Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/15/1/26(1)

Note from Charlotte Margaret Gunning to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


27

My dear I am pretty well but do not go to Mrs
Montagus tonight -- you know it is my Brothers
Ball -- I shall be delighted to see you tomorrow
at ½ past ten or 11 -- I shall certainly be up then
& should naturally be so much earlier notwithstang
the Ball had I not the prospect of a long fatiguing
Drawingroom before me -- I have three caps
in the world which my maid is now shewing
yours -- I never wear anything on my neck but
a square handk or yard of Gause at the inside
of my Gowns & a double pleating of blond[1] round
my shoulders when I am much dreʃsed, none
except then -- but most my Gowns have
capes to them -- adieu God bleʃs you --
I expect you tomorrow --
      2d April 1788
2 April 1788[2]

[3]


Mrs Dickenson[4]

[5]

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


Notes


 1. Blonde lace is ‘a silk lace of two threads, twisted and formed in hexagonal meshes’ (OED s.v. blond adj. and n. B.2a).
 2. This annotation is written vertically.
 3. The top of HAM/1/15/1/26(3) can be seen at the bottom of the page.
 4. This line appears upside down.
 5. Most of HAM/1/15/1/26(2) can be seen on this image.

Normalised Text



My dear I am pretty well but do not go to Mrs
Montagus tonight -- you know it is my Brothers
Ball -- I shall be delighted to see you tomorrow
at ½ past ten or 11 -- I shall certainly be up then
& should naturally be so much earlier notwithstanding
the Ball had I not the prospect of a long fatiguing
Drawingroom before me -- I have three caps
in the world which my maid is now showing
yours -- I never wear anything on my neck but
a square handkerchief or yard of Gauze at the inside
of my Gowns & a double pleating of blond round
my shoulders when I am much dressed, none
except then -- but most my Gowns have
capes to them -- adieu God bless you --
I expect you tomorrow --
     




Mrs Dickenson

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



 1. Blonde lace is ‘a silk lace of two threads, twisted and formed in hexagonal meshes’ (OED s.v. blond adj. and n. B.2a).
 2. This annotation is written vertically.
 3. The top of HAM/1/15/1/26(3) can be seen at the bottom of the page.
 4. This line appears upside down.
 5. Most of HAM/1/15/1/26(2) can be seen on this image.

Metadata

Library References

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

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Note from Charlotte Margaret Gunning to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/15/1/26(1)

Correspondence Details

Sender: Charlotte Margaret Digby (née Gunning)

Place sent: unknown (certainty: medium)

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown (certainty: medium)

Date sent: 2 April 1788

Letter Description

Summary: In this note, dated 2 April 1788, Gunning writes that she will not go to Mrs Montagu's that night, as she is to attend her brother's ball (see HAM/1/15/1/25), but can meet Hamilton the following day. She also writes on the subject of clothes.
    Original reference No. 27.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 133 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: Isabella Formisano, former MA student, University of Manchester

Research assistant: Carla Seabra-Dacosta, MA student, University of Vigo

Transliterator: Rhia Abukhalil, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted May 2016)

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: 28 April 2023

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