Diplomatic Text
x
St James's Place Friday Morning
5th Janry. 1781
10
This is the first day, I cou'd sincerely
boast of an amendment, or my Dear agreable
Miʃs Hamiltons commands wou'd have been
sooner obey'd -- they were too flattering for
me to neglect. I have - been a poor Languid
mortal since I saw you, but instead of smelling
to my bottle of salts &c. I took a look at my
charming Locket;[1] recollected the honours
my heart most gratefully feels and also abounds
with every warm wish for the Health & true
felicity of yr Royal Mistreʃs so amiable!
that tis impoʃsible not to Love her; you are
an Enviable creature -- but as you are worthy
of the honour of seeing her every Day, I will not
(if I can help it) envy you but wish you many
years enjoyment of that & every Earthly Felicity
Affectly. Yrs
MDelany
The Dʃs of Portlands cold
much better, & that makes me better.
[2]
11
[3]
[4]
To
Miʃs Hamilton
at the Queens Lodge
Windsor[5]
Mrs Delany 5th Janry.
1781[6]
Mrs. Delany[7]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. The Locket in question is the one seen in John Opie's protrait of Delany in the Royal Collection. The Royal Collections Trust notes in the catalogue description that 'Mrs Delany wears a locket with the letters CR -- a reference to Queen Charlotte, who had almost certainly given the locket to her as a token of her friendship.'
2. This page is blank.
3. This page is blank except for the archival number at the top-right corner.
4. Seal in red wax remains intact.
5. The address is written vertically in the centre of the page.
6. This annotation appears upside down in the bottom margin.
7. This annotation was written across the note while it was folded: when unfolded, the annotation appears upside down on the bottom margin, divided into two parts.
Normalised Text
St James's Place Friday Morning
This is the first day, I could sincerely
boast of an amendment, or my Dear agreeable
Miss Hamiltons commands would have been
sooner obeyed -- they were too flattering for
me to neglect. I have been a poor Languid
mortal since I saw you, but instead of smelling
to my bottle of salts &c. I took a look at my
charming Locket; recollected the honours
my heart most gratefully feels and also abounds
with every warm wish for the Health & true
felicity of your Royal Mistress so amiable!
that tis impossible not to Love her; you are
an Enviable creature -- but as you are worthy
of the honour of seeing her every Day, I will not
(if I can help it) envy you but wish you many
years enjoyment of that & every Earthly Felicity
Affectionately Yours
Mary Delany
The Dss of Portlands cold
much better, & that makes me better.
To
Miss Hamilton
at the Queens Lodge
Windsor
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University
Archive: Mrs. Delany correspondence
Item title: Letter from Mary Delany to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: LWL Mss Vol. 75(9)
Correspondence Details
Sender: formerly Pendarves), Mary Delany (née Granville
Place sent: London
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Windsor
Date sent: 5 January 1781
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Mary Delany to Mary Hamilton, in which she mentions looking at the 'charming locket' she had once been given by Queen Charlotte.
Length: 1 sheet, 164 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: Transcription and XML version created as part of project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers', funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under grant AH/S007121/1.
Transliterator: Cassandra Ulph, editorial team (completed 11 January 2021)
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 2 November 2021