HAM/1/20/152
Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
28, St. Albans Street
30th. June 1800.
My Dear Sister,
Your Letter, & Note to
Mr. Benn, arrived safe this Morning.
The former I put in my pocket, and
threw the latter into the fire place
after having carefully torn it. I had
two excellent reasons for doing so.
In the first place, to save my Mans
Shoe Leather, and in the second place,
I had presented my Wife with Han-
nah More's Book, many many Months
ago. Of all this, I proposed to inform
You when I got home. But, your
Puppy of a Bookseller has been
too alert, for on my return to
my Lodgings this Evening, I found
a packet on the Table, directed for
Me. On opening it, Hannah More,
Mrs- Chapone, with Mrs- Dickensons
Compliments stared me in the
face. This, is really very provoking,
that I am to be molested carrying
female Nonsense, up & down
the Country. As, however, the Books
are well bound, perhaps, they
may be civilly received by my Females,
& therefore, if my Man John will
condescend to trouble himself with
taking charge of them, I will not
throw them out of the Chaise Win
dow. Love to your Husband and
Daughter. Aʃsure Yourself of my
constant abhorrence, for I hate
all Givers of Presents, out of Envy,
perhaps, that I cannot afford to
follow the example. Adieu My
Dear Sister.
Ever Your sincere
& Affectionate Friend
Napier
London, First July 1800
Mrs- Dickenson[1]
Leighton House
Leighton Buzzard
Napier.
[2]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
28, St. Albans Street
30th. June 1800.
My Dear Sister,
Your Letter, & Note to
Mr. Benn, arrived safe this Morning.
The former I put in my pocket, and
threw the latter into the fire place
after having carefully torn it. I had
two excellent reasons for doing so.
In the first place, to save my Mans
Shoe Leather, and in the second place,
I had presented my Wife with Hannah
More's Book, many many Months
ago. Of all this, I proposed to inform
You when I got home. But, your
Puppy of a Bookseller has been
too alert, for on my return to
my Lodgings this Evening, I found
a packet on the Table, directed for
Me. On opening it, Hannah More,
Mrs- Chapone, with Mrs- Dickensons
Compliments stared me in the
face. This, is really very provoking,
that I am to be molested carrying
female Nonsense, up & down
the Country. As, however, the Books
are well bound, perhaps, they
may be civilly received by my Females,
& therefore, if my Man John will
condescend to trouble himself with
taking charge of them, I will not
throw them out of the Chaise Window
. Love to your Husband and
Daughter. Assure Yourself of my
constant abhorrence, for I hate
all Givers of Presents, out of Envy,
perhaps, that I cannot afford to
follow the example. Adieu My
Dear Sister.
Ever Your sincere
& Affectionate Friend
Napier
London, First July 1800
Mrs- Dickenson
Leighton House
Leighton Buzzard
Napier.
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester
Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers
Item title: Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/20/152
Correspondence Details
Sender: Francis Scott Napier, 8th Lord
Place sent: London
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Leighton Buzzard
Date sent: 30 June 1800
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton. He opened a
packet that was addressed to him and was presented with ‘Hannah More, Mrs
Chapone, with Mrs Dickenson's compliments stared me in the face’ [the books
were for his wife]. He notes that this is provoking: ‘I am to be molested
carrying female Nonsense up & down the Country’. He notes that rather
than throw them out of his carriage window he will get his servant to take
charge of them.
Dated at St Albans Street.
Length: 1 sheet, 248 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 23 November 2021)
Cataloguer: Lisa Crawley, Archivist, The John Rylands Library
Cataloguer: John Hodgson, Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Research Institute and Library
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 6 March 2022