Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

MS Eng 1778 164

Letter from Hannah More to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


                                                         Eveg Marriage[1]


                                                         1st 2d June 1785[2]
My dear friend

      Mrs. Garrick desires me
to say that if You can put up with the
[m]ost miserable accommodations in the World
[s]he shall be vastly happy if her house
[can]n be of service to You -- but You must
[be] contented with my Apartment, it a[3]
[g]ood dreʃsing Room, and a little closet
[&] a bed chamber; a little dreʃsing Room
[fo]r a certain Blackamoor[4] at top of
[t]he house, and the eating Room below,
[b]ut all in bad order, but this I have told
[h]er you dont mind -- She insists upon
[i]t that You do not think of ordering any
[t]hing from the Tavern she wou'd never forgive
[su]ch a thing, if youShe insists upon furnishing
[y]our little Larder, and if You can be


contented with plain roast and boil'd snap[5]
as the Old Woman can atchieve, for Yo[u]
will have no other Servants -- She order[s]
You not to marry within a fortnight
if you wish to have a clean cloth at
Your wedding dinner, for till we return fro[m]
Kent she cant get any linnen from Hamp[ton]
but I have aʃsured her you will wait fo[r]
so important a consideration. -- As soon [as]
You know Yourself, give us notice as to th[e]
time, that your Shabby apartment may [be]
ready for You. -- I long to hear of
Your happy meeting -- both our love[s]
to the bien aimé.

      Send my Bible. Let us[6] a long letter to
Teston -- Yours my dear friend,
                             most faithfully & affectionately
                                                         H More

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


Notes


 1. This annotation appears in a separate piece of paper in the middle of the page.
 2. The ‘1’ (but not the ‘st’) seems to have been erased. The hand is more probably Hamilton's than More's.
 3. There is a word missing here; perhaps ‘it has a’ or ‘with a’ was intended.
 4. Hamilton records in her diary that ‘Mrs G[arrick] calls You her dear Blackamoor’ (see HAM/2/15/3 p.22 col.1, entry for 11 January 1785).
 5. ‘A slight or hasty meal or mouthful; a snack’ (OED s.v. snap n. 4. Accessed 25-03-2022).
 6. There is a discontinuity here; perhaps ‘Let us have’ was intended.

Normalised Text


                                                        


                                                        
My dear friend

      Mrs. Garrick desires me
to say that if You can put up with the
most miserable accommodations in the World
she shall be vastly happy if her house
cann be of service to You -- but You must
be contented with my Apartment, it a
good dressing Room, and a little closet
& a bed chamber; a little dressing Room
for a certain Blackamoor at top of
the house, and the eating Room below,
but all in bad order, but this I have told
her you don't mind -- She insists upon
it that You do not think of ordering any
thing from the Tavern she would never forgive
such a thing, She insists upon furnishing
your little Larder, and if You can be


contented with plain roast and boiled snap
as the Old Woman can achieve, for You
will have no other Servants -- She orders
You not to marry within a fortnight
if you wish to have a clean cloth at
Your wedding dinner, for till we return from
Kent she can't get any linen from Hampton
but I have assured her you will wait for
so important a consideration. -- As soon as
You know Yourself, give us notice as to the
time, that your Shabby apartment may be
ready for You. -- I long to hear of
Your happy meeting -- both our loves
to the bien aimé.

      Send my Bible. Let us a long letter to
Teston -- Yours my dear friend,
                             most faithfully & affectionately
                                                         Hannah More

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



 1. This annotation appears in a separate piece of paper in the middle of the page.
 2. The ‘1’ (but not the ‘st’) seems to have been erased. The hand is more probably Hamilton's than More's.
 3. There is a word missing here; perhaps ‘it has a’ or ‘with a’ was intended.
 4. Hamilton records in her diary that ‘Mrs G[arrick] calls You her dear Blackamoor’ (see HAM/2/15/3 p.22 col.1, entry for 11 January 1785).
 5. ‘A slight or hasty meal or mouthful; a snack’ (OED s.v. snap n. 4. Accessed 25-03-2022).
 6. There is a discontinuity here; perhaps ‘Let us have’ was intended.

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 164

Correspondence Details

Sender: Hannah More

Place sent: unknown

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 2 June 1785

Letter Description

Summary: More, Hannah, 1745-1833. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton, 1785 June 2.
   

Length: 2 sheets, 249 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

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