Diplomatic Text
[1]
Bath March 18th
1787
It has given me heart-
felt pleasure to hear of
Your good Health, Your good
looks, & good spirits from
Mr. Fisher, how pleasant
it is to talk over those whom
we love, & to meet (when separ-
ated from them) wth. those who
can give one particular in-
formation of them. What a
happy recovery is our beloved
Mrs. Delanys! -- I congratulate
You upon it for I know how
great Your anxiety must have
been. I have a dear little
Girl for whom I bespeak Your
affection -- God Grant she may
prove worthy of it! -- & of the
esteem of all ye. truly amiable friends
wth. wch. I am bleʃsed. I need not
enter into any detail abt.
Us as Mr: F can give You
in few words more information
than I could in many pages --
do write to me when sometimes
when a very liesure[2] quarter of
an hour presents itself -- Adieu
my Dr. Miʃs Burney I love
You sincerely & am most Affly
Yours Mry. Dickenson
remember me in ye. kindest
manner to Your Father.
[3]
Vol III P 277
Miʃs Burney
[4]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. This previously unknown letter was discovered by Sophie Coulombeau on 26 June 2025.
2. The noun leisure can be ‘attributive often passing into adj.’, and when thus used of time, OED adds: ‘occasionally compared with more and most’. Here, unusually, it is modified by very (OED s.v. leisure n., 6.a. Accessed 24-01-2026).
3. This page is blank.
4. Remains of a seal, in red wax.
Normalised Text
Bath March 18th
1787
It has given me heartfelt
pleasure to hear of
Your good Health, Your good
looks, & good spirits from
Mr. Fisher, how pleasant
it is to talk over those whom
we love, & to meet (when separated
from them) with those who
can give one particular information
of them. What a
happy recovery is our beloved
Mrs. Delanys! -- I congratulate
You upon it for I know how
great Your anxiety must have
been. I have a dear little
Girl for whom I bespeak Your
affection -- God Grant she may
prove worthy of it! -- & of the
esteem of all the truly amiable friends
with which I am blessed. I need not
enter into any detail about
Us as Mr: Fisher can give You
in few words more information
than I could in many pages --
do write to me sometimes
when a very leisure quarter of
an hour presents itself -- Adieu
my Dear Miss Burney I love
You sincerely & am most Affectionately
Yours Mary Dickenson
remember me in the kindest
manner to Your Father.
Miss Burney
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: Manuscripts collected by John Sparrow, 15th - 20th cent., The Bodleian Library
Archive: Sparrow inventory
Item title: Letter from Mary Hamilton to Frances Burney
Shelfmark: Sparrow inventory, box 22
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Hamilton
Place sent: Bath
Addressee: Frances D'Arblay (née Burney)
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 18 March 1787
Letter Description
Summary: Mary Hamilton, afterwards Dickenson: Letter to Frances Burney. Hamilton has had news of Mrs Delany and of Frances Burney from John Fisher. She congratulates Burney both on Mrs Delany's recovery and on Burney's own return to health. She tells Burney that she has a little girl [Louisa Dickenson, then 7 weeks old], but leaves further news of her family for Mr Fisher to report.
Dated at Bath.
Length: 2 sheets, 180 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: Item added after the funded period under the supervision of David Denison and Nuria Yáñez-Bouza.
Transliterator: David Denison (submitted 2 February 2026)
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 10 July 2026
