Diplomatic Text
Hampton 8th Feb:
1784
Cariʃsima et Stimatiʃsima
You see how I obey
your injunctions au pied de la Lettre;
and write instantly to shew my Submiʃsion
tho' I have not a word I can say by which
I may shew my wit. Nothing however cou'd
set me a prating so soon, but the fear that
the threatened diʃsolution may disfranchise
my Cover, and oblige You to pay two pence
for that which in my Conscience I pronounce
not to be worth one farthing. --
The time of our coming to Town seems
rather to recede than approach: Several
little domestic evils concur to retard it;
the worst of which is that Mrs. Garrick
has had an ugly fall, which still confines
her, tho' no ill consequences, I thank God,
are apprehended; indeed she is almost quite
recovered. I am sure she wou'd send her love
and a particular State of Your Orange tree[1]
if she knew I was writing, but I have not
seen her since I received Your letter, nor
shall, probably till this is gone, for we are
a very fashionable couple, and see very little
of each other -- by day at least -- At dinner
we meet for good.
You can never oblige me more than by
giving me an opportunity of seeing Lord
Stormont; I think him infinitely agreeable.
It was a Story of his -- faisons des
Solecismes -- (do you remember it) that
suggested to me the lines in the Bas bleu
“twas tiresome to be quite so clever” &c
You have put me upon the rack of
impatience to know from whom this fine
present comes. How cou'd you, knowing my
irritability say any thing that shou'd
excite my curiosity, and then barbarously
refuse to gratify it.
We live at this time of the Year, more
secluded than any thing you can imagine
and I never see the “human face divine”
except of a Sunday at Church: I am shocked
to death, for fear You shou'd think I mean [a]
miserable pun upon the Parson.
Tell my dear Mrs. Carter I give her a
dispensation from writing to me, but not
from loving me. I grieve for her head Ach
I wou'd she were as exempt from natural
as from moral evil: but she must be
contented, excellent as she is, to hold her
humanity by the common tenure, and to
pay the common fines and taxes. --
Besure interrupt no drawings to write
to me, but when you have an idle
Minute You can never devote it where it
will give more pleasure.
I cant pretend to say that this is the
Agreeable letter, for which I am in arrears
to you, but it serves as well as a wittier
to tell you that I am faithfully Yours HM
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Hamilton gave Mrs Garrick her orange tree on 1 May 1783 (see HAM/2/2), to keep in her hothouse. For another comment relating to her orange tree, see MS Eng 1778 151.
Normalised Text
Hampton 8th February
Carissima et Stimatissima
You see how I obey
your injunctions au pied de la Lettre;
and write instantly to show my Submission
though I have not a word I can say by which
I may show my wit. Nothing however could
set me a prating so soon, but the fear that
the threatened dissolution may disfranchise
my Cover, and oblige You to pay two pence
for that which in my Conscience I pronounce
not to be worth one farthing. --
The time of our coming to Town seems
rather to recede than approach: Several
little domestic evils concur to retard it;
the worst of which is that Mrs. Garrick
has had an ugly fall, which still confines
her, though no ill consequences, I thank God,
are apprehended; indeed she is almost quite
recovered. I am sure she would send her love
and a particular State of Your Orange tree
if she knew I was writing, but I have not
seen her since I received Your letter, nor
shall, probably till this is gone, for we are
a very fashionable couple, and see very little
of each other -- by day at least -- At dinner
we meet for good.
You can never oblige me more than by
giving me an opportunity of seeing Lord
Stormont; I think him infinitely agreeable.
It was a Story of his -- faisons des
Solecismes -- (do you remember it) that
suggested to me the lines in the Bas bleu
“twas tiresome to be quite so clever” &c
You have put me upon the rack of
impatience to know from whom this fine
present comes. How could you, knowing my
irritability say any thing that should
excite my curiosity, and then barbarously
refuse to gratify it.
We live at this time of the Year, more
secluded than any thing you can imagine
and I never see the “human face divine”
except of a Sunday at Church: I am shocked
to death, for fear You should think I mean a
miserable pun upon the Parson.
Tell my dear Mrs. Carter I give her a
dispensation from writing to me, but not
from loving me. I grieve for her head Ache
I would she were as exempt from natural
as from moral evil: but she must be
contented, excellent as she is, to hold her
humanity by the common tenure, and to
pay the common fines and taxes. --
Besure interrupt no drawings to write
to me, but when you have an idle
Minute You can never devote it where it
will give more pleasure.
I can't pretend to say that this is the
Agreeable letter, for which I am in arrears
to you, but it serves as well as a wittier
to tell you that I am faithfully Yours Hannah More
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: Houghton Library Repository, Harvard University
Archive: Elizabeth Carter and Hannah More letters to Mary Hamilton
Item title: Letter from Hannah More to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: MS Eng 1778 141
Correspondence Details
Sender: Hannah More
Place sent: Hampton
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 8 February 1784
Letter Description
Summary: More, Hannah, 1745-1833. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton; Hampton, 1784 February 8.
Length: 1 sheet, 462 words
Transliteration Information
Editorial declaration: First transcribed for the project 'The Collected Letters of Hannah More' (Kerri Andrews & others) and 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: 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: Kerri Andrews, Senior Lecturer, Edge Hill University (submitted 11 August 2020)
Cataloguer: Bonnie B. Salt, Archivist, Houghton Library
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 19 October 2022