Diplomatic Text
Bristol July 5 1785
I have been sick, my dear
friend, and I wou'd not disturb with any thing so
inauspicious as sickneʃs the first moment of your
happineʃs, a happineʃs which I sincerely believe
and heartily hope, will be as durable as your life.
My warmest congratulations and most affectionate good
wishes attend you both. I was vastly happy to be
delivered from the secret of your marriage with which
I groaned and travailed. While I was at Mrs. Boscawen's
we went to Ken Wood[1], there I flatter'd myself it wou'd
all come out, for Mrs. Boscawen had been continually
inquiring when your happy day was to be, but I pleaded
ignorance with the most natural air in the world. -- At
Ken Wood however no discoveries were made, Lord
Stormont had been very faithful to You. His lovely
daughter said, in being preʃsed to tell the day, that
she hoped it wou'd be soon, but she did not at all know when
In paʃsing thro' Town, I received your kind little Note,
which I intended to have answered at Oxford, but
I behaved very ill there and kept my bed the whole
time; however dont waste any compaʃsion on me,
for I am tolerably well again. -- I return You a thousand
thanks for the most precious of all books, a present
I shall value thro' time and thro' Eternity; a present
which adds the highest value and confers the truest
lustre on our friendship by informing us that it
shall be immortal. A pleasant consideration this, and
one that is worth cherishing, more than the busineʃs
and bustle of the world allows us to cherish it.
I long to know the history of your life and adventures
since we parted; every thing that relates to You
will be interesting to me. remember I left you
setting off for your little retirement in the Country;
where did you go? how long do you stay in town?
I had a letter, need I say a very agreeable
one, from Mr. Walpole, he told me he had
seen you well, and that he was terribly afraid You
wou'd make an excellent Wife, tho' the treatment
our dear Mrs. Vesey had met with from her
abominable husband was enough to turn the whole
Sex sour. He has made me quite rich and proud
by his elegant present of books. I have read again
the Mysterious Mother,[2] with fresh admiration
of ------ writing, which is indeed admirable, and
wi[th] fresh regret at his choice of a Story,
objections to which cannot ever be got over. But the
more I read it the more I am surprised and
sorry that he never shou'd have turned his
thoughts to dramatic Writing; in point of
character, and dialogue I think it much superior
to any thing on the Modern Stage, and he has
certainly seized the true Spirit of compositions of
this sort, The curiosity is excited to a degree
of impatience, and the interest never slack[ens]
and he has contrived to throw more dignity round tha[t]
excellent-execrable Woman than other Poets h[ave]
given to their unstained characters.
▼
I am disappointed of A frank, but won't wait for it any long[er]
Mrs. Montagu is with Mrs. Garrick -- Let me know where Mrs.
Vesey is and all about her, that I may write to her.[3] I have
this moment a visit from the Russian Prince Galitzin[4] -- do you
know him? -- write soon. Commend me kindly to Mr. Dickenson
pray give my Compts to Miʃs Clarke Yrs. most truly H More
[5]
[6]
[7]
To
Mrs. Dickenson[8]
Clarges Street
Piccadilly
London[9]
[10]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Kenwood in Hampstead, London, also known at the time as Caen Wood, seat of the Earl of Mansfield (see Edward Walford, ‘Hampstead: Caen Wood and north end’, in Old and New London (London, 1878), Vol.5, pp.438-449. British History Online. Accessed 08-03-2021).
2. Written by Horace Walpole and first published in 1768.
3. Mr. Vesey had died a month before this letter.
4. Probably Prince Dmitri Alexeievich Gallitzin (1728-1803), a Russian diplomat, author and mineralogist. Hannah More also mentions him as one of many foreign visitors to her party in a letter to Mr. Pepys dated 1785 (see William Robert, Esq. (ed.), Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs. Hannah More, Vol. 1, p.210).
5. Remains of a seal, in red wax.
6. Remains of a stamp, reading ‘6 JY’.
7. Remains of a stamp, reading ‘BRISTOL’.
8. A large ‘5’ has been written to the right of the address, likely indicating postage due.
9. Moved address here from middle of page, written vertically.
10. Remains of a seal, in red wax.
Normalised Text
Bristol July 5 1785
I have been sick, my dear
friend, and I would not disturb with any thing so
inauspicious as sickness the first moment of your
happiness, a happiness which I sincerely believe
and heartily hope, will be as durable as your life.
My warmest congratulations and most affectionate good
wishes attend you both. I was vastly happy to be
delivered from the secret of your marriage with which
I groaned and travailed. While I was at Mrs. Boscawen's
we went to Ken Wood, there I flattered myself it would
all come out, for Mrs. Boscawen had been continually
inquiring when your happy day was to be, but I pleaded
ignorance with the most natural air in the world. -- At
Ken Wood however no discoveries were made, Lord
Stormont had been very faithful to You. His lovely
daughter said, in being pressed to tell the day, that
she hoped it would be soon, but she did not at all know when
In passing through Town, I received your kind little Note,
which I intended to have answered at Oxford, but
I behaved very ill there and kept my bed the whole
time; however don't waste any compassion on me,
for I am tolerably well again. -- I return You a thousand
thanks for the most precious of all books, a present
I shall value through time and through Eternity; a present
which adds the highest value and confers the truest
lustre on our friendship by informing us that it
shall be immortal. A pleasant consideration this, and
one that is worth cherishing, more than the business
and bustle of the world allows us to cherish it.
I long to know the history of your life and adventures
since we parted; every thing that relates to You
will be interesting to me. remember I left you
setting off for your little retirement in the Country;
where did you go? how long do you stay in town?
I had a letter, need I say a very agreeable
one, from Mr. Walpole, he told me he had
seen you well, and that he was terribly afraid You
would make an excellent Wife, though the treatment
our dear Mrs. Vesey had met with from her
abominable husband was enough to turn the whole
Sex sour. He has made me quite rich and proud
by his elegant present of books. I have read again
the Mysterious Mother, with fresh admiration
of ------ writing, which is indeed admirable, and
with fresh regret at his choice of a Story,
objections to which cannot ever be got over. But the
more I read it the more I am surprised and
sorry that he never should have turned his
thoughts to dramatic Writing; in point of
character, and dialogue I think it much superior
to any thing on the Modern Stage, and he has
certainly seized the true Spirit of compositions of
this sort, The curiosity is excited to a degree
of impatience, and the interest never slackens
and he has contrived to throw more dignity round that
excellent-execrable Woman than other Poets have
given to their unstained characters.
▼
I am disappointed of A frank, but won't wait for it any longer
Mrs. Montagu is with Mrs. Garrick -- Let me know where Mrs.
Vesey is and all about her, that I may write to her. I have
this moment a visit from the Russian Prince Galitzin -- do you
know him? -- write soon. Commend me kindly to Mr. Dickenson
pray give my Compliments to Miss Clarke Yours most truly Hannah More
To
Mrs. Dickenson
Clarges Street
Piccadilly
London
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 168
Correspondence Details
Sender: Hannah More
Place sent: Bristol
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: London
Date sent: 5 July 1785
Letter Description
Summary: More, Hannah, 1745-1833. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton; Bristol, 1785 July 5.
Length: 1 sheet, 598 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: 29 March 2024