Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/8/1/3

Letter from Elizabeth Iremonger to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


                             Bristol -- Wells. May 21 -- 1789 --

Dear Mrs- Dickenson,
      I do aʃsure You your Seven obliging Packets which I
recieved here would have been acknowleged more immediately by me, but then
I have been waiting for some information from Mrs- Iremonger about Mrs=
Walsingham to communicate to You in consequence of your particular
enquiries. But tho' dear Mrs- I—— writes to me very constantly, yet She
neglects answering me in this point; I will therefore hope She may have
written to You herself, & will now confide in my own Sources of Facts &
Ideas, scarce as they may be, rather than wait longer & appear ungrateful.
      Pray view my Paper, it is on several accounts remarkable, & of so large
a size, tho' not a Folio, that I hope You will give me some credit for
undertaking it. I enclose You a Letter I recieved a few months ago from
our Acquaintance Mr- Collier, & when I go to Wherwell, where I left his
Sonnets, I will certainly take an opportunity of sending You one of the Copies.
Pray tell me whether his “Riddle of a serious cast, a counterpart to that on
the Sigh” is amongst those You sent me? otherwise, I shall be glad if
You will indulge me with it, together with a Solution of the french
Riddles I return by this Post; & I have not ventured to copy out those
on the Sheet of Paper that contane so many, because I do not clearly know
whether each of them end at the bottom of a Page & are seperate, tho' I suspect
that, on the last Page is distinct, & that it means to describe Silence.
If You will correct me in these particulars, & lend me them once more, I
will thank You, & shall like to add them to my Collection. the other
few Manuscripts, which are all that remain from any hoards of mine, You
need not trouble Yourself ever to return me; they shall make part of
the Packets of Today; & the rest of Your's I shall beg to delay a little
longer. The Cenotaph Inscription which I enclose You appears to me strikingly


pretty in it's Mind. It is now time for me to account for the date of my
Letter from these Wells, which perhaps has surprised You. I came here
Six Weeks ago, with my friend Louisa Shipley, whose state of Health had been
an anxiety to me all the Winter, & who was at last ordered by Sr- G—— Baker
to try this air; I believe You know her admirable & tender attachment to her
Mother, & how cruel must have been the seperation under the circumstances too of
weak Health & Spirits, & Mrs- Shipley neceʃsarily detaned in or near Town, on
Family Busineʃs of a very disagreable Nature.[1] You will not wonder I believe
that the Sister You enquire after, did not become the companion here;[2] the habits
of intimacy between Louisa & me for many Years, have been far more those
of Sisters & Friends, & the office I therefore naturally felt was mine. And in
it, I have had the satisfaction of seeing her recover very eʃsentially, of paʃsing
my time with her exactly in the manner I like best, & in a beautiful country
which we never saw before, & which suits both our Tastes. I have visited
Mrs- Yearsley, but not yet Mrs- Chatterton. The former told me She had been
lately writing 4 Tragedies, & that one, entitled Goodwin would very soon come
forth on the Bristol Stage.[3] She put on a Diffidence in some of her ex=
-preʃsions at my first conversing with her, but I tho't I soon percieved
great want of it, when She condemned all our Poets, without discrimination
for not having done justice to the female Character, & that She could have
represented Elfrida in better colors than Mason did.[4] She said that Miʃs
More's friends & her own, had interfered between them improperly & did mischief
that could not now be rectified; but tho' she still spoke handsomely of
Miʃs Moore, yet she seemed upon the whole Self-satisfied, & not to feel the
coolneʃs, or betray those marks of zeal to have it made up, & understood,
which would have given me a better impreʃsion of her. -- I have been to
see Lord De Clifford's & Blaize Castle, the only expedition we have made;
but this, since my friend's amendment She was very well able to enjoy; &
We are quite Enthusiasts for Prospects such as we beheld there. The Latter
is in the smaller style of Elegance to which I am always partial, & which is
most apt to excite my Envy, for I am often inclined to think that to be
situated in the midst of beautiful Scenery, contributes a full half towards
the Happineʃs of Life, I am so sure of the effect it has on the Mind, of


