Diplomatic Text
Bath Sept. 12th. 1785
My Dearest Mrs. Dickenson
Your kind letter & Mr Dickenson's has made
us very happy, it found my Dearest Father better, after having
been very ill & alarmingly so, you will, I fear, before you
receive this letter have been made unhappy on his account,
as my Dear Miʃs A. C. will have ------ wrot[e] you word of
his illneʃs, which has made my Mother & myself very miserable,
Friday Yesterday & to day he is thank God quite well,
he eat for the first time yesterday a very good dinner
& with a relish, to day we have a haunch of Venison, &
before I seal my letter will let you know how he plays
his part. When we first arrived at Bath, which is a month
to day we were very much disappointed, for by his letters to
us we expected to have him found him pretty well, we came in the
Chariot & our own horses, & arrived here a day sooner than he
expected, his joy & surprize at seeing us, after an absense of
two months quite overcame him, he eat no dinner, & I
found it was as much as he could do to prevent his sheding
tears, he look'd wan, though not thin, he had never eat his
dinner with an appetite, for near four months; this day fort-
-night we thought change of air would be of service to him
& he said we should take a little tour: We therefore went;
& our first stage was to Wells which is about nineteen
miles from Bath, which is a very pretty, Clean & small
Town, the Cathedral is a very fine one, & kept in the
most perfect repair & order, there is a clock in it which
was brought & presev'd from the ruins of Glaʃsonberry Abbey; it
shows the motion of the Sun moon & planets, at the Top are
s[ix] men on horseback, & by touching a spring they Gallop
round the moon, it is reckon'd a very fine peice of workman-
-ship & is about seven hundred years old, my father said he
thought the men on horseback was very proper for a puppet show,
but he could not approve of their being in so solemn a place as a
Cathedral. The Bishop's palace is a very dismal place, it is
surrounded by a high stone wall & a moat all round it, the
deanary is a very handsome house. There are a great
number of Gentleman's houses in Wells & some very Capital
ones, particularly Mr. Tudway's who is their present member.[1]
After dinner we went to a place call'd Wookey hole, which
is two miles from Wells, it is a Subteraneous place, & runs
for three hundred yards und a mountain, the way to it for
near a quater of a mile is very dangerous, it is along a path
in some places not a foot wide, & on one side a precipice, of
at leat thirty feet, at the bottom of which is a very rapid
river which iʃsues from the hole; my Father would go with
us, & you can better feel the horror I felt & my Dear mother least
his foot should slip than I discribe it, we arrived at the Top wth.
our guide & William, my Father was afraid to go into the
hole on account of the damp & therefore return'd, my Mother
yr. humble. Sert. William & our guide had Candles, it is a wonder-
-ful place, the water as it drops from the rocks which hung
over our heads petrifies, asI saw the spar which is very fine
we went about half way to a place they Call, the Witches
Chaldron & Furnace, it is in a bason of Water two feet
deep & about fourteen wide in the middle is the Chaldron
which is in the shape of a vase form'd by the petrifaction,
at one end is the Furnace; their are other petrifactions, one
is the old Witch herself (as they tell you) you can really make
out a face very tolerably, their is another which forms a
very good lion's head, it was very Slippery, & when we came out
& got safe down, we were very happy to see my Father setting
down ------ a peice of timber, he said if he had had an Idea of
its being so dangerous, he would not for the World have let
us gone; we slept that night at Wells, & the next day went to
Bridgewater which is a very ugly dirty Town, we the went
to Bristol, it is a very beautiful Country all the way from
B.water to Bristol, we were unlucky in the weather
therefore lost great part of the prospect, when we came
to within four miles of Bristol it clear'd up, & I cannot
discribe the beauty of the prospect, the City of Bristol, Clifton
the hot wells & the river runing between the rocks, was
quite inchanting; Bristol is a very populous but dirty City;
we spent one very pleasant day with Mr & Mrs. Weare, where we
met Mr. & Mrs. Gardiner & her two fine children.
