Single Letter

LWL Mss Vol. 75(11)

Note from Mary Delany to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


      x
                                                         10 O'clock Wednesday
                                                         14th March 1781
                                                         13
My Dear Madam
      I hope the Regal Flower[1] has return'd safe
into your hands tho not so blooming as when I
receiv'd it; I fear I have kept it too long, but
my Vivacity like the flower droops with Time -- &
I truly think nothing leʃs than the Honour & delight
of having been thought worthy such a task by her majesty
cou'd have given me the power of attempting
it; you know my Dear Madam how truly
sensible I am of the Queens goodneʃs & you
also know how difficult it is to do justice to that
gratitude which an honest heart must feel --
joy, joy for our Excellent good news!
The Bishp. of Chester and Mrs Porteus drink Tea
here x my never failing Friend this afternoon -- have you a moment to
spare? if you have, you cannot bestow it where
it will be more truly Valued than on
                             Yr most affectte. & Obliged
                                                         MDelany
don't write I know
yr hours are better employd,
than in ansg. notes.






      From St. James Place

(hover over blue text or annotations for clarification;
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)


Notes


 1. Delany executed a collage portraying the Amaryllis Regia, sent to her from Queen Charlotte, in March 1781.

Normalised Text


     
                                                         10 O'clock Wednesday
                                                        
                                                        
My Dear Madam
      I hope the Regal Flower has returned safe
into your hands though not so blooming as when I
received it; I fear I have kept it too long, but
my Vivacity like the flower droops with Time -- &
I truly think nothing less than the Honour & delight
of having been thought worthy such a task by her majesty
could have given me the power of attempting
it; you know my Dear Madam how truly
sensible I am of the Queens goodness & you
also know how difficult it is to do justice to that
gratitude which an honest heart must feel --
joy, joy for our Excellent good news!
The Bishop of Chester and Mrs Porteus drink Tea
here x my never failing Friend this afternoon -- have you a moment to
spare? if you have, you cannot bestow it where
it will be more truly Valued than on
                             Your most affectionate & Obliged
                                                         Mary Delany
don't write I know
your hours are better employed,
than in answering notes.






     

(consult diplomatic text or XML for annotations, deletions, clarifications, persons,
quotations,
spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)



 1. Delany executed a collage portraying the Amaryllis Regia, sent to her from Queen Charlotte, in March 1781.

Metadata

Library References

Repository: Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Archive: Mrs. Delany correspondence

Item title: Note from Mary Delany to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: LWL Mss Vol. 75(11)

Correspondence Details

Sender: formerly Pendarves), Mary Delany (née Granville

Place sent: London

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 14 March 1781

Letter Description

Summary: Note from Mary Delany to Mary Hamilton, expressing hope that the 'regal flower' that she had been given by the Queen for a collage has returned safely into Mary Hamilton's hands.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 174 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 13 January 2021)

Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors

Revision date: 2 November 2021

Document Image (pdf)