Diplomatic Text
Wensday 1 Octbr- 1788 --
I am oblig'd to go to Lonn this Morning my Dear Madam, so that I
cannot wait on You in the Evening, but ʃhou'd be very glad of the favor of
seeing You Here, which I must not hope for (I doubt) but to Morrow
I depend on seeing You & Mr. Dickenson at 4 o clock, & I have taken the
liberty to tell yr Friend Mr W——alpole who He wou'd find if He were graciously dispos'd
towards our petit Couvert[1] Bon Jour
Honble.
Mrs. Boscawen
1st. Octbr. 1788[3]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. A ‘couvert’ (or ‘cover’ in English) concerns ‘The utensils laid for each person's use at table; the plate, napkin, knife, fork, spoon, etc.’ (OED s.v. couvert n. Accessed 17-08-2020). In addition, a ‘petit couvert’ was a public dinner at the French court, where the king and queen would sit and eat, whereas a ‘grand couvert’ would include other members of the royal family (cf. The London Magazine, vol. 4, 1785 [January-June]). Perhaps the mention of a ‘petit couvert’ here is referring to this courtly tradition in France.
2. This line appears on the back of the letter at the top third of the page. The addressee's name is split in three, with three different orientations, by unfolding.
3. This annotation is written vertically in the left-hand margin of the page.
Normalised Text
Wednesday
I am obliged to go to London this Morning my Dear Madam, so that I
cannot wait on You in the Evening, but should be very glad of the favour of
seeing You Here, which I must not hope for (I doubt) but to Morrow
I depend on seeing You & Mr. Dickenson at 4 o'clock, & I have taken the
liberty to tell your Friend Mr Walpole who He would find if He were graciously disposed
towards our petit Couvert Bon Jour
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester
Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers
Item title: Note from Frances Evelyn Boscawen to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/6/1/7
Correspondence Details
Sender: Frances Evelyn Boscawen (née Glanville)
Place sent: unknown
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 1 October 1788
Letter Description
Summary: Note from Frances Evelyn Boscawen to Mary Hamilton. She is unable to call on Hamilton as she is obliged to go to London but writes that she hopes to see her and Mr Dickenson at her home at 4 o'clock the following day and that she has taken the liberty of telling her friend Mr W [probably Horace Walpole] who he may expect to see if he comes as well.
Length: 1 sheet, 87 words
Transliteration Information
Editorial declaration: First edited 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: Tino Oudesluijs, editorial team (completed 17 August 2020)
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: 2 November 2021