Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hamilton, Mary
HAMILTON, Lady MARY (1739–1816), novelist, born at Edinburgh in 1739, was youngest daughter of Alexander Leslie, fifth earl of Leven and Melville, by his second wife Elizabeth, daughter of David Monypenny. She was married first to Dr. James Walker of Innerdovat on 5 Jan. 1762, and secondly to Robert Hamilton of Jamaica. She published: 1. 'Letters from the Duchesse de Crony,' 1777. 2. 'Munster Village,' 1778. 3. 'The Life of Mrs. Justman,' 1782. 4. 'The Duc de Popoli,' 1810. She and her second husband settled in France before the revolution, and their two daughters married respectively the dramatist Jouy and General Thiébaut. After Hamilton's death Lady Mary lived near Amiens, where she was very intimate with Sir Herbert Croft (1751–1816) [q. v.], who introduced to her Charles Nodier. Nodier became her literary factotum, and translated, or rather rewrote, some of her novels. She died at Amiens, shortly before Croft, in 1816.
[Bibliophile Français, 1869–70; Mem. de Madame de Genlis; Nichols's Illustr. Lit. Hist. v. 216, viii. 632; Burke's Peerage, s.v. 'Leven and Melville.']