The Mary Hamilton Papers : Letter from William Napier, 7th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton

Napier, William, 7th Lord

The Mary Hamilton Papers

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Letter from William Napier, 7th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton, relating to Hamilton’s visit to Bath and her time in London. Napier writes ‘Plays, Operas, Pantheon, & Ranelagh – Good God is not thy little head turned with to much nonsense. Plays & Operas I will allow may be both amusing, diverting & instructing. The Pantheon to see & be seen [...] but Ranelagh, insipid from the first night – will always continue so to people of a sensible taste’. Hamilton is also to attend a masquerade and Napier hopes that it will be her last as well as her first.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Napier writes on education and on Mrs [Elizabeth] Carter. He is glad that Hamilton likes her very much and that she has a new friend in her. ‘I know not a better woman or a more amiable one’. He is also glad that Hamilton has spent some time with her Uncle Cathcart and that she is pleased with her cousins. They seem to be good girls and Napier hopes that they will grow to be ‘amiable women’. Napier alludes to a ‘scheme’ that Hamilton’s uncle, Frederick Hamilton, has for his daughter of which he will say nothing as it is not for him to say what is right for another man’s daughter.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Napier ends his letter by jokingly asking if Mrs Carter attended the masquerade.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dated at Edinburgh.</p>