Single Letter

MSS1 b.12 f.53

Note from Mary Hamilton to Horace Walpole, with a draft text by Horace Walpole on the reverse

Diplomatic Text

[1]


[2]

Mrs. Dickenson is much
disappointed to lose the
pleasure of seeing Mr-
Walpole
this Eveg but
shall be very happy
to see him next Wednesday
Afternoon


[3]




The Prʃs & her Cabal called him Firm, & meant he shd be Obstinate: he was neither, but
very persevering; that is, he woud yeild to any emergency for the present, but always
retained his purpose, & reverted to it on the first opportunity. Thus, tho every now & then
forced to take well intentioned Ministers, He never kept them long enough for the Nation
to reap much benefit from their Services -- the best than can be said of him is, that he was more
desirous of doing the power of doing what he pleased, than that he had any thing particular
to do, good or evil. He was too trifling to have any great plan of either sort; but the balance
so far inclined to the worst side, than he woud lend himself easily to any mischievous
plans of the Ministers who flattered & humoured him but was restive against good suggest
ions
, & rashly consented to the execution, without meditating & endeavouring to baffle
their Succeʃs; for his Mind was never active, but when he had some trick to accomplish; for
Deceit requiring only smiles & Silence, disgui it cost him no effort to wear a mask till by throwing
it off, he coud disappoint what he had seemed to allow. This was precisely his practice on
on the Repeal of the Stamp Act, & on Mr Fox's India bill. But on the first he had committed himself too
                             far & miscarried. On the second he took care

[4]to notify his Aversion to it, as soon as he had
consented to its being proposed & enjoind
his Servants to vote ag. the very measure
that he had permitted his ministers to propose.
& then dismiʃsed the Those Ministers for
proposing what They had no conception of
his disapproving. Thus did he purchasinge
triumph by the groʃsest Duplicity and
bartered the honour of a gentleman to display
the Power of a King.
Such Conduct in private in private life woud blaʃt an
Individual -- but how more shocking to see the
First Magistrate of a Country cheatcozen[5] part of the
Community he is to protect, by forcing another
parts to aʃsist him is betraying their fellow
Subjects! Who was disgraced by that Transaction, the Betrayed or the Perpetrator?

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


Notes


 1. The first image is of an archival note with basic metadata, the location in the Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's correspondence, and the provenance of the document.
 2. This letter appears in Lewis (1937-83: XXXI, 285-286).
 3. The bottom half of the page concerns the second part of Walpole's draft and has been moved to p.3 of the transcription.
 4. The following section has been moved here from p.2 of the transcription.
 5. ‘To cheat, defraud by deceit’, ‘to deceive, dupe, beguile, impose upon’ (OED s.v. cozen senses 1.a. and 2.a. Accessed 03-03-2021).

Normalised Text






Mrs. Dickenson is much
disappointed to lose the
pleasure of seeing Mr-
Walpole this Evening but
shall be very happy
to see him next Wednesday
Afternoon







The Princess & her Cabal called him Firm, & meant he should be Obstinate: he was neither, but
very persevering; that is, he would yield to any emergency for the present, but always
retained his purpose, & reverted to it on the first opportunity. Thus, though every now & then
forced to take well intentioned Ministers, He never kept them long enough for the Nation
to reap much benefit from their Services -- the best that can be said of him is, that he was more
desirous of the power of doing what he pleased, than that he had any thing particular
to do, good or evil. He was too trifling to have any great plan of either sort; but the balance
so far inclined to the worst side, that he would lend himself easily to any mischievous
plans of Ministers who flattered & humoured him but was restive against good suggestions
, & rashly consented to the execution, without meditating & endeavouring to baffle
their Success; for his Mind was never active, but when he had some trick to accomplish; for
Deceit requiring only smiles & Silence, it cost him no effort to wear a mask till by throwing
it off, he could disappoint what he had seemed to allow. This was precisely his practice on
the Repeal of the Stamp Act, & on Mr Fox's India bill. But on the first he had committed himself too
                             far & miscarried. On the second he took care

to notify his Aversion to it, as soon as he had
consented to its being proposed & enjoined
his Servants to vote against the very measure
that he had permitted his ministers to propose.
& then dismissed Those Ministers for
proposing what They had no conception of
his disapproving. Thus did he purchase
triumph by the grossest Duplicity and
barter the honour of a gentleman to display
the Power of a King.
Such Conduct in private life would blast an
Individual -- but how more shocking to see the
First Magistrate of a Country cozen part of the
Community he is to protect, by forcing another
parts to assist him is betraying their fellow
Subjects! Who was disgraced by that Transaction, the Betrayed or the Perpetrator?

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



 1. The first image is of an archival note with basic metadata, the location in the Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's correspondence, and the provenance of the document.
 2. This letter appears in Lewis (1937-83: XXXI, 285-286).
 3. The bottom half of the page concerns the second part of Walpole's draft and has been moved to p.3 of the transcription.
 4. The following section has been moved here from p.2 of the transcription.
 5. ‘To cheat, defraud by deceit’, ‘to deceive, dupe, beguile, impose upon’ (OED s.v. cozen senses 1.a. and 2.a. Accessed 03-03-2021).

Metadata

Library References

Repository: Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Archive: Horace Walpole's Correspondence

Item title: Note from Mary Hamilton to Horace Walpole, with a draft text by Horace Walpole on the reverse

Shelfmark: MSS1 b.12 f.53

Correspondence Details

Sender: Mary Hamilton

Place sent: unknown

Addressee: Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 22 September 1788

Letter Description

Summary: Note from Mary Hamilton to Horace Walpole, with a draft text by Horace Walpole on the reverse, September 1788.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 396 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 2 March 2021)

Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors

Revision date: 23 December 2021

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