Diplomatic Text
[1]
Indeed my Dear Miʃs Hamilton I do mostvery
cordially aʃsert my Love for You under my own hand.
I must defer your other injunction, & give You my
opinion of ye. Book, till we meet as I hope we shall,
at Mill Hill, In ye. mean time now, do not You go
starving[2] & marry a Tom Jones, bleʃsing Your Stars all
ye. while, & thinking You have made a notable Choice,
because he is not a Blyfil,[3] this caution however
given en Riant to You, might be very seriously
neceʃsary to many a poor sentimental Miʃs, &
perhaps You will think its being so, a sufficient
ex critique upon ye. History of Tom Jones, without
any further Addition Adieu E. Carter[4]
Deal Septr. 30th. 1779
Copy Written in a letter of
Miʃs Sharpes
Mrs. Carter[5]
Typed
[6]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. This letter is a copy of Elizabeth Carter's contribution to a joint letter with Mary Sharpe (see HAM/1/22/14 p.2).
2. The original letter in Carter's hand has go staring, possibly in a sense related to the proverb ‘there is a difference between staring and stark mad’ (OED s.v. staring adj., Phrases. Accessed 09-03-2026).
3. A reference to Master Blifil, a rival to the novel's eponymous hero.
4. The signature ‘E. Carter’ is underlined in the pencil of one of the annotators.
5. This annotation is written upside down.
6. This page is blank.
Normalised Text
Indeed my Dear Miss Hamilton I do very
cordially assert my Love for You under my own hand.
I must defer your other injunction, & give You my
opinion of the Book, till we meet as I hope we shall,
at Mill Hill, In the mean time now, do not You go
starving & marry a Tom Jones, blessing Your Stars all
the while, & thinking You have made a notable Choice,
because he is not a Blyfil, this caution however
given en Riant to You, might be very seriously
necessary to many a poor sentimental Miss, &
perhaps You will think its being so, a sufficient
critique upon the History of Tom Jones, without
any further Addition Adieu Elizabeth Carter
Deal September 30th. 1779
Written in a letter of
Miss Sharpes
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: Houghton Library Repository, Harvard University
Archive: Elizabeth Carter and Hannah More letters to Mary Hamilton
Item title: Copy of letter from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: MS Eng 1778 1a
Correspondence Details
Sender: Elizabeth Carter
Place sent: Deal
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 30 September 1779
Letter Description
Summary: Copy of a letter from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton. Carter had added this letter to one being written by Mary Sharpe (see HAM/1/22/14 p.2). Hamilton copies out Carter's portion of the joint letter.
Original entry in Houghton Library catalogue: Carter, Elizabeth, 1717-1806. Manuscript letter (copy) to Mary Hamilton; Deal, 1779 September 30.
Length: 1 sheet, 132 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 13 January 2026)
Cataloguer: Bonnie B. Salt, Archivist, Houghton Library
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 7 April 2026
