Diplomatic Text
Mrs. Montagu
Feb ye 13th 1787
Sir
You would have received my congratu
lations long ago, on the happy event of Mrs Dickensons
safe delivery of a Daughter, if a cruel disorder in my eyes
had not renderd me incapable of writing; but tho I am far
from being quite relieved from this complaint it is not now
violent enough to hinder my expreʃsing my joy on
the occasion, & gratitude to you for your kind communi
-cation of it. You tell me in your letter, that you hope
the dear little one will have the virtues & talents of its
Mother, but to tell you the truth, I should treat this
as a presumptionus expectation, these most valuable poʃseʃsions
being rarely hereditary, if the instructions & example the
young Lady will receive from Mrs Dickenson & you did not
give security for the paccomplishment of your wishes, & hopes;
for what talents might not be depreʃs'd by the dullneʃs
of a Swiʃs? or what virtues might not be impaired by
the levities of a ------ French Governeʃs? But I know the important
& delicate task of education will not be committed to
any one, but will be attended to by the tender & virtuous
Parents.
I beg of you dear Sir to present my best respects & sincere
congratulations to Mrs Dickenson, & aʃsure her, I regret
that I had not the earliest opportunity of being introduced
to the dear little Stranger.
I am Sir
Your most Obedt
Humble Servant
Eliz Montagu
I beg of you to present
my complimts to Mrs Rundal,[1]
& inform her that I was, from ye disorder in my eyes
not able to return my thanks
for her good news & obliging
manner of imparting manner of imparting it.[2]
Febry 13th 1787
Recd. at Bath
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Mrs Rundell, ‘who presided at the birth of’ Louisa Dickenson (HAM/1/8/6/13), was to become a family friend. She had been warmly recommended to Hamilton by Lady Frances Harpur in a letter of 2 December 1786 (HAM/1/16/39).
2. This postscript is written at the bottom of p.2 on left side of the closer.
Normalised Text
February the 13th
Sir
You would have received my congratulations
long ago, on the happy event of Mrs Dickensons
safe delivery of a Daughter, if a cruel disorder in my eyes
had not rendered me incapable of writing; but though I am far
from being quite relieved from this complaint it is not now
violent enough to hinder my expressing my joy on
the occasion, & gratitude to you for your kind communication
of it. You tell me in your letter, that you hope
the dear little one will have the virtues & talents of its
Mother, but to tell you the truth, I should treat this
as a presumptuous expectation, these most valuable possessions
being rarely hereditary, if the instructions & example the
young Lady will receive from Mrs Dickenson & you did not
give security for the accomplishment of your wishes, & hopes;
for what talents might not be depressed by the dullness
of a Swiss? or what virtues might not be impaired by
the levities of a French Governess? But I know the important
& delicate task of education will not be committed to
any one, but will be attended to by the tender & virtuous
Parents.
I beg of you dear Sir to present my best respects & sincere
congratulations to Mrs Dickenson, & assure her, I regret
that I had not the earliest opportunity of being introduced
to the dear little Stranger.
I am Sir
Your most Obedient
Humble Servant
Elizabeth Montagu
I beg of you to present
my compliments to Mrs Rundal,
& inform her that I was, from the disorder in my eyes
not able to return my thanks
for her good news & obliging
manner of imparting it.
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 Elizabeth Montagu to John Dickenson
Shelfmark: HAM/1/6/4/1
Correspondence Details
Sender: Elizabeth Montagu (née Robinson)
Place sent: unknown
Addressee: John Dickenson
Place received: Bath
Date sent: 13 February 1787
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Elizabeth Montagu to John Dickenson, congratulating him and Mary Hamilton on the birth of their daughter. Montagu notes that she would have written sooner but for an eye-complaint that prevented her writing. She notes that Dickenson wishes his daughter to have the 'virtues & talents of its Mother'. She suggests that this is a 'presumpt[u]ous expectation', that such valuable traits are 'rarely hereditary', but that the 'instructions and example' that the baby will receive from her parents – rather than from 'the dullness of a Swiss [...] or the levities of a French Governess' – will provide her with the qualities they wish. Montagu asks Dickenson to send her congratulations to Hamilton and to tell her that she is sorry that she had not been able earlier to be introduced to the 'dear little Stranger'.
Length: 1 sheet, 286 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 2016/17 provided by The John Rylands Research Institute.
Research assistant: Isabella Formisano, former MA student, University of Manchester
Transliterator: Andrew Gott, dissertation student, University of Manchester (submitted June 2012)
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: 13 January 2022