Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/6/8/18

Note from John Hope to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


      No riding; no weather for Ladies going out;
no better time for preʃenting a New Book! -- [1]
      When Miʃs Hamilton has read the one I
now ʃend her, ʃhe will be convinced, tho' I
may be an Author, that I have no pretenʃions
to be call'd a Poet. -- I am aʃham'd of
the Rhimes myself, & that is enough. --
      The Sentiments, however, will do no disho=
nour to my heart; & I am therefore the leʃs
apprehenʃive at their being read. --
      Let me recommend you to peruʃe, firʃt,
the Pieces at Pages 54, -- 80, -- & 143, -- which
may bespeak your Attention to the Reʃt[2]

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


Notes


 1. The book in question was most likely Hope's early publication, Occasional Attempts at Sentimental Poetry, by A Man in Business [...] (London, 1769), in the helpful list by Pitcher (1998: 77).
 2. These pages in his Thoughts, in Prose and Verse [...] do not contain verse.

Normalised Text


      No riding; no weather for Ladies going out;
no better time for presenting a New Book! --
      When Miss Hamilton has read the one I
now send her, she will be convinced, though I
may be an Author, that I have no pretensions
to be called a Poet. -- I am ashamed of
the Rhymes myself, & that is enough. --
      The Sentiments, however, will do no dishonour
 to my heart; & I am therefore the less
apprehensive at their being read. --
      Let me recommend you to peruse, first,
the Pieces at Pages 54, -- 80, -- & 143, -- which
may bespeak your Attention to the Rest

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



 1. The book in question was most likely Hope's early publication, Occasional Attempts at Sentimental Poetry, by A Man in Business [...] (London, 1769), in the helpful list by Pitcher (1998: 77).
 2. These pages in his Thoughts, in Prose and Verse [...] do not contain verse.

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/1/6/8/18

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, relating to books. Hope writes that the weather prevents ‘Ladies going out, [and hence there is] no better time for presenting a New Book!’ When Hamilton has read the book he sends her she ‘will be convinced, tho[ugh] I may be an Author, that I have no pretension to be call[e]d a Poet’. Although he is ashamed of his rhymes, the sentiments ‘will do no dishonour to my heart’. Hope continues in the note to recommend specific sections for her to read.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 102 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: Christine Wallis, editorial team (completed 27 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: 24 December 2021

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