enlarging, if it does not even give ideas; & of tranquilising the Spirits. I enjoy
on one side of us here, these sublime Rocks, & on the other the fine rich contrast
in Somersetshire, around the pretty Village of ashton,[5] where I walked one Morning
while Louisa Shipley rode there on a double Horse.[6] But I will dismiʃs You from
a Country I believe You are well acquainted with; & what I have said may serve
to convince You I am not incapable of entering with You into all the Delights
of your own, which I think abound around Taxal, if I recollect arightly what
You told me, & where I would not on any account interrupt Mr. J. Dickenson's
aʃsiduous Pursuits in Grove or Kitchen-garden, directed I suppose in turn to
Pleasure & Utility. I know him a little, for at wherwell I could discern
some traits of his Activity, & of his goodneʃs of heart, whenever the Gran pa
of Taxal, or your dear little Louisa were in question. I am sure You
will allow me to record this, & that You will tell him so, in return for his
french Songs & his Love. As I dare say He has not time at this season
for singing, I shall the leʃs scruple keeping the Songs till I return a few
Weeks hence to Wherwell, where I left my Musick Book, into which I mean
to introduce them. Neither my friend or I have an Acquaintance at this place,
nor do we covet it; It is reckoned full, but there is not a Name on the list
hardly that we know. There are 3 genteel looking Girls here, Miʃs Suttons
the Daughters of Lord G. Manners Sutton, with Mr- & Miʃs Lockwood.[7] He is a
pleasing looking Young Man, & is to marry the eldest Miʃs Sutton.[8] Miʃs Meynell[9]
is marrid, & gone with Mari & Mother & a large family of Dashwoods into
Switzerland. Miʃs Pelham is to marry Lord Lesley,[10] the Son of Lady Rothes.
He is near 10 years Younger than Miʃs P. & Lady Rothes does not much
approve, but means to make the best of it. Miʃs Pelham is lively, has been
kept very much constraned, & will I suspect now dash a little. The youngest
Miʃs Hubbard is to marry Mr- Desbrough Taylor; & two of the Lady Villiers's
to Lord Tichfield, & Lord W. Ruʃsel.[11] -- My little new Reading came out
during the Winter. You probably know that Mrs- Smith's Sonnets are come forth
with their additions; I have not seen them yet, as my edition is gone to
Wherwell, since I came here. We found the Library here of so very Trumpery[12]
a sort, that we subscribe to Bulls at Bath instead, & have our Books
from thence. Have You met with “Voyages d'Anacharsis en Gréce?” lately
come out?[13] & Mrs- I—— mentions in one of her letters to me that She is


reading with great delight the Botanical Garden or Loves of the Plants.[14]
Dearest Mrs- I—— (for you know how I love & respect her) has not been
this Winter in quite the comfortable health her best friends must wish her.
She has appeared extremely relaxed,[15] & complaned much of feeling so, & has
given herself more up to Indolence, than with her Constitution I fear is
advisable. She was blooded too for Giddineʃs in the head, & has been
much better since, but when such a Character is subject to such disorders,
it makes one particularly solicitous. My dear Father also had very severe
attacks of Cold the beginning of the Winter; they did not start from Town so
soon as usual, yet it is now some time that they have been in the Shades of Harewood.[16]
Little Catha' has been very tolerably well ever since the Walnut Season, when
she so ingeniously practised a little fineʃse to taste them; the effects soon shew'd
themselves, & to that I may say we had the comfort of attributing all the
pale looks which gave You alarm; But this is entre Nous, Vous & Moi, I
only let You into the Secret, because I know how truly interested You was
for her. She has had coughs in the Winter that have lasted one Day, but
not longer, She has been on the whole lively & well, but grows tall & thin.
shall I say I wish She had a little of your Louisa's breadth; pray give
her a “petit Baiser” for me. -- And thus far have I gained upon my paper
without one Word of the Royals, & tho' it may surprise You, I can scarcely
wonder at myself, I was so sick of the Subject while I was in Town. By
this I do not mean to insinuate that I did not feel interested, & on what
You & I should agree is the right side. But the shocking Reports & Nonsense
from the other Party; the warmth & Contradictions of each, in every Company
one went into was very unpleasant, & really fatiguing. I liked the
Illuminations exceʃsively, & had great pleasure in driving about to see them.
In some of my letters even from impartial People, it is said that the K——
is debilitated really almost to a state of Idiotism,[17] & that He is not likely
to live long. I know not what to believe, I can only tell, that from all the
observations I can make, & all the inference I can draw from what I hear
I shall be sorry for the fate of this Kingdom when the P. is at the head
of it. there has been a great quarrel between the D. of York, & Mr-
Lennox, it is said intended by the former to make him quit the Regiment.[18]
Adieu. As instead of a diʃsipated life in Town, I led a very quiet one amongst
particular friends it may apologise for the little News I send. Mrs- Carter seem'd
very well in the Winter, I saw her often. Your's sincerely
                                                         E. Iremonger. --

