The Mary Hamilton Papers : Letter from Mrs Maria Eliza Rundell (née Ketelby) to Mary Hamilton

Rundell (née Ketelby), Maria Eliza

The Mary Hamilton Papers

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Letter from Maria Eliza Rundell to Mary Hamilton, relating to the marriage of Hamilton’s daughter, Louisa Dickenson. Rundell writes that of all the congratulations that will be offered on the marriage, none ‘will be offered with greatest sincerity, than that from an old woman who presided at the birth of the Bride’. She wishes the couple well for their future and hopes that ‘they experience that permanent happiness in the married state, which the exercise of virtue, and the peaceful enjoyment of domestic life, alone can give’.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Rundell notes that no doubt Hamilton mingles a sigh along with her joy at Louisa’s marriage and notes that she did the same on the marriage of three of her daughters.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Rundell notes meeting the sister of Sir William Anson last summer and found her a delightful woman. The time went quickly whilst in her company and she was ‘sorry when any one spoke but herself, for [...] [she] valued every word she uttered’.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Rundell ends her letter by inviting Hamilton to her Devon ‘retreat’ and with news of Hamilton’s friend, Lady Frances Harpur.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dated at The Retreat, [Plymouth].</p>