Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/7/11/4

Letter from the Duchess of Portland to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text

[1]
                             My Dear Friends the Ducʃs. Dowgr. of
                             Portland & Mrs. Delany always called Mr
Dickenson the King of Poland -- as they thought he resembled him.

We hope the King of P. will stay till
twelveth day and that you will be Queen,
you have pushed him about so much that
he would not condescend to a vulgar
beef stake but for a particular relish
he knows he shall meet with.
wou'd you believe it my Dear Miʃs Hamilton
the D. D. G.[2] ordered a poor rook to be shot
to death & a whole Colony frighten'd
out of their wits who were all starving
for picking up a few grains of Corn
from the Hares[3] whilst the screaming
Peacocks squalling Guineas Cackling
Bantams gobbled it all up with
impunity
we don't doubt you have had a merry Xmas
& return your kind wishes with great
Warmth Mrs D. says that must be very
acceptable it is sufficient to have the word
                                                         warmth


warmth in it We don't know what your
fashions are in London but ours are three
Handkerchiefs four Cloaks hoods to
the tip of our Nose besides spectacles
an Oxonian is just entered & must
put an end to the Chatter of your affectionate
                                                         MC Portland
he has told us strange reports
I shall be impatient to meet my Dearest Friend
on thursday at Dinner in St James's place I shall set down our dear friend
on Wednesday & go home directly. rejoyce Ldy S. little Boy
is recovered[4] may every thing tend to the
Happineʃs of my Dear Freind & the K. of
Poland to whom I beg you will make my
Compts acceptable
Bullstrode Sunday night Decbr 26th: 1784



To
      Miʃs Hamilton
           Clarges Street


Dʃs. Dr Portland
Decbr. 84[5]

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


Notes


 1. This letter has been copied almost in its entirety into a diary entry intended for Hamilton's future husband, John Dickenson (HAM/2/15/3 pp.3-4).
 2. Perhaps the first two letters stand for ‘Dowager Duchess's' or ‘Duchess Dowager's’, and the third for ‘Gamekeeper’ or ‘Gardener’.
 3. This word, which has been retraced in the manuscript, probably by Hamilton, was first transcribed as Wazes, a dialect word for ‘wisp or bundle of straw or reeds’ (OED s.v. wase n.) However, the copy in HAM/2/15/3 confirms the reading Hares.
 4. This may be a reference to one of Lady Stormont's four sons, perhaps Henry, mentioned in a letter of 16 December 1784 as due to be inoculated (HAM/1/18/110).
 5. These two lines are written vertically in the left margin of p.3.

Normalised Text


                            

We hope the King of Poland will stay till
twelfth day and that you will be Queen,
you have pushed him about so much that
he would not condescend to a vulgar
beef steak but for a particular relish
he knows he shall meet with.
would you believe it my Dear Miss Hamilton
the D. D. G. ordered a poor rook to be shot
to death & a whole Colony frightened
out of their wits who were all starving
for picking up a few grains of Corn
from the Hares whilst the screaming
Peacocks squalling Guineas Cackling
Bantams gobbled it all up with
impunity
we don't doubt you have had a merry Christmas
& return your kind wishes with great
Warmth Mrs Delany says that must be very
acceptable it is sufficient to have the word
                                                        


warmth in it We don't know what your
fashions are in London but ours are three
Handkerchiefs four Cloaks hoods to
the tip of our Nose besides spectacles
an Oxonian is just entered & must
put an end to the Chatter of your affectionate
                                                         Margaret Cavendish Portland
he has told us strange reports
I shall be impatient to meet my Dearest Friend
on thursday at Dinner in St James's place I shall set down our dear friend
on Wednesday & go home directly. rejoice Lady S. little Boy
is recovered may every thing tend to the
Happiness of my Dear Friend & the King of
Poland to whom I beg you will make my
compliments acceptable
Bulstrode Sunday night December 26th: 1784



To
      Miss Hamilton
           Clarges Street


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



 1. This letter has been copied almost in its entirety into a diary entry intended for Hamilton's future husband, John Dickenson (HAM/2/15/3 pp.3-4).
 2. Perhaps the first two letters stand for ‘Dowager Duchess's' or ‘Duchess Dowager's’, and the third for ‘Gamekeeper’ or ‘Gardener’.
 3. This word, which has been retraced in the manuscript, probably by Hamilton, was first transcribed as Wazes, a dialect word for ‘wisp or bundle of straw or reeds’ (OED s.v. wase n.) However, the copy in HAM/2/15/3 confirms the reading Hares.
 4. This may be a reference to one of Lady Stormont's four sons, perhaps Henry, mentioned in a letter of 16 December 1784 as due to be inoculated (HAM/1/18/110).
 5. These two lines are written vertically in the left margin of p.3.

Metadata

Library References

Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from the Duchess of Portland to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/7/11/4

Correspondence Details

Sender: Margaret Bentinck (née Cavendish-Harley), Duchess of Portland

Place sent: Gerrards Cross

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: London

Date sent: 26 December 1784

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from the Duchess of Portland to Mary Hamilton, concerning general news. The Duchess writes of Hamilton's husband and of fashions in London. She also notes her incredulity that a rook was ordered to be shot [presumably by the gamekeeper on her estate] and 'a whole Colony frighten[e]d out of their wits' to stop them picking at the grains of corn, whilst the same grain was left to be 'gobbled [...] up with impunity' by 'screaming Peacocks' and other birds.
    A note written in Hamilton's hand at the top of the letter states that the Duchess Dowager of Portland and Mrs Delany [Mary Delany (née Granville) (1700-1788), English Bluestocking, artist, and letter-writer] always called Hamilton's husband, John Dickenson, the 'King of Poland – as they thought he resembled him'.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 263 words

Transliteration Information

Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Image to Text' (David Denison & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2013-2019), now 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: XML version: Research Assistant funding in 2014/15 and 2015/16 provided by the Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Manchester.

Research assistant: Donald Alasdair Morrison, undergraduate student, University of Manchester

Transliterator: Lauren Thomas, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted November 2014)

Cataloguer: Lisa Crawley, Archivist, The John Rylands Library

Cataloguer: John Hodgson, Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Research Institute and Library

Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors

Revision date: 30 April 2022

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