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


Notes


 1. Possibly related to her husband's estate; Jonathan Shipley had died in 1788.
 2. Presumably either Amelia or Elizabeth Shipley; Caroline Louisa Shipley's other two sisters were most probably living abroad at this date (Anna Maria Jones in India and Georgiana Hare Naylor in Europe).
 3. Earl Goodwin was produced at Bristol and Bath in November 1789, and subsequently published in 1791.
 4. The historical tragedy Elfrida was published in 1752.
 5. Unclear whether this is present-day Ashton (Somerset), a hamlet in the parish of Chapel Allerton (Sedgemoor district), or present-day Long Ashton in North Somerset.
 6. ‘A horse that carries two persons’ (OED s.v. double adj. 1.c. Accessed 15-12-2020).
 7. This is probably Frances Dorothy Lockwood, a cousin of Thomas Lockwood who was still known under this name at the time of writing, as it is currently unknown if Thomas Lockwood had a sister.
 8. Thomas Lockwood and Charlotte Manners-Sutton married on 16 June 1789, about a month after this letter was written.
 9. This may be Catherine Dorothy Meynell (1768-1838), who married Simon Thomas Scrope on 3 March 1789, two months before this letter was written.
 10. They married on 24 May 1789, three days after this letter was written.
 11. Lady Charlotte Villiers married Lord William Russell in 1789. The other sister mentioned must be Lady Anne Villiers, however she married William Lambton MP in 1791, not William Bentinck.
 12. ‘Of little or no value; trifling, paltry, insignificant; worthless, rubbishy, trashy’ (OED s.v. trumpery adj. B. Accessed 16-12-2020).
 13. Jean-Jacques Barthélemy published Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce, a fictional work about the travels of the Scythian sage Anacharsis in Greece in the middle of the 4th century BCE, in 1788.
 14. Erasmus Darwin published The Loves of the Plants anonymously in 1789. After its success, he published both Loves of the Plants and Economy of Vegetation together as The Botanic Garden in 1791.
 15. ‘Originally (of part or all of the body): rendered soft, slack, or feeble; (also) paralysed (obsolete)’ (OED s.v. relaxed adj. 1a. Accessed 15-12-2020).
 16. Another reference to William Mason's Elfrida.
 17. This is likely to refer to the state of the King between October 1788 and March 1789, during which George III likely suffered from acute mania (cf. T. J. Peters and A. Beveridge (2010), 'The blindness, deafness and madness of King George III: psychiatric interactions', The Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh 40 (1), pp.81-85. doi:10.4997/JRCPE.2010.116.
 18. The Duke of York complained about the King appointing Lennox to a company in the Duke's regiment without consulting him. As a result, Lennox challenged the Duke to a duel that occurred on 26 May 1789 on Wimbledon Common, five days after this letter was originally written. Lennox's bullet grazed the duke's curl, after which the Duke fired in the air, declaring that he had no animosity against Lennox, and had merely come out to give him satisfaction (see Lennox, Charles, Fourth Duke of Richmond and Fourth Duke of Lennox in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Accessed 10-12-2020).

