Diplomatic Text
Stanhope Street
Friday night
I wish my dear Miʃs
Hamilton your situation was
such as to allow you now &
then to indulge a lazy fit,
if you are ever that way
inclined; as I cou'd then more
easily flatter my= self you wou'd
excuse the effects of such a fit
in me, which has till now
prevented me informing you,
that the best book you can
consult in yr present branch
of natural history, is Da Costa
on shells:[1] a piece of intelligence
I gained more days ago than
I will own, from Dr Fothergill.
How is the health? the appetite
sleep &c? As to yr looks, can
not you give me ocular
information here next Monday
Monday afternoon? Is not that a
liesure evening? Do pray come if
you can. You will not find
much company; Mrs Carter,
Mrs Chapone, & Miʃs Cooper are
to be of the party. I wish
to call on you but think it
a sin, whilst you are so very
much hurried. The bare idea
of this, drives me on to say
abruptly that I am
Yrs Affectly
M. Sharpe.
24th April 1779[2]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Emanuel Mendes da Costa (1717-1791), Historia naturalis testaceorum Britanniæ, or, The British conchology : containing the descriptions and other particulars of natural history of the shells of Great Britain and Ireland : illustrated with figures, in English and in French. London, 1778.
2. The date added by Mary Hamilton is that of the Saturday.
Normalised Text
Stanhope Street
Friday night
I wish my dear Miss
Hamilton your situation was
such as to allow you now &
then to indulge a lazy fit,
if you are ever that way
inclined; as I could then more
easily flatter my= self you would
excuse the effects of such a fit
in me, which has till now
prevented me informing you,
that the best book you can
consult in your present branch
of natural history, is Da Costa
on shells: a piece of intelligence
I gained more days ago than
I will own, from Dr Fothergill.
How is the health? the appetite
sleep &c? As to your looks, can
not you give me ocular
information here next
Monday afternoon? Is not that a
leisure evening? Do pray come if
you can. You will not find
much company; Mrs Carter,
Mrs Chapone, & Miss Cooper are
to be of the party. I wish
to call on you but think it
a sin, whilst you are so very
much hurried. The bare idea
of this, drives me on to say
abruptly that I am
Yours Affectionately
Mary Sharpe.
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 Mary Sharpe (later Beauvoir) to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/22/8
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Beauvoir (née Sharpe, later Douglas)
Place sent: London
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: to be determined
Date sent: between 23 and 24 April 1779
notBefore 23 April 1779 (precision: high)
notAfter 24 April 1779 (precision: high)
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Mary Sharpe to Mary Hamilton. Sharpe writes inviting Hamilton to a party which will include Mrs [Elizabeth] Carter and Mrs Chapone [Hester Chapone, née Mulso (1727-1801), writer]. She also suggests a book for Hamilton to read on natural history by Da Costa on the subject of 'Shells' [Possibly Emanuel Mendas Da Costa's Elements of conchology: or, an introduction to the Knowledge of Shells.].
Dated at Stanhope Street, [London].
Length: 1 sheet, 186 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: XML version first created without transcription as part of project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers', funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under grant AH/S007121/1. Transcription added after the funded period under the supervision of David Denison and Nuria Yáñez-Bouza.
Transliterator: Pete Morris, Artificial Intelligence and Ideas Adoption (AIIA), The University of Manchester Library (Plain text transliteration submitted 22 May 2025)
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: 7 April 2026
