Diplomatic Text
[1]
Lost to the World,
And by the World forsaken,
A Wretched Creature
After groaning under a weary Life
Upwards of 32 Years,
Without having Knowing one happy hour,
And all,
The consequence of a single error
Committed in early days,
Tho' highly venial,
As being ye. effect of Juvenile Folly,
And soon repented of.
(But Alas!
The poor Prodigal
Had no kind Father that cou'd take him Home
And welcome back his sad repentant Virtue,
With fond forgiveneʃs & ye. fatted Calf)
Here
Sinks beneath ye. load of mighty Ills,
And with
His miserable Being lays them down
Heart broken
At ye age of 50.
Tender Reader,
Give him a little Earth
For Charity.
[2]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. This is the poem left by the mystery man in the inn at Farningham (see MS Eng 1778 38 p.4), which Elizabeth Carter sent to Mary Hamilton when in no fit state to make a transcript herself. The poem and the story behind it are printed and reprinted a number of times, the earliest so far found The Phoenix: Or, weekly miscellany improved (From 4th July to 26th December 1792.), vol. 1. Glasgow, pp.237-8.
2. This page is blank.
Normalised Text
Lost to the World,
And by the World forsaken,
A Wretched Creature
After groaning under a weary Life
Upwards of 32 Years,
Without Knowing one happy hour,
And all,
The consequence of a single error
Committed in early days,
Tho' highly venial,
As being ye. effect of Juvenile Folly,
And soon repented of.
(But Alas!
The poor Prodigal
Had no kind Father that cou'd take him Home
And welcome back his sad repentant Virtue,
With fond forgiveness & ye. fatted Calf)
Here
Sinks beneath ye. load of mighty Ills,
And with
His miserable Being lays them down
Heart broken
At ye age of 50.
Tender Reader,
Give him a little Earth
For Charity.
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: Sheet of verse
Shelfmark: MS Eng 1778 37a
Document Details
Author:
Date: n.d.
Summary: Sheet of verse. Originally catalogued together with MS Eng 1778 37, but in fact associated with the story of the mysterious suicide told in MS Eng 1778 38. The hand is not Elizabeth Carter's and is probably Mary Hamilton's.
Original entry in Houghton Library catalogue: Carter, Elizabeth, 1717-1806. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton; Deal, 1783 July 7.
Length: 1 sheet, 000 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 26 February 2026)
Cataloguer: Bonnie B. Salt, Archivist, Houghton Library
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 13 October 2026