Normalised Text


                             Bristol -- Wells. May 21 -- 1789 --

Dear Mrs- Dickenson,
      I do assure You your Seven obliging Packets which I
received here would have been acknowledged more immediately by me, but then
I have been waiting for some information from Mrs- Iremonger about Mrs=
Walsingham to communicate to You in consequence of your particular
enquiries. But though dear Mrs- Iremonger writes to me very constantly, yet She
neglects answering me in this point; I will therefore hope She may have
written to You herself, & will now confide in my own Sources of Facts &
Ideas, scarce as they may be, rather than wait longer & appear ungrateful.
      Pray view my Paper, it is on several accounts remarkable, & of so large
a size, though not a Folio, that I hope You will give me some credit for
undertaking it. I enclose You a Letter I received a few months ago from
our Acquaintance Mr- Collier, & when I go to Wherwell, where I left his
Sonnets, I will certainly take an opportunity of sending You one of the Copies.
Pray tell me whether his “Riddle of a serious cast, a counterpart to that on
the Sigh” is amongst those You sent me? otherwise, I shall be glad if
You will indulge me with it, together with a Solution of the french
Riddles I return by this Post; & I have not ventured to copy out those
on the Sheet of Paper that contain so many, because I do not clearly know
whether each of them end at the bottom of a Page & are separate, though I suspect
that, on the last Page is distinct, & that it means to describe Silence.
If You will correct me in these particulars, & lend me them once more, I
will thank You, & shall like to add them to my Collection. the other
few Manuscripts, which are all that remain from any hoards of mine, You
need not trouble Yourself ever to return me; they shall make part of
the Packets of Today; & the rest of Your's I shall beg to delay a little
longer. The Cenotaph Inscription which I enclose You appears to me strikingly


pretty in it's Mind. It is now time for me to account for the date of my
Letter from these Wells, which perhaps has surprised You. I came here
Six Weeks ago, with my friend Louisa Shipley, whose state of Health had been
an anxiety to me all the Winter, & who was at last ordered by Sr- George Baker
to try this air; I believe You know her admirable & tender attachment to her
Mother, & how cruel must have been the separation under the circumstances too of
weak Health & Spirits, & Mrs- Shipley necessarily detained in or near Town, on
Family Business of a very disagreeable Nature. You will not wonder I believe
that the Sister You enquire after, did not become the companion here; the habits
of intimacy between Louisa & me for many Years, have been far more those
of Sisters & Friends, & the office I therefore naturally felt was mine. And in
it, I have had the satisfaction of seeing her recover very essentially, of passing
my time with her exactly in the manner I like best, & in a beautiful country
which we never saw before, & which suits both our Tastes. I have visited
Mrs- Yearsley, but not yet Mrs- Chatterton. The former told me She had been
lately writing 4 Tragedies, & that one, entitled Goodwin would very soon come
forth on the Bristol Stage. She put on a Diffidence in some of her expressions
 at my first conversing with her, but I thought I soon perceived
great want of it, when She condemned all our Poets, without discrimination
for not having done justice to the female Character, & that She could have
represented Elfrida in better colours than Mason did. She said that Miss
More's friends & her own, had interfered between them improperly & did mischief
that could not now be rectified; but though she still spoke handsomely of
Miss Moore, yet she seemed upon the whole Self-satisfied, & not to feel the
coolness, or betray those marks of zeal to have it made up, & understood,
which would have given me a better impression of her. -- I have been to
see Lord De Clifford's & Blaize Castle, the only expedition we have made;
but this, since my friend's amendment She was very well able to enjoy; &
We are quite Enthusiasts for Prospects such as we beheld there. The Latter
is in the smaller style of Elegance to which I am always partial, & which is
most apt to excite my Envy, for I am often inclined to think that to be
situated in the midst of beautiful Scenery, contributes a full half towards
the Happiness of Life, I am so sure of the effect it has on the Mind, of


