Benjamin Beddome, Bourton-on-the-Water, to Anne Steele, Broughton, 23 December 1742.    

Dear Miss

         Pardon the Boldness which prompts me to lay these few lines at your Feet—If continued Thoughts of you & a disrelish to every thing besides may be consider’d as Arguments of Love surely I experience the Passion, & if the greatness of a Persons love will make up for the Want of Wit, Wealth & Beauty, then may I humbly lay claim to your Favour—Since I had the happiness of seeing you How often have I thought of Miltons beautiful Description of Eve book 8 Line 471

                                                         So lovely fair!

                                 That what seem’d fair in all the World seem’d now,

                                 Mean, or in her summ’d up, in her contain’d,

                                 And in her Looks; which from that time infus’d

                                 Sweetness into my Heart, unfelt before:    &c.

Madm give me leave to tell you that these Words speak the very Experience of my Soul, nor do I find it possible to forbear loveing You.  Would You but suffer me to come & lay before you the Dictates of a Confused Mind which cannot be represented by a trembling Hand & Pen, Would You but permit me to cast my self at your Feet & tell You how much I love, Oh What an easement might you thereby afford to a burden’d Spirit, & at the same time give me an opportunity of declaring more fully that I am in Sincerity

                                                                 Your devoted Servt

                                                                             Benja Beddome

Bourton—Dec: 23 1742

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 2 (ed. Julia B. Griffin), p. 271 (annotated version); STE 3/13/i, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.  Benjamin Beddome was the Baptist minister at Bourton-on-the-Water.