HAM/1/11/11
Letter from Lady Dartrey (later Lady Cremorne) to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
Sepr: 17th: 1781
To be sure there seems, my Dear Miʃs
Hamilton to be a spell upon Themy Books, which I had
set my heart on getting so immediately for her
Majesty; as I mentioned in my Letter to you, I sent to Town
the Morning I writ to you -- & Lord Dartrey kindly
went himself to Robson to hasten him; -- about Eleven
o'Clock, he came down, with the Book in his hand,
& told me it was at last done; -- I was really quite
delighted, but only think of my disappointment,
& poor Dear Lord Dartrey's too -- when I looked to see
if it was properly bound, & found it paged intirely
wrong; with finis in the Middle. -- It required
all Epictetus's Philosophy -- to hear this with
patience -- Lord D stood my Friend again, took it to
the Bookseller, & at length it is arrived, & I send it with
this Letter, & beg you will take a proper Opportunity of
presenting it with my humble Duty to the Queen -- &
at the same time inform her Majesty how sorry I am
that the little Book is not yet come from Bristol;
I sent this Morning to the Bookseller for it, & he sent
me that unsatisfactory Answer. I flatter myself the Table
of Cebes will please the Queen. I am happy to hear you are well, &
Miʃs Goldsworthy better. -- Mrs: Quin is here with me, & I am
now beginning to go & see the Sights, in & about London --
Lord D—— is gone away for a week, & has left it in
charge with me to seeshew her Westminster Abbey &c &c &c
She is a delightful Companion; has a great deal of
real taste; & a most excellent Understanding -- poor
Soul, She suffers much by nervous Complaints; but with a
quiet & composure which is quite edifying -- Adieu
my Dear Miʃs Hamilton, believe me
Yrs: very Affectionately
PDartrey
pray let me hear from you
when you have leisure, & tell me how
the Queen likes the Book -- I shall be quite happy if it has been in my
power to present her Majesty with any thing that can
afford her pleasure & amusement. how good & gracious
She is to Me! -- pray my Dear; when you have an Oppor
=tunity, do me Justice by aʃsuring her Majesty how
sincerely I feel her great goodneʃs to Me -- once
more Adieu.
My Duty to the Princeʃses.
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
September 17th: 1781
To be sure there seems, my Dear Miss
Hamilton to be a spell upon my Books, which I had
set my heart on getting so immediately for her
Majesty; as I mentioned in my Letter to you, I sent to Town
the Morning I wrote to you -- & Lord Dartrey kindly
went himself to Robson to hasten him; -- about Eleven
o'Clock, he came down, with the Book in his hand,
& told me it was at last done; -- I was really quite
delighted, but only think of my disappointment,
& poor Dear Lord Dartrey's too -- when I looked to see
if it was properly bound, & found it paged entirely
wrong; with finis in the Middle. -- It required
all Epictetus's Philosophy -- to hear this with
patience -- Lord Dartrey stood my Friend again, took it to
the Bookseller, & at length it is arrived, & I send it with
this Letter, & beg you will take a proper Opportunity of
presenting it with my humble Duty to the Queen -- &
at the same time inform her Majesty how sorry I am
that the little Book is not yet come from Bristol;
I sent this Morning to the Bookseller for it, & he sent
me that unsatisfactory Answer. I flatter myself the Table
of Cebes will please the Queen. I am happy to hear you are well, &
Miss Goldsworthy better. -- Mrs: Quin is here with me, & I am
now beginning to go & see the Sights, in & about London --
Lord Dartrey is gone away for a week, & has left it in
charge with me to show her Westminster Abbey &c &c &c
She is a delightful Companion; has a great deal of
real taste; & a most excellent Understanding -- poor
Soul, She suffers much by nervous Complaints; but with a
quiet & composure which is quite edifying -- Adieu
my Dear Miss Hamilton, believe me
Yours very Affectionately
Philadelphia Dartrey
pray let me hear from you
when you have leisure, & tell me how
the Queen likes the Book -- I shall be quite happy if it has been in my
power to present her Majesty with any thing that can
afford her pleasure & amusement. how good & gracious
She is to Me! -- pray my Dear; when you have an Opportunity
, do me Justice by assuring her Majesty how
sincerely I feel her great goodness to Me -- once
more Adieu.
My Duty to the Princesses.
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Metadata
Library References
Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester
Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers
Item title: Letter from Lady Dartrey (later Lady Cremorne) to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/11/11
Correspondence Details
Sender: Philadelphia Hannah, Baroness Cremorne Dawson (née Freame)
Place sent: Chelsea
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 17 September 1781
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Lady Dartrey to Mary Hamilton, relating to a book. Dartrey writes of a book that she has been waiting for some time and her husband went to town to collect it but she found that there was a problem with its binding when he returned. The book was bound incorrectly, the numbers were wrong and it had 'finis' at its middle rather than end. Dartrey notes that it took some 'Philosophy to hear this with patience'. Lord Dartrey returned it to the bookseller and once the book was correctly bound Dartrey sent it to Hamilton to pass to the Queen. Dartrey asks Hamilton to apologise to the Queen on her behalf but she is still waiting for the book from Bristol.
Mrs Quin is visiting and Dartrey is to take her to see the sights of London, including Westminster Abbey. Dartrey finds a delightful companion with much taste and understanding and notes that Mrs Quin suffers from a 'nervous complaint' but does so with composure.
Dated at Chelsea.
Length: 1 sheet, 410 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 January 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