On Paleography
In Professor Looser’s class, I learned about paleography and transcribed, annotated, and introduced a manuscript letter from the Huntington Library’s Digital Library Leigh Family Papers. It was an immersive experience and a chance to experience working with original Austen-family-related documents that have been little studied, even by expert scholars. I live near the Huntington Library and have a reader’s card, so go to actually go through some of these letters after the project just to really get the feel for it. I am including this inexpert work in my digital portfolio because it was the first time I had experienced anything like it and I learned a new way of using research. I loved the short project and wanted to learn more about paleography and have been studying it. I think this project was a pivotal one for me and it gave me a foundational skill for future research in archives.
Gina Ruiz
Prof. Devoney Looser
ENG 535
17 March 2023
[Barton, Henry, 1717 or 1718-1790]. Letter to Thomas Leigh 1734-1813, Leigh Family Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, Manuscript
Introduction
The following is a transcription of a letter signed A. Nonymous (The Leigh papers attribute it to a Henry Barton) to Thomas Leigh from the Leigh Family Papers in The Huntington Collection, which contains letters, poems, and manuscripts of six generations of the Leigh family of Adelstrop. The Leighs of Adelstrop were Jane Austen’s maternal relatives (The Huntington Library, n.d.). The letter consists of four pages, one with the letter, two blank pages, and an endorsement page. The body of the letter concerns a visit that has been long delayed by circumstance and has nothing to do with Jane Austen, however, it gives some sense of the education and writing style of the era. The letter’s tone is apologetic but humorous. It appears both the author and recipient knew Latin as evidenced by the mention of Horace in the first paragraph of the letter. Thomas Leigh is a descendant of another Thomas Leigh who served as Lord Mayor to Queen Elizabeth I. He was also a relative of Jane Austen’s mother, Cassandra. The Adelstop [Addelstrop] mentioned in the letter is in the Cotswalds east of Gloucestershire. Jane Austen did stay there with her Leigh cousins on occasion and it is thought that some of the inspiration for Mansfield Park came from her visits there. The letter transcribed below indicates some frustration with travel from Oxford to Adelstrop, though in a humorous way and gives insight into how unreliable transportation could be in the 18th century. The letter also gives insight into the type of neighborhood Thomas Leigh lived in as he references that “you have no idle boys in your neighbourhood.” The author’s handwriting is very clear and precise, which was helpful in the transcription process.
Transcription:
Oxford Merton College Sept. 24.1785
Dear Sir,
My credit, I fear, (if I had any) hath suffered some diminution at Addlestrop, [the author adds a ‘d’ to Adelstrop] by my long delay in performing my promise to pafs [a day or two with my good friends there. I trust their candor will suppose me excusable, if I do not enumerate the several unforeseen accidents, which from time to time interposed & [looks like bs, check abbreviations list] defeated my purpose. Mifs-Fortune hath high notions of the pre = = rogative [the author uses = instead of dashes, as compared to Austen’s letters, but these seem to be how we would use a hyphen today when the word is too long to fit on the same line of text] of her sex and family, and delights to tease an old batchellor with coquetry & disappointments: this is not the “grata protervitas” [?] which wrought so powerfully on Horace’s liver, and cleansed it from the gall. [This is a reference to Horace’s Ode XIX, line 7: “Urit grata protervitas,” translated to “her pretty pertness; her eye that ‘sounds parley to provocation.” (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0067%3Atext%3DCarm.%3Abook%3D1%3Apoem%3D19%3Acommline%3D7].
However I have formed a design once more, to visit Addlestrop next tuesday, and to pafs [pass]. [While this looks like an “f”, it is in reality a long ‘s”, which was used in the 18th century and early 19-th century and only applied to the lower case “s” (https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2021/12/14/the-long-s/)]. to Large’s [? person/place?] by the earliest Worcester-coach on that day, so that I hope to arrive there about eleven in the forenoon; if I fail of a place in that carriage, I mean to try for one in the later coach at noon; if I cannot get any place at all, I believe I shall become a Patriot, serve my K. [suspension which represents the word King] and Country as well as I can in a private station.
I suppose you have no idle boys in your neighbourhood, but there may be a poor boy, who may be glad to earn a shilling by carrying a very light cloak-bag for me from Large’s to your house.
Be pleased to present my most respectfull compliments to the minister’s mistrefs, [in the word which they say is a [here he uses a caret for insertion of a, much as an editor would do now] most likely method of obtaining the place to which I am ambitions to aspire.
I am Sir
Your much obliged & humble servant
- Nonymous
Blank Page
Blank Page
Endorsement:
To the rev.d [reverend. This appears to be the accepted abbreviation for reverend at the time. A dot or period after the “v” and the “d” is written above the rev in superscript or superior letter] Mr. Leigh
at Addelstrop
near Chippingnorton