TALBOT4986

Dear Sir,

I gave your request, as I think I wrote you¹ to D^r Adamson² for his Brother,³ along with the Calotypes you were so good as to send him. His delay in writing you, has arisen from his having left Edin^r about the time you wrote me, & from his desire to send you one or two good Negatives for your Work. D^r Adamson is so annoyed at the circumstance that he has got my Camera, for the purpose of getting one or two good Negatives for you, so that I hope the oversight will be atoned for.

I have watched all the Advertisements of the Pencil of Nature ⁴ with great interest, and have ordered a Copy for our University Library.⁵ It is a bold experiment – I do not mean as a speculation, but as one which will entail personal labours & superintendence upon yourself, & I and many others look forward to its consummation as an event which, sanguine as I was I never could have anticipated.

I am still puzzled about the operation of the Camera. Some Cameras represent me thin, slender & not stout, whereas others raise me to the eminence of the “Stout Gentleman”! The one which you did of me at Laycock ⁶ is of the first kind.

I am Dear Sir Ever Most Truly yrs
D Brewster

S^t Leonards College
S^t Andrews
April 18^th 1844

Henry Fox Talbot Esq^r