or French Suns as you can spare. I have the largest collection in Scotland, and whenever I go to Edin^r, I carry a series along with me to delight the dilettantes there.

The Daguerreotype is considered infinitely inferior, for all practical purposes, notwithstanding it’s beauty and sharpness.

I send you a sight of a newspaper, which, as it is one of a series which I preserve, I will thank you to return.

It contains on p. 3 Col. 2^d an Article entitled “The Two Prints” ⁹ written by the Editor Hugh Miller an Eminent Geologist, & one of the finest writers of the present day. Excuse this hurried scrawl,

& believe me to be Ever Most Truly yrs
D Brewster

S^t Leonards’ College
S^t Andrews
July 3^d 1843