Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/10/1/27

Letter from Anna Maria Clarke to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text

[1]
      My Dear Miranda
      How agreeably did you
deceive me with your welcome Billet -- others
deceive to injure, but you to please -- I am
as much indebted to you as if you had sent the
Book I was so troublesome for -- besides it was a
Satisfaction to send to you only, as I have been
indulged by a Note in consequence. I own for a
moment. I was fearful I should not have been
able to read your disjoined Paper -- I am grateful
for the kind offer of Rollin[2] from our Leonidas --
I am so much pleased with his Poem that I am
impatient to be acquainted with the Heroes of
the Athenaid -- when shall we enjoy That together?
Caterina says Miranda expects a Note from me
that is a motive with me to write this -- shall it
be such with you to excuse its dullneʃs -- in wha[t]
new Words shall I expreʃs -- how much I love
how greatly    I esteem
                             Miranda



Miss Hamilton
James Street
      [Westminster][3]

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


Notes


 1. This unsigned and undated letter was originally catalogued with correspondence from the Glovers [as HAM/1/13/48, see HAM/1/13], but the hand matches that of Anna Maria Clarke, confirmed by the mention by first name alone of her sister Caterina. From the direction to James Street, Hamilton's mother's house, we can infer the likely date range of 1777-78.
 2. Presumably, Charles Rollin's Histoire Ancien (1730-1738). Rollin, like Glover, was part of the school of enlightenment thinkers who saw Sparta (as opposed to Athens) as a political and moral exemplar. See Paul Carteledge, Thermopylae: The Battle that changed the World (Pan Macmillan, 2011).
 3. The address is written in the bottom-right corner of the page. The place-name has been cut away but was most likely 'Westminster' (see HAM/1/13/3).

Normalised Text


      My Dear Miranda
      How agreeably did you
deceive me with your welcome Billet -- others
deceive to injure, but you to please -- I am
as much indebted to you as if you had sent the
Book I was so troublesome for -- besides it was a
Satisfaction to send to you only, as I have been
indulged by a Note in consequence. I own for a
moment. I was fearful I should not have been
able to read your disjoined Paper -- I am grateful
for the kind offer of Rollin from our Leonidas --
I am so much pleased with his Poem that I am
impatient to be acquainted with the Heroes of
the Athenaid -- when shall we enjoy That together?
Caterina says Miranda expects a Note from me
that is a motive with me to write this -- shall it
be such with you to excuse its dullness -- in what
new Words shall I express -- how much I love
how greatly    I esteem
                             Miranda



Miss Hamilton
James Street
      Westminster

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



 1. This unsigned and undated letter was originally catalogued with correspondence from the Glovers [as HAM/1/13/48, see HAM/1/13], but the hand matches that of Anna Maria Clarke, confirmed by the mention by first name alone of her sister Caterina. From the direction to James Street, Hamilton's mother's house, we can infer the likely date range of 1777-78.
 2. Presumably, Charles Rollin's Histoire Ancien (1730-1738). Rollin, like Glover, was part of the school of enlightenment thinkers who saw Sparta (as opposed to Athens) as a political and moral exemplar. See Paul Carteledge, Thermopylae: The Battle that changed the World (Pan Macmillan, 2011).
 3. The address is written in the bottom-right corner of the page. The place-name has been cut away but was most likely 'Westminster' (see HAM/1/13/3).

Metadata

Library References

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

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from Anna Maria Clarke to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/10/1/27

Correspondence Details

Sender: Anna Maria Clarke

Place sent: unknown

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: London

Date sent: between 1777 and 1778
notBefore 1777 (precision: medium)
notAfter 1778 (precision: medium)

Letter Description

Summary: This letter is unsigned. However, the handwriting matches that of other letters from Anna Maria Clarke. The reference by first name to Caterina (her sister) confirms this attribution.
    [Formerly catalogued as HAM/1/13/48.]
   

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: Tino Oudesluijs, editorial team (completed 30 June 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: 8 June 2023

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