TALBOT8488

Dear M^r Talbot,

I am glad to find that y ou are to be so near Edinburgh ¹ during Winter. I have been looking out for a house not far from the town but, with the exception of one near Portobello, ² I have not succeeded in finding one likely to suit us.

I shall take no notice of the trial of your Patent, ³ tho' I should have liked to say something that would not have been very agreeable to the Parties concerned.

I gave a brief notice of your Photo-glyphic process in the Encyclopædia Britannica under that head, and I have a Copy of your specification in the Fifth Volume of the Photographic Journal. ⁴

I should have liked much to make use of the Phosphoroscope ⁵ here, but we must leave here early in January, and out of my own house I presume it would be difficult to make any experiments with it.

What a curious fact it is that the Daguerreotype has almost wholly disappeared. I believe it lingers only in the Studio of Mr Claudet. ⁶

Upon looking over the large collection of your Engravings ⁷ (thirty five in number) I do not find either that of Strasburg Cathedral or of Glenturret House, and you would therefore oblige me by Copies of them. – Some of those I have are very sharp and fine, such as the Schools at Oxford, ⁸ and the Hall of Congress at Madrid. Have you tried to engrave the Microscopic Photographs, portraits and Inscriptions?

I am, Dear M^r Talbot, Ever Most Truly yrs
D Brewster

Allerly Melrose
Dec^r 23^d 1861