Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/15/2/16

Letter from Mary Hamilton to Charlotte Margaret Gunning

Diplomatic Text


14

7th June 1781

My Dearest love -- I do not find myself stout enough
this Eveg to venture out for ye. first time, besides I
am low & an unfit visitor for you; I hope my love
You heard I sent last night & this Morng. -- the accounts
from You were very uncomfortable, & Dr.  -  & Mr. D-
told me they found you still ye. same, & still  ------ 
imagin'd you wd. have the Measles.      I send a Book
for Yor. amusement, I hope you have not seen it,
Lettice can read it to you, for I do not suppose you
ought, & indeed I fear cannot read long togetherat a time Your-
self -- If you have every made the different Stiles of the
Great Masters your Painters Your study, this Book
cannot fail of entertaining you, & if you have
not it will still amuse you as the language is good
& there is a vivacity that keeps up ye. attention --
add to this, it was written by young Beckford.[1]
                             Adieu my Dear Dear friend
                             God grant You a speedy recovery.
                                                         MirandaMary Hamilton[2]
7th. June 1781



Honble. Miʃs
      Gunning

7th June
1781[3]

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


Notes


 1. William Thomas Beckford wrote the Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters (1780).
 2. The annotator has crossed out ‘Miranda’ and substituted ‘Mary Hamilton’ below.
 3. The date is written vertically in the right-hand margin of the page.

Normalised Text




My Dearest love -- I do not find myself stout enough
this Evening to venture out for the first time, besides I
am low & an unfit visitor for you; I hope my love
You heard I sent last night & this Morning -- the accounts
from You were very uncomfortable, & Dr.  -  & Mr. D-
told me they found you still the same, & still
imagined you would have the Measles.      I send a Book
for Your amusement, I hope you have not seen it,
Lettice can read it to you, for I do not suppose you
ought, & indeed I fear cannot read long at a time Yourself
 -- If you have ever made the different Styles of the
Great Painters Your study, this Book
cannot fail of entertaining you, & if you have
not it will still amuse you as the language is good
& there is a vivacity that keeps up the attention --
add to this, it was written by young Beckford.
                             Adieu my Dear Dear friend
                             God grant You a speedy recovery.
                                                         Miranda
7th. June 1781



Honourable Miss
      Gunning

7th June
1781

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



 1. William Thomas Beckford wrote the Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters (1780).
 2. The annotator has crossed out ‘Miranda’ and substituted ‘Mary Hamilton’ below.
 3. The date is written vertically in the right-hand margin of the page.

Metadata

Library References

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

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from Mary Hamilton to Charlotte Margaret Gunning

Shelfmark: HAM/1/15/2/16

Correspondence Details

Sender: Mary Hamilton

Place sent: unknown

Addressee: Charlotte Margaret Digby (née Gunning)

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 7 June 1781

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Mary Hamilton to Charlotte Gunning. She has been concerned about Gunning's health. She herself is not 'stout enough this Eve[nin]g to venture out for the first time'. Instead she sends a book on 'Great Painters' by 'young Beckford' [William Beckford's Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters (1780)] to keep Gunning amused while recovering from illness. 'If you have every made the different Stiles of the Great Painters Your study, this Book cannot fail of entertaining you, & if you have not it will still amuse you as the language is good & there is a vivacity that keeps up ye. attention'.
    Original reference No. 14.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 184 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: Gabrielle Royle, 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: 10 December 2021

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