Diplomatic Text
15/1
[2] [3]
[4]
Mama desires her kindest Love to you and best
Compts. to Mr. Dickenson in which I beg to
unite. I hope dear little Louisa does not forget
the family of the Aʃses who all wish much
to see her & love her dearly --
Have you heard that two of our Northampton:
:shire Ladies are going to be married? one is [5]
Extract from Darwin's Poem
The Loves of the Plants
“ -- So now Delany forms her mimic Bowers,
Her Paper Foliage, and her silken Flowers;
Her Virgin Train the tender Sciʃsars ply,
Vein the green leaf, the purple Petal dye:
Bound wiry Stems the flaxen tendril bends,
Moʃs creeps below, and waxen Fruit impends.
Cold Winter views amid his realms of Snow
Delany's vegetable Statues blow;
Smooth's his stern brow, delays his hoary wing,
And Eyes with wonder all the Blooms of Spring[6]
Mama desires I will add in Case you have
not seen this Poem, that it is a very curious
Production of Genius, and the Poetr[y] fine.[7]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. The address is written vertically.
2. Postmark ‘Northampton’ in black ink to the right of the address.
3. Large number 4 in manuscript denoting postage due.
4. Remains of a wafer or seal.
5. The rest of the text is missing.
6. The Loves of the Plants was first published anonymously in 1789 and it was not until 1791 that Darwin was acknowledged as the author. However, Darwin was an acquaintance of Hamilton's, and Elizabeth Iremonger mentions him as the author when discussing the poem in September and October 1789 (see HAM/1/8/1/4 and HAM/1/8/1/5).
7. The rest of the sheet has been torn away, giving no indication of the identity of the author. Although this letter has been grouped with Mary Delany's correspondence, the hand is not that of Delany, nor of her niece Georgina Mary Ann Port, and it is possible that this fragment was included with Delany's correspondence purely because of Darwin's poem, which mentions her.
Normalised Text
Taxal
Chapel le Frith
Derbyshire
Single
Mama desires her kindest Love to you and best
Compliments to Mr. Dickenson in which I beg to
unite. I hope dear little Louisa does not forget
the family of the Asses who all wish much
to see her & love her dearly --
Have you heard that two of our Northamptonshire
Ladies are going to be married? one is
“ -- So now Delany forms her mimic Bowers,
Her Paper Foliage, and her silken Flowers;
Her Virgin Train the tender Scissors ply,
Vein the green leaf, the purple Petal dye:
Bound wiry Stems the flaxen tendril bends,
Moss creeps below, and waxen Fruit impends.
Cold Winter views amid his realms of Snow
Delany's vegetable Statues blow;
Smooth's his stern brow, delays his hoary wing,
And Eyes with wonder all the Blooms of Spring
Mama desires I will add in Case you have
not seen this Poem, that it is a very curious
Production of Genius, and the Poetry fine.
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: Fragment of letter addressed to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/6/3/6
Correspondence Details
Sender:
Place sent: Northampton
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Taxal, near Chapel-en-le-Frith
Date sent: between February 1787 and 1793
notBefore February 1787 (precision: high)
notAfter 1793 (precision: high)
Letter Description
Summary: Fragment of letter addressed to Mary Hamilton, containing a 10-line extract from Darwin's poem
The Loves of the Plants
, which was published anonymously in 1789 [Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), physician and natural philosopher].
Below the poem is the note, 'Mama desires I will add in Case you have not seen this Poem, that is a very curious Production of Genius, and the Poetry fine'.
Length: 1 sheet, 166 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: Christine Wallis, editorial team (completed 25 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