enlarging, if it does not even give ideas; & of tranquilising the Spirits. I enjoy
on one side of us here, these sublime Rocks, & on the other the fine rich contrast
in Somersetshire, around the pretty Village of ashton, where I walked one Morning
while Louisa Shipley rode there on a double Horse. But I will dismiss You from
a Country I believe You are well acquainted with; & what I have said may serve
to convince You I am not incapable of entering with You into all the Delights
of your own, which I think abound around Taxal, if I recollect arightly what
You told me, & where I would not on any account interrupt Mr. John Dickenson's
assiduous Pursuits in Grove or Kitchen-garden, directed I suppose in turn to
Pleasure & Utility. I know him a little, for at wherwell I could discern
some traits of his Activity, & of his goodness of heart, whenever the Gran pa
of Taxal, or your dear little Louisa were in question. I am sure You
will allow me to record this, & that You will tell him so, in return for his
french Songs & his Love. As I dare say He has not time at this season
for singing, I shall the less scruple keeping the Songs till I return a few
Weeks hence to Wherwell, where I left my Music Book, into which I mean
to introduce them. Neither my friend or I have an Acquaintance at this place,
nor do we covet it; It is reckoned full, but there is not a Name on the list
hardly that we know. There are 3 genteel looking Girls here, Miss Suttons
the Daughters of Lord George Manners Sutton, with Mr- & Miss Lockwood. He is a
pleasing looking Young Man, & is to marry the eldest Miss Sutton. Miss Meynell
is married, & gone with Mari & Mother & a large family of Dashwoods into
Switzerland. Miss Pelham is to marry Lord Lesley, the Son of Lady Rothes.
He is near 10 years Younger than Miss Pelham & Lady Rothes does not much
approve, but means to make the best of it. Miss Pelham is lively, has been
kept very much constrained, & will I suspect now dash a little. The youngest
Miss Hubbard is to marry Mr- Desbrough Taylor; & two of the Lady Villiers's
to Lord Tichfield, & Lord William Russel. -- My little new Reading came out
during the Winter. You probably know that Mrs- Smith's Sonnets are come forth
with their additions; I have not seen them yet, as my edition is gone to
Wherwell, since I came here. We found the Library here of so very Trumpery
a sort, that we subscribe to Bulls at Bath instead, & have our Books
from thence. Have You met with “Voyages d'Anacharsis en Gréce?” lately
come out? & Mrs- Iremonger mentions in one of her letters to me that She is


reading with great delight the Botanical Garden or Loves of the Plants.
Dearest Mrs- Iremonger (for you know how I love & respect her) has not been
this Winter in quite the comfortable health her best friends must wish her.
She has appeared extremely relaxed, & complained much of feeling so, & has
given herself more up to Indolence, than with her Constitution I fear is
advisable. She was blooded too for Giddiness in the head, & has been
much better since, but when such a Character is subject to such disorders,
it makes one particularly solicitous. My dear Father also had very severe
attacks of Cold the beginning of the Winter; they did not start from Town so
soon as usual, yet it is now some time that they have been in the Shades of Harewood.
Little Catha' has been very tolerably well ever since the Walnut Season, when
she so ingeniously practised a little finesse to taste them; the effects soon showed
themselves, & to that I may say we had the comfort of attributing all the
pale looks which gave You alarm; But this is entre Nous, Vous & Moi, I
only let You into the Secret, because I know how truly interested You was
for her. She has had coughs in the Winter that have lasted one Day, but
not longer, She has been on the whole lively & well, but grows tall & thin.
shall I say I wish She had a little of your Louisa's breadth; pray give
her a “petit Baiser” for me. -- And thus far have I gained upon my paper
without one Word of the Royals, & though it may surprise You, I can scarcely
wonder at myself, I was so sick of the Subject while I was in Town. By
this I do not mean to insinuate that I did not feel interested, & on what
You & I should agree is the right side. But the shocking Reports & Nonsense
from the other Party; the warmth & Contradictions of each, in every Company
one went into was very unpleasant, & really fatiguing. I liked the
Illuminations excessively, & had great pleasure in driving about to see them.
In some of my letters even from impartial People, it is said that the King
is debilitated really almost to a state of Idiotism, & that He is not likely
to live long. I know not what to believe, I can only tell, that from all the
observations I can make, & all the inference I can draw from what I hear
I shall be sorry for the fate of this Kingdom when the Prince is at the head
of it. there has been a great quarrel between the Duke of York, & Mr-
Lennox, it is said intended by the former to make him quit the Regiment.
Adieu. As instead of a dissipated life in Town, I led a very quiet one amongst
particular friends it may apologise for the little News I send. Mrs- Carter seemed
very well in the Winter, I saw her often. Your's sincerely
                                                         Elizabeth Iremonger. --

