Diplomatic Text
[1]
165
My Dear
Mrs. Carter goes with
the Veseys & as Mrs. Handcock
also goes to Hampton they will
not be able to take you, but
surely such a fairy as You are could
easily find a place between
Your Brother[2] & myself in Mrs.
Ordes Coach -- besides I am
sure it wd. delight her to have
the addition of Your company
If you love me let no
trifling difficulty prevent Your
joining our Party
In great haste but
Yours most Affly
M: H:
Miʃs Burney[3]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. The date is inferred by Sophie Coulombeau (2025: 499) from the reference in HAM/2/10 p.105.
2. If Hamilton had indeed meant to refer to Miss Burney's brother, that would have been Charles Burney (1757-1817), classicist and schoolmaster, or her half-brother Richard Thomas Burney (1768-1808), as her brother James (1750-1821) was abroad, but the report of the outing the next day makes clear that it was her father, Dr Burney, who accompanied them in Mrs Ord's coach (see HAM/2/10 p.105), so brother here is most likely a slip of the pen.
3. The direction is written vertically.
Normalised Text
My Dear
Mrs. Carter goes with
the Veseys & as Mrs. Handcock
also goes to Hampton they will
not be able to take you, but
surely such a fairy as You are could
easily find a place between
Your Brother & myself in Mrs.
Ordes Coach -- besides I am
sure it would delight her to have
the addition of Your company
If you love me let no
trifling difficulty prevent Your
joining our Party
In great haste but
Yours most Affectionately
Mary Hamilton
Miss Burney
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: Archives and Manuscripts, BL, The British Library
Archive: Western Manuscripts. Barrett Collection
Item title: Note from Mary Hamilton to Frances Burney
Shelfmark: Egerton MS 3698 f. 165
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Hamilton
Place sent: London (certainty: high)
Addressee: Frances D'Arblay (née Burney)
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 31 May 1784
when 31 May 1784 (precision: high)
Letter Description
Summary: Mary Hamilton, afterwards Dickenson: Undated note to Frances Burney, written on 31 May 1784 (see HAM/2/10 p.105).
Length: 1 sheet, 85 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: Sophie Coulombeau (submitted 5 October 2022)
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 9 December 2025