Monday Morn: My Dear Father eat a very good dinner yesterday
therefore my dear friend at Taxal need not make themselves
uneasy about him as I thank God he is now in a much better
way of a perfect recovery than ever. When we first came to
this place there was in the house besides my Father
a Mr & Mrs Blunt, who paʃs'd through Bath in their way
to Lime in Dorcetshire not meaning to stay above a day or two;
but they liked my Father so well that they made their stay
a month, a fortnight of the time we enjoy'd their very
amiable society; they were Roman Catholic's, he was many
years older than Her, a very sweet temper'd man, & Mrs. Blunt
was pretty, about the height of your Mary Glover; but so
Chearful, good natur'd & of such a natural lively disposition, that
she has made an interest in all our hearts; their is one thing
I must tell my Dearest Mrs. Dickenson, the letter you wrote to
my Father after your marriage, struck him so much, that
he show'd it Mr & Mrs: Blunt, & he has told me several times
that your very affectionate style of writing brought tears
into Mr. Blunts eyes, I have that very letter Now in my
poʃseʃsion & shall for ever keep it, yes believe me you do, must,
& will for ever live in the affectionate remembrance of your
friends, our happineʃs is compleat on your account, but we
never doubted it your being the very happy woman you are; pray
tell your worthy Father & sisters, that my Father & mother look forward
With pleasure to the knowing them, & if my Dearest Father is
in health, I have not the least doubt but a journey to Taxal
will make him very happy; We cannot think of a journey
to Buxton, since it is very uncertain how long we
shall stay at Bath; As I am here & was very ill with
my old complaints for near a month; I am trying the
waters & have found very great benefit from them,
we shall certainly stay this month out; & in our return home
shall pay a visit to Dr: & Mrs. Warton.
Our Amiable society is broke as Mr & Mrs. Blunt have left
us, there is at present a very amiable young woman in the
house, who is obliged to leave us to morrow; We have a General
Sherrard who came the week before us, he is reported to
be a man of great personal courage, I cannot say more
for his agreeableneʃs, he is a very good-naturd, very tall, &
next to a degree toof being very ugly, he is brother to the Earl
of Harborough; Mrs. Prattenton the Miʃstreʃs of the house,
is I believe by birth a gentlewoman, she is very pleasing
rather pretty in her face & person & equally so in her
manners, she is universally belov'd by all who know her.[2]
I am quite delighted with Bath & should like very much
to give up our Town house & live here in the Winter; sin[ce]
you are gone, their is no one I should regret leaving but my
Dear Anna Maria, & even her we should hope to tempt &
come & be wth.. us; My Father has many old friends here, who
are settled, particularly Mr. Melmoth, who was his schoolfellow
[3]
& General Parsloe, he is a most polite charming man, his
age is no leʃs than eighty seven, how you would like
him, I wish you could see him he went a tour with his
daughter & grand daughter this summer, of five hundred
miles & is return'd all the better for it; he is settled at Bath
which is says is the nursery for old age, their is likewise
a Mr & Mrs. Smith, I have not yet seen Mr Hamilton The Honble. Charles Hamilton -- Brother to Ly Archibald of Painshills Hamilton[4], he is at
present at Lord Lansdown's, my Father show'd him yr. letter like-
-wise. My Father & mother unite their kindest & best love
to you & our dear Mr Dickenson, & pray remember us most
respectfully to Mr Dickenson Senr.. & Miʃs Dickensons, I can
aʃsure you from their very kind behaviour to our dear &
ever dear Miranda we have already a great affection for
[5]them. I had not been here a fortnight, when one day as I
was walking in the pump room with my Mother, we were
taken for sisters, last Friday I was told that a gentleman
said he thought I could not be leʃs than twenty six, so you
see I am taken to be an old womanmaid. --
Adieu my Dearest Mrs: Dickenson & be aʃsur'd of the
unalterable Affection of your M. G.
& sincere friend -- E. G:
I think this is a reasonable long letter
I have tried & tried in vain for a frank, tell Mr D—— I think
letter was very saucy, though we very sincerely thank him for it, &
as he writes so very pleasantly beg he will add some lines in the letter
you write, he boasts of preserving his dignity, his letter made us smile, I declare
yrs made us almost cry for joy -- -- --
Miʃs Glover
Novr: 12th 1785[6]
Miʃs Glover
Septr. 1785[7]
Septr. 1785[7]
[8]
[11]
▼
(hover over blue text or annotations for clarification;
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Clement Tudway was MP for Wells from 1761 to 1815.
2. A Mrs Prattenton is listed as the proprietress of a lodging house at 1 Westgate Buildings, in the annual New Bath Directory for several years in the 1790s and early 1800s.
3. Moved section here from its original place at the bottom of the page, written upside down, to its present logical position in the letter.
4. This later explanatory annotation by Mary Hamilton appears as a footnote at the bottom of the paragraph, linked by paired crosses. Jane, Lady Archibald Hamilton, was Mary Hamilton's grandmother, and her brother Charles therefore Mary Hamilton's great-uncle.
