Diplomatic Text
5
from Miʃs A Murray
Pray My Dear Madam aʃsure
our ever dear Mrs Delany that our
Hearts bleed for her, the manner in
which you say she supports herself
under the severest blow she cd poʃsibly
receive, is truly wonderful, & only
serves to confirm us in the opinion we
have long had, that her Mind was
much above the common stamp,
her bestowing a moments thought
upon us, in the midst of her own
very severe affliction, is what we
could not have expected, & shall
ever be remembered with gratitude;
I hope she does not suppose we
could have been so many Days
without making particular inquiries
after her, we sent immediately to Miʃs
Thynne, & afterwards to St: James's Place,
but with orders she should not be troubled
with the meʃsage; my Sister & I are the
only part of the Family now at home,
we heard the Melancholy event in the
most unprepared & unexpected manner,
& were as you may conceive shocked
beyond expreʃsion, it is unneceʃsary to
dwell upon our own feelings, because
as you rightly observe, it was impoʃsible
to know the many great, amiable, &
respectable qualities of our dear depart:
:ed Friend, without deploring our loʃs,
or being convinced there are few such
left. I hear the Duke of Portland has
behaved in the kindest & most affectionate
manner to Mrs Delany, which certainly
does his Grace great honour, & shows
him to have the good Heart, one might
expect the Son of such a Mother as his,
would poʃseʃs. be so good to thank dear Mrs
Delany for the kind permiʃsion she gives
us to wait upon her, & to say that we shall readily
make use of it the first moment in our
power, but 'till Ld Mansfield returns
from the Circuit, we have no Equipage;
I take for granted she has already seen
Mrs Boscawen, who was here last night
in the deepest Affliction, & intended calling
on her worthy Friend this morning.
I hope this blow has not affected your
health, My Dear Madam, beg you to
accept our most sincere good wishes, & to
believe me, very affectionately Your's
A: Murray
Kenwood 31 July
85 -- [2]
of Portland
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
Pray My Dear Madam assure
our ever dear Mrs Delany that our
Hearts bleed for her, the manner in
which you say she supports herself
under the severest blow she could possibly
receive, is truly wonderful, & only
serves to confirm us in the opinion we
have long had, that her Mind was
much above the common stamp,
her bestowing a moments thought
upon us, in the midst of her own
very severe affliction, is what we
could not have expected, & shall
ever be remembered with gratitude;
I hope she does not suppose we
could have been so many Days
without making particular inquiries
after her, we sent immediately to Miss
Thynne, & afterwards to St: James's Place,
but with orders she should not be troubled
with the message; my Sister & I are the
only part of the Family now at home,
we heard the Melancholy event in the
most unprepared & unexpected manner,
& were as you may conceive shocked
beyond expression, it is unnecessary to
dwell upon our own feelings, because
as you rightly observe, it was impossible
to know the many great, amiable, &
respectable qualities of our dear departed
Friend, without deploring our loss,
or being convinced there are few such
left. I hear the Duke of Portland has
behaved in the kindest & most affectionate
manner to Mrs Delany, which certainly
does his Grace great honour, & shows
him to have the good Heart, one might
expect the Son of such a Mother as his,
would possess. be so good to thank dear Mrs
Delany for the kind permission she gives
us to wait upon her, & to say that we shall readily
make use of it the first moment in our
power, but till Lord Mansfield returns
from the Circuit, we have no Equipage;
I take for granted she has already seen
Mrs Boscawen, who was here last night
in the deepest Affliction, & intended calling
on her worthy Friend this morning.
I hope this blow has not affected your
health, My Dear Madam, beg you to
accept our most sincere good wishes, & to
believe me, very affectionately Your's
Anne Murray
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester
Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers
Item title: Letter from Anne Murray to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/5/2/9
Correspondence Details
Sender: Lady Anne Murray
Place sent: Kenwood
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: London (certainty: low)
Date sent: 21 July 1785
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Anne Murray to Mary Hamilton. The letter relates to the death of the Duchess of Portland [Margaret Cavendish Bentinck, née Harley (1715-1785)], and its effect on Mrs Delany [Mary Delany, née Granville (1700-1788), English Bluestocking, artist, and letter-writer]. Murray sympathises with Mrs Delany and admires the manner in which 'she supports herself under the severest blow'. Murray writes that she will wait on Mrs Delany as soon she can once Lord Mansfield [William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (1704/5-1793)] has returned from circuit, as they have no carriage. Murray takes it 'for granted' that Mrs Boscawen has already seen Mrs Delany, who had visited them the past evening in the 'deepest Affliction' and who said that she would wait on Mrs Delany the following morning. Murray concludes her letter by hoping that the death of the Duchess has not affected Hamilton's health.
Dated at Kenwood [House].
Original reference No. 5.
Length: 1 sheet, 364 words
Transliteration Information
Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Image to Text' (David Denison & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2013-2019), now incorporated in the project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers' (Hannah Barker, Sophie Coulombeau, David Denison, Tino Oudesluijs, Cassandra Ulph, Christine Wallis & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2019-2023).
All quotation marks are retained in the text and are represented by appropriate Unicode characters. Words split across two lines may have a hyphen on the first, the second or both fragments (reco-|ver, imperfect|-ly, satisfacti-|-on); or a double hyphen (pur=|port, dan|=ger, qua=|=litys); or none (respect|ing). Any point in abbreviations with superscripted letter(s) is placed last, regardless of relative left-right orientation in the original. Thus, Mrs. or Mrs may occur, but M.rs or Mr.s do not.
Acknowledgements: XML version: Research Assistant funding in 2014/15 and 2015/16 provided by the Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Manchester.
Research assistant: Donald Alasdair Morrison, undergraduate student, University of Manchester
Transliterator: Marcus Sorton, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted November 2014)
Cataloguer: Lisa Crawley, Archivist, The John Rylands Library
Cataloguer: John Hodgson, Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Research Institute and Library
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 2 November 2021