Brougham

Still drawing on Brougham’s autobiography, the following is an interesting anecdote concerning the origins of photography.

Vol 1, p69: I was … diligently employed in experiments upon light and colours, and conceived that I had made some additions to the Newtonian doctrine, which I sent to the Royal Society in the summer of 1795. The paper was very courteously received; but Sir Charles Blagden (the Secretary) desired parts to be left out in the notes or queries as belonging rather to the arts than the sciences. This was very unfortunate; because, I having observed the effect of a small hole in the window-shutter of a darkened room, when a view is formed on white paper of the external objects, I had suggested that if that view is formed, not on paper, but on ivory rubbed with nitrate of silver, the picture would become permanent; and I had suggested improvements in drawing, founded upon this fact. Now this is the origin of photography; and had the note containing the suggestion in 1795 appeared, in all probability it would have set others on the examination of the subject, and given us photography half a century earlier than we have it.

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce - First photograph, 1826.

For more info see Uni of Texas, Austin, and Wikipedia.

So, I am amazed that the last topic took so damn long to work through.

Now it is time to relax and do another transcription, this time of a story written by a thirteen year old boy, Henry Peter Brougham, in 1792. Having read Johnson’s Rasselas (or here for full download) the young Brougham was moved to write Memnon, or Human Wisdom. The piece would seem also to have been inspired by Leibniz (and/or Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide), with its reference to the idea that everything is for the best. The story is to be found in volume one of Lord Brougham’s autobiography.

Apart from the amusing condemnation of the virtuous ideal in the opening paragraphs, the tale is memorable for its inclusion of a character from another planet in the closing paragraphs.