5. The passage continues with the lines written at the top of the sheet.
6. This annotation is written vertically in the left-hand margin of the page.
7. This annotation is written vertically in the right-hand margin of the page.
8. Partial Bishop mark, in black ink.
9. Postmark 'Chesterfield', in black ink.
10. The figure 6 has been written across the address by a post office employee, denoting the amount of postage due.
11. Seal, in red wax.
Normalised Text
Bath September 12th. 1785
My Dearest Mrs. Dickenson
Your kind letter & Mr Dickenson's has made
us very happy, it found my Dearest Father better, after having
been very ill & alarmingly so, you will, I fear, before you
receive this letter have been made unhappy on his account,
as my Dear Miss Anna Clarke will have written you word of
his illness, which has made my Mother & myself very miserable,
Friday Yesterday & to day he is thank God quite well,
he ate for the first time yesterday a very good dinner
& with a relish, to day we have a haunch of Venison, &
before I seal my letter will let you know how he plays
his part. When we first arrived at Bath, which is a month
to day we were very much disappointed, for by his letters to
us we expected to have found him pretty well, we came in the
Chariot & our own horses, & arrived here a day sooner than he
expected, his joy & surprise at seeing us, after an absence of
two months quite overcame him, he ate no dinner, & I
found it was as much as he could do to prevent his shedding
tears, he looked wan, though not thin, he had never eaten his
dinner with an appetite, for near four months; this day fortnight
we thought change of air would be of service to him
& he said we should take a little tour: We therefore went;
& our first stage was to Wells which is about nineteen
miles from Bath, which is a very pretty, Clean & small
Town, the Cathedral is a very fine one, & kept in the
most perfect repair & order, there is a clock in it which
was brought & preserved from the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey; it
shows the motion of the Sun moon & planets, at the Top are
six men on horseback, & by touching a spring they Gallop
round the moon, it is reckoned a very fine piece of workmanship
& is about seven hundred years old, my father said he
thought the men on horseback was very proper for a puppet show,
but he could not approve of their being in so solemn a place as a
Cathedral. The Bishop's palace is a very dismal place, it is
surrounded by a high stone wall & a moat all round it, the
deanery is a very handsome house. There are a great
number of Gentleman's houses in Wells & some very Capital
ones, particularly Mr. Tudway's who is their present member.
After dinner we went to a place called Wookey hole, which
is two miles from Wells, it is a Subterraneous place, & runs
for three hundred yards under a mountain, the way to it for
near a quarter of a mile is very dangerous, it is along a path
in some places not a foot wide, & on one side a precipice, of
at least thirty feet, at the bottom of which is a very rapid
river which issues from the hole; my Father would go with
us, & you can better feel the horror I felt & my Dear mother lest
his foot should slip than I describe it, we arrived at the Top with
our guide & William, my Father was afraid to go into the
hole on account of the damp & therefore returned, my Mother
your humble. Servant William & our guide had Candles, it is a wonderful
place, the water as it drops from the rocks which hung
over our heads petrifies, I saw the spar which is very fine
we went about half way to a place they Call, the Witches
Cauldron & Furnace, it is in a basin of Water two feet
deep & about fourteen wide in the middle is the Cauldron
which is in the shape of a vase formed by the petrifaction,
at one end is the Furnace; there are other petrifactions, one
is the old Witch herself (as they tell you) you can really make
out a face very tolerably, there is another which forms a
very good lion's head, it was very Slippery, & when we came out
& got safe down, we were very happy to see my Father setting
down a piece of timber, he said if he had had an Idea of
its being so dangerous, he would not for the World have let
us gone; we slept that night at Wells, & the next day went to
Bridgewater which is a very ugly dirty Town, we then went
to Bristol, it is a very beautiful Country all the way from
Bridgewater to Bristol, we were unlucky in the weather
therefore lost great part of the prospect, when we came
to within four miles of Bristol it cleared up, & I cannot
describe the beauty of the prospect, the City of Bristol, Clifton
the hot wells & the river running between the rocks, was
quite enchanting; Bristol is a very populous but dirty City;
we spent one very pleasant day with Mr & Mrs. Weare, where we
met Mr. & Mrs. Gardiner & her two fine children.
