with success. Thinking, at that time, that it was necessary
to place the sitters in a very strong light, they were all taken
with their eyes closed.

Others were experimenting at the same time, among them
Mr. Wolcott and Prof. Draper, and Mr. Morse, with his
acustomed modesty, thinks that it would be difficult to say
to whom is due the credit of the first Daguerreotype portrait.
At all events, so far as my knowledge serves me, Professor Morse
deserves the laurel wreath, as from him originated the first
of our inumerable class of Daguerreotypists; and many of his
pupils have carried the manipulation to very great perfection.
In connection with this matter I will give the concluding
paragraph of a private letter from the Professor to me; He says.

"If mine were the first, other experimenters soon made better results,
and if there are any who dispute that I was first, I shall have no argument
with them; for I was not so anxious to be the first to produce the result,
as to produce it in any way. I esteem it but the natural carrying out of
the wonderful discovery, and that the credit was after all due to Daguerre.
I lay no claim to any improvements."

Since I commenced the compilation of this work, I have had the pleasure
of making the acquaintance of an American gentleman--James M. Wattles Esq.--
who as early as 1828--and it will be seen, by what I have already stated,
that this is about the same date of M. Niepce's discovery--had his attention
attracted to the subject of Photography, or as he termed it "Solar picture
drawing," while taking landscape views by means of the camera-obscura.
When we reflect upon all the circumstances connected with his experiments,
the great disadvantages under which be labored, and his extreme youthfullness,