Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/6/8/5

Note from John Hope to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


Tho' I am the oppoʃite of old Bayes, & never ʃit down
to ʃcribble, fasting,[1] I ʃhould have ʃent you this, as
promised, before Breakfaʃt, had they not roused me from
my Bed, by proclaiming Tea ready, & breakfaʃt on
the Table. --

[2]
Hamilto[n][3]
[4]

(hover over blue text or annotations for clarification;
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)


Notes


 1. A nod to ‘Bayes's Rules for Compoſition’, much anthologised from 1783 but first appearing at the latest in the 1677 edition of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, The Rehearsal, Act II scene 1 (first published anonymously 1672 without this passage). Bayes (the ridiculous Dryden character in the satire) says he writes standing, having first purged himself in the particular way appropriate to the genre in hand. The play is also alluded to by Henry Hamilton in HAM/1/4/6/3.
 2. This page has been turned 90 degrees to the left to reflect the orientation of the first page. The image therefore differs from that in the University of Manchester LUNA catalogue.
 3. This line is written vertically in the middle of the page.
 4. Remains of a seal, in red wax, in the bottom-right corner of the page.

Normalised Text


Though I am the opposite of old Bayes, & never sit down
to scribble, fasting, I should have sent you this, as
promised, before Breakfast, had they not roused me from
my Bed, by proclaiming Tea ready, & breakfast on
the Table. --


Hamilton

(consult diplomatic text or XML for annotations, deletions, clarifications, persons,
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)



 1. A nod to ‘Bayes's Rules for Compoſition’, much anthologised from 1783 but first appearing at the latest in the 1677 edition of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, The Rehearsal, Act II scene 1 (first published anonymously 1672 without this passage). Bayes (the ridiculous Dryden character in the satire) says he writes standing, having first purged himself in the particular way appropriate to the genre in hand. The play is also alluded to by Henry Hamilton in HAM/1/4/6/3.
 2. This page has been turned 90 degrees to the left to reflect the orientation of the first page. The image therefore differs from that in the University of Manchester LUNA catalogue.
 3. This line is written vertically in the middle of the page.
 4. Remains of a seal, in red wax, in the bottom-right corner of the page.

Metadata

Library References

Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Note from John Hope to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/6/8/5

Correspondence Details

Sender: John Hope

Place sent: unknown

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: between 1773 and 1774
notBefore 1773 (precision: medium)
notAfter 1774 (precision: medium)

Letter Description

Summary: Note from John Hope to Mary Hamilton. He notes that he never writes before having eaten and that he should have sent Hamilton 'this [the note?] before breakfast' had he not been 'roused' from his bed by being told that his breakfast was on the table.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 43 words

Transliteration Information

Editorial declaration: First edited 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: Transcription and XML version created as part of project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers', funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under grant AH/S007121/1.

Transliterator: Tino Oudesluijs, editorial team (completed 19 August 2020)

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: 3 June 2023

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