TALBOT5871

Malta
2^d Feb^y 1847

My dear Sir/

You see I find a difficulty in making the architectural views so as to join ¹ correctly – the optical convergence seeming to render it impossible – unfortunately too my labours are stayed in the outset for the last 350 sheets of iodised paper sent by M^r Cowderoy ² are so bad that I am unwilling to waste my chemicals upon them. It appears as if the paper had been greasy, the iodising preparation having missed in specks & spots, from the smallest size to that of a sixpence – evidently run off like water on wax, in round spots. – Not one of 17 sheets I tried will give any satisfactory result – & I am in such despair that I start tonight for Grigento & Palermo without my Camera – being called thither to meet some friends & M^r Blades kindly giving me a passage in his yacht, an offer I could not miss, tho’ I had rather have postponed it, being thus without materiel.

I have translated into Italian the coloured placards which Cowderoy sent – & named the views “ Pitture Solare” – “Talbotypes" - ³ & they seem to be selling well. – If I find more at Palermo & Naples, I will tell the Librarians there to apply for some – I wish Cowderoy had sent to me more of those coloured notices for the shops -⁴ I sent him last Mail an order on my brother ⁵ for his bill of £10 · 13 · 6. – I shall be detained a month or so in Sicily & Naples, & am much vexed that I cannot profit by the visit as I hoped when I ordered such a provision of paper – he forgot also the hyp. sulph. soda, ⁶ of which I am nearly out – & none to be had here – I am sorry too that I must go without the copies for my Sicilian friends, – the good monks ⁷ &c but will leave orders to have them sent after me, if they arrive by the expected Southampton steamer. – The “ Hibernia" ⁸ is still detained at Lisbon – but I suppose may be here in March, when I shall probably accompany my boy to Greece, & thence proceed, in the Autumn, to Syria & Egypt. – A Baron Borgia, Intendente of Sicily, will probably apply for your License & instructions – a great admirer of the art, – & much about the King -⁹ It is certainly an aristocratic art – rather expensive I find it in itself, & certainly the expence of locomotion [illegible] – but it is the most astonishing of modern times, & immortalises the name of its Inventor, who adds so eminently to science, & gives another gratification of time & taste –

I have not forgotten the gratitude I owe to you, my dear Sir, for your kind offer of aid to my poor boy through Lord Auckland ¹⁰– for there centres all my hope: but when I can no longer see, or be useful to him here, I shall return to the backwoods of Canada Alas! that the art should fail, as I fear, in the moving waters of Niagara! – but there is much of still scenery there worthy of it – a bright sky too, & a deathlike stillness of the air. – I hope you will permit me still to correspond with you across the Atlantic – &, with my best respects to M^rs Talbot, ¹¹ & love to your dear Children pray believe me, my dear Sir,

most truly Yours
G W Bridges –

Have you never taken the sweet faces of your children? – How well they would look grouped under the vines & arches of the Abbey, like the one you sent of the gardeners ¹². – & how very much I should like to have such a pictorial remembrance of its dear inmates –

[added across outside opposite address panel:]
Etna seeds of a long-podded wild vine which will cover a large space

H Fox Talbot Esq^re
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts
England
via Southampton