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



 1. Possibly related to her husband's estate; Jonathan Shipley had died in 1788.
 2. Presumably either Amelia or Elizabeth Shipley; Caroline Louisa Shipley's other two sisters were most probably living abroad at this date (Anna Maria Jones in India and Georgiana Hare Naylor in Europe).
 3. Earl Goodwin was produced at Bristol and Bath in November 1789, and subsequently published in 1791.
 4. The historical tragedy Elfrida was published in 1752.
 5. Unclear whether this is present-day Ashton (Somerset), a hamlet in the parish of Chapel Allerton (Sedgemoor district), or present-day Long Ashton in North Somerset.
 6. ‘A horse that carries two persons’ (OED s.v. double adj. 1.c. Accessed 15-12-2020).
 7. This is probably Frances Dorothy Lockwood, a cousin of Thomas Lockwood who was still known under this name at the time of writing, as it is currently unknown if Thomas Lockwood had a sister.
 8. Thomas Lockwood and Charlotte Manners-Sutton married on 16 June 1789, about a month after this letter was written.
 9. This may be Catherine Dorothy Meynell (1768-1838), who married Simon Thomas Scrope on 3 March 1789, two months before this letter was written.
 10. They married on 24 May 1789, three days after this letter was written.
 11. Lady Charlotte Villiers married Lord William Russell in 1789. The other sister mentioned must be Lady Anne Villiers, however she married William Lambton MP in 1791, not William Bentinck.
 12. ‘Of little or no value; trifling, paltry, insignificant; worthless, rubbishy, trashy’ (OED s.v. trumpery adj. B. Accessed 16-12-2020).
 13. Jean-Jacques Barthélemy published Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce, a fictional work about the travels of the Scythian sage Anacharsis in Greece in the middle of the 4th century BCE, in 1788.
 14. Erasmus Darwin published The Loves of the Plants anonymously in 1789. After its success, he published both Loves of the Plants and Economy of Vegetation together as The Botanic Garden in 1791.
 15. ‘Originally (of part or all of the body): rendered soft, slack, or feeble; (also) paralysed (obsolete)’ (OED s.v. relaxed adj. 1a. Accessed 15-12-2020).
 16. Another reference to William Mason's Elfrida.
 17. This is likely to refer to the state of the King between October 1788 and March 1789, during which George III likely suffered from acute mania (cf. T. J. Peters and A. Beveridge (2010), 'The blindness, deafness and madness of King George III: psychiatric interactions', The Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh 40 (1), pp.81-85. doi:10.4997/JRCPE.2010.116.
 18. The Duke of York complained about the King appointing Lennox to a company in the Duke's regiment without consulting him. As a result, Lennox challenged the Duke to a duel that occurred on 26 May 1789 on Wimbledon Common, five days after this letter was originally written. Lennox's bullet grazed the duke's curl, after which the Duke fired in the air, declaring that he had no animosity against Lennox, and had merely come out to give him satisfaction (see Lennox, Charles, Fourth Duke of Richmond and Fourth Duke of Lennox in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Accessed 10-12-2020).

Metadata

Library References

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

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from Elizabeth Iremonger to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/8/1/3

Correspondence Details

Sender: Elizabeth Iremonger

Place sent: Hotwells, Bristol

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 21 May 1789

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Elizabeth Iremonger to Mary Hamilton. She writes in acknowledgement of receiving seven packets from Hamilton and notes that she would have written sooner but had been waiting to hear news of Mrs [Charlotte] Walsingham for Hamilton. Iremonger writes with news of friends and acquaintances, of her friend Louise Shipley (see HAM/1/22). She had visited Mrs Yearsley [poet; see HAM/1/6/6/2] but has not yet visited Mrs Chatterton. ‘The farmer told me she [Yearsley] had been lately writing 4 Tragedies, & that one, titled Godwin would very soon come forth on the Bristol stage’. Iremonger continues that Yearsley put on a ‘Diffidence’ when she first conversed with her but ‘I soon perceived great want of it when she condemned all our Poets, without discrimination for not having done justice to the female character’. Yearsley continued to note that [Hannah] More and her friends ‘had interfered between them improving [her poems] & did mischief that could not now be rectified’. She nevertheless still spoke well of More but seemed, according to Iremonger to be ‘self-satisfied’ and her impression of her could have been better.
    Iremonger also writes of a visit to Lord De Clifford’s and Blaize Castle and provides a description of the castle and the area. She writes with news of the other visitors including a Miss Pelham who is engaged to marry Lord Lexley(?) who is ten years younger than her and Miss Pelham’s mother does not approve but ‘means to make the best of it’.
    The letter continues with news of acquaintances and the Royal Family. Iremonger has heard that there has been a quarrel between the Duke of York and Mr Lennox [Charles, 4th Duke of Richmond and 4th Duke of Lennox (1764-1819), army officer]. It is said that Lennox wants the Duke to quit his regiment.
    Dated at Bristol-Wells.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 1840 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 10 December 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

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