Letter 4087

Posted on August 2, 2016 by -

Grew to Nehemiah Grew's Mistress –


Item info

Date:
Author: Grew
Recipient: Nehemiah Grew's Mistress

Library: British Library, London
Manuscript: MS 4066
Folio: f. 358


Original Page


Transcription

My Dearest Mistress, The last time I had ye opportunity to kiss your hand was ye only hap-py day I have had these five years. And might have been much more so, but yt it secured at [least?], to set in a cloud. I long to trye whether another day may not prove more clear: If therefore you will give me leave to wait on you tomorrow betwine 4 & 5 af-ternoone, I shall much embrace yt joyfull hour. This much Love [on:?] […] write, yt you may Triumph over me, as ye only Sovereigne of my heart. If I had a hundred, they were all yours; & had I as many hands, I would with every one of them subscribe my self, Mon Faire Yr most passionate & most obedient Captive Grew.

Nehemiah Grew writes to an unspecified mistress. Grew was a botanist and physician who, in 1677, was appointed joint secretary of the Royal Society along with Robert Hooke (Michael Hunter, Grew, Nehemiah (bap. 1641, d. 1712), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, May 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11521, accessed 11 May 2011].



Patient Details