Diplomatic Text
Teston near Maidstone
June 8th. 1784
I have at last sent
You, my dear friend, the Nonsense you
desired; You remember, I hope, the hard
Conditions on which you obtained my
promise to give it you, namely that You
were to copy it for yourself, and send this
Copy to our dear Mrs. Carter or vice versa: it was a
hard bargain and I pity You.
I am so delighted with every thing and
Person in this place that I have wished
for you more than once since I have been here. I was
so ignorant and unjust As to fancy that
Kent was not a fine County, but I heartily
recant. Nothing can be more pastoral and
pleasant than this Situation; nor more
rational and delightful than the manner
of living in this Mansion. I never saw more
unaffected piety in principle, set off and
illustrated by more practical charity and
goodneʃs. There is a little room in the
Park devoted to the reception of sick beggars,
many a wretched wayfaring Woman comes
there to lie in, and many a houseleʃs
Vagrant to die.
After our social rides and walks are
over, I wander out by myself late in the
Evening to enjoy the Honeysuckles and
the Nightingales, in all the Luxury of
Solitudes; those good Natured little Extempore
Poets have not yet done singing, and I have
a prodigious paʃsion for them.
To day we are going to drink Tea with
Lady Harriet Conyers; to morrow we go to the
Bishop of Chester's; he has a sweet Parsonage
three miles from hence where he lives in
all the primitive simplicity of a little
Country Clergyman. I shall go to hear him
preach on Sunday which he constantly does;
and so good and kind is he that he will preach
for a sick Curate any where about the
Country.
I have undertaken to read Miʃs Seward's
Louisa[1] to the Company, I have only got
half way thro' it, and it is amusing
enough to hear the different Criticisms, and
to see the different effects the Poem has
upon my Audience, some crying and some
censuring. This is my third time of going
thro' it, no cold Eloge I think. Indeeds it
exhibits a glowing imagination, and there is a
great deal of good Picturesque description
There are two paʃsages, which I think wou'd
have come better from the Pen of a Man
if they must have been written at all.
I dont think I am a Prude, but yet I
think I wou'd rather not write quite so
well on certain Subjects; I like alway[s]
to see the Author the Subordinate Char[acter]
the Woman shou'd still be the first; bu[t]
I suppose there is an impulse in grea[t]
Talents and high Sensibility which it is har[d]
for people who really poʃseʃs them to restrain
and it is easy for me to censure the
overflowings of an Imagination I do not
poʃseʃs. -- Write to me and let me know
who you have seen, and what parties you hav[e]
been at -- We shall stay here till Monda[y]
Morning. Adieu my dear friend -- I am
going to see a very fine Conservatory in
this neighbourhood so must bid you farewell
H More
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
Teston near Maidstone
June 8th. 1784
I have at last sent
You, my dear friend, the Nonsense you
desired; You remember, I hope, the hard
Conditions on which you obtained my
promise to give it you, namely that You
were to copy it for yourself, and send this
Copy to our dear Mrs. Carter or vice versa: it was a
hard bargain and I pity You.
I am so delighted with every thing and
Person in this place that I have wished
for you more than once since I have been here. I was
so ignorant and unjust As to fancy that
Kent was not a fine County, but I heartily
recant. Nothing can be more pastoral and
pleasant than this Situation; nor more
rational and delightful than the manner
of living in this Mansion. I never saw more
unaffected piety in principle, set off and
illustrated by more practical charity and
goodness. There is a little room in the
Park devoted to the reception of sick beggars,
many a wretched wayfaring Woman comes
there to lie in, and many a houseless
Vagrant to die.
After our social rides and walks are
over, I wander out by myself late in the
Evening to enjoy the Honeysuckles and
the Nightingales, in all the Luxury of
Solitude; those good Natured little Extempore
Poets have not yet done singing, and I have
a prodigious passion for them.
To day we are going to drink Tea with
Lady Harriet Conyers; to morrow we go to the
Bishop of Chester's; he has a sweet Parsonage
three miles from hence where he lives in
all the primitive simplicity of a little
Country Clergyman. I shall go to hear him
preach on Sunday which he constantly does;
and so good and kind is he that he will preach
for a sick Curate any where about the
Country.
I have undertaken to read Miss Seward's
Louisa to the Company, I have only got
half way through it, and it is amusing
enough to hear the different Criticisms, and
to see the different effects the Poem has
upon my Audience, some crying and some
censuring. This is my third time of going
through it, no cold Eloge I think. Indeed it
exhibits a glowing imagination, and there is a
great deal of good Picturesque description
There are two passages, which I think would
have come better from the Pen of a Man
if they must have been written at all.
I don't think I am a Prude, but yet I
think I would rather not write quite so
well on certain Subjects; I like always
to see the Author the Subordinate Character
the Woman should still be the first; but
I suppose there is an impulse in great
Talents and high Sensibility which it is hard
for people who really possess them to restrain
and it is easy for me to censure the
overflowings of an Imagination I do not
possess. -- Write to me and let me know
who you have seen, and what parties you have
been at -- We shall stay here till Monday
Morning. Adieu my dear friend -- I am
going to see a very fine Conservatory in
this neighbourhood so must bid you farewell
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 147
Correspondence Details
Sender: Hannah More
Place sent: Teston
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 8 June 1784
Letter Description
Summary: More, Hannah, 1745-1833. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton; Teston near Maidstone, 1784 June 8.
Length: 1 sheet, 540 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