Monday Morning My Dear Father ate a very good dinner yesterday
therefore my dear friend at Taxal need not make themselves
uneasy about him as I thank God he is now in a much better
way of a perfect recovery than ever. When we first came to
this place there was in the house besides my Father
a Mr & Mrs Blunt, who passed through Bath in their way
to Lime in Dorcetshire not meaning to stay above a day or two;
but they liked my Father so well that they made their stay
a month, a fortnight of the time we enjoyed their very
amiable society; they were Roman Catholic's, he was many
years older than Her, a very sweet tempered man, Mrs. Blunt
was pretty, about the height of your Mary Glover; but so
Cheerful, good natured & of such a natural lively disposition, that
she has made an interest in all our hearts; there is one thing
I must tell my Dearest Mrs. Dickenson, the letter you wrote to
my Father after your marriage, struck him so much, that
he showed it Mr & Mrs: Blunt, & he has told me several times
that your very affectionate style of writing brought tears
into Mr. Blunts eyes, I have that very letter Now in my
possession & shall for ever keep it, yes believe me you do, must,
& will for ever live in the affectionate remembrance of your
friends, our happiness is complete on your account, but we
never doubted your being the very happy woman you are; pray
tell your worthy Father & sisters, that my Father & mother look forward
With pleasure to the knowing them, & if my Dearest Father is
in health, I have not the least doubt but a journey to Taxal
will make him very happy; We cannot think of a journey
to Buxton, since it is very uncertain how long we
shall stay at Bath; As I am here & was very ill with
my old complaints for near a month; I am trying the
waters & have found very great benefit from them,
we shall certainly stay this month out; & in our return home
shall pay a visit to Dr: & Mrs. Warton.
Our Amiable society is broken as Mr & Mrs. Blunt have left
us, there is at present a very amiable young woman in the
house, who is obliged to leave us to morrow; We have a General
Sherrard who came the week before us, he is reported to
be a man of great personal courage, I cannot say more
for his agreeableness, he is a very good-natured, very tall, &
next to a degree of being very ugly, he is brother to the Earl
of Harborough; Mrs. Prattenton the Mistress of the house,
is I believe by birth a gentlewoman, she is very pleasing
rather pretty in her face & person & equally so in her
manners, she is universally beloved by all who know her.
I am quite delighted with Bath & should like very much
to give up our Town house & live here in the Winter; since
you are gone, there is no one I should regret leaving but my
Dear Anna Maria, & even her we should hope to tempt &
come & be with us; My Father has many old friends here, who
are settled, particularly Mr. Melmoth, who was his schoolfellow
& General Parsloe, he is a most polite charming man, his
age is no less than eighty seven, how you would like
him, I wish you could see him he went a tour with his
daughter & grand daughter this summer, of five hundred
miles & is returned all the better for it; he is settled at Bath
which is says is the nursery for old age, there is likewise
a Mr & Mrs. Smith, I have not yet seen Mr Hamilton , he is at
present at Lord Lansdown's, my Father showed him your letter likewise
. My Father & mother unite their kindest & best love
to you & our dear Mr Dickenson, & pray remember us most
respectfully to Mr Dickenson Senior & Miss Dickensons, I can
assure you from their very kind behaviour to our dear &
ever dear Miranda we have already a great affection for
them. I had not been here a fortnight, when one day as I
was walking in the pump room with my Mother, we were
taken for sisters, last Friday I was told that a gentleman
said he thought I could not be less than twenty six, so you
see I am taken to be an old maid. --
Adieu my Dearest Mrs: Dickenson & be assured of the
unalterable Affection of your Mary Glover
& sincere friend -- Eleanor Glover
I think this is a reasonable long letter
I have tried & tried in vain for a frank, tell Mr Dickenson I think
letter was very saucy, though we very sincerely thank him for it, &
as he writes so very pleasantly beg he will add some lines in the letter
you write, he boasts of preserving his dignity, his letter made us smile, I declare
yours made us almost cry for joy -- -- --
Mrs. Dickenson
Taxal, Chapel le Frith
Derbyshire
single Sheet
Taxal, Chapel le Frith
Derbyshire
single Sheet
▼
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Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester
Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers
Item title: Letter from Mary Glover to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/13/26
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Glover
Place sent: Bath
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Taxal, near Chapel-en-le-Frith
Date sent: 12 September 1785
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Mary Glover to Mary Hamilton, concerning her father’s health. Glover is pleased to write that her father seems much better. They arrived at Bath a month ago and from his letters to them, she expected him to be well. Glover arrived a day earlier than expected as she came in their own carriage and her father was overjoyed at seeing her and Mrs Glover after an absence of two months. He looked wan although not thin and had not had much of an appetite for four months.
Glover also writes with a description of the town of Wells and surrounding areas where they went for a ‘change of air’. She writes of a Mr and Mrs Blunt who had meant to be passing though Bath but who enjoyed Richard Glover’s company so much that they decided to say in Bath a month. Glover writes that her father was so taken with Hamilton’s letter to him on her marriage that he showed it to the Blunt’s and told her that Hamilton’s affectionate style of writing brought Mrs Blunt to tears.
Glover continues her letter on society in Bath.
Dated at Bath.
Length: 1 sheet, 1748 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 24 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: 20 October 2023