Diplomatic Text
My dear Friend!
A multitude of Engagements,
among the principal of which I reckon the
concerns of my poor Poeteʃs, have so filled up
my time and occupied my mind, that I have
hardly had leisure to write a line even to You.
I honour you for the warm Sensibility you discover
in the cause of this delightful Enthusiast; but
I shall not take advantage of your feelings to
pick your Pocket because I well know how many
demands your bountiful heart has upon its
generosity; but tho I shan't allow your own Purse
Strings to open, yet I shall be thankful to You
to aʃsist me in untying those of some of our
friends when You get to Town, and dear Mrs.
Carter has offered her aʃsistance, in the same cause
And did the charming Duchess and her charming
friend Mrs: Delany really shed tears over the wild Wood Notes
of this moaning Nightingale? That testimony
to her talents and her distreʃses, is beyond all
words. I have written on her Subject to our friends
Mr. Walpole, Mrs. Boscawen, Mr. Smelt, Mrs. Montagu
Pepys and a few others who very kindly offer me
their Aʃsistance and have begun a little
Subscription. I am exceedingly at a loʃs what
to do with her; she has Six pretty little children
and a husband so stupid as to be incapable
of any but the most slavish and least profitable
employments; she is eight and twenty, slender and
not ill made; her face plain but not disagreeable,
her countenance rather pensive than sad, her
pronunciation vulgar and provincial, but her
taste uncommonly accurate and her Sentiments
very noble, And we have had an opportunity
of discovering that her principles are haughtily
just. The Night-Thoughts and the Paradise Lost[1]
are the Two Poems which she is best acquainted
with, and on which she has formed her own Style
and the Structure of her Verse. But the holy
Scriptures, that rich and inexhaustible Treasury
of divine Wisdom and Knowledge, have been the chief
Object of her Study, and the Source of her Information
These have inriched her language, & enlarged her
Conceptions; and I am charmed to see how much
an illiterate Christian rises superior to all the Wit and
learning, and Wisdom falsely so called of the
Pagan World. -- She knows nothing of Pope
but his Eloisa,[2] and Dryden was quite new to
her till I lately put his Tales into her
Hands; with which she is charmed beyond Expreʃsion
I shall inclose as large Extracts from her
Poems as the Frank will bear, en attendant that
I can have the honour and pleasure of shewi[ng]
the whole to your noble Hosteʃs, dear Mrs. D. or
Yourself. I have some thoughts, if my friends
do not disapprove it, of publishing a smal[l]
Volume in the Spring of the best of her Poem[s]
and that I doubt not will bring in a tolerable
Sum, but I have not determined about this
To morrow I go to Bath to Mrs. Montag[u]
for a few days; but any letter directed t[o]
me at Bristol before the 5th. of Decbr. will
find me. About that time I propose to go
to Hampton.
My best respects attend Your excellent Party
Adieu my dear Friend
Yours most faithfully
and affectionately
H More
Bristol Nov 24th. 1784
recd at the Dʃs Dowg of Portlands at Bulstrode
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
My dear Friend!
A multitude of Engagements,
among the principal of which I reckon the
concerns of my poor Poetess, have so filled up
my time and occupied my mind, that I have
hardly had leisure to write a line even to You.
I honour you for the warm Sensibility you discover
in the cause of this delightful Enthusiast; but
I shall not take advantage of your feelings to
pick your Pocket because I well know how many
demands your bountiful heart has upon its
generosity; but though I shan't allow your own Purse
Strings to open, yet I shall be thankful to You
to assist me in untying those of some of our
friends when You get to Town, and dear Mrs.
Carter has offered her assistance, in the same cause
And did the charming Duchess and her charming
friend Mrs: Delany really shed tears over the wild Wood Notes
of this moaning Nightingale? That testimony
to her talents and her distresses, is beyond all
words. I have written on her Subject to our friends
Mr. Walpole, Mrs. Boscawen, Mr. Smelt, Mrs. Montagu
Pepys and a few others who very kindly offer me
their Assistance and have begun a little
Subscription. I am exceedingly at a loss what
to do with her; she has Six pretty little children
and a husband so stupid as to be incapable
of any but the most slavish and least profitable
employments; she is eight and twenty, slender and
not ill made; her face plain but not disagreeable,
her countenance rather pensive than sad, her
pronunciation vulgar and provincial, but her
taste uncommonly accurate and her Sentiments
very noble, And we have had an opportunity
of discovering that her principles are haughtily
just. The Night-Thoughts and the Paradise Lost
are the Two Poems which she is best acquainted
with, and on which she has formed her own Style
and the Structure of her Verse. But the holy
Scriptures, that rich and inexhaustible Treasury
of divine Wisdom and Knowledge, have been the chief
Object of her Study, and the Source of her Information
These have enriched her language, & enlarged her
Conceptions; and I am charmed to see how much
an illiterate Christian rises superior to all the Wit and
learning, and Wisdom falsely so called of the
Pagan World. -- She knows nothing of Pope
but his Eloisa, and Dryden was quite new to
her till I lately put his Tales into her
Hands; with which she is charmed beyond Expression
I shall enclose as large Extracts from her
Poems as the Frank will bear, en attendant that
I can have the honour and pleasure of showing
the whole to your noble Hostess, dear Mrs. D. or
Yourself. I have some thoughts, if my friends
do not disapprove it, of publishing a small
Volume in the Spring of the best of her Poems
and that I doubt not will bring in a tolerable
Sum, but I have not determined about this
To morrow I go to Bath to Mrs. Montagu
for a few days; but any letter directed to
me at Bristol before the 5th. of December will
find me. About that time I propose to go
to Hampton.
My best respects attend Your excellent Party
Adieu my dear Friend
Yours most faithfully
and affectionately
Hannah More
Bristol November 24th.
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 155
Correspondence Details
Sender: Hannah More
Place sent: Bristol
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Gerrards Cross
Date sent: 24 November 1784
Letter Description
Summary: More, Hannah, 1745-1833. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton; Bristol, 1784 November 24.
Length: 1 sheet, 555 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: 25 October 2022