The Mary Hamilton Papers : Letter from Maria Rundell to Mary Hamilton

Rundell, Maria

The Mary Hamilton Papers

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Letter from Maria Rundell to Mary Hamilton. She thanks Hamilton for giving permission to write to her and notes that she would have written sooner but for being very busy with the arrival of her brother a fortnight ago. She reports that Mrs Rundell left Bath with her brother last week and had a very tiring journey. She notes that her sisters, Fanny, Margareta and Augusta attend school from 10 o’clock in the morning until 1 o’clock on the afternoon and again for two hours after dinner. During this time Rundell writes that she spends her time translating French ‘and writes from English books’.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>She reports on society in Bath. That the Duchess of Devonshire is visiting Bath for her health and that Madame La Sinchese?) De Polignac has left the city but their visit had ‘rendered the town very gay’. Mrs Brownlow is to leave Bath shortly ’but her father has had the goodness to buy [her husband, Colonel Brownlow] a company of dragoons’, which has ‘restored Mrs Brownlow’s tranquillity’.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Rundell also writes further on family news. Augusta has been ill with chicken pox but is now recovered whilst her sister and brother, Harriet and Francis now have it. She notes that her mother had suffered a bad fall from her horse and that she had attended the last concert at Westminster Abbey – the Mesiah. She sat in the Director’s box next to Monsiour Le Conte de cloderin(?)</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dated at Bath.</p>