TALBOT6820

Lincoln’s Inn ¹
4^h June 1853

My dear Sir

I have forwarded the Dr^t to M^r Ottaway. ²

Enclosed You have 3 specimens of M^r Logan’s performance which considering that they are produced from an apparatus that cost him only 35^s/ – seem to me, to be full of promise and as regards arrangement grouping and pose to be of unusual merit –

This Gentleman has been wh me for some time to day – he is a perambulating Lecturer of on Natural Philosophy and has no fixed domicile, next week he lectures upon Light at Colchester the following one at Bath and so on: he describes himself to be a passionate follower of science for its own sake and particularly of Photography – but his ambition is to settle in London and to try his hand at likenesses, charging only a moderate sum for them but giving a good article for the money, being convinced there is much to be done at a low price to supersede the 3^s/^d6 rubbish which, he says, is now degrading the art.

The difficulty consists in his being poor and his having no means of paying any thing in advance for a license: but he is willing to pay 25 perCent upon all that he makes & sells – If he had not produced specimens from which I selected the 3, I now send, I do not think I should have troubled You with this epistle, but to my eye they are so pleasing that I wish to give him the benefit of Your judgment whether he is fit to be a recruit –

If M^r Ottaway is prompt I hope to send you the Panopticon License ³ before you leave home for Keswick ⁴ –

Yesterdays excursion will long remained [sic] stamped upon my memory as one of the most agreeable wh which my life of labour can be relieved – with many thanks to You for it⁵

I remain My dear Sir Ever Yours faithfully
J. H. Bolton