TALBOT6058

My dear Sir,

From influenza affecting myself directly and still more indirectly by business created through the illness of others I have allowed several days to pass without acknowledging your note. I am still prepared to review the book ¹ in the Edinburgh ² if open to me, and if not elsewhere in any respectable quarter. I think it possible that Empson ³ may have some objection to me personally. I never met him but once and that was many years ago at the table of T. F. Ellis of Bedford Place, when after dinner he made a fearful onslaught on my examination papers of this college. His remarks were made in ignorance that I was at the table, and in pretty complete ignorance of what the examination papers really were, for he had got hold of one solitary paper among half a dozen given and argued as though it contained all the questions asked.

Believe me Yours very truly
T. Hewitt Key

Dec^r 6. 1847
Univ: Coll. Lond:

[envelope:]
H. Fox Talbot Esq^re
Athenaeum Club
Pall Mall
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham