Update for 76491HEADmain

1 files changed, 8105 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/76491-0.txt b/76491-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..28a1b86
--- /dev/null
+++ b/76491-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8105 @@
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76491 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note
+
+Footnotes have all been renumbered from 1 to 20.
+
+Page 76 — bougeoises changed to bourgeoises.
+
+Page 332 — biassed changed to biased.
+
+The Advertisements “By Same Author”, have been placed at the back of
+the project.
+
+
+
+
+MARY RUSSELL MITFORD
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _From a Portrait by A. Burt_ _taken in 1836._]
+
+
+MARY RUSSELL MITFORD AND HER SURROUNDINGS
+
+
+BY
+
+CONSTANCE HILL
+
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ELLEN G. HILL AND REPRODUCTIONS OF PORTRAITS
+
+
+“There are few names which fall with a pleasanter sound upon the ears
+of those who adopt authors as friends than the name of Mary Russell
+Mitford.”
+
+
+LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXX
+
+
+_The centre design in the binding represents a French gold enamelled
+watch which belonged to Mrs. Mitford and was inherited by her daughter.
+The original is in the possession of the Misses Lovejoy._
+
+
+WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The more we study the life and character of Mary Russell Mitford the
+more we become attached to her, for we come under the influence of a
+nature that seems to radiate peace and good-will upon all who surround
+her.
+
+“The pleasant compelled enjoyment of her tales,” writes Harriet
+Martineau, “is ascribable no doubt to the flow of good spirits and
+kindliness that lighted up and warmed everything that her mind
+produced.” And if we seek for a further reason, surely it is to be
+found, as another writer observes, “in their strong rural flavour. They
+breathe the air of the hay-fields and the scent of the hawthorn boughs.
+There is nothing artificial about them, nothing of the conventional
+pastoral. They are native and to the manner born.”
+
+Here is an example that occurs in a letter to a friend, written long
+before her printed works appeared. Speaking of a walk in the Berkshire
+meadows on a spring morning, she says: “Oh, how beautiful they were
+to-day, with all their train of callow goslings, and frisking lambs,
+and laughing children chasing the butterflies that floated like
+animated flowers in the air!... How full of fragrance and of melody!
+It is when walking in such scenes, listening to the mingled notes of a
+thousand birds and inhaling the mingled perfume of a thousand flowers
+that I feel the real joy of existence.”
+
+Many writers have imitated Miss Mitford’s style since the “tales” of
+_Our Village_ first took the reading world by surprise nearly a hundred
+years ago; but none of those writers, in my opinion, possess her potent
+charm, nor do they possess her wonderful power of making her readers
+see nature, as it were, through her eyes and grasp the beauty and
+poetry of rural life.
+
+Mary as a child was shy and silent before strangers, but withal very
+observant. Writing of the impressions made upon her mind by some of the
+French _émigré_ coteries with which she had come in contact, she says:
+“In truth they formed a motley group [whose] contrasts and combinations
+were too ludicrous not to strike irresistibly the fancy of an acute
+observing girl whose perception of the ludicrous was rendered keener
+by the invincible shyness which confined the enjoyment entirely to her
+own breast.”
+
+But is it not to the experiences gained by such quiet, shy children as
+herself and Charlotte Brontë that we owe much of our knowledge of life
+and its surroundings? It is the listeners not the talkers that can hand
+down this knowledge to us.
+
+Miss Mitford’s talents were varied, and we owe to her pen some stirring
+dramas which were performed with much éclat on the London stage, and
+in which John Kemble and Macready took the leading parts. The public
+were astonished to learn that it was a gentle lady living in a remote
+Berkshire village who was thus moving the great London audiences.
+
+A shrewd American critic of the day remarks: “In all these plays there
+is strong, vigorous writing—masculine in the free unhashed use of
+language—but wholly womanly in its purity from coarseness or licence
+and in the inter-mixture of those incidental touches of softest feeling
+and finest observation which are peculiar to the gentler sex.”
+
+It has been said of Miss Mitford by one who knew her that “as
+a letter-writer she has rarely been surpassed, and that her
+correspondence, so full as it is of point in allusions, so full of
+anecdote and of recollections, will be considered among her finest
+writings.” Even her hasty notes, we are told, “had a relish about
+them quite their own.” It is interesting to find the views she
+herself entertained on the subject of letter-writing as given in her
+_Recollections of a Literary Life_. It runs as follows: “Such is the
+reality and identity belonging to letters written at the moment and
+intended only for the eye of a favourite friend, that probably any
+genuine series of epistles were the writer ever so little distinguished
+would ... possess the invaluable quality of individuality which so
+often causes us to linger before an old portrait of which we know no
+more than that it is a Burgomaster by Rembrandt or a Venetian Senator
+by Titian. The least skilful pen when flowing from the fulness of the
+heart ... shall often paint with as faithful and life-like a touch as
+either of those great masters.”
+
+Mary Russell Mitford’s friends were numerous, both here in England and
+on the other side of the Atlantic, and her sympathies were as wide as
+the great ocean that lies between us. She writes in later life: “I love
+poetry and people as well at sixty as I did at sixteen, and can never
+be sufficiently grateful to God for having permitted me to retain the
+two joy-giving faculties of admiration and sympathy by which we are
+enabled to escape from the consciousness of our own infirmities into
+the great works of all ages and the joys and sorrows of our immediate
+friends.”
+
+This sunny nature which was unembittered by severe trials speaks to us
+in all the stories of _Our Village_, and it spread such a halo about
+the scenes therein described that little Three Mile Cross—the prototype
+of _Our Village_—became in time a resort of pilgrims from far and near,
+among whom were some of the finest spirits of the age. All longed to
+gaze upon the cottage in which Mary Russell Mitford had dwelt, and
+to sit in the small parlour whose window looks down upon the village
+street, where she had written the stories so dear to her readers.
+
+Happily the cottage itself, with the little general shop on one side
+and the village inn on the other, are still so much what they were in
+her day that the long space of time that has rolled by since her room
+was left vacant seems to vanish, and as we enter the front door we
+almost expect to see the small figure of the “lady of _Our Village_”
+coming down the narrow stairs to welcome us.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before closing this Preface I would express my gratitude to Lord
+Treowen, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Palmer, Mr. F. Cowslade, Mr. W. May, the
+Misses Lovejoy, and Mr. J. J. Cooper, for permission to reproduce
+valuable portraits and relics, and for other kind help.
+
+CONSTANCE HILL.
+
+GROVE COTTAGE, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD, _August, 1919_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER PAGE
+
+I. AN AUTHOR’S BIRTHPLACE 1
+
+II. HAPPY MEMORIES 9
+
+III. VILLAGE NEIGHBOURS 15
+
+IV. EARLY LIFE IN READING 22
+
+V. LYME REGIS 29
+
+VI. A STORMY COAST 40
+
+VII. A FLIGHT 52
+
+VIII. RETURN TO READING 56
+
+IX. THE SCHOOL IN HANS PLACE 66
+
+X. A GLIMPSE OF OLD FRENCH SOCIETY 74
+
+XI. THE GAY REALITIES OF MOLIÈRE 82
+
+XII. RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD READING 92
+
+XIII. A NORTHERN TOUR 101
+
+XIV. A ROYAL VISIT 110
+
+XV. PLAYS AND POETRY 119
+
+XVI. A CHOSEN CORRESPONDENT 126
+
+XVII. THE MARCH OF MIND 134
+
+XVIII. VERSATILITY AND PLAYFULNESS 144
+
+XIX. FROM MANSION TO COTTAGE 156
+
+XX. THREE MILE CROSS 161
+
+XXI. THE NEW HOME 179
+
+XXII. A LOQUACIOUS VISITOR 190
+
+XXIII. THE PUBLICATION OF “OUR VILLAGE” 203
+
+XXIV. A COUNTRY-SIDE ROMANCE 212
+
+XXV. A NEW PLAYWRIGHT 221
+
+XXVI. “RIENZI” 230
+
+XXVII. FOREIGN NEIGHBOURS 241
+
+XXVIII. AGREEABLE JAUNTS 250
+
+XXIX. UFTON COURT 260
+
+XXX. A FURTHER GLANCE AT OUR VILLAGE 271
+
+XXXI. ECCENTRIC NEIGHBOURS 283
+
+XXXII. THE MAY-HOUSES 292
+
+XXXIII. WALKS IN THE COUNTRY 302
+
+XXXIV. A CENTRE OF INTEREST 315
+
+XXXV. A LONDON WELCOME 328
+
+XXXVI. A BRAVE HEART 339
+
+XXXVII. FAREWELL TO THREE MILE CROSS 350
+
+XXXVIII. SWALLOWFIELD 360
+
+XXXIX. PEACEFUL CLOSING YEARS 372
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+PAGE
+
+Portrait of Mary Russell Mitford. (_By A. Burt, taken in 1836_)
+_Frontispiece_
+
+Grove Cottage, Frognal, Hampstead _Preface_ x
+
+The Mitfords’ house in Broad Street, Alresford 3
+
+Antique girandole 8
+
+Mary Russell Mitford’s birthplace 11
+
+Mary Russell Mitford at the age of four years. (_After a miniature_)
+_To face_ 16
+
+The Cross-house 21
+
+Southampton Street, Reading 24
+
+The “Walk” by the sea, Lyme Regis 31
+
+The Great House, Lyme Regis 35
+
+Old ironwork 39
+
+The panelled chamber 41
+
+The drawing-room 47
+
+Blackfriars Bridge in 1796 52
+
+Dr. Mitford’s house in the London Road, Reading _To face_ 58
+
+Antique ironwork 65
+
+Hans Place in 1798 69
+
+Ceiling decoration (1714) 81
+
+A purse-bag 91
+
+A skit on the “Pink of the mode” _To face_ 92
+
+A quaint tea-set 100
+
+Gosfield Hall _To face_ 110
+
+Le Comte d’Artois (afterwards Charles X) _To face_ 112
+
+The Dining-room in the Deanery, Bocking 115
+
+Dr. Valpy’s school _To face_ 122
+
+Country cottages 143
+
+Bertram House 147
+
+Inlaid tea-caddy 160
+
+The Mitfords’ cottage in Three Mile Cross 163
+
+The village shop 169
+
+The Swan Inn 173
+
+A country wheelbarrow 178
+
+Miss Mitford’s writing-parlour 181
+
+The wheelwright’s workshop 185
+
+Fragment of the Silchester Roman wall 189
+
+Where the curate lodged 193
+
+The curate’s parlour 197
+
+An old Berkshire farm 213
+
+Frith Street, Soho Square 225
+
+Old houses in Great Queen Street 233
+
+A French bonbonnière 249
+
+The West Gate, Southampton 251
+
+Pulteney Bridge, Bath 254
+
+Arabella Fermor as a child. (_After a picture in the possession of
+Frederick Cowslade, Esq._) 259
+
+The Porch, Ufton Court 261
+
+Arabella Fermor, the “Belinda” of the “Rape of the Lock,” afterwards
+Mrs. Perkins. (_From a painting by W. Sykes in the possession of Lord
+Treowen_) _To face_ 262
+
+Francis Perkins. (_By W. Sykes, from a painting also in the possession
+of Lord Treowen_) _To face_ 262
+
+Belinda’s parlour 265
+
+The garden steps 267
+
+A dandy of the period 291
+
+An old shoeing forge 297
+
+A bridge on the Loddon 303
+
+In Aberleigh (Arborfield) Park 307
+
+Dr. Mitford. (_From a painting by John Lucas in the possession of W.
+May, Esq._) _To face_ 330
+
+Ironwork in the balcony of Sergeant Talfourd’s house 338
+
+Verses by M. R. Mitford written in a friend’s album (_facsimile_) _To
+face_ 344
+
+Old house near Swallowfield 355
+
+A teapot which belonged to M. R. Mitford 359
+
+M. R. Mitford’s last home at Swallowfield 363
+
+Swallowfield Church 380
+
+
+
+
+MARY RUSSELL MITFORD
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+AN AUTHOR’S BIRTHPLACE
+
+
+In a sunny corner of Hampshire there lies the tiny historic town
+of Alresford on the gentle slopes of a hill, at whose feet flows
+the little river Arle which gives its name to the place. “A town so
+small that but for an ancient market very slenderly attended, nobody
+would have dreamt of calling it anything but a village.” And yet,
+oddly enough, in this same place great dignity was united with rustic
+simplicity, for the living of “Old” Alresford was one of the richest
+in England, and was held by the Bishop of Exeter in conjunction with
+his very poor see. The Post Office was formerly installed in a very
+small room with nothing but a letter-box in the window; still, it had
+its importance, being at the head of many others scattered over the
+country-side.
+
+Alresford was the birthplace of one who loved nature as few have loved
+her, and whose writings “breathe the air of the hay-fields and the
+scent of the hawthorn boughs,” and seem to waft to us “the sweet
+breezes that blow over ripened, cornfields or daisied meadows.”
+
+The name of Mary Russell Mitford—the author of _Our Village_—is dear to
+thousands of readers, both English and American, for she has enabled
+them to see nature with her eyes and to enter into the very spirit of
+rural life.
+
+Alresford is built on the plan of the letter T, at the top of which
+stands the old church; Broad Street being the perpendicular stem,
+traversed by East Street and West Street, which form the cross-bar.
+
+Supposing that we are coming up from the valley below where we have
+left behind us the winding river with its old mill, we enter the lower
+end of Broad Street—that picturesque street with its raised footpaths
+on either side bordered by trees, and its low, irregular houses,
+dominated at the upper end by the grey tower of the old church. That
+dignified looking house on the right-hand side, with its hooded doorway
+and its tall windows, belonged to Dr. Mitford.
+
+Here it was that the doctor started a practice soon after his marriage
+with Miss Russell, the only child and heiress of the late Dr. Russell,
+Rector of Ashe, and here, on the 16th December, 1787, Mary, also an
+only child, was born.
+
+
+[Illustration: THE HOUSE IN BROAD STREET]
+
+
+“A pleasant house in truth it was,” she writes. “The breakfast-room
+... was a lofty and spacious apartment literally lined with books,
+which, with its Turkey carpet, its glowing fire, its sofas and its
+easy-chairs, seemed, what indeed it was, a very nest of English
+comfort. The windows opened on a large old-fashioned garden, full of
+old-fashioned flowers—stocks, roses, honeysuckles and pinks; and that
+again led into a grassy orchard, abounding with fruit trees....
+
+“What a playground was that orchard! and what playfellows were mine!
+My maid Nancy with her trim prettiness, my own dear father, handsomest
+and cheerfullest of men, and the great Newfoundland dog Coe, who used
+to lie down at my feet as if to invite me to mount him, and then to
+prance off with his burthen, as if he enjoyed the fun as much as we
+did!... How well I remember my father’s carrying me round the orchard
+on his shoulder, holding fast my little three-year-old feet, whilst the
+little hands hung on to his pig-tail, which I called my bridle; hung
+so fast, and tugged so heartily, that sometimes the ribbon would come
+off between my fingers and send his hair floating and the powder flying
+down his back!... Happy, happy days! It is good to have the memory of
+such a childhood!”
+
+Miss Mitford writes on another occasion:—
+
+“In common with many only children, I learnt to read at a very early
+age. My father would perch me on the breakfast-table to exhibit my
+only accomplishment to some admiring guest, who admired all the more
+[from my being] a small puny child, gifted with an affluence of curls
+[who] might have passed for the twin sister of my own great doll.
+On the table was I perched to read some Foxite newspaper, _Courier_
+or _Morning Chronicle_, the Whiggish oracles of the day.... I read
+leading articles to please the company; and my dear mother recited ‘The
+Children in the Wood’ to please me. This was my reward, and I looked
+for my favourite ballad after every performance, just as the piping
+bull-finch that hung in the window looked for his lump of sugar after
+going through ‘God save the King.’ The two cases were exactly parallel.”
+
+We have sat in the very room where this scene took place. Little is
+changed there, and we stepped from its windows “opening down to the
+ground” into the garden. A narrow footpath, bordered by greensward,
+led to a small flagged courtyard, flanked on one side by a quaint
+old brew-house, with its red-tiled roof and peaked windowed centre.
+Then, passing through a wicket-gate, we found ourselves in the “large
+old-fashioned garden,” itself gay with flowers as of yore.
+
+An adjoining house has arisen, since the Mitfords lived in their house
+more than a hundred years ago, but this building has in its turn grown
+old, so that it does not mar the character of the place.
+
+Beyond the garden lay the orchard, now used as a tennis lawn, but still
+happily surrounded by trees, through whose boughs peeps of the sweet
+surrounding country can be seen. Indeed Alresford is entirely encircled
+by the country, and its three only streets—Broad Street, East Street,
+and West Street—lead straight into it. Miss Mitford, describing the
+views on either side of their grounds, says that to the south rose the
+“picturesque church with its yews and lindens, and beyond it a down as
+smooth as velvet, dotted with rich islands of coppice, hazel, woodbine
+and hawthorn”; while down in the valley “gleamed a bright, clear
+lakelet radiant with swans and water-lilies, which the simple townsfolk
+were content to call the ‘Great Pond.’”
+
+Dr. Mitford’s house must indeed have been a “pleasant home” for a
+child, with its garden and orchard for a playground behind the house,
+and, in front, its cheerful view of the village street with its
+ever-changing scenes of passing horsemen and carts, or of herds of
+sheep and cattle driven to market.
+
+Here Mary first learnt, though unconsciously, to enjoy the beauties of
+nature and to enter into the simple pleasures of village life.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HAPPY MEMORIES
+
+
+The market of old days used to be held in an open space where East
+Street and West Street meet, near to the Bell Inn, whose gilded sign,
+in the form of a bas-relief, is displayed over its entrance.
+
+Here we can fancy the little Mary being taken to see the gay booths
+with their display of toys or of ginger-bread, and the sheep or pigs in
+pens.
+
+Miss Mitford was warmly attached to the place of her birth, and often
+alludes to it, but usually under the pseudonym of “Cranley.”
+
+“One of the noisiest inhabitants,” she writes, “of the small, irregular
+town of Cranley, in which I had the honour to be born, was a certain
+cobbler by name Jacob Giles. He lived exactly over-right our house in
+a little appendage to the baker’s shop.... At his half-hatch might he
+be seen stitching and stitching, with the peculiar, regular two-handed
+jerk proper to the art of cobbling, from six in the morning to six at
+night.... There he sat with a dirty red night-cap over his grizzled
+hair, a dingy waistcoat and old blue coat, darned, patched and ragged,
+and a greasy leathern apron....
+
+“The face belonging to this costume was rough and weather-beaten,
+deeply lined and deeply tinted of a right copper colour, with a nose
+that would have done honour to Bardolph, and a certain indescribable
+half-tipsy look, even when sober. Nevertheless the face, ugly and tipsy
+as it was, had its merits.... There was good humour in the half-shut
+eye, the pursed-up mouth and the whole jolly visage.... There he sat
+in that small den, looking something like a thrush in a goldfinch’s
+cage, and singing with as much power and far wider range—albeit his
+notes were hardly as melodious—Jobson’s songs in the ‘Devil to Pay’ and
+‘A cobbler there was, and he lived in a stall, which served him for
+parlour, for kitchen and hall’ being his favourites.
+
+“... Poor as he was Jacob Giles had always something for those poorer
+than himself; would share his scanty dinner with a starving beggar, and
+his last quid of tobacco with a crippled sailor. The children came to
+him for nuts and apples, for comical stories and droll songs; the very
+curs of the street knew that they had a friend in the poor cobbler.
+
+
+[Illustration: MARY RUSSELL MITFORD’S BIRTHPLACE.]
+
+
+“For my own part I can recollect Jacob Giles as long as I can
+recollect anything. He made the shoes for my first doll (pink I
+remember they were)—a doll called Sophie, who had the misfortune to
+break her neck by a fall from the nursery window. Jacob Giles mended
+all the shoes of the family, with whom he was a universal favourite....
+He used to mimic Punch for my amusement, and I once greatly offended
+the real Punch by preferring the cobbler’s performance of the closing
+scene.”
+
+Writing in after years, Miss Mitford remarks: “Where my passion for
+plays began it is difficult to say. Perhaps at the little town of
+Alresford, when I was somewhat short of four years old, and was taken
+by my dear father to see one of the greatest tragedies of the world set
+forth in a barn. Even now I have a dim recollection of a glimmering row
+of candles dividing the end which was called the stage from the part
+which did duty as pit and boxes, of the black face and the spangled
+turban, of my wondering admiration, and the breathless interest of the
+rustic audience.”
+
+Among some of her happiest recollections of early childhood were her
+rides on horseback with her father. “This dear papa of mine,” she
+writes, “whose gay and careless temper all the professional etiquette
+of the world could never tame into the staid gravity proper to a
+doctor of medicine, happened to be a capital horseman, and abandoning
+the close carriage almost wholly to my mother used to pay his country
+visits on a favourite blood mare, whose extreme docility and gentleness
+tempted him into having a pad constructed, perched upon which I might
+occasionally accompany him, when the weather was favourable and the
+distance not too great.
+
+“A groom, who had been bred up in my grandfather’s family, always
+attended us, and I do think that both Brown Bess and George liked to
+have me with them almost as well as my father did. The old servant,
+proud, as grooms always are, of a fleet and beautiful horse, was almost
+as proud of my horsemanship, for I, cowardly enough, Heaven knows, in
+after years, was then too young and too ignorant for fear—if it could
+have been possible to have any sense of danger when strapped so tightly
+to my father’s saddle, and enclosed so fondly by his strong and loving
+arm. Very delightful were those rides across the breezy Hampshire downs
+on a sunny summer morning!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+VILLAGE NEIGHBOURS
+
+
+In one of Miss Mitford’s tales entitled _A Country Barber_ she
+describes a humble neighbour whose tiny shop adjoined their own
+“handsome and commodious dwelling.” This tiny shop has long since
+disappeared, having given place to the “adjoining house” already
+mentioned.
+
+“The barber’s shop,” we are told, “consisted of a low-browed cottage
+with a pole before it, and a half-hatch always open, through which
+was visible a little dusty hole where a few wigs, on battered
+wooden blocks, were ranged round a comfortable shaving chair. There
+was a legend, over the door in which ‘William Skinner, wig-maker,
+hairdresser, and barber’ was set forth in yellow letters on a blue
+ground.”
+
+After speaking of her happy early recollections of “Will Skinner,”
+Miss Mitford remarks: “So agreeable indeed is the impression which he
+has left in my memory that I cannot help regretting the decline and
+extinction of a race which, besides figuring so notably in the old
+novels and comedies, formed so genial a link between the higher orders
+of society, supplying to the rich the most familiar of followers and
+most harmless of gossips.”
+
+How vividly these words recall to our mind Sir Walter Scott’s old Caxon
+the barber and familiar follower of Mr. Oldbuck, “who was accustomed to
+bring to his patron each morning along with the powder and pomatum his
+version of the politics or the gossip of the neighbourhood.
+
+“‘Heeh, sirs!’ he exclaims, ‘nae wonder the commons will be discontent,
+when they see magistrates, and bailies, and deacons, and the provost
+himsell wi’ heads as bald and as bare as one o’ my blocks!’
+
+“It certainly was not Will Skinner’s beauty,” writes Mary Mitford,
+“that caught my fancy. His person was hardly of the kind to win
+a lady’s favour, even although that lady were only four years of
+age.... Good old man! I see him in my mind’s eye at this moment: lean,
+wrinkled, shabby, poor, slow of speech, and ungainly of aspect, yet
+pleasant to look at and delightful to recollect. It was the overflowing
+kindness of his temper that rendered Will Skinner so general a
+favourite. Poor he was certainly and lonely, for he had been crossed
+in love in his youth, and lived alone in his little tenement, with
+no other companions than his wig blocks and a tame starling. ‘Pretty
+company’ he used to call them.
+
+[Illustration: MARY RUSSELL MITFORD
+
+_From a miniature_]
+
+
+“His fortunes had at one time assumed a more flourishing aspect when
+the Bishop of Exeter and Rector of Alresford had employed him to
+superintend the ‘posting’ of his wig, and had also promoted him to
+the posts of sexton and of deputy parish clerk. But on the death of
+the Bishop, and on the advent of the French Revolution, when cropped
+heads came into fashion and powder and hairdressing went out, poor Will
+found himself nearly at his wit’s end. In this dilemma he resolved to
+turn his hand to other employments, and, living in the neighbourhood
+of a famous trout stream, he applied himself to the construction of
+artificial flies.
+
+“This occupation he usually followed in his territory the churchyard,
+a place ... occupying a gentle eminence by the side of Cranley Down—a
+down on which the cricketers of that cricketing country used to muster
+two elevens for practice, almost every fine evening, from Easter to
+Michaelmas. Thither Will, who had been a cricketer himself in his
+youth, and still loved the wind of a ball, used to resort on summer
+afternoons, perching himself on a large square raised monument, a
+spreading lime tree above his head, Izaak Walton before him, and his
+implements of trade at his side. There he sat, now manufacturing a
+cannon-fly, and now watching Tom Taylor’s unparagoned bowling.
+
+“On this spot our intimacy commenced. A spoilt child and an only child,
+it was my delight to escape from nurse and nursery and to follow
+everywhere the dear papa, [even] to the cricket ground, in spite of
+all remonstrance, causing him no small perplexity as to how to bestow
+me in safety during the game. Will and the monument seemed to offer
+exactly the desired refuge, and our good neighbour readily consented
+to fill the post of deputy nursery-maid for the time, assisted in his
+superintendence by our very beautiful and sagacious black Newfoundland
+dog called Coe....
+
+“Poor dear old man, what a life I led him!—now playing at bo-peep on
+one side of the great monument and now on the other; now crawling away
+amongst the green graves; now gliding round before him, and laughing
+up in his face as he sat.... How he would catch me away from the very
+shadow of danger if a ball came near; and how often did he interrupt
+his own labours to forward my amusement, sliding from his perch to
+gather lime branches to stick in Coe’s collar, or to collect daisies,
+buttercups, or ragged-robins to make what I used to call daisy-beds for
+my doll.”
+
+Here is another pretty incident of the Alresford life recorded by Miss
+Mitford.
+
+“Before we left Hampshire,” she writes, “my maid Nancy married a young
+farmer, and nothing would serve her but I must be bridesmaid. And so it
+was settled.
+
+“I remember the whole scene as if it were yesterday! How my father
+took me himself to the churchyard gate, where the procession was
+formed, and how I walked next to the young couple hand-in-hand with the
+bridegroom’s man, no other than the village blacksmith, a giant of six
+feet three, who might have served as a model for Hercules. Much trouble
+had he to stoop low enough to reach down to my hand, and many were the
+rustic jokes passed upon the disproportioned pair....
+
+“In this order, followed by the parents on both sides, and a due number
+of uncles, aunts and cousins, we entered the church, where I held the
+glove with all the gravity and importance proper to my office; and
+so contagious is emotion that when the bride cried, I could not help
+crying for company. But it was a love-match, and between smiles and
+blushes Nancy’s tears soon disappeared, and so did mine. The happy
+husband helped his pretty wife into her own chaise-cart, my friend the
+blacksmith lifted me in after her, and we drove gaily to the large,
+comfortable farm-house where her future life was to be spent.
+
+“The bride was [soon] taken to survey her new dominions by her proud
+bridegroom, and the blacksmith, finding me, I suppose, easier to carry
+than to lead, followed close upon their steps with me in his arms.
+
+“Nothing could exceed the good nature of my country beau; he pointed
+out bantams and pea-fowls, and took me to see a tame lamb and a tall,
+staggering calf, born that morning; but for all that I do not think I
+should have submitted to the indignity of being carried if it had not
+been for the chastening influence of a little touch of fear. Entering
+the poultry yard I had caught sight of a certain turkey-cock, who
+erected that circular tail of his, and swelled out his deep red comb
+and gills after a fashion familiar to that truculent bird, but which up
+to the present hour I am far from admiring....
+
+“[At last] we drew back to the hall, a large square bricked apartment,
+with a beam across the ceiling and a wide yawning chimney, where many
+young people being assembled, and one of them producing a fiddle, it
+was agreed to have a country dance until dinner should be ready, the
+bride and bridegroom leading off, and I following with the bridegroom’s
+man.
+
+“Oh! the blunders, the confusion, the merriment of that country dance!
+No two people attempted the same figure; few aimed at any figure at
+all; each went his own way; many stumbled, some fell, and everybody
+capered, laughed and shouted at once!”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+EARLY LIFE IN READING
+
+
+Towards the end of the year 1791, before the little Mary had become
+quite four years old, a change came over the fortunes of the family.
+
+Dr. Mitford, in spite of some really good qualities, was of a careless
+and thoughtless disposition as regards money matters, and was,
+unhappily, addicted to games of chance. “He had the misfortune,” writes
+his daughter, “to be the best whist player in England,” and like the
+celebrated Mr. Micawber and so many of his class, he had an unchanging
+faith in his own “good luck,” and felt confident that however dark
+the horizon might be something would turn up to his advantage.
+“Dr. Mitford,” remarks a shrewd writer, “belonged to that class of
+impecunious individuals who seem to have been born insolvent.”
+
+He had come into possession of a large fortune on his marriage, for
+his bride-elect had refused to have any settlement made concerning
+property under her own control, and this fortune had already nearly
+melted away.
+
+In spite, however, of all his thoughtless extravagance, from which both
+wife and child suffered severely, they remained at all times devoted
+to him. As she grew older Mary could not shut her eyes to her father’s
+faults; but she loved him in spite of them, dwelling constantly in her
+writings upon his invariable kindness to her as a child, which claimed,
+she considered, her lasting gratitude. “He possessed indeed,” she
+remarks, “every manly and generous quality, excepting that which is so
+necessary in this workaday world—the homely quality called prudence.”
+
+On leaving Alresford, where many of their valued possessions had to
+be sold, the little family removed to a house in Southampton Street,
+Reading, where the doctor hoped to establish a practice. This street,
+which crosses the river Kennet by a stone bridge, has still an
+old-world appearance, with its modest-looking dwelling-houses and its
+old-fashioned inns; while high above its roofs rises the spire of the
+old church of St. Giles.
+
+[Illustration: SOUTHAMPTON STREET]
+
+It is in connection with this very church that we have a pleasant
+glimpse of the little Mary from the pen of Mrs. Sherwood, then a young
+girl living in Reading. “I remember,” she writes, “once going to a
+church in the town, which we did not usually attend, and being taken
+into Mrs. Mitford’s pew, where I saw the young authoress, Miss Mitford,
+then about four years old. Miss Mitford was standing on the seat, and
+so full of play that she set me on to laugh in a way which made me
+thoroughly ashamed.”
+
+Writing of this same period in after life, Mary Mitford says: “It is
+now about forty years since I, a damsel scarcely so high as the table
+on which I am writing, and somewhere about four years old, first became
+an inhabitant of Belford Regis” (her name for Reading), “and really
+I remember a great deal not worth remembering concerning the place,
+especially our own garden and a certain dell on the Bristol road to
+which I used to resort for primroses.”
+
+It was during this first residence in Reading, when she was still a
+small child, that she saw London for the first time.
+
+“Business called my father thither in the middle of July,” she writes,
+“and he suddenly announced his intention of driving me up in his gig
+(a high open carriage holding two persons), unencumbered by any other
+companion, male or female. George only, the old groom, was sent forward
+with a spare horse over-night to Maidenhead Bridge, and, the dear papa
+conforming to my nursery hours, we dined at Crauford Bridge ... and
+reached Hatchett’s Hotel, Piccadilly (the New White Horse Cellar of the
+old stage-coaches), early in the afternoon....
+
+“I had enjoyed the drive past all expression, chattering all the way,
+and falling into no other mistakes than those common to larger people
+than myself of thinking that London began at Brentford, and wondering
+in Piccadilly when the crowd would go by; and I was so little tired
+when we arrived that, to lose no time, we betook ourselves that night
+to the Haymarket Theatre, the only one then open. I had been at plays
+in the country, in a barn in Hampshire ... but the country play was
+nothing to the London play—a lively comedy with the rich caste of
+those days—one of the comedies that George III enjoyed so heartily. I
+enjoyed it as much as he, and laughed and clapped my hands and danced
+on my father’s knee, and almost screamed with delight, so that a party
+in the same box, who had begun by being half angry at my restlessness,
+finished by being amused with my amusement.
+
+“The next day, my father, having an appointment at the Bank, took the
+opportunity of showing me St. Paul’s and the Tower.
+
+“At St. Paul’s I saw all the wonders of the place, whispered in the
+whispering gallery, and walked up the tottering wooden stairs, not into
+the ball itself but to the circular balustrade of the highest gallery
+beneath it. I have never been there since, but I can still recall most
+vividly that wonderful panorama: the strange diminution produced by
+the distance, the toy-like carriages and horses, and men and women
+moving noiselessly through the toy-like streets.... Looking back to
+that [scene] what strikes me most is the small dimensions to which
+the capital of England was then confined. When I stood on the topmost
+gallery of St. Paul’s I saw a compact city spreading along the river,
+it is true, from Billingsgate to Westminster, but clearly defined to
+the north and to the south, the West-End beginning at Hyde Park on the
+one side and the Green Park on the other. Then Belgravia was a series
+of pastures and Paddington a village.
+
+“We proceeded to the Tower, that place so striking by force of contrast
+... the jewels and the armoury glittering ... amidst the gloom of the
+old fortress and the stories of great personages imprisoned, beheaded,
+buried within its walls;—a dreary thing it seemed to be a queen! But at
+night I went to Astley’s, and I forgot the sorrows of Lady Jane Grey
+and Anne Boleyn in the wonders of the horsemanship and the tricks of
+the clown.”
+
+Into the last day were crowded visits to the Houses of Lords and
+Commons, to Westminster Abbey, to Cox’s Museum in Spring Gardens, to
+the Leverian Museum in the Blackfriars Road, and finally at night
+to the theatre once more, returning home on the morrow “without a
+moment’s weariness of mind or body.”
+
+About this time Lord Charles Murray-Aynsley, a younger son of the Duke
+of Athol, became engaged to be married to a cousin of the Mitfords.
+
+“Lord Charles, as fine a young man as one should see in a summer’s
+day, tall, well-made, with handsome features ... and charming temper,
+had an infirmity which went nigh to render all [his] good gifts of no
+avail; a shyness, a bashfulness, a timidity most painful to himself and
+distressing to all about him.... That a man with such a temperament,
+who could hardly summon courage to say ‘How d’ye do?’ should ever have
+wrought himself up to the point of putting the great question was
+wonderful.... I myself, a child not five years old, one day threw him
+into an agony of blushing by running up to his chair in mistake for
+my papa. Now I was a shy child, a very shy child, and as soon as I
+arrived in front of his lordship and found that I had been misled by a
+resemblance of dress, by the blue coat and buff waistcoat, I first of
+all crept under the table, and then flew to hide my face in my mother’s
+lap; my poor fellow-sufferer, too big for one place of refuge, too old
+for the other, had nothing for it but to run away, which, the door
+being luckily open, he happily accomplished.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+LYME REGIS
+
+
+Dr. Mitford had been gradually establishing a practice in Reading,
+where a remarkable cure he had effected was already making his name
+known, when, as his daughter tells us, he resolved to remove to Lyme,
+“feeling with characteristic sanguineness that in a fresh place success
+would be certain.”
+
+Some of our readers will no doubt have visited Lyme Regis—that quaint
+little seaport situated on the steep slope of a hill, whose main street
+seems, as Jane Austen has remarked, “to be almost hurrying into the
+water.” They will remember its harbour formed by the curved stone piers
+of the old Cobb, from which can be seen the pretty bay with its sandy
+beach bordered by the Parade, or “Walk” as it used to be called, which
+runs at the foot of a grassy hillside. At the town end of this “Walk”
+are to be seen some thatched cottages nestling under the shelter of the
+hill, and beyond them on a small promontory, jutting out into the sea,
+the old Assembly Rooms. A few miles east-ward lies the sunny little
+bay of Charmouth, with a grand chain of hills beyond it, rising from
+the water’s edge and terminating in the far distance in the Bill of
+Portland.
+
+Lyme Regis lies in the borderland of Dorset and Devonshire, “but the
+character of the scenery,” writes Miss Mitford, “the boldness of the
+coast, and the rich woodiness of the inland views belong entirely to
+Devonshire—beautiful Devonshire.
+
+“Our habitation,” she continues, “although situated not merely in
+the town but in the principal street, had nothing in common with the
+small and undistinguished houses on either side. It was a very large,
+long-fronted stone mansion, terminated at either end by massive iron
+gates, the pillars of which were surmounted by spread eagles. An old
+stone porch, with benches on either side, projected from the centre,
+covered, as was the whole front of the house, with tall, spreading,
+wide-leafed myrtle, abounding in blossom, with moss-roses, jessamine
+and passion-flowers.”
+
+[Illustration: THE “WALK” BY THE SEA]
+
+This old porch had its special historical association, for here William
+Pitt as a child used to play at marbles when his father the great Lord
+Chatham rented the Great House. Unhappily the porch has been altered
+and injured since we visited Lyme some years ago. Other changes
+have also been made at various periods, notably a storey added in the
+northern or upper end of the building; but in spite of these changes
+the Great House, as it is always called, still dominates the little
+town like a feudal castle of old amongst its vassals, its massive walls
+manfully resisting modern innovations.
+
+The illustration represents the house as it appeared in Miss Mitford’s
+day.
+
+The southern portion of the building is of the most ancient date. Its
+walls are of great thickness. The Great House is full of traditions of
+past history, and its gloomy vaults and passages below ground must have
+witnessed many a tragic scene at the time of the Monmouth Rebellion.
+Here it was that Judge Jeffreys took up his quarters for a time when
+he came to stamp out the Rebellion and to wreak the vengeance of James
+II upon the unhappy followers of his rival. The owner of the house
+in those days was a man named Jones—the squire of Lyme—who aided and
+abetted Jeffreys in all his awful tyranny, spying upon the inhabitants
+and reporting every idle word that might serve to incriminate them.
+The memory of Jones is loathed to this day, and tradition declares the
+house to be haunted by his ghost.
+
+Happily the little girl, who came to live in this weird old mansion,
+knew nothing of its tragic history, and could laugh and play with
+childish mirth above its sombre vaults. In her _Recollections_, Mary
+Mitford speaks of the “large, lofty rooms of the building, of its
+noble oaken staircases, its marble hall, and its long galleries,” and
+mentions “the book room,” where her grandfather Dr. Russell’s fine
+library was arranged. “Behind the building,” she says, “which extended
+round a paved quadrangle, was the drawing-room, a splendid apartment
+looking upon a little lawn surrounded by choice evergreens,” beyond
+which lay the spacious gardens.
+
+The drawing-room still bears traces of its former dignity in its
+lofty ceiling and handsome dentil cornice, and also in its three tall
+recessed windows, whose side panels end in fine curled scrolls.
+
+[Illustration: THE GREAT HOUSE]
+
+“My own nurseries,” she says, “were spacious and airy, but the place
+which I most affected was a dark panelled chamber on the first floor,
+to which I descended through a private door by half a dozen stairs, so
+steep that, still a very small and puny child between eight and a half
+and nine and a half, and unable to run down them in the common way, I
+used to jump from one step to the other.”
+
+We have entered this small panelled room, which is lighted by a narrow
+leaded window, and as we looked upon the steps leading down from the
+upper room we fancied we saw the tiny figure jumping from step to step.
+
+“This chamber,” continues Miss Mitford, “was filled with such
+fossils as were then known ... some the cherished products of my own
+discoveries, and some broken for me by my father’s little hammer from
+portions of the rocks that lay beneath the cliffs, under which almost
+every day we used to wander hand-in-hand.”
+
+Beyond “the little lawn, surrounded by choice evergreens,” there was
+“an old-fashioned greenhouse and a filbert-tree walk, from which again
+three detached gardens sloped abruptly down to one of the clear,
+dancing rivulets of that western country.” These three gardens are
+still to be seen. A part of them is well cultivated, and abounds
+in smooth lawns, majestic trees and flowers of all kinds; but that
+part which belongs to the older portion of the mansion, deserted for
+many years, is left wild and untended. It is, however, pathetically
+beautiful in its mixture of garden flowers and showy weeds. The high
+box-edgings to the borders prove that great care was once taken of the
+place, and the tall rose bushes which still abound stretch out their
+long branches of pink and white blossoms as if to hide what is mean and
+unsightly.
+
+“In the steep declivity of the central garden,” writes Mary, “which I
+was permitted to call mine, was a grotto overarching a cool, sparkling
+spring, never overflowing its small sandy basin, which yet was always
+full.” “Years many and long,” she adds, “have passed since I sat beside
+that tiny fountain, and yet never have I forgotten the pleasure which I
+derived from watching its clear crystal wave.”
+
+“The slopes on either side of the grotto,” she says, “were carpeted
+with strawberries and dotted with fruit trees. One drooping medlar,
+beneath whose pendent branches I have often hidden, I remember well.”
+
+This spring is known in that country-side by the name of the “Lepers’
+Well.” It is reached by a steep flight of rugged stone steps from the
+terrace above, and is still surrounded by old gnarled fruit trees,
+though the medlar seems to have disappeared. Beyond a low hedge at the
+foot of the grounds flows the little river Lym, clear and sparkling as
+ever.
+
+Lyme is full of traditions, and this little river, at one spot, bears
+the name of “Jordan,” so called by a colony of Baptists who took
+refuge in the neighbourhood during the seventeenth century. It was in
+“Jordan” that they immersed their converts, and the old Biblical names
+given by them to the adjoining fields of Jericho and Paradise still
+linger in that district.
+
+“I used to disdain the [Devonshire] streamlets,” writes Mary, “with
+such scorn as a small damsel fresh from the Thames and the Kennett
+thinks herself privileged to display. ‘They call that a river here,
+papa! Can’t you jump me over it?’ quoth I in my sauciness. About a
+month ago I heard a young lady from New York talking in some such
+strain of Father Thames. ‘It’s a pretty little stream,’ said she,
+‘but to call it a river!’ And I half expected to hear a complete
+reproduction of my own impertinence, and a request to be jumped from
+one end to the other of Caversham Bridge!”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A STORMY COAST
+
+
+Writing of her sojourn at Lyme Regis Miss Mitford says:—
+
+“That was my only opportunity of making acquaintance with the mighty
+ocean in its winter sublimity of tempest and storm; and partly perhaps
+from the striking and awful nature of the impression [upon the mind of]
+a lonely, musing, visionary child, the recollection remains indelibly
+fixed in my memory, fresh and vivid as if of yesterday....
+
+“Once my father took me from my bed at midnight that I might see,
+from the highest storey of our house, the grandeur and the glory of
+the tempest; the spray rising to the very tops of the cliffs, pale
+and ghastly in the lightning, and hear the roar of the sea, the
+moaning of the wind, the roll of the thunder, and amongst them all
+the fearful sound of the minute guns, telling of death and danger on
+that iron-bound coast. Then in the morning I have seen the cold bright
+wintry sun shining gaily on the dancing sea, still stirred by the
+last breath of the tempest, and on the floating spars and parted
+timbers of the wreck....
+
+[Illustration: THE PANELLED CHAMBER]
+
+“My walks,” she writes, “were confined to rambles on the shore
+with my maid, or still more to my delight with my dear father, the
+recollection of whose fond indulgence is connected with every pleasure
+of my childhood.... Sometimes we would go towards Charmouth, with
+its sweeping bay, passing below church and churchyard, perched high
+above us, and already undermined by the tide. Another time we bent
+our steps to the Pinny cliffs [that stretch away] on the western side
+of the harbour; the beautiful Pinny cliffs, where an old landslip had
+deposited a farm-house, with its outbuildings, its garden and its
+orchard, tossed half-way down amongst the rocks, its look of home and
+of comfort contrasting so strangely with the dark rugged masses above,
+below and around.
+
+“My father, a dabbler in science, with his hammer and basket was
+engaged in breaking off fragments of rock, to search for curious spars
+and fossil remains; I in picking up shells and sea-weed.... What
+enjoyment it was to feel the pleasant sea-breeze, and see the sun
+dancing on the waters, and wander as free as the sea-bird over my head
+beneath those beetling cliffs! Now for a moment losing sight of the
+dear papa, and now rejoining him with some delicate shell, or brightly
+coloured sea-weed, or imperfect _coruna ammoris_, enquiring into the
+success of his graver labours, and comparing our discoveries and
+treasures.
+
+“What pleasure too to rest at the well-known cottage, the general
+termination of our walk, where old Simon the curiosity-monger picked up
+a mongrel sort of livelihood by selling fossils and petrifactions to
+one class of visitors, and cakes and fruit and cream to another. His
+scientific bargains were not without suspicion of a little cheatery,
+as my companion used laughingly to tell him ... but the fruit and
+curds were honest, as I can well avouch; and the legends of petrified
+sea-monsters, with which they were seasoned, bones of the mammoth, and
+skeletons of the sea-serpent have always been amongst the pleasantest
+of my seaside recollections.”
+
+Perhaps these “legends” had a tinge of prophecy in them, as it was only
+fifteen years later that Mary Anning, then a child of eleven years
+old, discovered in the rocks of Lyme Regis the gigantic fossil bones
+of the ichthyosaurus—a creature whose very jaw it seems exceeded six
+feet in length, and whose existence had hitherto been unknown. She also
+discovered later on the remains of the plesiosaurus.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The entire skeletons of these actual creatures are now to
+be seen in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington.]
+
+Miss Anning kept a curiosity shop in a tiny house which is still to be
+seen facing the upper gates of the Great House. The King of Saxony, who
+visited Lyme in 1844, thus describes the place:—
+
+“We had alighted from the carriage,” he writes, “and were proceeding
+along on foot when we fell in with a shop in which the most remarkable
+petrifactions and fossil remains—the head of an ichthyosaurus,
+beautiful ammonites, etc.—were exhibited in the window. We entered and
+found a little shop and adjoining chamber completely filled with fossil
+productions of the coast.... I was anxious [before leaving] to write
+down the address of the place, and the woman who kept the shop with a
+firm hand wrote her name ‘Mary Anning’ in my pocket-book, and added as
+she returned the book into my hands: ‘I am well known throughout the
+whole of Europe.’”
+
+It is said that the King of Saxony paid a second visit to the fossil
+shop, when he invited Miss Anning to accompany him in his travelling
+coach and four to the scene of the great landslip at Pinny. On reaching
+a small farm-house on the hillside they quitted the coach to roam
+about the fallen rocks. On their return they found an old country woman
+seated in the stately vehicle. She explained, with some confusion, that
+she wanted to be able to boast hereafter that she had sat for once in
+her life in a royal coach! The kindly monarch assured her that he was
+in no way displeased, and he handed her out of the coach with courtly
+politeness.
+
+Miss Mitford in one of her letters remarks: “It is singular that the
+name of Mary Anning crosses me often. One of my friend Mr. Kenyon’s
+graceful poems is addressed to her, and Charmouth and Lyme are dear to
+me as being full of my first recollections of the sea. I should like of
+all things to go there again and make acquaintance with Mary Anning.”
+
+Here are a few stanzas of the poem alluded to:—
+
+“E’en poets shall by thee set store; For wonders feed the poet’s wish;
+And is their mermaid wondrous more Than thy half-lizard and half-fish?
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+While Lyme’s dark-headed urchins grow Each in his turn to grey-haired
+men, Yet, when grown old, this beach they walk, Some pensive breeze
+their grey locks fanning, Their sons shall love to hear them talk Of
+many a feat of Mary Anning.”
+
+[Illustration: IN THE DRAWING-ROOM]
+
+Writing of their residence in Lyme Mary says:—
+
+“My dear mother had three or four young relations, misses in their
+teens, staying with her and was sufficiently occupied in playing
+the chaperone to the dull gaieties of the place.... Of course I was
+too young to be admitted to the society, such as it was; but I had
+even then a dim glimmering perception of its being anything but
+exhilarating.”
+
+Sometimes the company assembled in the Great House. “One incident that
+occurred there,” writes Miss Mitford—“a frightful danger—a providential
+escape—I shall never forget.
+
+“There was to be a ball at the rooms, and a party of sixteen or
+eighteen persons, dressed for the assembly, were sitting in the
+dining-room at dessert. The ceiling was ornamented with a rich
+running pattern of flowers in high relief, the shape of the wreath
+corresponding pretty exactly with the company arranged round the oval
+table. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, all that part of
+the ceiling became detached and fell down in large masses upon the
+table and the floor. It seems even now all but miraculous how such a
+catastrophe could occur without danger to life or limb; but the only
+things damaged were the flowers and feathers of the ladies and the
+fruits and wines of the dessert. I myself, caught instantly in my
+father’s arms, by whose side I was standing, had scarcely even time to
+be frightened, although after the danger was over our fair visitors of
+course began to scream.”
+
+Towards the end of their year’s residence in Lyme Regis the fortunes of
+the Mitford family were once more clouded over.
+
+“Nobody told me,” writes Mary, “but I felt, I knew, I had an interior
+conviction for which I could not have accounted ... that in spite of
+the company, in spite of the gaiety, something was wrong. It was such a
+foreshowing as makes the quicksilver in the barometer sink whilst the
+weather is still bright and clear.
+
+“And at last the change came. My father went again to London and lost—I
+think, I have always thought so—more money.... Then one by one our
+visitors departed; and my father, who had returned in haste again,
+in equal haste left home, after short interviews with landlords, and
+lawyers, and auctioneers; and I knew—I can’t tell how, but I did
+know—that everything was to be parted with and everybody paid.
+
+“That same night two or three large chests were carried away through
+the garden by George and another old servant, and a day or two after
+my mother and myself, with Mrs. Mosse, the good housekeeper who
+lived with my grandfather, and the other maid-servant, left Lyme in a
+hack-chaise.”
+
+After various delays, due partly to the breaking up of a camp between
+Bridport and Dorchester, the party pursued their journey in “a sort
+of tilted cart without springs.” “Doubtless,” remarks Mary, “many a
+fine lady would laugh at such a shift. But it was not as a temporary
+discomfort that it came upon my poor mother. It was her first touch
+of poverty. It seemed like the final parting from all the elegances
+and all the accommodations to which she had been used. I shall never
+forget her heart-broken look when she took her little girl upon her lap
+in that jolting caravan, nor how the tears stood in her eyes when we
+turned into our miserable bedroom when we reached the roadside alehouse
+where we were to pass the night. The next day we resumed our journey,
+and reached a dingy, comfortless lodging in one of the suburbs beyond
+Westminster Bridge.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A FLIGHT
+
+
+The “comfortless lodging” mentioned by Miss Mitford was on the Surrey
+side of Blackfriars Bridge, where Dr. Mitford, it seems, was able to
+find a refuge from his creditors within the rules of the King’s Bench.
+
+“What my father’s plans were,” writes his daughter in later years, “I
+do not exactly know; probably to gather together what disposable money
+still remained after paying all debts from the sale of books, plate
+and furniture at Lyme and thence to proceed ... to practise in some
+distant town. At all events London was the best starting-place, and he
+could consult his old fellow-pupil and life-long friend, Dr. Babington,
+then one of the physicians to Guy’s Hospital, and refresh his medical
+studies with experiments and lectures. In the meanwhile his spirits
+returned as buoyant as ever, and so, now that fear had changed into
+certainty, did mine.”
+
+[Illustration: BLACKFRIARS BRIDGE (1796)]
+
+But at this time, when the prospects of the family seemed to be
+irretrievably overclouded and when dire poverty stared them in the
+face, an extraordinary event occurred to raise them suddenly into
+affluence!
+
+“In the intervals of his professional pursuits,” writes Mary, “my
+father walked about London with his little girl in his hand; and one
+day (it was my birthday, and I was ten years old) he took me into a not
+very tempting-looking place which was, as I speedily found, a lottery
+office. An Irish lottery was upon the point of being drawn, and he
+desired me to choose one out of several bits of printed paper (I did
+not then know their significance) that lay upon the counter.
+
+“‘Choose which number you like best,’ said the dear papa, ‘and that
+shall be your birthday present.’
+
+“I immediately selected one, and put it into his hand: No. 2224.
+
+“‘Ah,’ said my father, examining it, ‘you must choose again. I want to
+buy a whole ticket, and this is only a quarter. Choose again, my pet.’
+
+“‘No, dear papa, I like this one best.’
+
+“‘Here is the next number,’ interposed the lottery office keeper, ‘No.
+2223.’
+
+“‘Ay,’ said my father, ‘that will do just as well. Will it not, Mary?
+We’ll take that.’
+
+“‘No,’ returned I obstinately, ‘that won’t do. This is my birthday you
+know, papa, and I am ten years old. Cast up _my_ number and you’ll find
+that makes ten. The other is only nine.”
+
+“My father, superstitious like all speculators, struck with my
+pertinacity and with the reason I gave, resisted the attempt of the
+office keeper to tempt me by different tickets, and we had nearly left
+the shop without a purchase when the clerk who had been examining
+different desks and drawers, said to his principal:
+
+“‘I think, sir, the matter may be managed if the gentleman does not
+mind paying a few shillings more. That ticket 2224 only came yesterday,
+and we have still all the shares: one-half, one-quarter, one-eighth,
+two-sixteenths. It will be just the same if the young lady is set upon
+it.’
+
+“The young lady was set upon it, and the shares were purchased.
+
+“The whole affair was a secret between us, and my father, whenever he
+got me to himself, talked over our future twenty thousand pounds—just
+like Alnaschar over his basket of eggs.
+
+“Meanwhile time passed on, and one Sunday morning we were all preparing
+to go to church when a face that I had forgotten, but my father had
+not, made its appearance. It was the clerk of the lottery office. An
+express had just arrived from Dublin announcing that No. 2224 had
+been drawn a prize of twenty thousand pounds, and he had hastened to
+communicate the good news.”
+
+“Ah, me!” writes Miss Mitford in later life. “In less than twenty
+years what was left of the produce of the ticket so strangely chosen?
+What? except a Wedgwood dinner-service that my father had had made to
+commemorate the event, with the Irish harp within the border on one
+side and his family crest on the other! That fragile and perishable
+ware outlasted the more perishable money.”
+
+The writer of a graceful article entitled, “In Miss Mitford’s Country,”
+which appeared in a magazine several years ago, saw at a friend’s house
+in Reading some odd pieces of this very dinner-service. These consisted
+of “a tureen of beautiful shape, two or three soup-plates and a couple
+of butter-boats and stands in one, in Wedgwood fashion.” When handling
+the china she observed “that the Mitford crest was stamped on one
+side of the pieces while on the opposite side appeared a harp bearing
+between the strings the mystic number 2224.”
+
+She supposed this to be the Wedgwoods’ private number, and it was
+not until she came upon the passage just quoted in Miss Mitford’s
+_Recollections of a Literary Life_ that the mystery was solved.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+RETURN TO READING
+
+
+After the extraordinary event of the lottery ticket the Mitfords were
+suddenly placed in a position of opulence, and they joyfully quitted
+their dingy London lodgings and returned once more to Reading. The
+doctor had taken a new red brick house in the London Road, a road which
+in those days bordered the open country.
+
+The house is still standing, and is probably much as it was in the
+Mitfords’ day. It has a deep verandah in front, and behind stretches a
+long piece of garden. A small room at the back of the house is pointed
+out to visitors as Dr. Mitford’s dispensary.
+
+Mary Russell Mitford loved the old town of Reading—Belford Regis, as
+she always calls it in her stories—and the various descriptions of the
+place, scattered throughout her writings, make the Reading of her day
+to live again.
+
+On one occasion she describes the view of the town as seen from
+the jutting corner of Friar Street, where she had taken shelter
+from a shower of rain. She speaks of “the fine church tower of St.
+Nicholas,[2] with its picturesque piazza underneath” and its “old
+vicarage house hard by, embowered in evergreens”; of “the old irregular
+shops in the market-place, with the trees of the Forbury beyond just
+peeping between them, with all their varieties of light and shadow.”
+
+[Footnote 2: St. Lawrence.]
+
+Another day, after mentioning “the huge monastic ruins of the Abbey;”
+with all its monuments of ancient times, she goes on to say “or for
+a modern scene what can surpass the High Bridge on a sunshiny day?
+The bright river crowded with barges and small craft; the streets and
+wharfs and quays, all alive with the busy and stirring population of
+the country and the town—a combination of light and motion.”
+
+Miss Mitford has described this same scene as it appeared on a cold
+winter’s evening in a book written late in life entitled, _Atherton and
+other Stories_, which we should like to quote here.
+
+“From ... the High Bridge the Kennet now showed like a mirror
+reflecting on its icy surface into a peculiar broad and bluish shine,
+the arch of lamps surmounting the graceful airy bridge and the
+twinkling lights that glanced here and there, from boat or barge or
+wharf, or from some uncurtained window that overhung the river.”
+
+But the chief beauty of the old town was to be seen in summer time
+on a Saturday (market-day) at noon. “The old market-place, always
+picturesque from the irregular architecture of the houses, and the
+beautiful Gothic church by which it is terminated, is then all alive
+with the busy hum of traffic.... Noise of every sort is to be heard,
+from the heavy rumbling of so many loaded waggons over the paved
+market-place to the crash of crockery ware in the narrow passage of
+Princes Street. One of the noisiest and prettiest places is the Piazza
+at the end of St. Nicholas Church appropriated by long usage to the
+female vendors of fruit and vegetables.” The butter market was at
+the back of the market proper, “where respectable farmers’ wives and
+daughters sold eggs, butter and poultry.” Here too “straw-hats, caps
+and ribbons were sold, also pet rabbits and guinea-pigs, together with
+owls and linnets in cages.”
+
+[Illustration: DR. MITFORD’S HOUSE IN THE LONDON ROAD]
+
+Among the odd characters who turned up on the occasion of markets
+or fairs Miss Mitford mentions a certain rat-catcher by name Sam
+Page “whose own appearance was as venomous as that of his retinue,”
+and “told his calling almost as plainly as the sharp heads of the
+ferrets which protruded from the pockets of his dirty jean jacket,
+or the bunch of dead rats with which he was wont to parade the streets
+of B. on a market-day.” But before he had taken to this business,
+she says, he had tried many other callings, amongst them those of “a
+barrel-organ grinder, the manager of a celebrated company of dancing
+dogs, and the leader of a bear and a very accomplished monkey. Suddenly
+he reappeared one day at B. fair as showman of the Living Skeleton, and
+also a performer [himself] in the Tragedy of the Edinburgh Murders, as
+exhibited every half-hour at the price of a penny to each person.” Sam
+confessed that he liked acting of all things, especially tragedy; “it
+was such fun.”
+
+Of the period with which we are dealing Mary writes: “I was a girl at
+the time—a very young girl, and, what is more to the purpose, a very
+shy one, so that I mixed in none of the gaieties of the place; but
+speaking from observation and recollection I can fairly say that I
+never saw any society more innocently cheerful.” She tells us of “the
+old ladies and their tea visits, the gentlemen and their whist club,
+and the merry Christmas parties with their round games and their social
+suppers, their mirth and their jests.”
+
+And now for Mary herself: how did she strike the new acquaintances
+that her parents were making? One who knew her well tells us that “she
+showed in her countenance, and in her mild self-possession, that she
+was no ordinary child; and with her sweet smile, her gentle temper, her
+animated conversation, her keen enjoyment of life, and her incomparable
+voice—“that excellent thing in woman—there were few of the prettiest
+children of her age who won so much love and admiration from their
+friends young and old as little Mary Mitford.”
+
+In one of Miss Mitford’s tales entitled _My Godmothers_ there is an
+amusing account of a stiff maiden lady of the old school by name Mrs.
+Patience Wither (the “Mrs.” being given her by brevet rank). “In point
+of fact,” writes Mary, “she was not my godmother, having stood only as
+proxy for her younger sister, Mrs. Mary, my mother’s intimate friend,
+then falling into a lingering decline.
+
+“Mrs. Patience was very masculine in person, tall, square, large-boned
+and remarkably upright. Her features were sufficiently regular, and
+would not have been unpleasing but for the keen, angry look of her
+light blue eye ... and her fiery, wiry red hair, to which age did no
+good,—it would not turn grey.... She lived in a large, tall, upright,
+stately house in the largest street of a large town. It was a grave
+looking mansion, defended from the pavement by iron palisades, a flight
+of steps before the sober brown door, and every window curtained and
+blinded by chintz and silk and muslin, crossing and jostling each
+other. None of the rooms could be seen from the street, nor the street
+from any of the rooms—so complete was the obscurity.
+
+“On the death of her sister Mrs. Patience ... was pleased to lay
+claim to me in right of inheritance, and succeeded to the title of
+my godmother pretty much in the same way that she succeeded to the
+possession of Flora, her poor sister’s favourite spaniel. I am afraid
+that Flora proved the more grateful subject of the two. I never
+saw Mrs. Patience but she took possession of me for the purpose of
+lecturing and documenting me on some subject or other,—holding up my
+head, shutting the door, working a sampler, making a shirt, learning
+the pence table, or taking physic....
+
+“She was assiduous in presents to me at home and at school; sent
+me cakes with cautions against over-eating, and needle-cases with
+admonitions to use them; she made over to me her own juvenile library,
+consisting of a large collection of unreadable books ... nay, she even
+rummaged out for me a pair of old battledores, curiously constructed
+of netted pack-thread—the toys of her youth! But bribery is generally
+thrown away upon children, especially on spoilt ones; the godmother
+whom I loved never gave me anything, and every fresh present from Mrs.
+Patience seemed to me a fresh grievance. I was obliged to make a call
+and a curtsy, and to stammer out something which passed for a speech,
+or, which was still worse, to write a letter of thanks—a stiff, formal,
+precise letter! I would rather have gone without cakes or needle-cases,
+books or battledores to my dying day. Such was my ingratitude from five
+to fifteen.”
+
+One of the most prominent figures in the Reading of those days was Dr.
+Valpy, headmaster of the Reading Grammar School. The school consisted
+of a group of buildings “standing,” writes Miss Mitford, “in a nook of
+the pleasant green called the Forbury, and parted from the churchyard
+of St. Nicholas by a row of tall old houses. It was in itself a pretty
+object—at least I, who loved it almost as much as if I had been of the
+sex that learns Greek and Latin, thought so.... There was a little
+court before the door of the doctor’s house with four fir trees, and
+at one end a projecting bay window belonging to a very long room [the
+doctor’s study] lined with a noble collection of books.” The Forbury
+was used as the boys’ playground.
+
+Dr. Valpy was much reverenced by his fellow-townsmen and greatly loved
+by his pupils, in spite of the stern discipline of those days which
+he considered it his duty to administer to culprits. Among his pupils
+was Sergeant Talfourd, who thus describes his character: “Envy, hatred
+and malice were to him mere names—like the figures of speech in a
+schoolboy’s theme, or the giants in a fairy-tale, phantoms which never
+touched him with a sense of reality.... His system of education was
+animated by a portion of his own spirit: it was framed to enkindle and
+to quicken the best affections.”
+
+Another contemporary who happened to be of a cynical turn of mind
+remarks of Dr. Valpy: “Had he been more supple in his principles or
+less open in their avowal he might have risen to the highest position
+in his sacred profession. A mitre might have been the reward of
+subserviency and the revenues of a diocese the bribe of tergiversation
+and hypocrisy, [but] he left to others such paths to preferment ...
+and lived in the enjoyment of an unblemished reputation and a clear
+conscience.”
+
+On the further side of the Forbury stood a large old-fashioned building
+adjoining the Abbey Gateway and bearing the name of the Abbey School.
+It was a school for “young ladies” of the ordinary type belonging to
+the eighteenth century, but which, at the time we are writing of,
+was gradually taking a higher position in general estimation. Three
+authoresses of very different degrees of fame were pupils in this
+establishment, namely: Jane Austen for a short time as a very young
+child, in about the year 1782, Miss Butt (afterwards Mrs. Sherwood) in
+1790, and Mary Russell Mitford when the school was removed to London in
+1798.
+
+The school had formerly been carried on under the management of a Mrs.
+Latournelle, a good-natured person but, as Mrs. Sherwood tells us,
+“only fit for giving out clothes for the wash, mending them, making tea
+and ordering dinners.” But after a time she took as a partner a young
+lady of talent and of excellent education who at once made her mark
+felt.
+
+What, however, caused the permanent success of the school was the
+arrival in Reading of a certain Monsieur St. Quintin, the son of a
+nobleman in Alsace—a man of very superior intellect—who had been
+secretary to the Comte de Moustier, one of the last ambassadors from
+Louis XVI to the Court of St. James. Having lost all his property in
+the French Revolution, he was thankful to accept the post of French
+teacher in Dr. Valpy’s school, and was soon afterwards recommended
+by the doctor as a teacher of French in the Abbey School. In course
+of time he married Mrs. Latournelle’s young partner, and they “soon
+so entirely raised the credit of the seminary,” writes Mrs. Sherwood,
+“that when I went there, there were above sixty girls under their
+charge. The style of M. St. Quintin’s teaching,” she says, “was lively
+and interesting in the extreme.”
+
+Dr. Mitford had been a warm friend to M. St. Quintin ever since his
+arrival in Reading, and there was much pleasant intercourse between the
+Mitfords and the St. Quintins. In the summer of 1798 the school was
+transferred to London, and Dr. and Mrs. Mitford, who had then decided
+to send their little daughter to school, were glad to place her under
+the friendly care of M. and Madame St. Quintin.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE SCHOOL IN HANS PLACE
+
+
+Monsieur and Madame St. Quintin, on removing the Abbey School from
+Reading to London, established it in Hans Place, a small oblong square
+of pleasant-looking houses with a garden in the centre. It was almost
+surrounded by fields, for London proper terminated in those days with
+the double toll-gates at Hyde Park Corner.
+
+The school-house (No. 22) was one of the largest in the place, and
+possessed a spacious garden abounding in fine trees, smooth lawns and
+gay flower-beds. Thither the little Mary was sent on the reopening of
+the school after the midsummer holidays of the year 1798. Writing in
+later years she thus describes the event:—
+
+“It is now more than twenty years since I, a petted child of ten years
+old, born and bred in the country, and as shy as a hare, was sent to
+that scene of bustle and confusion, a London school. Oh, what a change
+it was! What a terrible change!... To leave my own dear home for
+this strange new place and these strange new people ... and so many
+of them!... I shall never forget the misery of the first two days,
+blushing to be looked at, dreading to be spoken to, shrinking like a
+sensitive plant from the touch, ashamed to cry, and feeling as if I
+could never laugh again.
+
+“These disconsolate feelings are not astonishing ... the wonder is
+that they so soon passed away. But everybody was good and kind. In
+less than a week the poor wild bird was tamed. I could look without
+fear on the bright, happy faces; listen without starting to the clear,
+high voices, even though they talked in French; began to watch the
+ball and the battledore; and felt something like an inclination to
+join in the sports. In short, I soon became an efficient member of the
+commonwealth; made a friend, provided myself with a school-mother, a
+fine, tall, blooming girl ... under whose protection I began to learn
+and unlearn, to acquire the habits and enter into the views of my
+companions, as well disposed to be idle as the best of them.”
+
+M. St. Quintin taught the pupils French, history and geography, also as
+much science as he was master of or as he thought it requisite for a
+young lady to know. Madame St. Quintin did but little teaching at this
+period, but used to sit in the drawing-room with a book in her hand
+to receive visitors. After M. St. Quintin the mainstay of the school
+was the English teacher, Miss Rowden, an accomplished young lady of
+good birth, who was assisted by finishing masters for Italian, music,
+dancing and drawing. She was admired and loved by the whole school,
+and especially by Mary Mitford, over whom she exercised an excellent
+influence.
+
+“To fill up any nook of time,” writes Mary, “which the common demands
+of the school might leave vacant, we used to read together, chiefly
+poetry. With her I first became acquainted with Pope’s Homer, Dryden’s
+Virgil and the _Paradise Lost_. She read capitally, and was a most
+indulgent hearer of my remarks and exclamations;—suffered me to admire
+Satan and detest Ulysses, and rail at the pious Æneas as long as I
+chose.”
+
+[Illustration: HANS PLACE]
+
+The French teacher was a very different type of womanhood. “She was a
+tall, majestic woman,” writes Mary, “between sixty and seventy, made
+taller by yellow slippers with long slender heels.... Her face was
+almost invisible, being concealed between a mannish kind of neck-cloth
+and an enormous cap, whose wide, flaunting strip hung over her cheeks
+and eyes;—to say nothing of a huge pair of spectacles. Madame, all
+Parisian though she was, had the fidgety neatness of a Dutch woman,
+and was scandalized at our untidy habits. Four days passed in distant
+murmurs ... but this was only the gathering of the wind before the
+storm. It was dancing day; we were all dressed and assembled when
+Madame, provoked by some indications of latent disorder, instituted,
+much to our consternation, a general rummage through the house for all
+things out of their places. The collected mass was thrown together in
+one stupendous pile in the middle of the schoolroom—a pile that defies
+description or analysis. The whole was to be apportioned amongst the
+different owners and then affixed to their persons!... Poor Madame!
+Article after article was held up to be owned in vain: not a soul would
+claim such dangerous property. Nevertheless, she did succeed by dint of
+lucky guesses, [and soon] dictionaries were suspended from the necks of
+the pupils _en médaillon_, shawls tied round the waist _en ceinture_,
+and unbound music pinned to the frock _en queue_ ... not one of us but
+had three or four of these appendages; many had five or six. These
+preparations were intended to meet the eye of Madame’s countryman,
+the French dancing master, who would doubtless assist in supporting
+her authority.... She did not know that before his arrival we were to
+pass an hour in an exercise of another kind, under the command of a
+drill-sergeant. The man of scarlet was ushered in. It is impossible to
+say whether the professor of marching or the poor Frenchwoman looked
+most disconcerted. Madame began a very voluble explanatory harangue;
+but she was again unfortunate—the sergeant did not understand French.
+She attempted to translate: ‘It is, Sare, que ces dames, dat dese miss
+be des traineuses.’ This clear and intelligible sentence producing
+no other visible effect than a shake of the head, Madame desired the
+nearest culprit to tell ‘ce soldat là’ what she had said, which caused
+him of the red coat to declare that ‘it made his blood boil to see so
+many free-born English girls dominated over by their natural enemy.’
+Finally he insisted that we could not march with such incumbrances,
+which declaration being done into French all at once by half a dozen
+eager tongues, the trappings were removed and the experiment was ended.”
+
+In spite of this comical exception, the general system of education
+followed in Hans Place was greatly superior to that of the ordinary
+boarding schools of the day, where all that could be said of a young
+lady when her education was finished was that she “played a little,
+sang a little, talked a little indifferent French, painted shells
+and roses, not particularly like nature, danced admirably, and was
+the best player at battledore and shuttle-cock, hunt-the-slipper and
+blindman’s-buff in her county.”
+
+Dr. and Mrs. Mitford visited their little daughter frequently
+during the period of her school life—often taking lodgings in the
+neighbourhood to be within easy reach. Mrs. Mitford writes on one of
+these occasions to her husband: “=Mezza=” (a pet name for Mary), “who
+has got her little desk here, and her great dictionary, is hard at her
+studies beside me.... Her little spirits are all abroad to obtain the
+prize, sometimes hoping, sometimes desponding. It is as well perhaps
+you are not here at present, as you would be in as great a fidget on
+the occasion as she herself is.”
+
+Whether Mary won this particular prize we do not know, but that she
+_did_ win prizes is proved by the fact that two of them are carefully
+treasured by the descendants of some of her friends. One of these is
+in our temporary possession. It is a large volume entitled, _Adam’s
+Geography_, bound in calf, and ornamented with elegant patterns in
+gilding. On the upper side of the binding are the words:—
+
+Prix de Bonne Conduite qu’a obtenu Mlle. Midford
+
+while on the reverse side we read:—
+
+Mrs. St. Quintin’s School Hans Place June 17th 1801.
+
+The Mitfords’ name used to be spelt with a “d” at one time, but Dr.
+Mitford changed it to a “t” a few years later than the period of which
+we are writing.
+
+There were three vacations in the year, the breaking up for which was
+always preceded by a festival. Before Easter and Christmas there was
+usually a ballet “when the sides of the schoolroom were fitted up
+with bowers, in which the little girls who had to dance were seated,
+and whence they issued at a signal from M. Duval the dancing master,
+attired as sylphs or shepherdesses, to skip or glide through the mazy
+movements of a fancy dance to the music of his kit. Or sometimes there
+would be a dramatic performance, as when the same room was converted
+into a theatre for the representation of Hannah More’s _Search after
+Happiness_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A GLIMPSE OF OLD FRENCH SOCIETY
+
+
+During her school life Mary Mitford had an opportunity of seeing many
+of the French refugees of noble birth who had escaped from their
+country in the commencement of the Reign of Terror.
+
+“M. St. Quintin,” she tells us, “being a lively, kind-hearted man, with
+a liberal hand and a social temper, it was his delight to assemble as
+many as he could of his poor countrymen and countrywomen around his
+hospitable supper-table.”
+
+“Something wonderful and admirable it was,” she writes, “to see how
+these dukes and duchesses, marshals and marquises, chevaliers and
+bishops bore up under their unparalleled reverses! How they laughed,
+and talked, and squabbled, and flirted, constant to their high heels,
+their rouge and their furbelows, to their old _liésons_, their polished
+sarcasms and their cherished rivalries! They clung even to their
+_mariages de convenance_; and the very habits which would most have
+offended our English notions, if we had seen them in their splendid
+hotels of the Faubourg St. Germain, won tolerance and pardon when mixed
+up with such unaffected constancy and such cheerful resignation.”
+
+There were supper parties also given to other members of the French
+society by a cousin of Mary Mitford’s who had married an _émigré_ of
+high birth and who resided in Brunswick Square. Mary often spent the
+interval between Saturday afternoon and Monday morning with these
+relatives. “Saturday was their regular French day,” she writes, “when
+in the evening the conversation, music, games, manners and cookery
+were studiously and decidedly French. Trictrac superseded chess or
+backgammon, reversi took the place of whist, Gretry of Mozart, Racine
+of Shakespeare; omelettes and salads, champagne moussu, and _eau sucré_
+excluded sandwiches, oysters and porter.
+
+“At these suppers their little school-girl visitor,” she says,
+“assisted, though at first rather in the French than the English sense
+of the word. I was present indeed, but had as little to do as possible
+either with speaking or eating.... However, in less than three months I
+became an efficient consumer of good things, and said ‘oui, monsieur,’
+and ‘merci, madame,’ as often as a little girl of twelve years old
+ought to say anything.
+
+“I confess, however, that it took more time to reconcile me to the
+party round the table than to the viands with which it was covered. In
+truth they formed a motley group, reminding me now of a masquerade and
+then of a puppet show. I shall attempt to sketch a few of them as they
+then appeared to me, beginning, as etiquette demands, with the duchess.
+
+“She was a tall, meagre woman of a certain age (that is to say on
+the wrong side of sixty). Her face bore the remains of beauty, [but
+injured by] a quantity of glaring rouge. Her dress was always simple
+in its materials and delicately clean. She meant the fashion to be
+English, I believe,—at least she used often to say, ‘me voilà mise à
+l’Anglaise’; but as neither herself nor her faithful _femme de chambre_
+could or would condescend to seek for patterns from _les grosses
+bourgeoises de ce Londres là bas_ they constantly relapsed into the
+old French shapes.... She used to relate the story of her escape from
+France, and accounted herself the most fortunate of women for having,
+in company with her faithful _femme de chambre_, at last contrived
+to reach England with jewels enough concealed about their persons to
+secure them a modest competence. No small part of her good fortune
+was the vicinity of her old friend the Marquis de L., a little thin,
+withered old man, with a face puckered with wrinkles, and a prodigious
+volubility of tongue. This gentleman had been madame’s devoted beau for
+the last forty years.... They could not exist without an interchange of
+looks and sentiments, a mental intelligence, a gentle gallantry on the
+one side and a languishing listening on the other, which long habit had
+rendered as necessary to both as their snuff-box or their coffee.
+
+“The next person in importance to the duchess was Madame de V., sister
+to the marquis. Her husband, who had acted in a diplomatic capacity in
+the stormy days preceding the Revolution, still maintained his station
+at the exiled court, and was at the moment of which I write employed on
+a secret embassy to an unnamed potentate.... In the dearth of Bourbon
+news this mysterious mission excited a lively and animated curiosity
+amongst these sprightly people.
+
+“In person Madame de V. was quite a contrast to the duchess; short,
+very crooked, with the sharp, odd-looking face and keen eye that so
+often accompany deformity. She [used] a quantity of rouge and finery,
+mingling [together] ribands, feathers and beads of all the colours of
+the rainbow. She was on excellent terms with all who knew her, and was
+also on the best terms with herself, in spite of the looking-glass,
+whose testimony indeed was so positively contradicted by certain
+couplets and acrostics addressed to her by M. le Comte de C., and the
+chevalier des I., the poets of the party, that to believe one uncivil
+dumb thing against two witnesses of such undoubted honour would have
+been a breach of politeness of which madame was incapable.
+
+“The Chevalier des I. was a handsome man, tall, dark-visaged, and
+whiskered, with a look rather of the new than of the old French school,
+fierce and soldierly; he was accomplished too, played the flute, and
+wrote songs and enigmas. His wife, the prettiest of women, was the
+silliest Frenchwoman I ever encountered. She never opened her lips
+without uttering some _bêtise_. Her poor husband, himself not the
+wisest of men, quite dreaded her speaking.
+
+“It happened that the Abbé de Lille, the celebrated French poet, and
+M. de Colonne, the ex-minister, had promised one Saturday to join
+the party in Brunswick Square. They came: and our chevalier [as a
+poet] could not miss so fair an opportunity of display. Accordingly,
+about half an hour before supper he put on a look of _distraction_,
+strode hastily two or three times up and down the room, slapped his
+fore-head, and muttered a line or two to himself, then, calling
+hastily for pen and paper, began writing with the illegible rapidity of
+one who fears to lose a happy thought;—in short, he acted incomparably
+the whole agony of composition, and finally, with becoming diffidence,
+presented the impromptu to our worthy host, who immediately imparted
+it to the company. It was heard with lively approbation. At last the
+commerce of flattery ceased; the author’s excuses, the ex-minister’s
+and the great poet’s thanks, and the applause of the audience died away.
+
+“A pause [now] ensued which was broken by Madame des I., who had
+witnessed the whole scene with intense pleasure, and who exclaimed,
+with tears standing in her beautiful eyes, ‘How glad I am they like the
+impromptu! My poor dear chevalier! No tongue can tell what pains it has
+cost him! There he was all yesterday evening writing, writing,—all the
+night long—never went to bed—all to-day—only finished just before we
+came. My poor dear chevalier! Now he’ll be satisfied.’
+
+“Be it recorded to the honour of French politeness that finding it
+impossible to stop or to out-talk her, the whole party pretended not to
+hear, and never once alluded to this impromptu _fait à loisir_ till the
+discomforted chevalier sneaked off with his pretty simpleton. Then to
+be sure they did laugh....
+
+“The Comtess de C. would have been very handsome but for one terrible
+drawback—she squinted. I cannot abide those ‘cross eyes,’ as the
+country people call them; but the French gentlemen did not seem to
+participate in my antipathy, for the countess was regarded as the
+beauty of the party. Agreeable she certainly was, lively and witty....
+She had an agreeable little dog called Amour—a pug, the smallest and
+ugliest of the species, who regularly after supper used to jump out of
+a muff, where he had lain _perdu_ all the evening, and make the round
+of the supper-table, begging cake and biscuits. He and I established
+a great friendship, and he would even venture, on hearing my voice,
+to pop his poor little black nose out of his hiding-place before the
+appointed time. It required several repetitions of _fi donc_ from his
+mistress to drive him back behind the scenes till she gave him his cue.
+
+“No uncommon object of her wit was the mania of a young smooth-faced
+little abbé, the politician _par eminence_, where all were
+politicians. M. l’Abbé must have been an exceeding bore to our English
+ministers, whom by his own showing he pestered weekly with laboured
+memorials,—plans for a rising in La Vendée, schemes for an invasion,
+proposals to destroy the French fleet, offers to take Antwerp, and
+plots for carrying off Buonaparte from the opera-house and lodging him
+in the Tower of London. Imagine the abduction, and fancy him carried
+off by the unassisted prowess and dexterity of M. l’Abbé!”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE GAY REALITIES OF MOLIÈRE
+
+
+Dr. Mitford had set his heart upon his daughter’s becoming an
+“accomplished musician,” in spite of her having, as she tells us,
+“neither ear, nor taste, nor application.” Her first music master in
+Hans Place failing to bring about any improvement in her playing upon
+the piano, she was removed from his tuition and placed under that of
+a German professor, “an impatient, irritable man of genius,” who, in
+his turn, soon summarily dismissed his pupil! “Things being in this
+unpromising state,” she writes, “I began to entertain some hope that my
+musical education would be given up altogether. This time [however] my
+father threw the blame upon the instrument, and he now resolved that I
+should become a great performer upon the harp.
+
+“It happened that our school-house ... was so built that the principal
+reception-room was connected with the entrance-hall by a long passage
+and two double doors. This room, fitted up with nicely bound books,
+contained, amongst other musical instruments, the harp upon which I
+was sent to practise every morning. I was sent alone, [and was] most
+comfortably out of sight and hearing of every individual in the house,
+the only means of approach being through the two resounding green baize
+doors, swinging to with a heavy bang the moment they were let go. As
+the change from piano to harp ... had by no means worked a miracle, I
+very shortly betook myself to the book-shelves, and seeing a row of
+octavo volumes lettered _Théâtre de Voltaire_, I selected one of them
+and had deposited it in front of the music-stand and perched myself
+upon the stool to read it in less time than an ordinary pupil would
+have consumed in getting through the first three bars of _Ar Hyd y Nos_.
+
+“The play upon which I opened was _Zaïre_. There was a certain
+romance in the situation, an interest in the story.... So I got
+through _Zaïre_, and when I had finished _Zaïre_ I proceeded to other
+plays—_Ædipe_, _Mérope_, _Algire_, _Mahomet_, plays well worth reading,
+but not so absorbing as to prevent my giving due attention to the
+warning doors, and putting the book in its place, and striking the
+chords of _Ar Hyd y Nos_ as often as I heard a step approaching.
+
+“But when the dramas of Voltaire were exhausted and I had recourse to
+some neighbouring volumes the state of matters changed at once. The new
+volumes contained the comedies of Molière, and once plunged into the
+gay realities of this delightful world, all the miseries of this globe
+of ours—harp, music-books, practisings, and lessons—were forgotten....
+I never remembered that there was such a thing as time; I never heard
+the warning doors; the only tribulations that troubled me were the
+tribulations of _Sganarelle_, the only lessons I thought about—the
+lessons of the ‘Bourgeois Gentilhomme.’ So I was caught; caught in
+the very act of laughing till I cried over the apostrophes of the
+angry father to the galley, in which he is told his son has been taken
+captive, ‘Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère!’
+
+“Luckily, however, the person who discovered my delinquency was one of
+my chief spoilers—the husband of our good school mistress. Accordingly
+when he could speak for laughing, what he said sounded far more like a
+compliment upon my relish for the comic drama than a rebuke. I suppose
+that he spoke to the same effect to my father. At all events the issue
+of the affair was the dismissal of the poor little harp mistress and a
+present of a cheap edition of Molière for my own reading.” And writing
+in after years Miss Mitford says: “I have got the set still—twelve
+little foreign-looking books, unbound, and covered with a gay-looking
+pink paper, mottled with red, like certain carnations.”
+
+Miss Mitford tells us in the Introduction to one of her works that her
+father had engaged the English teacher Miss Rowden, of whom we have
+already spoken, to act as a sort of private tutor—a governess out of
+school hours to his young daughter.
+
+“At the time I was placed under her care,” writes Mary, “her whole
+heart was in the drama, especially as personified by John Kemble; and I
+am persuaded that she thought she could in no way so well perform her
+duty as in taking me to Drury Lane whenever his name was in the bills.
+
+“It was a time of great actors—Jack Bannister and Jack Johnstone,
+Fawcett and Emery, Lewis and Munden, Mrs. Davenport, Miss Pope and Mrs.
+Jordan (most exquisite of all) made comedy a bright and living art, an
+art as full as life itself of laughter and tears.
+
+“My enthusiasm for the drama soon equalled that of Miss Rowden....
+There was of course a great difference in kind between her pleasure and
+mine; hers was a critical, mine a childish enjoyment; she loved fine
+acting, I loved the play.”
+
+Writing in later years of her pleasure, however imperfect then, in
+the acting of “the glorious family of Kemble,” she says: “The fame
+of John Kemble ... has suffered not a little by the contact with his
+great sister. Besides her uncontested and incontestable power Mrs.
+Siddons had one advantage not always allowed for—she was a woman. The
+actress must always be dearer than the actor, goes closer to the heart,
+draws tenderer tears.... Add that the tragedy in which they were best
+remembered was one in which the heroine must always predominate, for
+Lady Macbeth is the moving spirit of the play. But the characters of
+more equality—Katherine and Wolsey, Hermione and Leontes, Coriolanus
+and Volumnia, Hamlet and the Queen—and surely John Kemble may hold his
+own. How often have I seen them in those plays! What would I give to
+see again those plays so acted!”
+
+In the year 1802, when Mary was fourteen years of age, her thirst for
+knowledge was growing rapidly. Miss Rowden happened to be reading
+Virgil, and Mary longed to be able to read it also. “I have just
+taken a lesson in Latin,” she writes to her mother, “but I shall in
+consequence omit some of my other business. It is so extremely like
+Italian that I think I shall find it much easier than I expected.”
+
+“I told you,” she says in a letter to her father, “that I had finished
+the _Iliad_, which I admire beyond anything I ever read. I have begun
+the _Æneid_, which I cannot say I admire so much. Dryden is so fond of
+triplets and Alexandrines that it is much heavier reading; ... when I
+have finished it I shall read the _Odyssey_.... I am now reading that
+beautiful opera of Metastasio, _Themistocles_, and when I have finished
+that I shall read Tasso’s _Jerusalem Delivered_. His poetry is really
+heavenly.”
+
+Again she writes, “I went to the library the other day with Miss Rowden
+and brought back the first volume of Goldsmith’s _Animated Nature_.
+It is quite a lady’s natural history, and extremely entertaining....
+The only fault is its length. There are eight volumes. But as I read
+it to myself, and read pretty quick, I shall soon get through it. I am
+likewise reading the _Odyssey_, which I even prefer to the _Iliad_. I
+think it beautiful beyond comparison.”
+
+Mrs. Mitford was staying in town in the summer of 1802, and she writes
+to her husband: “You would have laughed yesterday when M. St. Quintin
+was reading Mary’s English composition, of which the subject was, ‘The
+advantage of a well-cultivated mind’; a word struck him as needless to
+be inserted, and which after objecting to it he was going to expunge.
+Mam Bonette (a pet name), in her pretty meek way, urged the necessity
+of the word used. Miss Rowden was then applied to. She and I both
+asserted that the sentence would be incomplete without it. St. Quintin,
+on a more deliberate view of the subject, with all the liberality which
+is so amiable a point in his character, begged our daughter’s pardon,
+and the passage remained as it originally stood.”
+
+A young French girl, Mlle. Rose, had recently become an inmate of the
+schoolroom. She was an orphan, and her venerable grand-parents, who
+belonged to a noble Bretonne family, were now dependent upon her for
+support. The three were to be seen occasionally at M. St. Quintin’s
+hospitable supper-parties, and on such occasions Rose “always brought
+with her some ingenious straw-plaiting to make into fancy bonnets,
+which were then in vogue.... She was a pallid, drooping creature,
+whose dark eyes looked too large for her face.” She now brought her
+straw-plaiting into the schoolroom and also assisted in teaching French
+to the pupils.
+
+“About this time a little girl named Betsy, of a short, squat figure,
+plain in face and ill-dressed and overdressed, appeared at the school,
+brought by her father. They happened to arrive at the same time with
+the French dancing master, a marquis of the _ancien régime_. I never
+saw such a contrast between two men. The Frenchman was slim, long
+and pale, and allowing always for the dancing-master air, he might
+be called elegant. The Englishman was the beau-ideal of a John Bull,
+portentous in size, broad and red of visage, and loud of tongue. He did
+not stay five minutes, but that was time enough to strike monsieur with
+horror ... especially when his first words conveyed an injunction to
+the lady of the house ‘to take care that no grinning Frenchman had the
+ordering of his Betsy’s feet. If she must learn to dance, let her be
+taught by an honest Englishman.’
+
+“Poor Betsy! there she sat, the tears trickling down her cheeks, little
+comforted by the kind notice of the governess and the English teacher.
+I made some girlish advances towards acquaintanceship which she was too
+shy or too miserable to return....
+
+“For the present she seemed to have attached herself to Mademoiselle
+Rose. She had crept to the side of the young French woman and watched
+her as she wove her straw plaits. She had also attempted the simple art
+with some discarded straws, and when mademoiselle had so far roused
+herself as to show her the proper way, she soon became an efficient
+assistant.
+
+“No intercourse took place between them. Indeed none was possible
+since neither knew a word of the other’s language. Betsy was silence
+personified, and poor Mlle. Rose was now more than ever dejected.
+An opportunity of returning to France had opened to her and to her
+grand-parents, and was passing away. The expenses of the journey were
+beyond her means. So she sighed over her straw-plaiting and submitted.
+
+“In the meantime the second Saturday after the new pupil’s coming to
+school arrived, and with it a summons home to Betsy, who, for the
+first time gathering courage to address our good governess, asked ‘if
+she might be trusted with the bonnet Mlle. Rose had just finished,
+to show her aunt—she knew she would like to buy that bonnet because
+mademoiselle had been so good as to let her assist in plaiting it.’ Our
+good governess ordered the bonnet to be put into the carriage, told her
+the price, called her a good child, and took leave of her till Monday.
+
+“Two hours after, Betsy and her father reappeared in the schoolroom.
+‘Ma’amselle,’ said he, bawling as loud as he could with the view
+evidently of making her understand him, ‘Ma’amselle, I’ve no great love
+for the French, whom I take to be our natural enemies. But you’re a
+good young woman; you’ve been kind to my Betsy, and have taught her to
+make your fal-lals. She says that she thinks you’re fretting because
+you can’t manage to take your grandfather and grandmother back to
+France again; so as you let her help you in that other handiwork, why
+you must let her help you in this.’ Then throwing a heavy purse into
+her lap and catching his little daughter up in his arms he departed,
+leaving poor Mlle. Rose too much bewildered to speak or to comprehend
+the happiness that had fallen upon her.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD READING
+
+
+In the spring of the year 1802 Dr. Mitford purchased an old farm-house
+with its surrounding fields amounting to about seventy acres, near
+to the small village of Graseley, which lies about three miles to
+the south of Reading. The house, known as Graseley Court, had been
+built in the days of Queen Elizabeth, and it possessed fine rooms
+with ornamental panelling, oriel windows and a great oaken staircase
+with massive balustrades. It had fallen out of repair, and the
+doctor’s first plan was to carry out such restorations only as would
+make it a comfortable dwelling-place for himself and his family. But
+unfortunately he soon abandoned this plan and determined to pull down
+the old house and to build upon its site a new and spacious mansion.
+Dr. Mitford had little appreciation of the beauty he was destroying,
+nor did he foresee the large sums of money that would be sunk in this
+undertaking.
+
+[Illustration: STRIKING LIKENESSES TAKEN IN THIS MANNER _ONE GUINEA
+EACH_]
+
+Mary’s school life came to an end at the close of the year 1802,
+when she had just reached the age of fifteen. Her connection, however,
+with Hans Place was not over, for she paid happy visits from time to
+time to the St. Quintins and Miss Rowden, going to the London theatres,
+hearing concerts, and seeing interesting society under their auspices.
+
+Her first introduction to the Reading gaieties of a grown-up order
+was to be at the Race Ball in August, 1803. “At these balls,” we are
+told, “it was the custom for the steward of the races to dance with the
+young ladies who then came out.” After alluding to the distress felt
+by one of her companions on having to dance with a stranger on such an
+occasion, Mary writes in 1802: “I think myself very fortunate that Mr.
+Shaw Lefevre will be steward next year, for by that time I shall hope
+to know him well enough to render the undertaking of dancing with him
+less disagreeable.”
+
+“The public amusements of the town,” she writes, “as I remember them
+at bonny fifteen were sober enough. They were limited to an annual
+visit from a respectable company of actors, the theatre being very
+well conducted and exceedingly ill-attended; to biennial concerts ...
+rather better patronized, to almost weekly incursions from itinerant
+lecturers on all the arts and sciences, and from prodigies of every
+kind, whether three-year-old fiddlers or learned dogs.”
+
+“The good town of Belford [Reading],” she tells us, “was the paradise
+of ill-jointured widows and portionless old-maids. They met in the
+tableland of gentility, passing their mornings in calls at each
+other’s houses and their evenings in small tea-parties, seasoned with
+a rubber or a pool, and garnished with a little quiet gossiping ...
+which their habits required. The part of the town in which they chiefly
+congregated, the lady’s _quarter_, was one hilly corner of the parish
+of St. Nicholas, a sort of highland district, all made up of short Rows
+and pigmy Places entirely uncontaminated by the vulgarity of shops.”
+
+Miss Mitford has given us many a racy description of the type of small
+tradespeople of the period. Here is one of them:—
+
+“The greatest man in these parts (I use the word in the sense of
+Louis-le-Gros, not Louis-le-Grand) is our worthy neighbour Stephen
+Lane, the grazier ex-butcher of Belford. Nothing so big hath been seen
+since Lambert the gaoler or the Durham ox.
+
+“When he walks he overfills the pavement and is more difficult to pass
+than a link of full-dressed misses or a chain of becloaked dandies....
+Chairs crack under him, couches rock, bolsters groan and floors
+tremble....
+
+“Tailors, although he was a liberal and punctual paymaster, dreaded his
+custom. It was not only the quantity of material that he took, and yet
+that cloth universally called ‘broad’ was not broad enough for him; it
+was not only the stuff but the work—the sewing, stitching, plaiting and
+button-holing without end. The very shears grew weary of their labours.”
+
+For a contrast to this personage we have “little Miss Philly Firkin the
+china woman,” whose shop stood in a narrow twisting lane called Oriel
+Street. This street was cribbed and confined on one side by the remains
+of an old monastic building, and after winding round the churchyard
+of St. Stephens with an awkward curve it finally abutted upon the
+market-place. So popular was this “incommodious avenue of shops”
+that nobody dreamt of visiting Belford without desiring to purchase
+something there, so that “horse-people and foot-people jostled upon its
+pavement,” whilst “coaches and phaetons ran against each other in the
+road.” Of all the shops the prettiest and most sought after was that of
+Miss Philly Firkin.
+
+“She herself was in appearance most fit to be its inhabitant, being a
+trim, prim little woman, whose dress hung about her in stiff, regular
+folds, very like the drapery of a china shepherdess on a mantelpiece,
+and whose pink and white complexion ... had the same professional hue.
+Change her spruce cap for a wide-brimmed hat and the damask napkin
+which she flourished in wiping her wares for a china crook and the
+figure in question might have passed for a miniature of the mistress.
+In one respect they differed. The china shepherdess was a silent
+personage. Miss Philadelphia was not; on the contrary, she was reckoned
+to make ... as good a use of her tongue as any woman, gentle or simple,
+in the whole town of Belford.”
+
+Miss Mitford describes another female shop-keeper of those days, “a
+reduced gentlewoman by name Mrs. Martin, who endeavoured to eke out a
+small annuity by letting lodgings at eight shillings a week, and by
+keeping a toyshop. The whole stock (of the little shop)—fiddles, drums,
+balls, dolls and shuttle-cocks—might be easily appraised at under eight
+pounds, including a stately rocking-horse, the poor widow’s _cheval de
+bataille_, which had occupied one side of Mrs. Martin’s shop from the
+time of her setting up in business, and still continued to keep his
+station, uncheapened by her thrifty customers.”
+
+When a certain Mr. Singleton, we are told, was ordained curate of
+St. Nicholas after taking his degrees at college with “respectable
+mediocrity” he was attracted by the appearance of the rooms above
+the toyshop, “and there by the advice of Dr. Grampound (the Rector)
+did he place himself on his arrival at Belford. He occupied the first
+floor, consisting of the sitting-room—a pleasant apartment with one
+window abutting on the High Bridge and the other on the market-place,
+also a small chamber behind with its tent-bed and dimity furniture.”
+And there the curate continued “to live for full thirty years with
+the selfsame spare, quiet, decent landlady and her small serving
+maiden Patty, a demure, civil damsel dwarfed as it should seem by
+constant curtseying.... Except for the clock of time, which, however
+imperceptibly, does still keep moving, everything about the little
+toyshop was at a standstill. The very tabby cat, which lay basking on
+the hearth, might have passed for his progenitor of happy memory, who
+took his station there the night of Mr. Singleton’s arrival; and the
+self-same hobby-horse still stood rocking opposite the counter, the
+admiration of every urchin who passed the door.
+
+“There the rocking-horse remained, and there remained Mr. Singleton,
+gradually advancing from a personable youth to a portly middle-aged
+man.”
+
+We have already mentioned the frequent small fairs that were held in
+the market-place from time to time, but the chief event of the year
+in such matters was the Reading Great Fair, which took place regularly
+upon May Day. “It was a scene of business as well as of pleasure,”
+writes Mary Mitford, “being not only a great market for horses and
+cattle, but one of the principal marts for the celebrated cheese of
+the great dairy counties.... Before the actual fair day waggon after
+waggon, laden with the round, hard, heavy merchandise, rumbled slowly
+into the Forbury, where the great space before the school-house was
+fairly covered with stacks of Cheddar and North Wilts.
+
+“Fancy the singular effect of piles of cheeses several feet high
+extending over a whole large cricket ground, and divided only by narrow
+paths littered with straw, amongst which wandered chapmen offering
+a taste of their wares to their cautious customers, the country
+shop-keepers (who poured in from every village within twenty miles),
+and to the thrifty house-wives of the town.... Fancy the effect of this
+remarkable scene, surrounded by the usual moving picture of a fair,
+the fine Gothic church of St. Nicholas on one side, the old arch of
+the Abbey and the abrupt eminence called Forbury Hill, crowned with a
+grand clump of trees, on the other.... When lighted up at night it was,
+perhaps, still more fantastic and attractive, when the roars and
+howlings of the travelling wild beasts used to mingle so grotesquely
+with the drums, trumpets and fiddles of the dramatic and equestrian
+exhibitions, and the laugh and shout and song of the merry visitors.”
+
+[Illustration: THE OLD MARKET PLACE, READING]
+
+In the year 1804 the building of the large new house at Graseley
+was completed, and it received the name of Bertram House, so called
+in honour of the Mitfords’ Norman ancestor, Sir Robert Bertram. The
+doctor’s usual extravagance was shown in the style of its decorations
+and furniture, which were little suited to his small and modest family.
+
+We have visited Bertram House. It is a large square white building of
+little architectural beauty, but there is beauty in a wide verandah
+standing at the summit of a broad flight of stone steps leading up to
+the entrance, which is completely festooned by roses and honeysuckles.
+The house faces spreading lawns and gay flower-beds, whilst its
+approach from the lane hard by is beneath an avenue of tall limes.
+Fields stretch far away behind the building, their “richly timbered
+hedgerows edging into wild, rude and solemn fir plantations.”
+
+Here Mary Mitford passed sixteen years of her life, and here she got to
+know and love not only their own beautiful grounds but also every turn
+of the surrounding shady lanes, where the first violets and primroses
+were to be found, and delighted in the wide expanse of its neighbouring
+common gay with gorse and broom. Many of her pastoral stories are
+connected with this smiling country.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A NORTHERN TOUR
+
+
+In the autumn of the year 1806 Mary Mitford, then eighteen years of
+age, was taken by her father for a tour in the north of England with a
+view of introducing her to his relations in Northumberland. The head of
+the family was Mitford of Mitford Castle, a fine old Saxon edifice that
+stands on high ground above the river Wansbeck at a point where two
+fords meet, and from which circumstance the name Mid-ford is derived.
+
+Miss Mitford speaks in her _Recollections_ of “the massive ruins of the
+castle” as “the common ancestral home of our race and name,” and tells
+us “of the wild and daring Wansbeck almost girdling it as a moat.”
+
+The castle is about two miles distant from Morpeth, and there is a
+quaint rhyme still current in the north-country which runs as follows:—
+
+“Midford was Midford ere Morpeth was ane, And still shall be Midford
+when Morpeth is gane.”
+
+At the time of the Norman Conquest it appears that the castle and
+barony were in the possession of a certain Robert de Mitford, whose
+only child and heiress was a daughter named Sibella. This daughter was
+given in marriage by the Conqueror to one of his knights—Sir Robert
+Bertram—who had fought in the battle of Hastings. It seems that there
+is a curious entry respecting this same knight in a contemporary
+document written in Norman French to the effect that Sir Robert Bertram
+_estoít tort_ (crooked). One would like to know if the Saxon maid was
+happy with her deformed husband, but the old chronicles are of course
+silent on that subject.[3]
+
+[Footnote 3: See _Memories_, by Lord Redesdale, K.C.B., published 1915.]
+
+It was on the 20th day of September (1806) that Mary Mitford, together
+with her father and her father’s cousin, Mr. Nathaniel Ogle, who
+possessed an estate in Northumberland, started upon their northern
+tour. They travelled to London by stage-coach, but performed the rest
+of their journey in Mr. Ogle’s private carriage. Having changed horses
+at Waltham Cross and again at Wade’s Mill, they halted at Royston for
+the first night, and then, continuing their journey with various other
+haltings, reached Little Harle Tower in Northumberland a few days
+later.
+
+Little Harle Tower, which stands in a romantic glen through which the
+Wansbeck flows, was to be the headquarters of the Mitfords during their
+tour. It was the property of Lord and Lady Charles Murray Aynsley,
+Lord Charles having taken the name of Aynsley on account of a large
+property left to his wife by a relative of that name. He was a son of
+the Duchess of Athol. Perhaps the reader may remember his appearance in
+an early chapter of this work as a very bashful young man. Lady Charles
+was a first cousin of Dr. Mitford’s.
+
+Mary writes to her mother from Little Harle Tower on September 28th: “I
+imagine Papa has told you all our plans, which are extremely pleasant.
+Lord and Lady Charles stay longer in the country on purpose to receive
+us, and have put off their visit to Alnwick Castle that they may take
+us there, as well as to Lord Grey’s, Colonel Beaumont’s and half a
+dozen other places.... The post, which _never_ goes oftener than
+three times a week from hence, will not allow our writing again till
+Wednesday, when we go to Sir William Lorraine’s, and hope to get a
+frank from Colonel Beaumont whom we are to meet there.”
+
+This was Mary Mitford’s first introduction into what is called high
+society, and the simplicity of her ordinary life made her specially
+enjoy her new experiences.
+
+The Beaumonts were people of large property, and Mary describes the
+wonderful attire of Mrs. Beaumont, who appeared at the Lorraines’
+dinner-party (although it was supposed to be a small informal
+gathering) in a lavender satin dress covered with Mechlin lace, and
+whose jewels consisted of amethysts of priceless value forming a
+waist-belt, a bandeau, a tiara, armlets, bracelets, etc. etc. to match.
+Lady Lorraine’s dress was quite different. “Her ladyship is a small,
+delicate woman,” writes Mary, “and she wore a plain cambric gown and
+a small chip hat, without any sort of ornament either on her head or
+neck.”
+
+Mary made mental notes concerning many of her new acquaintance. She
+describes a certain Mr. M. as “an oddity from affectation.” “And I
+often think,” she adds, “that no young man affects singularity when he
+can distinguish himself by something better.”
+
+Writing from Kirkley, Mr. Ogle’s property, on October 8th, Mary says:
+“We go to-morrow to Alnwick and return the same night. I will write you
+a long account of our stately visit when I return to Morpeth.”
+
+Alnwick Castle was at that time the abode of the Dowager Duchess of
+Athol, the mother of Lord Charles Murray Aynsley. This same Duchess was
+also (in her own right) Baroness Strange and Lady of Man. Her husband,
+the third Duke of Athol, had died some thirty years before, and ever
+since his death she seems to have enjoyed a position of ever-increasing
+power and authority.
+
+“To-morrow,” writes Mary, “is expected to be a very full day at the
+Castle on account of the Sessions Ball. The ladies—the married ones I
+mean—go in court dresses without hoops, and display their diamonds and
+finery upon the occasion.”
+
+Mary had to make her preparations accordingly. “You would have been
+greatly amused,” she writes, “at my having my hair cut by Lord
+Charles’s _frisseur_, who is by occupation a joiner, and actually
+attended me with an apron covered with glue and a rule in his hand
+instead of scissors.
+
+“Thursday morning we rose early. I wore my ball dress, and Lady C.
+lent me a beautiful necklace of Scotch pebbles very elegantly set,
+with brooches and ornaments to match. My dress was never the least
+discomposed during the whole day, though we travelled thirty miles
+of dreadful roads to the Castle. Lord Charles’s horses had been sent
+on to Framlington (eighteen miles) the day before, and we took four
+post horses from Cambo to that place. We set out at eleven and reached
+Framlington by two.... We passed Netherwitten ... and Sworland, the
+magnificent seat of the famous Alexander Davison. I had likewise a good
+view of the beautiful Roadly Craggs, by which the road passes, and
+likewise over some of the moors.
+
+“The entrance to Alnwick Castle is extremely striking. After passing
+through three massive gateways you alight and enter a most magnificent
+hall, lined with servants, who repeat your name to those stationed on
+the stairs; these again re-echo the sound from one to the other, till
+you find yourself in a most sumptuous drawing-room of great size and,
+as I should imagine, forty feet in height. This is at least rather
+formidable, but the sweetness of the Duchess soon did away every
+impression but that of admiration. We arrived first, and Lady Charles
+introduced me with particular distinction to the whole family; and
+during the whole day I was never for one instant unaccompanied by
+one of the charming Lady Percys, and principally by Lady Emily, the
+youngest and most beautiful.
+
+“We sat down sixty-five to dinner.... The dinner of course was served
+on plate, and the middle of the table was decorated by a sumptuous
+_plateau_. I met Sir Charles Monck, my cousin of Mitford, and several
+people I had known at Little Harle. After dinner when the Duchess
+found Lady Charles absolutely refused to stay all night, she resolved
+at least that I should see the Castle, and sent Lady Emily to show me
+the library, chapel, state bedrooms, etc., and, thinking I was fond
+of dancing, she persuaded Lady C. to go for an hour with herself and
+family to the Sessions Ball, which was held that night.
+
+“The Duchess is still a most lovely woman, and dresses with particular
+elegance. She wore a helmet of diamonds. The young ladies were
+elegantly dressed in white and gold. The news of Lord Percy’s election
+arrived after dinner.
+
+“At nine we went to the ball given in the town, and the room was so
+bad and the heat so excessive that I determined, considering the long
+journey we had to take, not to dance, and refused my cousin Mitford
+of Mitford, Mr. Selby, Mr. Alder, and half a dozen whose names I have
+forgotten. At half-past ten we took leave of the Duchess and her
+amiable daughters and commenced our journey homeward....
+
+“We went on very quietly for some time when we suddenly discovered that
+we had come about six miles out of our way.... This so much delayed us
+that it was near seven o’clock in the morning before we reached home
+[Morpeth]. Seventy miles, a splendid dinner and a ball all in one day!
+Was not this a spirited expedition?”
+
+Mary was well placed for enjoyment during this tour. “My cousins,”
+she writes in later life, “were acquainted, as it seemed to me, with
+everyone of consequence in the county, and were themselves two of the
+most popular persons it contained, [so] as the young relative and
+companion of this amiable couple, I saw the country and its inhabitants
+to great advantage.”
+
+Mary mentions two younger sisters of Lady Charles—Mary and Charlotte
+Mitford—cousins of whom she became fond. They often accompanied the
+travellers in their visiting tours, as did also the Aynsleys’ only son,
+whom she speaks of as her father’s “dear godson, and the finest boy you
+ever saw.”
+
+Writing from Morpeth, where her father’s uncle, old Mr. Mitford, and
+her cousins lived, she speaks of a plan for a tour in the northern
+part of the county arranged by Sir Charles and Lady Aynsley for her
+entertainment. “When I go back to Little Harle,” she says, “we shall
+set out for Admiral Roddam’s upon the Cheviot Hills, Lord Tankerville’s
+and Lord Grey’s.... I am so happy in this opportunity of seeing the
+Cheviot Hills.” The tour proved a very pleasant and interesting one.
+The party travelled in a coach and four, the road sometimes taking
+them across the summit of the Cheviots and “above the clouds.”
+They visited Fallerton and Simonsburn and also Hexham—her father’s
+birthplace—finally halting at Alnwick.
+
+At this time Mary was put into an awkward position by her father
+suddenly quitting her and returning in all haste to Reading in order to
+further the Parliamentary election of Mr. Shaw Lefevre, thus cancelling
+all his engagements with their relatives and friends. She wrote to urge
+his return, and finally he did so on the 3rd November, and towards the
+end of the month both father and daughter returned home.
+
+Late in life, recording the various events of her tour in the north,
+Mary writes: “Years many and changeful have gone by since I trod those
+northern braes; they at whose side I stood lie under the green sod;
+yet still as I read of the Tyne or of the Wansbeck the bright rivers
+sparkle before me, as if I had walked beside them but yesterday. I
+still seem to stand with my dear father under the grey walls of that
+grand old abbey church at Hexham whilst he points to the haunts of his
+boyhood. Bright river Wansbeck! How many pleasant memories I owe to thy
+mere name!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A ROYAL VISIT
+
+
+Before quitting the pleasant society of Lord and Lady Charles Aynsley
+we should like to introduce an incident in connection with them which
+took place in the month of February, 1808. This was no less an event
+than a visit from the exiled King Louis XVIII and his suite to Lord
+Charles and his wife at the Deanery of Bocking.
+
+Here we would explain that the post of Dean in connection with Bocking
+Church, which is not a cathedral, was of a curious nature. It seems
+that by an old ecclesiastical ordinance a set of clergymen were called
+the Archbishop of Canterbury’s “Peculiars,” and that his Commissary
+and Head of the Peculiars in Essex and Suffolk was constituted Dean of
+Bocking, a post of such dignity that the Dean was wholly independent of
+the Bishop of his diocese.[4]
+
+[Footnote 4: See _History of the County of Essex_, by Thos. Wright,
+published 1836.]
+
+[Illustration: GOSFIELD HALL]
+
+At the time of which we are writing the French King was residing at
+Gosfield Hall, a mansion lent to him by the Marquess of Buckingham
+upon his arrival in England during the previous month of November.
+There, we are told, a mimic court was held in strict accordance with
+Bourbon traditions; and even the old French custom of the King’s dining
+in public was preserved. On such occasions the inhabitants of the
+surrounding neighbourhood were permitted to pass in procession through
+the long dining-room to witness the sight.
+
+In spite, however, of their courtly ceremonies the purses of these
+royal exiles do not seem to have been very full, to judge by the
+following story. It was told some years ago by an old Essex woman
+who could remember when a child seeing the King and his attendants
+out walking. The King noticed the child and was disposed to give her
+something, but the royal pockets were searched in vain for a coin of
+any kind. At last one of the suite produced a half-penny. “I ought to
+have kept that half-penny,” remarked the old dame.
+
+The visit of Louis XVIII to the Bocking Deanery, which took place on
+February 18th, is described in a letter from Lady Charles Aynsley
+to her cousin, Mrs. Mitford, to whom she also sent a copy of the
+_Chelmsford Chronicle_ of February 26th, which contained a paragraph
+describing the event.
+
+Fortunately the editors of the _Chelmsford Chronicle_, which has
+existed for more than one hundred and fifty years, have kept an
+unbroken file of its numbers, so that we have been able to study the
+very paragraph in question. Mrs. Mitford incorporates the two accounts
+in a letter to her husband, but where certain details in this newspaper
+are omitted, we have introduced them between brackets.
+
+In explanation of an allusion to a severe snowstorm which it was feared
+might prevent the royal visit from taking place, we would remark that
+an examination of several numbers of the paper prove that the month
+of February, 1808, was marked by a prevalence of violent gales of
+wind and heavy falls of snow. A large number of ships are reported to
+have foundered, sea-walls were broken down in many places, and the
+Margate pier totally destroyed. “From the extraordinary falls of snow,”
+writes a journalist, “the usual communication between the metropolis
+and the distant parts of the kingdom has been nearly impracticable.
+The Portsmouth mail coach is reported to have lost its way in the
+snowstorm, and many accidents to passengers in other mail coaches are
+related.”
+
+[Illustration:
+
+_Dantoux_
+
+LE COMTE D’ARTOIS (AFTERWARDS CHARLES X)]
+
+“At Hatfield Peveral,” states a writer, “twenty sheep and lambs were
+buried in a snow-drift, but were rescued owing to the sagacity of the
+shepherd’s dog.” A solitary sheep elsewhere “remained buried in the
+snow for eight days. When at last dug out it was discovered to be
+actually alive! It had found wurzels in the ground and had fed upon
+them.”
+
+Mrs. Mitford writes to her husband on receiving Lady Charles Aynsley’s
+letter from Bocking:—
+
+“Her ladyship has been in a very grand bustle, as the King of France,
+Monsieur (the Comte d’Artois), the Duke d’Angoulême, Duke de Berry,
+Duke de Grammont and the Prince de Condé, with all the nobles that
+composed His Majesty’s suite at Gosfield, dined at the Deanery last
+Thursday. Mr. and Mrs. Pepper (Lady Fitzgerald’s daughter) were asked
+to meet him, because she was brought up and educated at the French
+Court in Louis XVI’s reign; General and Mrs. Milner for the same
+reason, and Colonel, Mrs. and Miss Burgoyne—all the party quick at
+languages.
+
+“The [snow] storms alarmed Lady C. not a little, for it prevented
+the carrier going to town in the first instance, and in the second
+she began to fear the King might not be able to come, after all the
+preparations made for him. The Milners were so anxious about it that
+the General, who commands at Colchester, ordered five hundred pioneers
+to clear the road from that city to Bocking. On His Majesty’s approach
+the Bocking bells proclaimed it, and on driving up, the full military
+band which Lord C. had engaged for the occasion struck up ‘God save the
+King’ in the entrance passage. In His Majesty’s coach were Monsieur
+[the Comte d’Artois] and the Dukes d’Angoulême and Berry. [They arrived
+a little before five o’clock, and Lady Charles handed His Majesty from
+his carriage into the drawing-room, and introduced the illustrious
+guest to those friends who were invited upon this interesting occasion.
+His Majesty in the most affable and engaging manner entered into
+conversation with every individual present.]
+
+“All stood,” continues Mrs. Mitford, “till dinner was announced, when
+our cousin handed His Majesty—Lord C. walking before him with a candle.
+The King sat at the top of the table with Lady C. on his right and Lord
+C. on his left. Mrs. Milner’s and Mrs. Pepper’s French butlers were
+lent for the occasion. The bill of fare was in French, and the King
+appeared well pleased with his entertainment. [The French nobility, who
+compose His Majesty’s suite, were in full dress and wore the insignia
+of their respective orders.]
+
+[Illustration: WHERE THE KING DINED]
+
+“The company were three hours at dinner, and at eight the dessert was
+placed on the table—claret and all kinds of French wine, fruit, etc.,
+a beautiful cake at the top with ‘Vive le Roi de France’ baked round
+it, and the quarterings of the French army in coloured pastry, which
+had a novel and pretty effect. The three youngest children then entered
+with white satin military sashes over their shoulders (upon which were)
+painted in bronze ‘Vive le Roi de France—Prospérité à Louis dix-huit.’
+Charles, on being asked for a toast, immediately gave ‘The King of
+France,’ which was drunk with the utmost sensibility by all present,
+and one of the little girls came up to His Majesty and, with great
+expression, spoke the lines in French, composed for the occasion.”
+
+“Louis soon followed the ladies into the drawing-room, when again all
+stood, and Lady C. served her royal guest with coffee, which being
+over, she told him that some of the neighbouring families were come
+for a little dance in the dining-room and that perhaps His Majesty
+would be seated at cards. He good humouredly said he would first go
+and pay his respects in the next room, which was the thing she wished;
+therefore handed him in, his family and nobles following, which was
+a fine sight for those assembled, in all sixty-two. At the King’s
+desire she introduced each person to him by name, and, on the King’s
+sitting down, the band struck up, and Monsieur, who is supposed to be
+the finest dancer in Europe, led off with Lady C., who, spite of Lord
+Charles’s horror and her own fears for her lame ankle, hopped down two
+country dances with him, and they were followed by Charlotte and the
+Duke d’Angoulême.”
+
+We have sat in the long dining-room at the Deanery where these
+festivities took place more than a hundred years ago. The room is
+evidently little changed, and as we gazed around, the whole scene
+seemed to rise before our eyes. We saw the French guests in their stars
+and orders sparkling under the lights of the chandeliers, and it seemed
+almost as if an echo of their bright racy talk reached our ears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+PLAYS AND POETRY
+
+
+Mary Russel Mitford had from early youth been fond of writing verses
+upon subjects which had taken her fancy. “No less than three octavo
+volumes,” she writes, “had I perpetrated in two years. They had all
+the faults incident to a young lady’s verses, and one of them had been
+deservedly castigated by the _Quarterly_.” Here she adds in later years
+the following footnote: “This article was fortunate for the writer at
+a far more important moment. Mr. Gifford himself, as I have been given
+to understand, came to feel that however well deserved the strictures
+might be, an attack by his great review upon a girl’s first book was
+something like breaking a butterfly upon the wheel. He made amends by
+a criticism in a very different spirit on the first series of _Our
+Village_, which was of much service to the work.”
+
+The first volume of poems was published in the year 1810 and again with
+additions in 1811. Two more volumes followed soon afterwards.
+
+In spite of some adverse criticism the poems “had had their praises,”
+writes Miss Mitford, “as what young lady’s verses have not? Large
+impressions had gone rapidly off; we had run into a second edition.
+They had been published in America—always so kind to me! Two or three
+of the shorter pieces had been thought good enough to be stolen, and
+Mr. Coleridge had prophesied of the larger one that the authoress of
+‘Blanche’ would write a tragedy.”
+
+Among the shorter poems was one upon the death of Sir John Moore,
+written on February 7th, 1809, eight years before the appearance of
+Wolfe’s well-known poem. It does not equal that poem in merit; but the
+following lines, which close the dirge, seem to us to bear the true
+ring of poetry:—
+
+“No tawdry ‘scutcheons hang around thy tomb, No hired mourners wave the
+sabled plume, No statues rise to mark the sacred spot, No pealing organ
+swells the solemn note. A hurried grave thy soldiers’ hands prepare—
+Thy soldiers’ hands the mournful burthen bear; The vaulted sky to
+earth’s extremest verge Thy canopy; the cannon’s roar thy dirge.”
+
+Mary was only twenty-one years of age when she wrote these lines, and
+there is another poem belonging to the same period that is worthy of
+quotation entitled “Westminster Abbey.” When viewing the tombs in
+Poets’ Corner she writes:—
+
+“The brightest union Genius wrought Was Garrick’s voice and
+Shakespeare’s thought.”
+
+About this same time Miss Mitford wrote a narrative poem entitled
+“Christina” which had good success, especially in America, where it
+passed through several editions.
+
+Coleridge’s prophecy that the author of “Blanche” would write a tragedy
+was fulfilled eventually, but in the meantime her taste for the drama,
+stimulated when a school-girl by Molière’s inimitable plays, was now
+being further developed.
+
+“Every third year,” writes Mary, “a noble form of tragedy, one
+with which women are seldom brought in contact, fell in my way.
+Dr. Valpy, the master of Reading School ... had wisely substituted
+the representation of one of the stern Greek plays [given in the
+original language] for the speeches and recitations formerly delivered
+before the heads of certain colleges of Oxford at their triennial
+visitations.”[5]
+
+[Footnote 5: Dr. Valpy was thus the pioneer of an important movement to
+be adopted in later years by our great Universities.]
+
+“Many of the old pupils will remember the effect of these performances,
+complete in scenery, dresses and decorations, and remarkable for the
+effect produced, not only on the actors, but on an audience, of which
+a considerable portion was new alike to the language and the subject.
+It is no offence to impute such ignorance to the mayor and aldermen
+of that day who in their furred gowns formed part of the official
+visitors, or to the mammas and sisters of the performers, who might
+plead the privilege of sex for their want of learning.”
+
+[Illustration: DR. VALPY’S SCHOOL]
+
+“For myself, as ignorant of Latin or of Greek as the smuggest alderman
+or slimmest damsel present, I had my own share in the pageant. In
+spite of all remonstrance the dear Doctor would insist on my writing
+the authorised account of the play—the grand official critique which
+filled I know not how many columns of _The Reading Mercury_, and was
+sent east, west, north and south wherever mammas and grand-mammas were
+found. Of course it was necessary to mention everybody and to commit
+all the injustice which belongs to a forced equality by praising some
+too little and some too much. The too little was more frequent than the
+too much, for the boys, as a body, did act marvellously, especially
+those who filled the female parts, making one understand how the
+ungentle sex might have rendered the Desdemonas and the Imogens in
+James’s day.... One circumstance only a little injured the perfect
+grouping of the scene. The visitation occurred in October, not long
+after the conclusion of the summer holidays, and between cricket and
+boating and the impossibility of wearing gloves ... our Helens and
+Antigones exhibited an assortment of sunburnt fists that might have
+become a tribe of Red Indians.... Sophocles is Sophocles nevertheless;
+and seldom can his power have been more thoroughly felt than in these
+performances at Reading School.”
+
+“The good Doctor,” she continues, “full of kindness, and far too
+learned for pedantry, rewarded my compliance with his wishes in the
+way I liked best, by helping me to enter into the spirit of the mighty
+masters who dealt forth these stern Tragedies of Destiny. He put into
+my hands le Père Brumoy’s ‘Théâtre des Grecs,’ and other translations
+in homely French prose, where the form and letter were set forth,
+untroubled by vexatious attempts at English verse—grand outlines for
+imagination to colour and fill up.”
+
+In the month of May, 1809, Mary was staying in Hans Place with her
+friend Miss Rowden, who had become the Head of the school on the
+retirement of Monsieur and Madame St. Quintin; these latter, however,
+still continued to live in Hans Place although in a different house.
+Mary went much into society with her kind friends, and greatly enjoyed
+frequent visits to the theatre.
+
+She writes on June 4th to her mother: “I had not time to tell you
+[yesterday] how very much I was gratified at the Opera House on Friday
+evening. I dined at the St. Quintins’, and we proceeded to take
+possession of our very excellent situation, a pit-box near the stage.
+The house was crammed to suffocation. Young is an admirable actor;
+I greatly prefer him to Kemble, whom I had before seen in the same
+character (Zanga in _The Revenge_).... Billington, Braham, Bianchi,
+Noldi, Bellamy and Siboni sang after the play, and the amateurs were
+highly gratified. But my delight was yet to come. The dancing of
+Vestris is indeed perfection. The ‘poetry of motion’ is exemplified in
+every movement, and his Apollo-like form excels any idea I had ever
+formed of manly grace.”
+
+This grand performance, it seems, was for Kelly’s benefit. Kelly was
+a popular singer of his day, and was also a composer of music. He
+happened in addition to be a wine merchant, and Sheridan called him “a
+composer of wine and importer of music.”
+
+Besides visits to the Opera House and theatres Mary describes
+expeditions to the Royal Academy, then at Somerset House, to the
+Exhibition of Water Colours in Spring Gardens, and to the Panorama,
+where she saw “a most admirable representation of Grand Cairo, taken
+from drawings by Lord Valentia.” She also gives full particulars of a
+grand ball given in a mansion where five splendid rooms opened into
+each other; and there were upwards of three hundred people. “The
+chalked floors and Grecian lamps,” she says, “gave it the appearance
+of a fairy scene, which was still further heightened by the beautiful
+exotics which almost lined these superb apartments.”
+
+It is curious to note that in those days Bedlam was looked upon as
+one of the sights of London, to which both foreigners and provincial
+visitors were taken as a matter of course. In her last letter from town
+Mary says: “To-morrow we go first to Bedlam, then to St. James’s Street
+to see the Court people, and then I think I shall have had more than
+enough of sights and dissipation.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A CHOSEN CORRESPONDENT
+
+
+Among the many names of well-known people that occur in Miss Mitford’s
+letters of this period is that of Cobbett, to whom she had addressed
+one of her early odes. He was an intimate friend of her father’s,
+and we are told that some of his letters to the Doctor “are written
+enigmatically and evidently with a view to secrecy, whilst others, on
+the contrary, express his sentiments as openly as did the ‘Porcupine.’”
+In these latter the violent denunciations of the King and the
+Government, and indeed of all persons in authority, comically recall to
+the mind of the reader the admirable skit upon Cobbett in the _Rejected
+Addresses_. His letters to the Doctor usually conclude with the words,
+“God bless you, and d—— the ministers!”
+
+Miss Mitford describes Cobbett as “a tall, stout man, fair and
+sunburnt, with a bright smile and an air compounded of the soldier and
+the farmer, to which his habit of wearing an eternal red waistcoat
+contributed not a little.” Mary’s attitude towards politics throughout
+her life was naturally influenced by her surroundings; but her
+admiration for Cobbett was caused specially by his love of animals and
+love of rural scenery, in which she so warmly sympathised.
+
+After a while an estrangement arose between the two families through
+some misunderstanding, but Mary continued to admire Cobbett’s stirling
+qualities. Writing of him some years later she remarks: “He was a
+sad tyrant, as my friends the democrats sometimes are. Servants and
+labourers fled before him. And yet with all his faults he was a man one
+could not help liking.... The coarseness and violence of his political
+writings and conversations almost entirely disappeared in his family
+circle, and were replaced by a kindness, a good humour and an enjoyment
+in seeing and promoting the happiness of others.... He was always what
+Johnson would have called ‘a very pretty hater’; but since his release
+from Newgate he has been hatred itself.... [May] milder thoughts attend
+him,” she adds: “he has my good wishes and so have his family.”
+
+Another political name occurring in Miss Mitford’s correspondence
+is that of Sir Francis Burdett, the well-known leader of reform and
+exposer of abuses. Mary writes on March 28th, 1810: “If the House of
+Commons send Sir Francis to the Tower I should not much like anyone
+that I loved to be a party in it, for the populace will not tamely
+submit to have their idol torn from them, and especially for defending
+the rights and liberties of the subject. As to Sir Francis himself,
+I don’t think either he or Cobbett would much mind it. They would
+proclaim themselves martyrs in the cause of liberty, and the ‘Register’
+would sell better than ever.”
+
+It was in the spring of this same year when visiting London that Mary
+was first introduced to Sir William Elford, a friend of her father’s,
+although totally opposed to him in politics. Sir William belonged to
+an old Devonshire family, and was Recorder for Plymouth, which borough
+he had represented in Parliament for many years. He was, moreover, a
+man of cultivated tastes and of much refinement. His interest in Miss
+Mitford seems to have commenced from the perusal of some of her early
+verses shown to him by her father.
+
+Describing their first acquaintance in later years to a friend,
+Mary said: “Sir William had taken a fancy to me, and I became
+his child-correspondent. Few things contribute more to that
+indirect after-education, which is worth all the formal lessons
+of the schoolroom a thousand times told, than such good-humoured
+condescension from a clever man of the world to a girl almost young
+enough to be his grand-daughter. I owe much to that correspondence....
+Sir William’s own letters were most charming—full of old-fashioned
+courtesy, of quaint humour, and of pleasant and genial criticism on
+literature and on art.”[6]
+
+[Footnote 6: See _Yesterdays with Authors_, by James T. Fields.]
+
+Sometimes he would send Mary a few verses he had written upon some
+congenial subject. Amongst these occur the following lines, composed
+after witnessing a performance of Mrs. Siddons in the Plymouth theatre:—
+
+“Her looks, her voice, her features so agree, Uniting all in such fine
+harmony, That from her _voice_ the blind her looks declare, And in her
+sparkling _eyes_ the deaf may hear.”
+
+In one of his early letters to Mary he remarks: “Pray never refrain
+from writing much because you want time and inclination to read over
+what you have written. I would a thousand times rather see what falls
+from your pen naturally and spontaneously than the most polished and
+beautiful composition that ever went to the press, and so would you I
+doubt not from your correspondents.... Pope’s maxim (if it is his) that
+‘easy writing is not easily written’ is certainly true with respect to
+what is intended for the world ... but is utterly false as applied to
+familiar writing, of which his own letters—pretended to be warm from
+the brain, but in reality polished and revised on publication—are a
+striking proof. Write away then, my dear, as fast as you can drive your
+quill, and abuse Miss Seward as much as you please.”
+
+These words call to mind the same kind of advice given by the good
+“Daddy” Crisp about forty years earlier to the young Fanny Burney:
+“Let this declaration serve once for all, that there is no fault in an
+epistolary correspondence like stiffness and study. Dash away whatever
+comes uppermost; the sudden sallies of imagination clap’d down on
+paper, just as they arise, are worth folios, and have all the warmth
+and merit of that sort of nonsense that is eloquent in love.”
+
+Crisp had greater powers as a critic than Sir William Elford, but Sir
+William had qualities that specially suited the case in question. He
+supplied a channel through which Mary could express and think out her
+views on all kinds of topics, always secure of a kind and friendly
+listener, and one whose judgment she valued. Being an only child and
+with few intimate female friends, this was a great boon, and we owe
+to their correspondence a fuller knowledge of Mary’s mind in its
+development from youth to womanhood than we could have obtained by any
+other means.
+
+The allusion to Miss Seward, the “Swan of Lichfield,” by Sir William
+refers to the following passage in one of Mary’s letters: “Have you
+seen Miss Seward’s Letters? The names of her correspondents are
+tempting, but alas! though addressed to all the eminent literati of
+the last half-century, all the epistles bear the signature of Anna
+Seward.... Did she not owe some of her fame, think you, to writing
+printed books at a time when it was quite as much as most women could
+do to read them?... I was always a little shocked at the sort of
+reputation she bore in poetry. Sometimes affected, sometimes _fade_,
+sometimes pedantic and sometimes tinselly, none of her works were ever
+simple, graceful, or natural. Her letters ... are affected, sentimental
+and lackadaisical to the highest degree. Who can read a page of Miss
+Seward’s writings on any subject without finding her out at once [as]
+the pedantic coquette and cold-hearted sensibility monger?”
+
+“Anna Seward,” continues Miss Mitford, “sees nothing to admire in
+Cowper’s letters—in letters (the playful ones of course I mean) which
+would have immortalized him had the _Task_ never been written,
+and which (much as I admire the playful wit of the two illustrious
+namesakes Lady M. W. and Mrs. Montagu) are in my opinion the only
+perfect specimens of epistolary composition in the English language....
+They have to me, at least, all the properties of grace; a charm now
+here, now there; a witchery rather felt in its effect than perceived in
+its cause.”
+
+“The attraction of Horace Walpole’s letters,” she adds, “is very
+different, though almost equally strong. The charm which lurks in them
+is one for which we have no term, and our Gallic neighbours seem to
+have engrossed both the word and the quality. _Elles sont piquantes_
+to the highest degree. If you read but a sentence you feel yourself
+spellbound till you have read the volume.”
+
+On another occasion Mary discusses the merits of Pope. She holds the
+same opinion as that of Sir William respecting his letters “which,” as
+she says, “affect to be unaffected and work so hard to seem quite at
+their ease.” “Pope is,” she remarks, “even in his poetry, of a lower
+flight and a weaker grasp than his predecessor [Dryden].... _They_ must
+be born without an ear who can prefer the melodious monotony of Pope to
+the stateliness, the ease, the infinite variety of Dryden. I should as
+soon think of preferring the tinkling guitar to the full-toned organ!
+
+“... In short, Pope is in the fullest sense of the word a mannerist.
+When you have said ‘The Dunciad,’ ‘The Eloise’ and ‘The Rape of the
+Lock’ you can say nothing more but ‘The Rape of the Lock,’ ‘The
+Dunciad’ and ‘The Eloise.’ I have some notion,” she adds, “that you are
+of a different opinion, and I am very glad of it; I love to make you
+quarrel with me. Nothing is so tiresome as acquiescence; I would at
+any time give a dozen civil Yes’s for one spirited No, especially in
+correspondence, which is exactly like a game of shuttle-cock, and would
+be at an end in an instant if both battledores struck the same way.”
+
+In another letter, writing of her special favourites amongst
+Shakespeare’s plays, she remarks: “And last, not least, _Much Ado About
+Nothing_. The Beatrice of this play is indeed my standard of female
+wit and almost of female character; nothing so lively, so clever, so
+unaffected and so warm-hearted ever trod this workaday world. Benedick
+is not quite equal to her; but this, in female eyes, is no great
+sin. Shakespeare saw through nature, and knew which sex to make the
+cleverest. There’s a challenge for you! Will you take up the glove?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE MARCH OF MIND
+
+
+In the month of June, 1814, that memorable period in our history, Mary
+Mitford was again visiting her friends the St. Quintins in Hans Place.
+
+London was then swarming with crowned heads, victorious generals and
+distinguished foreigners of all kinds, to rejoice with us upon the
+downfall of Napoleon.
+
+Even the ultra-Whigs, to which Mary and her family belonged, had long
+ceased to entertain any hopes of him as a benefactor to the human
+race, and she had declared to Sir William Elford in 1812 that she “was
+no well-wisher to Napoleon—the greatest enemy to democracy that ever
+existed.”
+
+On the 18th June Mary and her friends went to the office of the
+_Morning Chronicle_ (Mr. Perry, the editor, being an intimate friend
+of the Mitfords) to behold the grand procession of royal personages
+to the Merchant Taylors Hall. Writing on the following day to her
+mother, she says: “The _Chronicle_ will tell you much more of the
+procession than I can ... suffice it to say that we got there well and
+pleasantly, and saw them all most clearly; that the Emperor and Duchess
+are much alike—she a pretty woman, he a fine-looking man—both with
+fair complexions and round _Tartar_ faces—no expression of any sort
+except affability and good-humour; that the King of Prussia is a much
+more interesting and intelligent-looking man, though not so handsome;
+and that the Regent got notably hissed, in spite of his protecting
+presence.” And writing a few days later she says:
+
+“Yesterday I went, as you know, to the play with papa, and on our
+road thither had a very great pleasure in meeting Lord Wellington,
+just arrived in London, and driving to his own house in an open
+carriage and six. We had an excellent sight of him, so excellent
+that I should know him again anywhere; and it was quite refreshing
+after all those parading foreigners, emperors, and so forth to see an
+honest English hero, with a famous Mitford nose, looking quite happy,
+without any affectation of bowing or seeming affable. He is a very fine
+countenanced man, tanned and weather-beaten, with good dark eyes....
+Very few of the populace knew him, but the intelligence spread like
+wildfire, and Piccadilly looked like a hive of bees in swarming time.”
+
+Writing to Sir William Elford in July, 1815, Mary apologises for not
+having sent him, as she had proposed to do, a facsimile copy of _Louis
+le Desiré’s_ letter to Lady Charles Aynsley. “As kings of France are
+come in fashion again,” she remarks, “I hastened to repair my omission
+by copying as well as I was able the aforesaid epistle.... I heard a
+great deal respecting that very good but weak and bigoted man from
+a French lady, Madame de Gourbillon, who was one of the favourite
+attendants of his late wife. His memory exceeds even that of our own
+venerable king. If you mention the slightest, the least remarkable fact
+in natural history, in the belles-lettres, in history, or anything he
+will say, ‘Ay, Buffon, or La Harpe, or Vertot speaks of it (quoting the
+very words) in such a volume, such a chapter, such a page and such a
+line.’ He is always correct, even to a monosyllable!”
+
+This recalls to one’s mind the old aphorism applied to the Bourbons:
+“They forgot nothing and they learnt nothing.”
+
+“Another fact,” continues Mary, “which I ascertained respecting the
+King of France is that he is afraid of my friend _la Lectrice de la
+feue Reine_ as ever child was of its schoolmistress, and really it
+is no impeachment to his courage, for I am not at all sure that
+Buonaparte himself could stand against her.... Papa and she regularly
+quarrelled once a day on the old cause, ‘France versus England,’ varied
+occasionally into ‘French versus English,’ for she very reasonably used
+to attack Papa for his utter want of French, in which, I believe, he
+scarcely knows _ouí_ from _non_; and he, with no less reason, would
+retort on her want of English, she having condescended to vegetate
+twelve years in this island of fogs and roast beef without being able
+at the end of that time to distinguish ‘How do you do?’ from ‘Very
+well, I thank you!’”
+
+During Miss Mitford’s stay in town in the summer of 1814 she had an
+interesting and unlooked-for experience of which mention is made in the
+_Morning Chronicle_ of June 25th.
+
+The writer of the article remarks: “The friends of the British and
+Foreign School Society dined together yesterday at the Freemasons’
+Tavern. The Marquis of Lansdowne took the chair, supported by the Dukes
+of Kent and Sussex, the Earls of Darnley and Eardley, and several other
+eminent persons. The health of the Chairman and Vice-Presidents was
+drunk, and then that of the female members of the Society. After this
+a poetical tribute of Miss Mitford’s was sung, and ‘Thanks to Miss
+Mitford’ was drunk with applause.”
+
+The following lines occur in the poem:—
+
+“The mental world was wrapt in night.”
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+Oh, how the glorious dawn unfold The brighter day that lurk’d behind?
+The march of armies may be told, But not the march of mind.”
+
+Mary was present on the occasion, being seated, together with her
+friends, in the gallery of the hall. She writes to her mother: “I
+did not believe my ears when Lord Lansdowne, with his usual graceful
+eloquence, gave my health. I did not even believe it when my old
+friend the Duke of Kent, observing that Lord Lansdowne’s voice was not
+always strong enough to penetrate the depths of that immense assembly,
+reiterated it with stentorian lungs. Still less did I believe my ears
+when it was drunk with ‘three times three,’ a flourish of drums and
+trumpets from the Duke of Kent’s band, and the unanimous thundering and
+continued plaudits of five hundred people. I really thought it must be
+[for] Mr. Whitbread, and though I wondered how he could be ‘fair and
+amiable’ I still thought it him till his health was really drunk and he
+rose to make the beautiful speech of which you have only a very faint
+outline in the _Chronicle_.” This speech was made à propos of a toast.
+“The Cause of Education throughout the World,” Mr. Whitbread remarking,
+“Miss Mitford has designated it ‘The March of Mind.’”
+
+Whilst Mary Mitford was thus growing in fame, her father, through his
+many speculations, was frequently involved in money difficulties. In
+the year 1811 it seems he was actually detained in the debtors’ prison,
+and arrangements had to be made for the sale of the pictures at Bertram
+House in order to obtain money for his release. His wife, who in her
+warm affection was almost too forbearing, wrote to him: “I know you
+were disappointed in the sale of the pictures; but, my love, if we have
+less wealth than we hoped, we shall not have less affection; these
+clouds may blow over more happily than we expected.”
+
+Again she writes: “As to the cause of our present difficulties it
+avails not how they originated. The only question is how they can be
+most speedily and effectually put an end to. I ask for no details which
+you do not voluntarily choose to make. A forced confidence my whole
+soul would revolt at.”
+
+Mary writes to her father on the occasion with the same
+self-sacrificing love, but, it seems to us, with more judgment. She
+suggests that they should let Bertram House, sell books, furniture,
+everything possible to clear their debts, and then retire to some
+cottage in the country or to humble lodgings in London. Then she goes
+on to say: “Where is the place in which, whilst we are all spared
+to each other, we should not be happy?... Tell me if you approve my
+scheme, and tell me, I implore you, my most beloved father, the full
+extent of your embarrassments. This is no time for false delicacy
+on either side, I dread no evil but suspense.... Whatever those
+embarrassments may be, of one thing I am certain that the world does
+not contain so proud, so happy, or so fond a daughter. I would not
+exchange my father, even though we toiled together for our daily bread,
+for any man on earth, though he could pour the gold of Peru into my
+lap.”
+
+Miss Mitford’s biographers have justly censured her father’s evil
+courses, some considering him as altogether worthless; but surely there
+must have been many redeeming qualities in one who called forth such
+love from such a daughter?
+
+For the time being the crisis described was averted; but in 1814 Dr.
+Mitford was again in great difficulties, caused by his speculations in
+two enterprises that proved failures—one in coal, the other in a new
+method for lighting and heating houses, invented by the Marquis de
+Chavannes, a French refugee. In this latter scheme the doctor actually
+invested £5000, and when the crash came he lost more money in carrying
+on a protracted law suit in the French courts in the vain hope of
+forcing the penniless nobleman to restore his lost property.
+
+Mary, writing of her father’s money losses in later life, says: “He
+attempted to increase his own resources by the aid of cards (he was
+unluckily one of the finest whist players in England) or by that other
+terrible gambling, which ... even when called by its milder term of
+_speculation_ is that terrible thing gambling still.”
+
+Early in the year 1814 Mary Mitford received a proof of the warm
+approval accorded to her poems in America, which gave her heartfelt
+pleasure.
+
+Mrs. Mitford, writing of the event to her husband, says:—
+
+“With your letter and the newspaper this morning arrived a small parcel
+for our darling, directed to Miss Mary Russell Mitford.... This little
+packet contained,—what do you think? No less than _Narrative Poems on
+the Female Character in the various Relations of Life_, by Mary Russell
+Mitford. Printed at New York, and published by Eastburn, Kirk & Co.,
+No. 86 Broadway. The volume is a small pocket size, well printed and
+elegantly bound, and the following is a copy of the letter which
+accompanied it across the Atlantic:—”
+
+NEW YORK, _October 23, 1813_.
+
+MADAM,
+
+We have the honour of transmitting to you a copy of our second edition
+of your admirable _Narrative Poems on the Female Character_. All who
+have hearts to feel and understandings to discriminate must earnestly
+wish you health and leisure to complete your plan.
+
+We shall be gratified by a line acknowledging the receipt of the copy
+through the medium of our friends Messrs. Longman & Co....
+
+We have the honour to be, madam,
+
+Your most obedient servants, EASTBURN, KIRK & CO.
+
+Mary writes to her father on the receipt of the parcel: “You will
+easily imagine that I was flattered and pleased with my American
+packet; but even you can scarcely imagine how much. I never was so
+vain of anything in my whole life. Only think of their having printed
+two editions (for the words ‘second edition’ are underscored in their
+letter) before last October!”
+
+The recognition which she received in America so early in her career
+was never forgotten, and she used to say in after life, “It takes ten
+years to make a literary reputation in England, but America is wiser
+and bolder and dares to say at once, ‘This is fine.’”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+VERSATILITY AND PLAYFULNESS
+
+
+In a letter to Sir William Elford dated January, 1812, Mary remarks: “I
+have lived so little with girls of my own age, and have been so much
+accustomed to think papa my pleasantest companion and mamma my best
+friend that ... I have escaped unscathed from all the charming folly
+and delectable romance of female intimacy and female confidence.” Then
+going on to speak of the usual school training of girls at that period
+she remarks: “I must observe that in this educating age everything is
+taught to women except that which is perhaps worth all the rest—the
+power and the habit of thinking. Do not misunderstand me.... I would
+only wish that while everything is invented and inculcated that can
+serve to amuse, to occupy, or adorn youth—youth which needs so little
+amusement or ornament!—something should be instilled that may add
+pleasure and respectability to age.”
+
+About this time Sir William paid a visit to Bath. Mary writes: “What
+says Bath of _Rokeby_? But Bath, I suppose, is, as to literature,
+politics and fashion, the echo of London. Be that as it may, I am
+very happy that you have arrived there, both because it brings us a
+step nearer, and because it so comfortably rids you of the horrors of
+solitude. ‘_O, la Solitude est une belle chose; mais il faut avoir
+quelqu’une à qui l’on puisse dire, La Solitude est une belle chose!_’
+... I most sincerely hope that we shall meet this spring in London ...
+and that we shall have the pleasure of renewing (I might almost say
+commencing) our personal acquaintance. You will find just the same
+plain, awkward, blushing thing whom you profess to remember.... I talk
+to you with wonderful boldness upon paper, and while we are seventy
+miles distant; but I doubt whether I shall say three sentences to you
+when we meet, because the ghosts of all my impertinent letters will
+stare me in the face the moment I see you.”
+
+A little later on Sir William paid a visit to the Mitfords at Bertram
+House, and Mary writes of him: “He is the kindest, cleverest,
+warmest-hearted man in the world.” Some of her friends fancied that,
+in spite of the great discrepancy in their ages, her partiality might
+possibly lead to a union between the friends. To their surmise Mary
+answers: “I shall not marry Sir William Elford, for which there is a
+remarkably good reason, the aforesaid Sir William having no sort of
+desire to marry me.... He has an outrageous fancy for my letters, and
+marrying a favourite correspondent would be something like killing the
+goose with the golden egg.”
+
+In one of Sir William’s letters he had complained of Miss Mitford’s
+writing being somewhat illegible, to which she responds: “So, my dear
+friend, you cannot make out my writing! And my honoured father cannot
+help you! Really this is too affronting! The two persons in all the
+world who have had the most of my letters cannot read them! Well, there
+is the secret of your liking them so much. Obscurity is sometimes a
+great charm. You just make out my meaning and fill it up by the force
+of your own imagination. The outline is mine, the colouring your own.
+So much the better for me.”
+
+Writing on a hot summer’s day, she says: “I have been solacing myself
+for this week past ‘taking mine ease’ in a hay-cock left solely for
+my accommodation, where Mossy and I repair every morning to perform
+between us the operation of reading a _good book_, I turning the leaves
+and _he_ going to sleep over it. It is ... the most delightful hay-cock
+in the world, in a snug little nook; nothing visible but lawn and
+plantation; whilst breathing the odours of the firs, whose fragrance
+this wet summer has been past anything I could have conceived.”
+
+[Illustration: BERTRAM HOUSE]
+
+Mossy was the name of her dog. Throughout her life Mary Mitford was
+much attached to dogs, and she was generally accompanied in her
+rambles by some special favourite. Sometimes it was a beautiful
+greyhound—one of her father’s coursers that had been given to her.
+
+She concludes one of her letters by remarking: “I have nothing more to
+tell you, except that I have taken a new pet—the most sagacious donkey
+that ever lived. She lets nobody ride her—follows me everywhere, even
+indoors when she can—and is really a wonderful animal. Her favourite
+caress is to have her ears stroked. Shakespeare has noticed this in the
+_Midsummer Night’s Dream_ when Titania tells Bottom that she will give
+him musk-roses and ‘stroke thy fair, large ears, my gentle joy.’”
+
+In this same letter Mary speaks of some of the singers she had heard
+recently in London. “I hope you like Braham’s singing,” she says,
+“though I know among your scientific musicians it is a crime of _lèse
+majesté_ to say so; but he is the only singer I ever heard in my life
+who conveyed to my very unmusical ears any idea of the expression of
+which music is susceptible; no one else joins any sense to the sound.
+They may talk of music as ‘married to immortal verse’; but if it were
+not for Braham they would have been divorced long ago.... Moore’s
+singing has, indeed, great feeling; but then his singing is not much
+beyond a modulated sigh—though the most powerful sigh in the world.”
+
+And speaking of the actors of the period, she says: “Of all that I have
+seen nothing has afforded me half so much delight as Miss O’Neil. She
+broke my heart, and charmed me beyond expression by showing me that I
+had a heart to break, a fact I always before rather doubted, having
+been till I saw her as impenetrable to tragedy as Punch and his wife
+or any other wooden-hearted biped. But she is irresistible.... The
+manner in which she identifies herself with the character exceeds all
+that I had before conceived possible of theatrical illusion. You never
+admire—you only weep.”
+
+In another letter she complains of Kemble’s always declaiming and
+never speaking in a simple and natural manner. “It does appear to me,”
+she says, “that no man can be a perfect tragedian who is not likewise
+a good actor in the higher branch of comedy. A statesman not at the
+council board, and a hero when the battle is safely ended, would, as
+it seems to me, talk and walk much in the same way as other people.
+Even a tyrant does not always rave nor a lover always whine.... That
+Shakespeare and all the writers of Elizabeth’s days were of my opinion
+I am quite sure. Nothing is more remarkable in their delightful dramas
+... than the sweet and natural tone of conversation which sometimes
+relieves the terrible intensity of their plots, like a flowery glade
+in a gloomy forest, or a sunbeam streaming [across] a winter sky.” She
+goes on to say: “I cannot take leave of the drama without adding my
+feeble tribute of regret for the secession of Mrs. Siddons. Yet it was
+better that she should quit the stage in undiminished splendour than
+have remained to show the feeble twilight of so glorious a day.”
+
+In a letter written during a severe winter we find this description of
+a hoar-frost: “The scene has been lovely beyond any winter piece I ever
+beheld; a world formed of something much whiter than ivory—as white
+indeed as snow—but carved with a delicacy, a lightness, a precision
+to which the mossy, ungrateful, tottering snow could never pretend.
+Rime was the architect; every tree, every shrub, every blade of grass
+was clothed with its pure incrustations, but so thinly, so delicately
+clothed that every twig, every fibre, every ramification remained
+perfect, alike indeed in colour, but displaying in form to the fullest
+extent the endless, infinite variety of Nature. It is a scene that
+really defies description.”
+
+Here is a playful letter to Sir William, written in August, 1816:
+“Pray, my dear friend, were you ever a bridesmaid? I rather expect
+you to say no, and I give you joy of your happy ignorance, for I am
+just now in the very agonies of the office, helping to buy and admire
+wedding clothes.... The bride is a fair neighbour of mine.... Her head
+is a perfect milliner’s shop, and she plans out her wardrobe much as
+Phidias might have planned the Parthenon.... She has had no sleep
+since the grand question of a lace bonnet with a plume, or a lace veil
+without one, for the grand occasion came into discussion.”
+
+Two months later Mary writes: “I have at last safely disposed of my
+bride.... She had accumulated on her person so much finery that she
+looked as if by mistake she had put on two wedding dresses instead of
+one [and having wept copiously] was by many degrees the greatest fright
+I ever saw in my life. Indeed between crying and blushing brides, and
+bridesmaids too, do generally look strange figures. I am sure we did,
+though to confess the truth I really could not cry, much as I wished
+to keep all my neighbours in countenance, and was forced to hold my
+handkerchief to my eyes and sigh in vain for ‘_ce don de dames que Dieu
+ne m’a pas donné_.’”
+
+Mary Mitford always enjoyed writing to Sir William upon literary
+matters, as the reader knows, and comparing their respective opinions.
+
+“I am almost afraid to tell you,” she writes, “how much I dislike
+_Childe Harold_. Not but there are very many fine stanzas and powerful
+descriptions; but the sentiment is so strange, so gloomy, so heartless,
+that it is impossible not to feel a mixture of pity and disgust, which
+all our admiration of the author’s talents cannot overcome.... Are
+you not rather sick—now pray don’t betray me—are you not rather sick
+of being one of the hundred thousand confidants of his lordship’s
+mysterious and secret sorrows?... I would rather be the poorest Greek
+whose fate he commiserates than Lord Byron, if this poem be a true
+transcript of his feelings.”
+
+In one of her letters she remarks: “I prefer the French pulpit oratory
+to any other part of their literature.... I mean, of course, their
+old preachers—Fénelon, Bourdaloue, Massillon and Bossuet—especially
+the last, who approaches as nearly to the unrivalled sublimity of
+the sacred writings as any writer I have ever met with. Oh! what a
+contrast between him and our dramatic sermonists Mesdames Hawkins and
+Brompton! I am convinced that people read them for the story, to enjoy
+the stimulus of a novel without the name.... Ah! they had better take
+South and Blair and Secker for guides, and go for amusement to Miss
+Edgeworth and Miss Austen. By the way, how delightful is her _Emma_,
+the best, I think, of all her charming works.”
+
+“Have you read _Pepys’ Memoirs_?” she asks on another occasion. “I
+am extremely diverted with them, and prefer them to Evelyn’s, all to
+nothing. He was too precise and too gentlemanly and too sensible by
+half; wrote in full dress, with an eye if not to the press, at least
+to posthumous reputation. Now this man sets down his thoughts in a
+most becoming _déshabille_—does not care twopence for posterity, and
+evidently thinks wisdom a very foolish thing. I don’t know when any
+book has amused me so much. It is the very perfection of gossiping—most
+relishing nonsense.”
+
+Writing in 1819 she says: “Oh! but the oddest book I have met with is
+Madame de Genlis’s new novel _Les Parvenus_, an imitation of _Gil Blas_
+... while she sticks to that she is very good; her comic powers are
+really exceedingly respectable—but she flies off at a tangent to her
+old beaten path of sentimental vice and fanatical piety, and sends her
+heroine to the Holy Land as a Pilgrim in the nineteenth century and
+then fixes her in a Spanish convent!”
+
+Now she writes with deep admiration of Burns—“Burns the sweetest, the
+sublimest, the most tricksy poet who has blest this nether world since
+the days of Shakespeare! I am just fresh from reading Dr. Currie’s
+four volumes and Cromak’s one, which comprise, I believe, all that
+he ever wrote.... Have you lately read Dr. Currie’s work? If you
+have not, pray do, and tell me if you do not admire him—not with the
+flimsy lackadaisical praise with which certain gentle damsels bedaub
+his _Mountain Daisy_ and his _Woodlark_ ... but with the strong and
+manly feeling which his fine and indignant letters, his exquisite and
+original humour, his inimitable pathos must awaken in such a mind as
+yours. Ah, what have they to answer for who let such a man perish? I
+think there is no poet whose works I have ever read who interests me
+so strongly by the display of personal character contained in almost
+everything he wrote (even in his songs) as Burns.” After speaking of
+“his versatility and his exhaustless imagination,” she says: “By the
+way, my dear Sir William, does it not appear to you that versatility
+is the true and rare characteristic of that rare thing called
+genius—versatility and playfulness?”
+
+Writing to Sir William somewhat hurriedly in March, 1817, Mary
+remarks: “Rather than send the envelope blank I will fill it with
+the translation of a pretty allegory of M. Arnault’s, the author of
+‘Germanicus.’ You must not read it if you have read the French,
+because it does not come near to its simplicity. If you have not read
+the French you may read the English. Be upon honour.”
+
+Translation of M. Arnault’s lines on his own exile:—
+
+“Torn rudely from thy parent bough, Poor withered leaf, where roamest
+thou? I know not where! A tempest broke My only prop, the stately oak;
+And ever since in wearying change With each capricious wind I range;
+From wood to plain, from hill to dale, Borne sweeping on as sweeps the
+gale, Without a struggle or a cry, I go where all must go as I; I go
+where goes the self-same hour A laurel leaf or rose’s flower!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+FROM MANSION TO COTTAGE
+
+
+Miss Mitford owed to her friendship with Sir William Elford her first
+acquaintance with the artist Haydon. Describing in later years to a
+friend how this came about, she said: “An amateur painter himself,
+painting interested Sir William particularly, and he often spoke much,
+and warmly, of the young man from Plymouth, whose picture of the
+‘Judgement of Solomon’ was then on exhibition in London. ‘You must see
+it,’ said he, ‘even if you come to town on purpose.’
+
+“It so happened,” continued Miss Mitford, “that I merely passed through
+London that season ... and I arrived at the exhibition in company with
+a still younger friend so near the period of closing that more punctual
+visitors were moving out, and the doorkeeper actually turned us and our
+money back. I persisted, however, assuring him that I only wanted to
+look at one picture, and promising not to detain him long. Whether my
+entreaties would have carried the point or not I cannot tell, but half
+a crown did; so we stood admiringly before the ‘Judgement of Solomon.’
+I am no great judge of painting; but that picture impressed me then,
+as it does now, as excellent in composition, in colour, and in that
+great quality of telling a story which appeals at once to every mind.
+Our delight was sincerely felt, and most enthusiastically expressed, as
+we kept gazing at the picture, and [it] seemed to give much pleasure
+to the only gentleman who remained in the room—a young and very
+distinguished-looking person, who had watched with evident amusement
+our negotiation with the doorkeeper.... I soon surmised that we were
+seeing the painter as well as his painting; and when two or three years
+afterwards a friend took me ... to view the ‘Entry into Jerusalem,’
+Haydon’s next great picture, then near its completion, I found I had
+not been mistaken.
+
+“Haydon was at that period a remarkable person to look at and listen
+to.... His figure was short, slight, elastic and vigorous; his
+complexion clear and healthful.... But how shall I attempt to tell
+you,” she adds, “of his brilliant conversation, of his rapid energetic
+manner, of his quick turns of thought as he flew from topic to topic,
+dashing his brush here and there upon the canvas?... Among the studies
+I remarked that day in his apartment was one of a mother who had just
+lost her only child—a most masterly rendering of an unspeakable grief.
+A sonnet which I could not help writing on the sketch gave rise to our
+long correspondence, and to a friendship which never flagged.”
+
+We have spoken in a recent chapter of the Mitfords’ great losses of
+money from time to time. These were caused in part by the protracted
+lawsuit carried on by Dr. Mitford against the Marquis de Chavannes.
+But the main cause was the doctor’s unhappy habits of gambling and
+of speculation. He was “ever seeking,” we are told, “to augment his
+income by some doubtful investment for which he had the tip of some
+unscrupulous schemer to whose class he fell an easy prey.” The only
+remnant of the family property, once so large, which Dr. Mitford was
+unable to touch was a sum of £3000 left by Dr. Russell to his daughter
+and her offspring. This sum, placed in the funds, was happily held
+in trust by the Mitfords’ fast friend, the Rev. William Harness, and
+although he was applied to from time to time by Mrs. Mitford and
+her daughter to hand it over to the doctor when he was pressed by
+creditors, Mr. Harness steadily refused to do so. Writing to Miss
+Mitford some years later after the death of her mother, he says: “That
+£3000 I consider as the sheet-anchor of your independence ... and
+_while your father lives_ it shall never stir from its present post
+in the funds ... _from whatever quarter the proposition may come_ [to
+hand it over to him]. I have but one black, blank unqualified _No_ for
+my answer. I do not doubt Dr. Mitford’s integrity, but I have not the
+slightest confidence in his prudence; and I am fully satisfied that
+if these three thousand and odd hundreds of pounds were placed at his
+disposal _to-day_ they would fly the way so many other thousands have
+gone before them _to-morrow_.”[7]
+
+[Footnote 7: See _Life and Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford_, by W.
+J. Roberts.]
+
+In the spring of 1820 the family were forced to quit Bertram House, at
+which period we are told “the doctor must have been all but penniless,”
+and there could have been “nothing between the father and mother and
+hopeless destitution but the genius and industry of the daughter.”
+Happily her courage and her affection never failed. But she could
+not quit the house which had been her home for sixteen years without
+sorrow. “It nearly broke my heart,” she writes. “What a tearing up of
+the roots it was! The trees and fields and sunny hedgerows, however
+little distinguished by picturesque beauty, were to me as old friends.
+Women have more of this natural feeling than the stronger sex; they are
+creatures of home and habit, and ill brook transplanting.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THREE MILE CROSS
+
+
+The Mitfords had taken a cottage in Three Mile Cross—a small village
+about two miles from Graseley, which they supposed at first would be
+only a temporary abode, but which finally proved to be their home for
+many years. Here it was that Mary Russell Mitford, throwing herself
+into the life of her rustic surroundings, and recognizing its poetry
+and its beauty, conceived her plan of writing the tales of “Our
+Village.” These tales were destined to render little Three Mile Cross
+classic ground, and to attract pilgrims, even from the other side of
+the Atlantic, to visit the prototype of “Our Village.”
+
+Mary writes to Sir William Elford early in April, 1820:—
+
+“We have moved a mile nearer Reading—to a little village street situate
+on the turnpike road between Basingstoke and the aforesaid illustrious
+and quarrelsome borough. Our residence is a cottage—no not a cottage,
+it does not deserve the name—a messuage or tenement, such as a little
+farmer who had made twelve or fourteen hundred pounds might retire to
+when he left off business to live on his means. It consists of a series
+of closets ... which they call parlours and kitchens and pantries,
+some of them minus a corner which has been unnaturally filched for
+a chimney; others deficient in half a side which has been truncated
+by the shelving roof.... [But] we shall be greatly benefited by the
+compression—though at present the squeeze sits upon us as uneasily as
+tight stays, and is almost as awkward looking.
+
+“Nevertheless we are really getting very comfortable and falling into
+our old habits with all imaginable ease. Papa has already amused
+himself by committing a disorderly person, the pest of the Cross....
+Mamma has converted an old dairy into a most commodious store-house. I
+have stuffed the rooms with books and the garden with flowers, and lost
+my only key. Lucy has made a score of new acquaintances, and picked
+up a few lovers; and the great white cat, after appearing exceedingly
+disconsolate and out of his wits for a day or two, has given full proof
+of resuming his old warlike and predatory habits by being lost all the
+morning in a large rat hole and stealing the milk for our tea this
+afternoon.”
+
+[Illustration: THE MITFORDS’ COTTAGE]
+
+Ten days later Mary writes to a female friend: “We are still at this
+cottage, which I like very much.... Indeed I had taken root completely
+till yesterday, when some neighbours of ours (pigs, madam) got into my
+little flower court and made havoc among my pinks and sweet-peas, and
+a little loosened the fibres of my affection. At the very same moment
+the pump was announced to be dry, which, considering how much water we
+consume—I and my flowers—is a sad affair.” But she adds a day or two
+afterwards: “I am all in love with our cottage again: the cherries are
+ripe, and the roses bloom, the water has come, and the pigs are gone!”
+
+The Mitfords’ cottage is still to be seen standing in the long
+straggling street of low cottages, divided by pretty gardens, with a
+wayside inn on one side, on the other side a village shop, and right
+opposite a cobbler’s stall. No railway has come to bring bustle and
+noise to that quiet spot, so that the village still retains what
+Miss Mitford has called its “trick of standing still, of remaining
+stationary, unchanged and unimproved in this most changeable and
+improving world.”
+
+In the opening chapter of the first volume of _Our Village_ the writer
+says:—
+
+“Will you walk with me through our village, courteous reader? The
+journey is not long. We will begin at the lower end, and proceed up
+the hill.
+
+“The tidy square red cottage[8] on the right hand with the long
+well-stocked garden by the side of the road belongs to a retired
+publican from a neighbouring town ... one who piques himself on
+independence and idleness ... and cries out for reform. He introduced
+into our peaceful vicinage the rebellious innovation of an illumination
+on the Queen’s acquittal. Remonstrance and persuasion were in vain; he
+talked of liberty and broken windows—so we all lighted up. Oh! how he
+shone that night with candles and laurel and white bows and gold paper,
+and a transparency with a flaming portrait of Her Majesty, hatted and
+feathered in red ochre. He had no rival in the village that we all
+acknowledged; the very bonfire was less splendid....
+
+[Footnote 8: This house, though unaltered in appearance, is now an inn
+called “The Fox and Horn.”]
+
+“Next to his house, though parted from it by another long garden with a
+yew arbour at the end, is the pretty dwelling of the shoemaker, a pale,
+sickly-looking, black-haired man, the very model of sober industry.
+There he sits in his little shop from early morning till late at night.
+An earthquake would hardly stir him; the illumination did not. He
+stuck immovably to his last from the first lighting up through the
+long blaze and the slow decay till his large solitary candle was the
+only light in the place. One cannot conceive anything more perfect
+than the contempt which the man of transparencies and the man of shoes
+must have felt for each other on that evening. Our shoemaker is a man
+of substance, he employs three journeymen, two lame and one a dwarf,
+so that his shop looks like a hospital.... He has only one pretty
+daughter—a light, delicate, fair-haired girl of fourteen, the champion,
+protectress and playfellow of every brat under three years old.... A
+very attractive person is that child-loving girl....
+
+“The first house on the opposite side of the way is the blacksmith’s,
+a gloomy dwelling, where the sun never seems to shine, dark and smoky
+within and without, like a forge. The blacksmith is a high officer in
+our little state, nothing less than a constable; but alas! alas! when
+tumults arise and the constable is called for he will commonly be found
+in the thickest of the fray....
+
+“Next to this official dwelling is a spruce little tenement, red, high
+and narrow, boasting, one above another, three sash windows, the only
+sash windows in the village. That slender mansion has a fine, genteel
+look. The little parlour seems made for Hogarth’s old maid and her
+stunted foot-boy, for tea and card parties ... for the rustle of faded
+silks and the splendour of old china, for affected gentility and real
+starvation. This should have been its destiny, but fate has been
+unpropitious, it belongs to a plump, merry, bustling dame with four
+fat, rosy, noisy children, the very essence of vulgarity and plenty.
+
+“Then comes the village shop, like other village shops, multifarious as
+a bazaar; a repository for bread, shoes, tea, cheese, tape, ribands and
+bacon, for everything, in short, except the one particular thing which
+you happen to want at the moment ... and which ‘they had yesterday
+and will have again to-morrow.’ ... The people are civil and thriving
+and frugal withal. They have let the upper part of their house to two
+young women ... who teach little children their A B C, and make caps
+and gowns for their mammas—parcel schoolmistress, parcel mantua maker.
+I believe they find adorning the body a more profitable vocation than
+adorning the mind.”
+
+This little shop still exists, and it still bears above its modest
+window the identical name of Bromley, which it bore in Miss Mitford’s
+day.
+
+[Illustration: THE VILLAGE SHOP]
+
+“Divided from the shop by a narrow yard,” continues Miss Mitford, “and
+opposite the shoe-maker’s, is a habitation of whose inmates I shall
+say nothing. A cottage—no—a miniature house, with many additions,
+little odds and ends of places, pantries, and what not; all angles
+and of a charming in-and-outness; a little bricked court before
+one half, a little flower-yard before the other; the walls old and
+weather-stained, covered with hollyhocks, roses, honeysuckles and a
+great apricot tree. The casements are full of geraniums (ah, there is
+our superb white cat peeping out from amongst them!), the closets ...
+full of contrivances and corner cupboards; and the little garden behind
+full of common flowers, tulips, pinks, larkspurs, peonies, stocks and
+carnations, with an arbour of privet, not unlike a sentry-box, where
+one lives in a delicious green light, and looks out on the gayest of
+all gay flower-beds. That house was built on purpose to show in what an
+exceedingly small compass comfort may be packed. Well, I will loiter
+there no longer.
+
+“The next tenement is a place of importance—the Rose Inn [‘The Swan’],
+a whitewashed building, retired from the road behind its fine swinging
+sign, with a little bow-window room coming out on one side and forming
+with our stable on the other a sort of open square, which is the
+constant resort of carts, waggons and return chaises. There are two
+carts there now, and mine host is serving them with beer in his eternal
+red waistcoat.... He has a stirring wife, a hopeful son and a daughter,
+the belle of the village, not so pretty as the fair nymph of the shoe
+shop, and less elegant, but ten times as fine, all curl-papers in the
+morning, like a porcupine, all curls in the afternoon, like a poodle,
+with more flowers than curl-papers and more lovers than curls....
+
+“In a line with the bow-window room is a low garden wall belonging
+to a house under repair; the white house opposite the collar-maker’s
+shop, with four lime trees before it and a waggon load of bricks at the
+door. That house is the plaything of a wealthy, whimsical person who
+lives about a mile off. He has a passion for bricks and mortar.... Our
+good neighbour fancied that the limes shaded the rooms and made them
+dark, so he had all the leaves stripped from every tree. There they
+stood, poor miserable skeletons, as bare as Christmas under the glowing
+midsummer sun.”
+
+[Illustration: THE SWAN INN]
+
+Here we would remark that when paying our first visit to Three Mile
+Cross many years ago that house was unchanged, and the row of old
+pollarded limes still stood as sentinels before it; but since then the
+house has been altered and the trees have disappeared. We would also
+mention that the real name of the inn is the “Swan,” but in all her
+village tales Miss Mitford calls it the “Rose.” The “collar-maker’s
+shop,” on the opposite side of the road, a quaint little edifice, is
+just as it was in appearance in the writer’s day.
+
+“Next door [to the house under repair],” continues Miss Mitford, “lives
+a carpenter, famed ten miles round, and worthy all his fame, with his
+excellent wife and their little daughter Lizzie, the plaything and
+queen of the village, a child of three years old, according to the
+register, but six in size and strength and intellect, in power and
+in self-will. She manages everybody in the place, her schoolmistress
+included ... makes the lazy carry her, the silent talk to her,
+the grave romp with her; does anything she pleases; is absolutely
+irresistible.... Together with a good deal of the character of Napoleon
+she has something of his square, sturdy, upright form ... she has the
+imperial attitudes too, and loves to stand with her hands behind her,
+or folded over her breast, and sometimes when she has a little touch
+of shyness she clasps them together on the top of her head, pressing
+down her shining curls, and looking so exquisitely pretty! Yes, Lizzie
+is the queen of the village! She has but one rival in her dominions,
+a certain white greyhound called Mayflower, much her friend, who
+resembles her in beauty and strength, in playfulness and almost in
+sagacity, and reigns over the animal world as she over the human. They
+are both coming with me, Lizzie and Lizzie’s ‘pretty May.’
+
+“We are now at the end of the street; a cross lane, a rope walk, shaded
+with limes and oaks, and a cool, clear pond, overhung with elms, lead
+us to the bottom of the hill. There is still an house round the corner,
+ending in a picturesque wheeler’s shop. The dwelling-house is more
+ambitious. Look at the fine flowered window-blinds, the green door with
+the brass knocker.... These are the curate’s lodgings—apartments his
+landlady would call them. He lives with his own family four miles off,
+but once or twice a week he comes to his neat little parlour to write
+sermons, to marry or to bury as the case may require. Never were better
+people than his host and hostess, and there is a reflection of clerical
+importance about them, since their connection with the Church, which is
+quite edifying—a decorum, a gravity, a solemn politeness. Oh, to see
+the worthy wheeler carry the gown after his lodger on a Sunday, nicely
+pinned up in his wife’s best handkerchief; or to hear him rebuke a
+squalling child or a squabbling woman! The curate is nothing to him. He
+is fit to be perpetual churchwarden.”
+
+We would remark here that the wheeler’s workshop is one of the most
+striking objects in the village. Its great hatch doors are always
+thrown wide open, revealing a dark interior in vivid contrast with
+the sunshine overhead. Its old thatched roof is illuminated by the
+golden light, as are also the spreading branches of a huge wistaria
+that cover its main wall as well as the whole front of the adjoining
+dwelling-house. The present wheelwright is the successor of the very
+man whom Miss Mitford has just described. It is pleasant to have a
+chat with him about the village, as he has known every corner of it
+... also its inhabitants for many a year. He showed us the curate’s
+little parlour, into which the front door opens, admitting a pretty
+view of the “cool clear pond” on the further side of the lane with its
+overhanging trees.
+
+Little Three Mile Cross does not boast a church of its own, but it is
+in the parish of Shinfield, and it was to Shinfield Church, distant
+about two miles and a half, that the curate repaired, accompanied by
+the “wheeler” carrying his gown.
+
+On quitting the village Miss Mitford exclaims: “How pleasantly the
+road winds up the hill between its broad green borders and hedgerows,
+so thickly timbered!... We are now on the eminence close to the
+Hill-house and its beautiful garden.” And looking back, she describes
+“the view; the road winding down the hill with a slight bend ... a
+waggon slowly ascending, and a horseman passing it at full trot,
+[while] further down are seen the limes and the rope-walk, then the
+village, peeping through the trees, whose clustering tops hide all but
+the chimneys and various roofs of the houses ... [and in the distance]
+the elegant town of B——, with its fine old church towers and spires,
+the whole view shut in by a range of chalky hills; and over every part
+of the picture trees so profusely scattered that it appears like a
+woodland scene, with glades and villages intermixed.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE NEW HOME
+
+
+Miss Mitford’s cottage in Three Mile Cross is practically the same as
+it was in her day, the chief alterations being that the windows to the
+front of the house, which were formerly leaded casement windows, have
+been enlarged and are now sashed. Also that the window of a parlour
+looking unto the back garden has been enlarged. In former times, too,
+the red bricks of which the house is built were exposed, but they are
+now covered with plaster.
+
+Curiously enough some early prints of the cottage are very misleading.
+A limner at a distance has evidently tried to make a pleasing drawing
+from some very imperfect sketch done on the spot, which did not reveal
+the fact that the right-hand portion of the house recedes, and that
+the front door is not in the middle but on one side. Thus a report
+arose that the cottage had been rebuilt in later years. But happily
+we possess conclusive evidence to the contrary given by a gentleman
+still living who passed his childhood in the cottage almost as an
+adopted son of the household. When visiting the place a few years ago
+he declared that the cottage was unchanged, and recalled, as he passed
+from room to room, his happy associations with each spot.
+
+The house is now used as a working man’s club, and the caretaker is
+ready to show the place to any visitors desirous to see the home of
+Miss Mitford.
+
+Behind the house on part of the site of Miss Mitford’s garden there
+is a large edifice built called the “Mitford Hall,” which is used as
+an Institute for the working classes, and is a source of much good to
+the neighbourhood. But happily it stands well back and cannot be seen
+by the visitor who gazes at the cottage from the village street, and
+who is glad to dwell only on what is connected with Miss Mitford’s
+residence in the place.
+
+In the sketch of the cottage given the reader will observe that the
+windows have been drawn as they were formerly and a few other small
+alterations made.
+
+[Illustration: THE WRITING PARLOUR]
+
+The cottage consists of a ground floor with one storey only above it.
+The casement window in the receding portion of the cottage, just below
+the shelving roof, belongs to Miss Mitford’s study, a quaint little
+room where at a small table she used to write her stories of village
+life. The window looks down upon the “shoemaker’s” little shop, with
+its pointed roof and tiny window panes. It must be quite unchanged in
+appearance since Miss Mitford described it, the sole alteration being
+in the business carried on there, as it and the collar-maker’s quaint
+shop at the top of the village have exchanged trades.
+
+As she sat at that window Miss Mitford would jot down all the incidents
+that occurred in the village street below. “It is a pleasant, lively
+scene this May morning,” she writes, “with the sun shining so gaily on
+the irregular rustic dwellings, intermixed with their pretty gardens;
+a cart and a waggon watering (it would be more correct perhaps to say
+_beering_) at the ‘Rose’; Dame Wheeler with her basket and her brown
+loaf just coming from the bakehouse; the nymph of the shoe shop feeding
+a large family of goslings at the open door; two or three women in
+high gossip dawdling up the street; Charles North the gardener, with
+his blue apron and a ladder on his shoulder, walking rapidly by; a cow
+and a donkey browsing the grass by the wayside; my white greyhound,
+Mayflower, sitting majestically in front of her own stable; and ducks,
+chickens, pigs and children scattered over all.... Ah! here is the post
+cart coming up the road at its most respectable rumble, that cart,
+or rather caravan, which so much resembles a house upon wheels, or a
+show of the smaller kind at a country fair. It is now crammed full of
+passengers, the driver just protruding his head and hands out of the
+vehicle, and the sharp, clever boy, who, in the occasional absence of
+his father, officiates as deputy, perched like a monkey on the roof.”
+
+“I have got exceedingly fond of this little place,” writes Mary to
+Sir William Elford; “could be content to live and die here. To be
+sure the rooms are of the smallest; I, in our little parlour, look
+something like a blackbird in a goldfinch’s cage—but it is so snug and
+comfortable.”
+
+The projecting piece of building seen in the sketch in the front of the
+cottage was appropriated by the doctor as his dispensary. It has a door
+that opens into the little front court. The bedrooms are on the first
+floor.
+
+Mary’s study window commands a pretty view beyond the low peaked roofs
+of the shoemaker’s shop and of its neighbouring cottages. At the foot
+of a grassy slope can be seen a dark line of tree tops. They form part
+of a magnificent avenue of elms that border a long stretch of grass—one
+of the old drover’s roads—extending for nearly two miles. “The effect
+of these tall solemn trees,” remarks Mary, “so equal in height, so
+unbroken and so continuous, is quite grand and imposing as twilight
+comes on, especially when some slight bend in the lane gives to the
+outline almost the look of an amphitheatre.” This spot—Woodcock Lane as
+it is called—was a favourite resort of Mary’s, and thither she often
+repaired when composing her country sketches.
+
+“In that very lane,” she writes one day, “am I writing on this sultry
+June day, luxuriating in the shade, the verdure, the fragrance of
+hayfield and beanfield, and the absence of all noise except the song of
+birds and that strange mingling of many sounds, the whir of a thousand
+forms of insect life, so often heard among the general hush of a summer
+noon.
+
+“... Here comes a procession of cows going to milking, with an old
+attendant, still called the cow-boy, who, although they have seen me
+often enough, one should think, sitting beneath a tree writing ... with
+my dog Fanchon nestled at my feet—still _will_ start as if they had
+never seen a woman before in their lives. Back they start, and then
+they rush forward, and then the old drover emits certain sounds so
+horribly discordant that little Fanchon starts up in a fright on her
+feet, deranging all the economy of my extemporary desk and wellnigh
+upsetting the inkstand. Very much frightened is my pretty pet, the
+arrantest coward that ever walked upon four legs! And so she avenges
+herself, as cowards are wont to do, by following the cows at a safe
+distance as soon as they are fairly passed, and beginning to bark amain
+when they are nearly out of sight.”
+
+[Illustration: THE WHEELWRIGHT’S SHOP]
+
+Mary delighted in the beauty of the country that surrounds Three Mile
+Cross even from the first moment of her arrival, but her delight
+increased as she became more intimately acquainted with its charms.
+
+“This country is eminently flowery,” she writes. “Besides the variously
+tinted primroses and violets in singular profusion we have all sorts
+of orchises and arums; the delicate wood anemones; the still more
+delicate wood sorrel, with its lovely purple veins meandering over
+the white drooping flower; the field tulips [or fritillary] with its
+rich checker-work of lilac and crimson, and the sun shining through
+the leaves as through old painted glass; the ghostly field star of
+Bethlehem [and] the wild lilies-of-the-valley.... Yes, this is really a
+country of flowers!”
+
+She revelled, too, in the wilder beauty of the great commons in the
+neighbourhood “always picturesque and romantic,” she writes one day
+in early summer, “and now peculiarly brilliant, and glowing with the
+luxuriant orange flowers of the furze ... stretching around us like a
+sea of gold, and loading the very air with its rich almond odour.”
+
+She loved the winding rivers that water her part of the country; the
+“pleasant and pastoral Kennet for silver eels renowned,” upon whose
+bordering meadows the fritillary, both purple and white, grow in
+profusion; and the changeful, beautiful Loddon “rising sometimes level
+with its banks, so clear and smooth and peaceful ... and sometimes like
+a frisky, tricksy watersprite much addicted to wandering out of bounds.”
+
+There is a fine old stone bridge that crosses the Loddon about a mile
+beyond Shinfield, with a small inn, “The George,” close by, a favourite
+resort of fishermen. Standing on that bridge one summer evening Miss
+Mitford watched the setting sun descend over the water.
+
+“What a sunset! How golden! how beautiful!” she exclaims. “The sun just
+disappearing, and the narrow liny clouds, which a few minutes ago lay
+like soft vapoury streaks along the horizon, lighted up with a golden
+splendour that the eye can scarcely endure.... Another minute and the
+brilliant orb totally disappears, and the sky above grows every moment
+more varied and more beautiful as the dazzling golden lines are mixed
+with glowing red and gorgeous purple, dappled with small dark specks
+and mingled with such a blue as the egg of the hedge-sparrow. To look
+up at that glorious sky, and then to see that magnificent picture
+reflected in the clear and lovely Loddon water is a pleasure never to
+be described and never forgotten. My heart swells and my eyes fill
+as I write of it and think of the immeasurable majesty of nature and
+the unspeakable goodness of God who has spread an enjoyment so pure,
+so peaceful and so intense before the meanest and the lowest of His
+creatures.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A LOQUACIOUS VISITOR
+
+
+There is an amusing sketch in the first volume of _Our Village_
+entitled “The Talking Lady,” from which we should like to quote a
+few passages. Its scene is evidently laid in the Mitfords’ common
+sitting-room, whose two windows look both front and back, and in which
+we have sat many a time.
+
+After alluding to a play written by Ben Jonson called _The Silent
+Woman_ Miss Mitford remarks:—
+
+“If the learned dramatist had happened to fall in with such a specimen
+of female loquacity as I have just parted with, he might perhaps have
+given us a pendant to his picture in the _Talking Lady_. Pity but he
+had! He would have done her justice, which I could not at any time,
+least of all now. I am too much stunned; too much like one escaped
+from a belfry on a coronation day. I am just resting from the fatigue
+of four days’ hard listening—four snowy, sleety, rainy days, all of
+them too bad to admit the possibility that any petticoated thing,
+were she as hardy as a Scotch fir, should stir out; four days chained
+by ‘sad civility’ to that fireside once so quiet, and again—cheering
+thought!—again I trust to be so, when the echo of that visitor’s
+incessant tongue shall have died away.
+
+“The visitor in question is a very excellent and respectable elderly
+lady, upright in mind and body, with a figure that does honour to her
+dancing master, and a face exceedingly well preserved.... She took
+us in the way from London to the West of England, and being, as she
+wrote, ‘not quite well, not equal to much company, prayed that no
+other guest might be admitted so that she might have the pleasure of
+our conversation all to herself’ (_Ours!_ as if it were possible for
+any of us to slide in a word edgewise!) ‘and especially enjoy the
+gratification of talking over old times with the master of the house,
+her countryman.’ Such was the promise of her letter, and to the letter
+it has been kept. All the news and scandal of a large county forty
+years ago ... and ever since has she detailed with a minuteness ...
+which would excite the envy of a county historian, a king-at-arms, or
+even a Scotch novelist. Her knowledge is astonishing.... It should seem
+to listen to her as if at some time of her life she must have listened
+herself; and yet her countryman declares ... no such event has occurred.
+
+“... Talking, sheer talking, is meat and drink and sleep to her. She
+likes nothing else. Eating is a sad interruption.... Walking exhausts
+the breath that might be better employed.... Allude to some anecdote of
+the neighbourhood, and she forthwith treats you with as many parallel
+passages as are to be found in an air with variations.... The very
+weather is not a safe subject. Her memory is a perpetual register of
+hard frosts and long droughts and high winds and terrible storms, with
+all the evils that followed in their train and all the personal events
+connected with them.... By this time it rains, and she sits down to a
+pathetic see-saw of conjectures on the chance of Mrs. Smith’s having
+set out for her daily walk, or the possibility that Dr. Brown may have
+ventured to visit his patients in his gig, and the certainty that Lady
+Green’s new housemaid would come from London on the outside of the
+coach.
+
+[Illustration: WHERE THE CURATE LODGED]
+
+“With all this intolerable prosing she is actually reckoned a pleasant
+woman! Her acquaintance in the great manufacturing town where she
+usually resides is very large.... Doubtless her associates deserve
+the old French compliment, ‘_Ils ont tous un grand talent pour le
+silence._‘... It is the _tête-à-tête_ that kills, or the small
+fireside circle of three or four where only one can speak and all
+the rest must seem to listen—_seem!_ did I say?—must listen in good
+earnest.... She has the eye of a hawk, and detects a wandering glance,
+an incipient yawn, the slightest movement of impatience. The very
+needle must be quiet.... I wonder if she had married how many husbands
+she would have talked to death.... Since the decease of her last
+nephew she attempted to form an establishment with a widow lady for
+the sake, as they both said, of the comfort of society. But—strange
+miscalculation! she was a talker too! They parted in a week.
+
+“... And we have also parted. I am just returned from escorting her
+to the coach, which is to convey her two hundred miles westward; and
+I have still the murmur of her adieux resounding in my ears like the
+indistinct hum of the air on a frosty night. It was curious to see
+how almost simultaneously these mournful adieux shaded into cheerful
+salutations of her new comrades, the passengers in the mail. Poor
+souls! Little does the civil young lad who made way for her or the fat
+lady, his mamma, who with pains and inconvenience made room for her, or
+the grumpy gentleman in the opposite corner who, after some dispute,
+was at length won to admit her dressing-box—little do they suspect
+what is to befall them. Two hundred miles! And she never sleeps in a
+carriage! Well, patience be with them ... and to her all happiness.”
+
+In one of her stories entitled “Whitsun Eve,” Mary Mitford describes
+her own garden and its picturesque surroundings.
+
+“The pride of my heart,” she writes, “and the delight of my eyes is my
+garden. Our house, which is in dimensions very much like a bird-cage,
+and might with almost equal convenience be laid on a shelf, or hung up
+in a tree, would be utterly unbearable in warm weather were it not that
+we have a retreat out of doors—and a very pleasant retreat it is....
+
+“Fancy a small plot of ground with a pretty, low, irregular cottage
+at one end; a large granary, divided from the dwelling by a little
+court running along one side, and a long thatched shed, open towards
+the garden, and supported by wooden pillars on the other. The bottom
+is bounded, half by an old wall and half by an old paling, over which
+we see a pretty distance of woody hills. The house, granary, wall and
+palings are covered with vines, cherry trees, roses, honeysuckles
+and jessamines, with great clusters of tall hollyhocks running up
+between them.... This is my garden; and the long pillared shed, the
+sort of rustic arcade, which runs along one side, parted from the
+flower-beds by a row of rich geraniums, is our out-of-door drawing-room.
+
+[Illustration: IN THE CURATE’S PARLOUR]
+
+“I know nothing so pleasant as to sit there on a summer afternoon, with
+the western sun flickering through a great elder tree, and lighting up
+one gay parterre, where flowers and flowering shrubs are set as thick
+as grass in a field ... where we may guess that there is such a thing
+as mould but never see it. I know nothing so pleasant as to sit in the
+shade of that dark bower ... now catching a glimpse of the little birds
+as they fly rapidly in and out of their nests ... now tracing the gay
+gambles of the common butterflies as they sport around the dahlias; now
+watching that rarer moth which the country people, fertile in pretty
+names, call the bee-bird....
+
+“What a contrast from the quiet garden to the lively street! Saturday
+night is always a time of stir and bustle in our village, and this is
+Whitsun Eve, the pleasantest Saturday of all the year, when London
+journeymen and servant lads and lasses snatch a short holiday to visit
+their families.... This village of ours is swarming to-night like a
+hive of bees.... I must try to give some notion of the various figures.
+
+“First there is a group suited to Teniers, a cluster of out-of-door
+customers of the ‘Rose,’ old benchers of the inn, who sit round a
+table smoking and drinking in high solemnity to the sound of Timothy’s
+fiddle. Next a mass of eager boys, the combatants of Monday, who are
+surrounding the shoemaker’s shop where an invisible hole in their
+[cricket] ball is mending by Master Kemp himself.... Farther down the
+street is the pretty black-eyed girl, Sally Wheeler, come home for a
+day’s holiday from B——, escorted by a tall footman in a dashing livery,
+whom she is trying to curtsy off before her deaf grandmother sees him.
+I wonder whether she will succeed?”
+
+In another early sketch of _Our Village_ called “Dr. Tubb,” Mary
+Mitford writes:—
+
+“On taking possession of our present abode about four years ago we
+found our garden and all the gardens of the straggling village street
+in which it is situated filled, peopled, infested by a beautiful flower
+which grew in such profusion and was so difficult to keep under that
+(poor pretty thing!) instead of being admired and cherished ... it was
+cut down, pulled up and hoed out like a weed. I do not know the name of
+this elegant plant, nor have I met with anyone who does; we call it the
+Spicer, after an old naval officer who once inhabited the white house
+just above, and, according to tradition, first brought the seed from
+foreign parts....
+
+I never saw anything prettier than a whole bed of these spicers which
+had clothed the top of a large heap of earth belonging to our little
+mason by the roadside; [they] grew as thick and close as grass in a
+meadow, covered with delicate red and white blossoms like a fairy
+orchard.”
+
+It seems to us that this flower may have been the American Balsam,
+which grows as rapidly as any weed, and which we happened actually to
+see, waving its pretty red and white blossoms in Miss Mitford’s garden
+some years ago. This was long after her death, and when the cottage and
+garden had fallen into humbler hands.
+
+“I never passed the spicers,” remarks Mary, “without stopping to look
+at them, and I was one day half shocked to see a man, his pockets
+stuffed with the plants, two large bundles under each arm, and still
+tugging away root and branch.... This devastation did not, however,
+proceed from disrespect, the spicer gatherer being engaged in sniffing
+with visible satisfaction the leaves and stalks. ‘It has a fine
+venomous smell,’ quoth he in soliloquy, ‘and will certainly when
+stilled be good for something or other.’ This was my first sight of Dr.
+Tubb ... a quack of the highest and most extended reputation, inventor
+and compounder of medicines, bleeder, shaver and physicker of man and
+beast....
+
+“We have frequently met since, and are now well acquainted, although
+the worthy experimentalist considers me as a rival practitioner, an
+interloper, and hates me accordingly. He has very little cause, [for]
+my quackery, being mostly of the cautious, preventive, safeguard,
+commonsense order, stands no chance against the boldness and decision
+of his all-promising ignorance. He says, Do! I say, Do not! He deals in
+_stimuli_, I in sedatives; I give medicine, he gives cordial waters.
+Alack! alack! when could a dose of rhubarb, even although reinforced
+by a dole of good broth, compete with a draught of peppermint and a
+licensed dram? No! no! Dr. Tubb has no cause to fear my practice.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE PUBLICATION OF _OUR VILLAGE_
+
+
+Miss Mitford writes to Sir William Elford on March 5th, 1824: “In spite
+of your prognostics, I think you will like _Our Village_. It will be
+out in three weeks or a month.... It is exceedingly playful and lively,
+and I think you will like it. Charles Lamb (the matchless ‘Elia’ of the
+_London Magazine_) says that nothing so fresh and characteristic has
+appeared for a long while. It is not over modest to say this; but who
+would not be proud of the praise of such a _proser_?”
+
+Sir William Elford, in answering this letter, expressed his opinion
+that the sketches of rural life would have been better if written in
+the form of letters.
+
+“Your notion of letters pleases me much,” replies Miss Mitford,
+“as I see plainly that it is the result of the old prepossessions
+and partialities which do me so much honour and give me so much
+pleasure. But it would never have done. The sketches are too long, and
+necessarily too much connected for _real_ correspondence.... Besides,
+we are free and easy in these days, and talk to the public as a friend.
+Read _Elia_, or the _Sketch Book_, or Hazlitt’s _Table Talk_, or any
+popular book of the new school and you will find that we have turned
+over the Johnsonian periods and the Blair-ian formality, to keep
+company with the wigs and hoops, the stiff curtsys and low bows of our
+ancestors. Now the public—the reading public—is, as I said before, the
+correspondent and confidant of everybody.
+
+“Having thus made the best defence I can against your criticism, I
+proceed to answer your question, ‘Are the characters and descriptions
+true?’ Yes! yes! yes! As true as is well possible. You, as a great
+landscape painter, know that in painting a favourite scene you do
+a little embellish, and can’t help it; you avail yourself of happy
+accidents of atmosphere, and if anything be ugly you strike it out,
+or if anything be wanting you put it in. But still the picture is a
+likeness; and that this is a very faithful one you will judge when I
+tell you that a worthy neighbour of ours, a post-captain, who has been
+in every quarter of the globe and is equally distinguished for the
+sharp look-out and the _bonhomie_ of his profession, accused me most
+seriously of carelessness in putting ‘The Rose’ for ‘The Swan’ as the
+sign of our next-door neighbour, and was no less disconcerted at the
+_misprint_ (as he called it) of B. for R. in the name of our next town.
+_A cela près_ he declares the picture to be exact.”
+
+Miss Mitford thus prefaces her work in the first sketch entitled _Our
+Village_:—
+
+“Of all situations for a constant residence that which appears to
+me most delightful is a little village far in the country; a small
+neighbourhood, not of fine mansions finely peopled, but of cottages
+and cottage-like houses ... with inhabitants whose faces are as
+familiar to us as the flowers in our garden; a little world of our own,
+close-packed and insulated like ants in an anthill or bees in a hive,
+or sheep in a fold.... [Where we] learn to know and to love the people
+about us, with all their peculiarities, just as we learn to know and to
+love the nooks and turns of the shady lanes and sunny commons that we
+pass every day.
+
+“Even in books I like a confined locality, and so do the critics when
+they talk of the unities. Nothing is so tiresome as to be whirled
+half over Europe at the chariot wheels of a hero, to go to sleep at
+Vienna and awaken at Madrid; it produces a real fatigue, a weariness
+of spirit. On the other hand nothing is so delightful as to sit down
+in a country village in one of Miss Austen’s delicious novels, quite
+sure before we leave it to become intimate with every spot and every
+person it contains; or to ramble with Mr. White over his own parish
+of Selborne and form a friendship with the fields and coppices, as
+well as with the birds, mice and squirrels who inhabit them; or to
+sail with Robinson Crusoe to his island, and live there with him and
+his goats and his man Friday ... or to be ship-wrecked with Ferdinand
+on that other lovelier island—the island of Prospero and Miranda, and
+Calaban and Ariel, and nobody else ... that is best of all. And a
+small neighbourhood is as good in sober waking reality as in poetry or
+prose; a village neighbourhood such as this Berkshire hamlet in which
+I write, a long, straggling, winding street at the bottom of a fine
+eminence, with a road through it, always abounding in carts, horsemen
+and carriages, and lately enlivened by a stage-coach from B—— to S——,
+which passed through about ten days ago, and will, I suppose, return
+some time or other.”
+
+_Our Village_ soon made its mark, and towards the end of June Miss
+Mitford was able to write to Sir William Elford, “It sells well,
+and has been received by the literary world and reviewed in all the
+literary papers better than I, for modesty, dare to say.”
+
+Seven months later she wrote to the same friend, “The little prose
+volume has certainly done its work and made an opening for a longer
+effort. You would be diverted at some of the instances I could tell
+you of its popularity. Columbines and children have been named after
+Mayflower[9]; stage-coachmen and post-boys point out the localities;
+schoolboys deny the possibility of any woman’s having written the
+_Cricket Match_ without schoolboy help; and such men as Lord Stowell
+(Sir William Scott, the last relique, I believe, of the Literary
+Club) send to me for a key. I mean to try three volumes of tales next
+spring.... Heaven knows how I shall succeed!
+
+[Footnote 9: Her favourite greyhound.]
+
+“Of course I shall copy as closely as I can Nature and Miss Austen,
+keeping, like her, to genteel country life, or rather going a little
+lower perhaps, and I am afraid with more of sentiment and less of
+humour. I do not _intend_ to commit these delinquencies, mind—I _mean_
+to keep as playful as I can; but I am afraid of their happening in
+spite of me.”
+
+Before the first volume of _Our Village_ had been a year in the hands
+of the public it had passed into three editions, and by 1826 a second
+volume had made its appearance, whose success was equally great. With
+the money gained Mary was soon enabled to add to the comforts of her
+small establishment. She writes to a friend in the summer of 1824: “We
+have a pretty little pony-chaise and pony (oh! how I should like to
+drive you in it!), and my dear father and mother have been out in it
+three or four times, to my great delight; I am sure it will do them
+both so much good.”
+
+Among the various letters of warm appreciation of _Our Village_
+received by Miss Mitford was the following from Mrs. Hemans, written on
+June 6th, 1827:—
+
+“I can hardly feel that I am addressing an entire stranger in the
+author of _Our Village_,” she writes, “and yet I know it is right
+and proper that I should apologise for the liberty I am taking. But
+really after having accompanied you, as I have done again and again,
+in ‘violeting’ and seeking for wood-sorrel—after having been with
+you to call upon Mrs. Allen in ‘the dell,’ and becoming thoroughly
+acquainted with May and Lizzie, I cannot but hope you will kindly
+pardon my intrusion, and that my name may be sufficiently known to
+you to plead my cause. There are writers whose books we cannot read
+without feeling as if we really _had_ looked with them upon the scenes
+they bring before us.... Will you allow me to say that _your_ writings
+have this effect upon me, and that you have taught me, in making me
+know and love your ‘village’ so well, to wish for further knowledge
+also of _her_ who has so vividly impressed its dingles and copses upon
+my imagination, and peopled them so cheerily with healthful and happy
+beings? I believe if I could be personally introduced to you that I
+should in less than five minutes begin to enquire about Lucy and the
+lilies-of-the-valley, and whether you had succeeded in peopling that
+‘shady border’ in your own territories with those shy flowers.”
+
+Writing to her mother from London in November, 1826, Mary says: “I hope
+that you have by this time received the new number of Blackwood[10] in
+which I am very pleasantly mentioned in the last article, the ‘Noctes
+Ambrosianæ.’”
+
+[Footnote 10: Blackwood’s _Edinburgh Magazine_.]
+
+It was under this title, the reader may remember, that the celebrated
+“Christopher North” (John Wilson) was bringing out a series of
+entertaining conversations on all sorts of subjects supposed to be
+spoken by North himself and a few fellow habitués of an old-fashioned
+Edinburgh inn. The character of the “Shepherd,” it seems, was drawn
+from James Hogg the “Ettrick Shepherd.” This is the passage alluded to
+by Miss Mitford—“Noctes Ambrosianæ.”
+
+
+“NOCTES AMBROSIANÆ”
+
+A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE SHEPHERD, NORTH, AND TICKLER
+
+SCENE—_Ambrose’s Hotel, Picardy Place, Paper Parlour_
+
+_Tickler._ Master Christopher North, there’s Miss Mitford, author of
+_Our Village_, an admirable person in all respects, of whom you have
+never, to my recollection, taken any notice in the Magazine. What is
+the meaning of that?...
+
+_North._ I am waiting for her second volume. Miss Mitford has not,
+in my opinion, either the pathos or humour of Washington Irving; but
+she excels him in vigorous conception of character, and in the truth
+of her pictures of English life and manners. Her writings breathe a
+sound, pure and healthy morality, and are pervaded by a genuine rural
+spirit—the spirit of merry England. Every line bespeaks the lady.
+
+_Shepherd._ I admire Miss Mitford just excessively. I dinna wunner at
+her being able to write sae weel as she does about drawing-rooms wi’
+sofas and settees, and about the fine folk in them seein’ themselves in
+lookin’-glasses frae tap to tae; but what puzzles the like o’ me is her
+pictures o’ poachers and tinklers ... and o’ huts and hovels without
+riggin’ by the wayside, and the cottages o’ honest, puir men and byres
+and barns.... And merry-makin’s at winter-ingles, and courtships aneath
+trees atween lads and lasses as laigh in life as the servants in her
+father’s ha’. That’s the puzzle, and that’s the praise. But ae word
+explains a’—Genius—Genius—wull a’ the metaphizzians in the warld ever
+expound that mysterious monysyllable?
+
+_Tickler._ Monosyllable, James, did you say?
+
+_Shepherd._ Ay—monysyllable. Does na that mean a word o’ three
+syllables?
+
+_North_ (in a later review). The young gentlemen of England should
+be ashamed o’ thirselves fo’ letten her name be Mitford. They should
+marry her, whether she wull or no, for she would mak boith a useful and
+agreeable wife. Thet’s the best creetishism on her warks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+A COUNTRY-SIDE ROMANCE
+
+
+The framework of these stories—that is all that concerns Miss Mitford
+herself, who figures not only as the narrator but as an actor in the
+scenes described—is, for the most part, she tells us, strictly true.
+Thus in giving quotations from her charming tales we are giving also
+passages from her own daily life, and so we seem to see her walking
+about the country lanes visiting the cottages or farm-houses, and even
+to hear her conversing with the villagers.
+
+[Illustration: OLD BERKSHIRE FARM]
+
+In a story entitled _Patty’s New Hat_, Mary Mitford writes:—
+
+“Wandering about the meadows one morning last May absorbed in the
+pastoral beauty of the season and the scenery, I was overtaken by a
+heavy shower, just as I passed old Mrs. Matthew’s great farm-house and
+forced to run for shelter to her hospitable porch. A pleasant shelter
+in good truth I found there. The green pastures dotted with fine old
+trees stretching all around; the clear brook winding about them,
+turning and returning on its course, as if loath to depart ... the
+village spire rising amongst a cluster of cottages, all but the roofs
+and chimneys concealed by a grove of oaks; the woody background and the
+blue hills in the distance, all so flowery and bowery in the pleasant
+month of May. The porch, around which a honeysuckle in full bloom was
+wreathing its sweet flowers ... was alive and musical with bees. It
+is hard to say which enjoyed the sweet breath of the shower and the
+honeysuckle most, the bees or I; but the rain began to drive so fast
+that at the end of five minutes I was not sorry to be discovered by
+a little girl belonging to the family, and ushered into the spacious
+kitchen, with its ample dresser glittering with crockery ware, and then
+finally conducted by Mrs. Matthews herself into her own comfortable
+parlour.
+
+“On my begging that I might cause no interruption she resumed her
+labours at a little table [where she was] mending a fustian jacket
+belonging to one of her sons. On the other side of the little table
+sat her pretty grand-daughter Patty, a black-eyed young woman, with a
+bright complexion, a neat, trim figure, and a general air of gentility
+considerably above her station. She was trimming a very smart straw
+hat with pink ribands, trimming and untrimming, for the bows were tied
+and untied, taken off and put on, and taken off again, with a look of
+impatience and discontent, not common to a damsel of seventeen when
+contemplating a new piece of finery. The poor little lass was evidently
+out of sorts. She sighed and quirked and fidgeted and seemed ready
+to cry, whilst her grandmother just glanced at her face under her
+spectacles, pursed up her mouth, and contrived with some difficulty not
+to laugh. At last Patty spoke.
+
+“‘Now, grandmother, you will let me go to Chapel Row revel this
+afternoon, won’t you?’
+
+“‘Humph,’ said Mrs. Matthews.
+
+“‘It hardly rains at all, grandmother!’
+
+“‘Humph!’ again said Mrs. Matthews, opening the prodigious scissors
+with which she was amputating, so to say, a button, and directing the
+rounded end significantly to my wet shawl, whilst the sharp point was
+reverted towards the dripping honeysuckle. ‘Humph!’
+
+“‘There’s no dirt to signify!’
+
+“Another ‘Humph!’ and another point to the draggled tail of my white
+gown.
+
+“‘At all events it’s going to clear.’
+
+“Two ‘Humphs!’ and two points, one to the clouds and one to the
+barometer.
+
+“‘It’s only seven miles,’ said Patty; ‘and if the horses are wanted, I
+can walk.’
+
+“‘Humph!’ quoth Mrs. Matthews.
+
+“‘My Aunt Ellis will be there, and my cousin Mary.’
+
+“‘Humph!’ again said Mrs. Matthews.
+
+“‘My cousin Mary will be so disappointed.’
+
+“‘Humph!’
+
+“‘And I half promised my cousin William—poor William!’
+
+“‘Humph!’ again.
+
+“‘Poor William! Oh, grandmother, do let me go! And I’ve got my new hat
+and all—just such a hat as William likes! Poor William! You will let me
+go, grandmother?’
+
+“And receiving no answer but a very unequivocal ‘Humph!’ poor Patty
+threw down her hat, fetched a deep sigh, and sat in a most disconsolate
+attitude, snipping her pink riband to pieces. Mrs. Matthews went on
+manfully with her ‘stitchery,’ and for ten minutes there was a dead
+pause. It was at last broken by my little friend and introducer,
+Susan, who was standing at the window, and exclaimed: ‘Who is this
+riding up the meadow all through the rain? Look!—see!—I do think—no,
+it can’t be—yes it is—it is certainly my cousin William Ellis! Look,
+grandmother!’
+
+“‘Humph!’ said Mrs. Matthews.
+
+“‘What can cousin William be coming for?’ continued Susan.
+
+“‘Humph!’ quoth Mrs. Matthews.
+
+“‘Oh, I know!—I know!’ screamed Susan, clapping her hands and jumping
+for joy as she saw the changed expression of Patty’s countenance,—the
+beaming delight, succeeded by a pretty downcast shamefacedness as she
+turned away from her grandmother’s arch smile and archer nod. ‘I know!
+I know!’ shouted Susan.
+
+“‘Humph!’ said Mrs. Matthews.
+
+“‘For shame, Susan! Pray don’t, grandmother!’ said Patty imploringly.
+
+“‘For shame! Why I did not say he was coming to court Patty! Did I,
+grandmother?’ returned Susan.
+
+“‘And I take this good lady to witness,’ replied Mrs. Matthews, as
+Patty, gathering up her hat and her scraps of riband, prepared to make
+her escape. ‘I take you all to witness that I have said nothing of any
+sort. Get along with you, Patty!’ added she, ‘you have spoilt your pink
+trimming, but I think you are likely to want white ribands next, and
+if you put me in mind, I’ll buy them for you!’ And smiling in spite of
+herself the happy girl ran out of the room.”
+
+In one of her tales Miss Mitford describes a fog in her village and its
+surrounding neighbourhood, contrasting it with a fog in London.
+
+“A London fog,” she writes, “is a sad thing, as every inhabitant of
+London knows full well: dingy, dusky, dirty, damp; an atmosphere black
+as smoke and wet as steam, that wraps round you like a blanket; a
+cloud reaching from earth to heaven; ‘a palpable obscure,’ which not
+only turns day into night, but threatens to extinguish the lamps and
+lanthorns with which the poor street wanderers strive to illuminate
+their darkness.... Of all detestable things a London fog is the most
+detestable.
+
+“Now a country fog is quite another matter.... This last lovely autumn
+has given us more foggy mornings, or rather more foggy days, than I
+ever remember to have seen in Berkshire: days beginning in a soft and
+vapoury mistiness, enveloping the whole country in a veil, snowy,
+fleecy, and light, as the smoke which one often sees circling in the
+distance from some cottage chimney, or as the still whiter clouds
+which float around the moon, and finishing in sunsets of a surprising
+richness and beauty when the mist is lifted up from the earth and
+turned into a canopy of unrivalled gorgeousness, purple, rosy and
+golden....
+
+“It was in one of these days, early in November, that we set out about
+noon to pay a visit to a friend at some distance. The fog was yet on
+the earth, only some brightening in the south-west gave token that
+it was likely to clear away. As yet, however, the mist held complete
+possession. We could not see the shoemaker’s shop across the road—no!
+nor our chaise when it drew up before our door; were fain to guess at
+our own laburnum tree, and found the sign of The Rose invisible, even
+when we ran against the sign-post. Our little maid, a kind and careful
+lass, who, perceiving the dreariness of the weather, followed us
+across the court with extra wraps, had wellnigh tied my veil round her
+master’s hat and enveloped me in his bearskin, and my dog Mayflower,
+a white greyhound of the largest size, who had a mind to give us the
+undesired honour of her company, carried her point, in spite of the
+united efforts of half a dozen active pursuers, simply because the
+fog was so thick that nobody could see her. It was a complete game at
+bo-peep.
+
+“A misty world it was, and a watery; and I ... began to sigh and
+shiver and quake, as much from dread of an overturn as from damp and
+chilliness, whilst my careful driver and his sagacious steed went on
+groping their way through the woody lanes that lead to the Loddon.
+Nothing but the fear of confessing my fear, that feeling which
+makes so many cowards brave, prevented me from begging to turn back
+again. On, however, we went, the fog becoming every moment heavier
+as we approached that beautiful and brimming river. My companion,
+nevertheless, continued to assure me that the day would clear—nay,
+that it was already clearing; and I soon found that he was right. As
+we left the river we seemed to leave the fog ... [and] it was curious
+to observe how object after object glanced out of the vapour. First of
+all the huge oak at the corner of Farmer Locke’s field, which juts out
+into the lane like a crag into the sea ... its head lost in the clouds;
+then Farmer Hewitt’s great barn—the house, ricks and stables still
+invisible; then a gate and half a cow, her head being projected over
+it in strong relief, whilst the hinder part of her body remained in
+the haze; then more and more distinctly hedgerows, cottages, trees and
+fields, until, as we reached the top of Barkham Hill, the glorious sun
+broke forth, and the lovely picture [of the valley] lay before our eyes
+in its soft and calm beauty.”
+
+This account of Mary and her father’s expedition in a fog caught the
+fancy of two authoresses. One—Miss Sedgwick—writes to Mary from the
+other side of the Atlantic: “Tell me anything of your noble father
+(long may he live!) whom I have loved ever since you took that ride
+with him in a one-horse chaise of a misty morning. Do you remember?”
+
+The other—Mrs. Hemans—writes: “I hope ... that you were not the worse
+for that fog, the very description of which almost took my hair out of
+curl whilst reading it!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+A NEW PLAYWRIGHT
+
+
+Mary Russell Mitford’s love of the drama was awakened in childhood, and
+at her school in Hans Place it was much developed. “After my return
+home,” she writes, “came days of eager and solitary poring over the
+mighty treasures of the printed drama, that finest form of poetry which
+can never be lost. At school I had been made acquainted, like other
+schoolgirls, with Racine. Little did Madame de Maintenon, proud queen
+of the left hand, think when the gentle poet died of a courtly frown,
+that she and St. Cyr would be best remembered by ‘Athalie!’”
+
+As Mary grew up she longed to try her hand at tragedy—that ambition of
+young writers—but it was not until in later years when spurred on by
+the necessity of earning money for the support of her father and mother
+that she conceived the idea of writing plays for the stage. She had
+heard that occasionally large sums of money were gained by the authors
+of successful dramas, and she was encouraged in her undertaking by the
+recollection that when her poems were first published Coleridge had
+prophesied that the author of “Blanche” would write a tragedy. “So,”
+writes Mary, “I took heart of grace and resolved to try a play.”
+
+Her first attempt, a comedy, was rejected by the manager of a theatre.
+“Then, nothing daunted,” she writes, “I tried tragedy, and produced
+five acts on the story of _Fiesco_. But just as—conscious of the
+smallness of my means and the greatness of my object—I was about to
+relinquish the pursuit in despair, I met with a critic so candid a
+friend, so kind, that, aided by his encouragement, all difficulties
+seemed to vanish. I speak,” she adds, “of the author of _Ion_—Mr.
+Justice Talfourd—then a very young man ... _Foscari_ was the result of
+this encouragement.”
+
+But before _Foscari_ had appeared on the stage her play of _Julian_,
+having been read and approved by Macready, was performed with that
+celebrated actor as the principal character. It was, happily,
+successful, and, greatly cheered by this result and also by receiving
+no less than £200 from the manager of Covent Garden theatre, Mary
+Mitford continued her dramatic work.
+
+But she had to go through many trials connected with it, which often
+affected her health. The main cause of these trials were the unhappy
+dissensions between Macready and Charles Kemble, who both appear to
+have had hasty tempers. Mary writes to Sir William Elford on her return
+home from a hurried visit to London: “My soul sickens within me when
+I think of the turmoil and tumult I have undergone and am [still]
+to undergo.... I am tossed about between Kemble and Macready like a
+cricket-ball—affronting both parties and suspected by both because I
+will not come to a deadly rupture with either.”
+
+But, happily, later on she had reason to think differently about these
+great actors. She speaks of Macready as “a most ardent and devoted
+friend”; and when, in the autumn of 1826, _Foscari_ was about to appear
+on the stage, she says she feels “inclined to hate herself for her
+mistrust of Charles Kemble.” “There are no words for his kindness,” she
+declares, “from the beginning of this affair to the end.”
+
+Miss Mitford, accompanied by her father, went up to London for the
+first performance of _Foscari_ at Covent Garden theatre, which was
+fixed for the 5th November. They lodged at No. 45 Frith Street, Soho
+Square, whence Mary wrote to her mother an account of the great event.
+Outside her letter were the words, “Good news.” The letter is dated
+Saturday night, November 5th:—
+
+“I cannot suffer this parcel to go to you, my dearest mother, without
+writing a few lines to tell you of the complete success of my play.
+It was received with rapturous applause [and] without the slightest
+symptoms of disapprobation from beginning to end.... William Harness
+and Mr. Talfourd are both quite satisfied with the whole affair, and my
+other friends are half crazy....
+
+“I quite long to hear how you, my own dearest darling, have borne the
+suspense and anxiety consequent on this affair, which, triumphantly as
+it has turned out, was certainly a very nervous business. They expect
+the play to run three times a week till Christmas. It was so immense a
+house that you might have walked over the heads in the pit; and great
+numbers were turned away, in spite of the wretched weather. All the
+actors were good.... Mr. Young gave out the tragedy amidst immense
+applause.”
+
+[Illustration: FRITH STREET, SOHO SQUARE]
+
+Mary herself was not present at this wonderful scene. Writing in
+later years she remarks: “I had not nerve enough to attend the first
+representation of my tragedies. I sat still and trembling in some quiet
+apartment near, and thither some friend flew to set my heart at ease.
+
+
+
+Generally the messenger of good tidings was poor Haydon, whose quick
+and ardent spirit lent him wings on such an occasion, and who had full
+sympathy with my love for a large canvas, however indifferently filled.”
+
+When thanking Sir William Elford for his congratulations upon the
+success of _Foscari_, Miss Mitford says: “Hitherto the success has been
+very brilliant. We can hardly expect it to last.... But great good has
+been done if (which Heaven avert) the tragedy stop not to-night.”
+
+The agreement between the theatre and Miss Mitford for _Foscari_, we
+are told, was £100 on the third, the ninth, the fifteenth, and the
+twentieth nights, while the copyright of the play (together with a
+volume of Dramatic Sketches) was sold to Whittaker for £150.
+
+Miss Mitford had some new and strange experiences connected with the
+performance of her plays, and amongst these she has recorded her first
+sight of a theatre by daylight.
+
+“To one accustomed to the imposing aspect of a great theatre at night,”
+she writes, “blazing with light and beauty, no contrast can be greater
+than to enter the same theatre at noontide. Leaving daylight behind
+you, and stumbling as best you may through dark passages and amidst the
+inextricable labyrinth of scenery, [you are] too happy if you be not
+projected into the orchestra or swallowed up by a trap-door....
+
+“When the eye becomes accustomed to the darkness the contrasts are
+sufficiently amusing. Solemn tragedians ... hatted and great-coated,
+skipping about, chatting and joking like common mortals ... tragic
+heroines sauntering languidly through their parts in the closest of
+bonnets and thickest of shawls; untidy ballet girls (there was a
+dance in _Foscari_) walking through their quadrille to the sound of a
+solitary fiddle, striking up as if of its own accord from amidst the
+tall stools and music-desks of the orchestra, and piercing, one hardly
+knew how, through the din that was going on incessantly.
+
+“Oh, that din! Voices from every part, above, below, around, and in
+every key, bawling, shouting, screaming; heavy weights rolling here
+and falling there, bells ringing, one could not tell why, and the
+ubiquitous call-boy everywhere!...
+
+“No end to the absurdities and discrepancies of a rehearsal! I
+contributed my full share to the amount.... There is a gun in _Julian_,
+and I, frightened by one when a child, ‘hate a gun like a hurt wild
+duck’ ... and my first address to Mr. Macready was an earnest entreaty
+that he would not suffer them to fire that gun at rehearsal. They did,
+nevertheless, ... but the smiling bow of the great tragedian had spared
+me the worst part of that sort of fright, the expectation....
+
+“Troubled and anxious though they were,” she adds, “those were pleasant
+days, guns and all, days of hope dashed with so much fear, and of fear
+illumined with fitful rays of hope. And in those rehearsals ... where
+nobody is ever found when he is wanted, and nobody ever seems to know a
+syllable of his part ... the business must somehow have gone on, for at
+night the scenes fall into the right places, the proper actors come at
+the right times, speeches are spoken in due order, and to the no small
+astonishment of the novice, who had given herself up for lost, the play
+succeeds.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+_RIENZI_
+
+
+Miss Mitford’s capacity of throwing herself heart and soul into
+the widely varying subjects upon which she was engaged was truly
+remarkable. For whilst writing her playful or pathetic stories
+of village life, breathing as they do the calm and beauty of the
+surrounding country, she was composing one after another her stirring
+tragedies.
+
+The finest of these is generally considered to be _Rienzi_ to
+which Miss Mitford had given much time and thought. She wrote in
+August, 1824, to a female friend who had enquired after her literary
+undertakings:—
+
+“I write as usual for magazines, and (but this is quite between
+ourselves) I have a tragedy which will I may say certainly—as certainly
+as we can speak of anything connected with the theatre—be performed
+at Drury Lane next season. It is the story of ‘Rienzi,’ the friend of
+Petrarch; the man who restored for a short time the old republican
+government of Rome. If you do not remember the story you will find
+it very beautifully told in the last volume of Gibbon, and still more
+graphically related in L’Abbé de Sadi’s _Memoires pour la Vie de
+Pétrarque_.”
+
+It was not, however, until four years later that the play actually
+appeared upon the stage. Its success was of vital importance to the
+little household at Three Mile Cross, and Mary was immersed in business
+of all sorts during the months preceding its début. Still she had a
+“heart at leisure” even then to sympathise with her friends in their
+joys and sorrows. On hearing that Haydon’s important picture of the
+year had just been purchased by the King, she writes:—
+
+“A thousand and a thousand congratulations, my dear friend, to you and
+your loveliest and sweetest wife! I always liked the King, God bless
+him! He is a gentleman—and now my loyalty will be warmer than ever....
+This is fortune—fame you did not want—but this fashion and fortune.
+Nothing in this world could please me more—not even the production of
+my own _Rienzi_. To see you in your place in Art and Talfourd in his in
+Parliament are the wishes next my heart, and I verily believe that I
+shall live to see both....
+
+“God bless you, my dear friends! and God save the King!”
+
+Miss Mitford writes on Sept. 23rd, 1828, to Sir William Elford:—
+
+“My tragedy of _Rienzi_ is to be produced at Drury Lane Theatre on
+Saturday the 11th of October; that is to say, next Saturday fortnight.
+
+“Mr. Young plays the hero, and has been studying the part during the
+whole vacation; and a new actress makes her first appearance in the
+part of the heroine. This is a very bold and hazardous experiment, no
+new actress having come out in a new play within the memory of man;
+but she is young, pretty, unaffected, pleasant-voiced, with great
+sensibility, and a singularly pure intonation—a qualification which no
+actress has possessed since Mrs. Siddons. Stanfield is painting the new
+scenes, one of which is an accurate representation of Rienzi’s house.
+This building still exists in Rome.... They have got a sketch which
+they sent for on purpose, and they are hunting up costumes with equal
+care; so that it will be very splendidly brought out, and I shall have
+little to fear, except from the emptiness of London so early in the
+season.”
+
+[Illustration: IN GREAT QUEEN STREET]
+
+Miss Mitford’s next letter to Sir William is written from London after
+the first performance of _Rienzi_. It is dated Oct. 5th, 1828, 5 Great
+Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn, and is as follows: “Our success last
+night was very splendid and we have every hope (in the theatrical world
+there is no such word as ‘certainty’) of making a great hit. As far
+as things have hitherto gone nothing can be better—nothing. Our new
+actress is charming.... Mr. Young is also admirable; and, in short, it
+is a magnificent performance throughout. God grant that its prosperity
+may continue! and these are not words, of course, but a prayer from my
+inmost soul, for on that hangs the comfort of those far dearer to me
+than myself.”
+
+And a fortnight later she writes:—
+
+“Hitherto the triumph has been most complete and decisive—the houses
+crowded—and the attention such as has not been known since Mrs.
+Siddons. You might hear a pin drop in the house. How long this run may
+continue I cannot say, for London is absolutely empty; but even if the
+play were to stop to-night I should be extremely thankful—more thankful
+than I have words to tell; the impression has been so deep and so
+general.”
+
+Letters of congratulation from women of mark poured in from all sides,
+but Mary missed the sympathy of her intimate friend Lady Franklin (wife
+of the Arctic explorer) who had recently died. She remarks in the
+Introduction to her Dramatic Works:—
+
+“When _Rienzi_, after a more than common portion of adventures and
+misadventures, did come out with a success rare in a woman’s life
+... I missed the eager congratulations from her ... whose cheering
+prognostics had so often spurred me on....
+
+“No part of my success,” she adds, “was more delightful than the
+pleasure which it excited amongst the most eminent of my female
+contemporaries. Maria Edgeworth, Joanna Baillie, Felicia Hemans (and to
+two of them I was at that time unknown) vied in the cordiality of their
+praises. Kindness met me on every hand.”
+
+In a letter from Mrs. Trollope (a well-known authoress of the day), who
+was then staying in New York, she learns of _Rienzi_ being performed in
+that city. “It is here and here only,” writes Mrs. Trollope, “that I
+have had an opportunity of seeing _Rienzi_; it is a noble tragedy, and
+not even the bad acting of the Chatham Theatre could spoil it. I never
+witnessed such a triumph of powerful poetry over weak acting as in the
+magnificent scene where Rienzi refuses pardon to an Orsini.”
+
+The play continued to draw large audiences at Drury Lane, and ran for a
+hundred days, a most unusual event in those times. Of the printed play
+Miss Mitford writes: “It is selling immensely, the first very large
+edition having gone in three days.”
+
+We have read _Rienzi_ with deep interest. The tragic scenes are very
+powerful, tension being kept up throughout the whole action, while the
+love passages are beautiful, tender and truly pathetic. If we might
+venture upon a criticism it is that there is an absence in the play of
+all humour—a quality so conspicuous in Miss Mitford’s village stories.
+Perhaps it is only Shakespeare who possesses the consummate art of
+relieving the strain wrought upon the mind by deep tragedy with a touch
+of humour. It is certainly absent in some of the finest French and
+German tragedies.
+
+Miss Mitford’s incessant work at this period, coupled with much
+domestic anxiety (for her mother’s health was then failing), made her
+possibly over anxious.
+
+“I shall have hard work,” she observes in a letter to a friend, “to
+write up to my own reputation, for certainly I am at present greatly
+overrated.” And alluding to the triumph of _Rienzi_ she says:—
+
+“Dramatic success, after all, is not so delicious, so glorious, so
+complete a gratification as in our secret longings we all expect to
+find. It is not satisfactory. It does not fill the heart.... It is an
+intoxication.... Within four-and-twenty hours [of the performance of
+_Rienzi_] I doubted if triumph there were, and more than doubted if it
+were deserved. It is ill-success that leads to self-assertion. Never in
+my life was I so conscious of my dramatic short-comings as on that day
+of imputed exaltation and vainglory.”
+
+But Mary’s fame as a dramatic author was growing in spite of her
+own modest estimate of her powers, and in spite also of many a
+disappointment that she had to endure. Her play of Charles I, the
+subject of which was suggested to her by Macready, was condemned by the
+Licenser, “who saw a danger to the State in permitting the trial of
+an English monarch to be represented on the stage.” It was forbidden,
+therefore, at the two great houses although it afterwards appeared at a
+minor theatre.
+
+The fate of another play, _Inez de Castro_, was still more unfortunate,
+for after having been rehearsed three times at the Lyceum Theatre,
+apparently with the approval of all concerned, it was suddenly
+withdrawn for some unknown reason. Fanny Kemble, whom Miss Mitford
+describes as “a girl of great ability,” was taking the part of the
+heroine.
+
+“Great at the moment were these anxieties and tribulations,” writes
+Miss Mitford in after life, “but it is good to observe in one’s own
+mind and good to tell others how just as the keenest physical pain is
+known to be soon forgotten, so in mental vicissitudes time carries away
+the bitter and leaves the sweet. The vexations and the injuries fade
+into dim distance and the kindness and the benefits shine vividly out.”
+
+An edition of her collected works was published in Philadelphia in the
+year 1841, which is prefaced by a short biography of the author written
+by James Crissy. It is pleasant therein to read his warm-hearted
+appreciation of her literary genius. He speaks of Miss Mitford as “a
+dramatist of no common power.” “In all her plays,” he says, “there
+is strong, vigorous writing—masculine in the free unhashed use of
+language, but wholly womanly in its purity from coarseness or licence
+and in its touches [of the] softest feeling and finest observation.”
+
+He goes on, however, to say: “But the claims of Miss Mitford to swell
+the list of _inventors_ [of new styles in literature] rest upon yet
+firmer grounds. They rest upon those exquisite sketches by which she
+has created a school of writing, homely but not vulgar, familiar but
+not breeding contempt.... Wherein the small events and the simple
+characters of rural life are made interesting by the truth and
+sprightliness with which they are represented.”
+
+In the Introduction to her “Dramatic Works,” Miss Mitford thus closes a
+detailed account of the composition and production of her plays:—
+
+“So much for the Tragedies. There would have been many more such but
+that the pressing necessity of earning money, and the uncertainties
+and the delays of the drama, at moments when delay or disappointment
+weighed upon me like a sin, made it a duty to turn away from the lofty
+steep of Tragic Poetry to the everyday path of Village Stories.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+À propos of these words and knowing that Miss Mitford’s greatest power
+lay in the writing of those very Village Stories, we would quote the
+words of Tennyson:—
+
+“Not once or twice in our fair island story The path of duty was the
+way to glory.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+FOREIGN NEIGHBOURS
+
+
+“One of the prettiest dwellings in our neighbourhood,” writes Miss
+Mitford in one of her stories, “is the Lime Cottage at Burley-Hatch.
+It consists of a low-browed habitation, so entirely covered with
+jessamine, honeysuckle, passion-flowers and china roses, as to resemble
+a bower, and is placed in the centre of a large garden. On either side
+of the neat gravel walk which leads from the outer gate to the door of
+the cottage stand the large and beautiful trees to which it owes its
+name; spreading their strong, broad shadow over the turf beneath, and
+sending, on a summer afternoon, their rich spring fragrance half across
+the irregular village green....
+
+“Such is the habitation of Thérèse de G., an _émigrée_ of distinction,
+whose aunt having married an English officer, was luckily able to
+afford her niece an asylum during the horrors of the Revolution,
+and to secure to her a small annuity and the Lime Cottage after her
+death. There she has lived for five-and-thirty years, gradually losing
+sight of her few and distant foreign connections, and finding all her
+happiness in her pleasant home and her kind neighbours—a standing
+lesson in cheerfulness and contentment.
+
+“A very popular person is Mademoiselle Thérèse—popular both with high
+and low; for the prejudice which the country people almost universally
+entertain against foreigners vanished directly before the charm of her
+manners.... She is so kind to them too, so liberal of the produce of
+her orchard and garden and so full of resources in their difficulties.
+Among the rich she is equally beloved. No party is complete without the
+pleasant French woman. Her conversation is not very powerful, not very
+brilliant—but then it is so good-natured, so genuine, so constantly
+up and alive;—to say nothing of the charm which it derives from her
+language, which is alternately the most graceful and purest French and
+the most diverting and absurd broken English....
+
+“Her appearance betrays her country almost as much as her speech. She
+is a French-looking little personage with a slight, active figure,
+exceedingly nimble and alert in every movement; a round and darkly
+complexioned face, somewhat faded and passée but still striking from
+the laughing eyes. Nevertheless, in her youth, she must have been
+pretty; so pretty that some of our young ladies, scandalised at finding
+their favourite an old maid, have invented sundry legends to excuse the
+solecism, and talk of duels fought _pour l’amour de ses beaux yeux_,
+and of a betrothed lover guillotined in the Revolution. And the thing
+may have been so; although one meets everywhere with old maids who
+have been pretty, and whose lovers have not been guillotined. I rather
+suspect our fair demoiselle of having been in her youth a little of a
+flirt.
+
+“Even during her residence at Burley-Hatch hath not she indulged
+in divers very distant, very discreet, very decorous, but still
+very evident flirtations? Did not Doctor Abdy, the portly, ruddy
+schoolmaster of B. dangle after her for three mortal years, holidays
+excepted? And did she not refuse him at last? And Mr. Foreclose, the
+thin, withered, wrinkled city solicitor, a man, so to say, smoke-dried,
+who comes down every year to Burley for the air, did not he do suit and
+service to her during four long vacations with the same ill-success?
+Was not Sir Thomas himself a little smitten? Nay, even now, does not
+the good major, a halting veteran of seventy—but really it is too
+bad to tell tales out of the parish—all that is certain is that
+Mademoiselle Thérèse might have changed her name long before now had
+she so chosen.
+
+“Her household consists of her little maid Betsy, a cherry-cheeked,
+blue-eyed country lass, who with a fair unmeaning countenance, copies
+the looks and gestures of her alert and vivacious mistress, and of a
+fat lap-dog, called Fido, silky, sleepy and sedate....
+
+“If everybody is delighted to receive this most welcome visitor, so is
+everybody delighted to accept her graceful invitations, and meet to eat
+strawberries at Burley-Hatch.
+
+“Oh, how pleasant are those summer afternoons, sitting under the
+blossomed limes, with the sun shedding a golden light through the
+broad branches, the bees murmuring overhead, roses and lilies all
+about us, and the choicest fruit served up in wicker baskets of her
+own making.... Those are pleasant meetings; nor are her little winter
+parties less agreeable, when to two or three female friends assembled
+round their coffee, she will tell thrilling stories of that terrible
+Revolution, so fertile in great crimes and great virtues. Or [relate]
+gayer anecdotes of the brilliant days preceding that convulsion, the
+days which Madame de Genlis has described so well, when Paris was the
+capital of pleasure, and amusement the business of life; illustrating
+her descriptions by a series of spirited drawings of costumes and
+characters done by herself, and always finishing by producing a group
+of Louis Seize, Marie Antoinette, the Dauphin, and Madame Elizabeth, as
+she had last seen them at Versailles—the only recollections that ever
+bring tears into her smiling eyes.
+
+“Madame Thérèse’s loyalty to the Bourbons was in truth a very real
+feeling. Her family had been about the Court, and she had imbibed
+an enthusiasm for the royal sufferers natural to a young and warm
+heart—she loved the Bourbons and hated Napoleon with like ardour. All
+her other French feelings had for some time been a little modified.
+She was not quite so sure as she had been that France was the only
+country, and Paris the only city of the world; that Shakespeare was a
+barbarian, and Milton no poet; that the perfume of English limes was
+nothing compared to French orange trees; that the sun never shone in
+England; and that sea-coal fires were bad things.... Her loyalty to her
+legitimate king was, however, as strong as ever, and that loyalty had
+nearly cost us our dear mademoiselle.
+
+“After the Restoration, she hastened, as fast as steamboat and
+diligence could carry her, to enjoy the delight of seeing once more
+the Bourbons and the Tuileries; took leave, between smiles and tears,
+of her friends, and of Burley-Hatch, carrying with her a branch of
+the lime-tree, then in blossom, and commissioning her old lover, Mr.
+Foreclose, to dispose of the cottage: but in less than three months,
+luckily before Mr. Foreclose had found a purchaser, mademoiselle came
+home again. She complained of nobody; but times were altered. The house
+in which she was born was pulled down; her friends were scattered, her
+kindred dead; Madame (la Duchess d’Angoulême) did not remember her
+... the King did not know her again (poor man! he had not seen her
+for these thirty years); Paris was a new city; the French were a new
+people; she missed the sea-coal fires; and for the stunted orange-trees
+at the Tuileries, what were they compared with the blossomed limes of
+Burley-Hatch!”[11]
+
+[Footnote 11: We think this place may have been intended for Burghfield
+Hatch.]
+
+Another foreign neighbour, described by Miss Mitford, was an old
+French _émigré_ who came to reside in “the small town of Hazelby”; a
+pretty little place where everything seemed at a standstill.... “It
+has not even a cheap shop,” she remarks, “for female gear.... The very
+literature of Hazelby is doled out at the pastry-cook’s, in a little
+one-windowed shop, kept by Matthew Wise. Tarts occupy one end of the
+counter and reviews the other; whilst the shelves are parcelled out
+between books, and dolls, and ginger-bread. It is a question by which
+of his trades poor Matthew gains least.”
+
+Here it was that the old _émigré_ lodged “in a low three-cornered room,
+over the little shop, which Matthew Wise designated his ‘first floor.’”
+Little was known of him, but that he was a thin, pale, foreign-looking
+gentleman, who shrugged his shoulders in speaking, took a great deal
+of snuff, and made a remarkably low bow. But it soon appeared from a
+written paper placed in a conspicuous part of Matthew’s shop, that he
+was an Abbé, and that he would do himself the honour of teaching French
+to any of the nobility and gentry of Hazelby who might think fit to
+employ him. Pupils dropped in rather slowly. The curate’s daughters,
+and the attorney’s son, and Miss Deane the milliner—but she found the
+language difficult, and left off, asserting that M. l’Abbé’s snuff made
+her nervous. At last poor M. l’Abbé fell ill, really ill, dangerously
+ill, and Matthew Wise went in all haste to summon Mr. Hallett (the
+apothecary)....
+
+“Now Mr. Hallett was what is usually called a rough diamond. He piqued
+himself on being a plain downright Englishman [and] he had such an
+aversion to a Frenchman, in general, as a cat has to a dog: and was
+wont to erect himself into an attitude of defiance and wrath at the
+mere sight of the object of his antipathy. He hated and despised the
+whole nation, abhorred the language, and “would as lief,” he assured
+Matthew, “have been called in to a toad.” He went, however, grew
+interested in the case, which was difficult and complicated; exerted
+all his skill, and in about a month accomplished a cure.”
+
+By this time he had also become interested in his patient, whose piety,
+meekness, and resignation had won upon him in an extraordinary degree.
+The disease was gone, but a languor and lowness remained, which Mr.
+Hallett soon traced to a less curable disorder, poverty. The thought
+of the debt to himself evidently weighed on the poor Abbé’s spirits,
+and our good apothecary at last determined to learn French purely to
+liquidate his own long bill.
+
+It was the drollest thing in the world to see this pupil of fifty,
+whose habits were so entirely unfitted for a learner, conning his
+task.... He was a most unpromising scholar, shuffled the syllables
+together in a manner that would seem incredible, and stumbled at every
+step of the pronunciation, against which his English tongue rebelled
+amain. Every now and then he solaced himself with a fluent volley of
+execrations in his own language, which the Abbé understood well enough
+to return, after rather a polite fashion, in French. It was a most
+amusing scene. But the motive! the generous noble motive!
+
+M. l’Abbé after a few lessons detected this delicate artifice, and,
+touched almost to tears, insisted on dismissing his pupil, who, on his
+side, declared that nothing should induce him to abandon his studies.
+At last they came to a compromise. The cherry-cheeked Margaret ... [who
+kept the doctor’s house] took her uncle’s post as a learner, which she
+filled in a manner much more satisfactory; and the good old Frenchman
+not only allowed Mr. Hallett to administer gratis to his ailments, but
+partook of his Sunday dinner as long as he lived.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+AGREEABLE JAUNTS
+
+
+Mary Russell Mitford visited Southampton in the year 1812, and although
+only one of her letters written at that time has been preserved it
+gives us a vivid picture of her impressions of the place. The letter is
+dated September 3rd.
+
+“I have just returned from Southampton,” she writes to Sir William
+Elford. “Have you ever been at that lovely spot, which combines all
+that is enchanting in wood and land and water with all that is ‘buxom,
+blythe and debonair’ in society—that charming town, which is not a
+watering-place only because it is something better?... Southampton
+has, in my eyes, an attraction independent even of its scenery in the
+total absence of the vulgar hurry of business or the chilly apathy of
+fashion. It is indeed all life, all gaiety; but it has an airiness, an
+animation which might become the capital of Fairyland. The very motion
+of its playful waters, uncontaminated by commerce or by war, seems in
+unison with the graceful yachts that sail upon their bosom.”
+
+[Illustration: THE WEST GATE, SOUTHAMPTON]
+
+She admired the ruins of Netley Abbey, and writes in one of her poems:—
+
+“Methinks that e’en from Netley’s gloom To look upon the tide Seems
+gazing from the shadowy tomb On life and all its pride.”
+
+At a much later date Miss Mitford visited Bath.
+
+“Bath is a very elegant and classical-looking city,” she writes,
+“standing upon a steep hillside, its regular white buildings rising
+terrace above terrace, crescent above crescent, glittering in the sun,
+and charmingly varied by the green trees of its park and gardens....
+Very pleasant is Bath to look at. But when contrasted with its old
+reputation as the favourite resort of the noble and the fair ... it is
+impossible not to feel that the spirit has departed; that it is a city
+of memories, the very Pompeii of watering-places.”
+
+[Illustration: PULTENEY BRIDGE]
+
+Again she writes: “A place full of associations is Bath. When we had
+fairly done with the real people there were great fictions to fall
+back upon, and I am not sure ... that those who never lived except in
+the writings of other people—the heroes and heroines of Miss Austen,
+for example—are not the more real of the two. Her exquisite story of
+_Persuasion_ absolutely haunted me. Whenever it rained I thought of
+Anne Elliott meeting Captain Wentworth, when driven by a shower to
+take refuge in a shoe-shop. Whenever I got out of breath in climbing
+uphill I thought of that same charming Anne Elliott, and of that ascent
+from the lower town to the upper, during which all her tribulations
+ceased. And when at last by dint of trotting up one street and down
+another I incurred the unromantic calamity of a blister on the heel,
+even that grievance became classical by the recollection of the similar
+catastrophe which, in consequence of her peregrinations with the
+Admiral, had befallen dear Mrs. Croft.”
+
+Miss Mitford writes in one of her letters of a “most agreeable jaunt to
+Richmond.”
+
+“God made the country and man made the town!” “I wonder,” she says, “in
+which of the two divisions Cowper would place Richmond. Every Londoner
+would laugh at the rustic who should call it town, and with foreigners
+it passes pretty generally for a sample (the only one they see) of the
+rural villages of England; and yet it is no more like the country, the
+real untrimmed genuine country, than a garden is like a field. Richmond
+is Nature in a court dress, but still Nature—aye, and very lovely
+nature too, gay and happy and elegant as one of Charles the Second’s
+beauties, and with as little to remind one of the penalty of labour, or
+poverty, or grief, or crime. To the casual visitor (at least) Richmond
+appears as a sort of fairyland, a piece of old Arcadia, a holiday spot
+for ladies and gentlemen, where they had a happy out-of-door life, like
+the gay folks in Watteau’s pictures, and have nothing to do with the
+workaday world....
+
+“Here is Richmond Park, where Jeanie Deans and the Duke of Argyle met
+Queen Caroline; it has been improved, unluckily, and the walk where the
+interview took place no longer exists. To make some amends, however,
+for this disappointment, [we are told that] in removing some furniture
+from an old house in the town three portraits were discovered in the
+wainscot, George the Second, a staring likeness, between Lady Suffolk
+and Queen Caroline. The paintings were the worst of that bad era, but
+the position of the three and the recollection of Jeanie Deans was
+irresistible; those pictures ought never to be separated.”
+
+“The principal charm of this smiling landscape,” she continues, “is the
+river, the beautiful river. Brimming to its very banks of meadow or
+of garden; clear, pure and calm as the bright sky which is reflected
+in clearer brightness from its bosom.” As her boat glides along its
+smooth surface amid scenes of ever-changing beauty and interest,
+Miss Mitford’s thoughts turn to Sir Joshua Reynolds. “His villa is
+here,” she exclaims, “rich in remembrances of Johnson and Boswell and
+Goldsmith and Burke; here again the elegant house of Owen Cambridge;
+close by the celebrated villa of Pope, where one seems to see again
+Swift and Gay, St. John and Arbuthnot. A stone’s-throw off the still
+more celebrated Gothic toy-shop, Strawberry Hill, which we all know
+so well from the minute and vivid descriptions of its master, the
+most amusing of letter-writers, the most fashionable of antiquaries,
+the most learned of _petit-maîtres_, the cynical, finical, delightful
+Horace Walpole.”
+
+Then Miss Mitford tells us of “the landing at Hampton Court, the palace
+of the cartoons and of the ‘Rape of the Lock,’ and lastly of her coming
+home with her mind full of the divine Raphael ... strangely chequered
+and intersected by vivid images of the fair Belinda, and of that
+inimitable game at ombre which will live longer than any painting, and
+can only die with the language.”
+
+Here we would venture to give some passages from the “Rape of the Lock”
+for the benefit of those who may not as yet have made the acquaintance
+of the “fair Belinda.” This poem, so full of wit and fairy fancy, was
+written by Pope to commemorate an event which had actually occurred. It
+happened when a party of noble friends had met together in a stately
+room in Hampton Court Palace and were gathered around a table prepared
+for a game at ombre.
+
+The heroine Belinda (whose real name was Arabella Fermor), famous
+for her beauty and for her “sprightly mind,” was wooed by a certain
+young Lord Petre, who ardently desired to possess one of “the shining
+ringlets” that decked “her smooth ivory neck.” Meanwhile invisible
+sylphs and sprites, aware that some “dire disaster” threatens to befall
+the unconscious Belinda, hover protectingly about her. Even the very
+cards take part in the drama, giving omens alternately of good or of
+evil. At last Belinda wins the game and rejoices, but all too soon it
+seems in her triumph.
+
+The cards removed
+
+“the board with cups and spoons is crowned, The berries crackle and the
+mill turns round,
+
+but coffee alas!
+
+Sent up in vapours to the Baron’s brain, New stratagems, the radiant
+Lock to gain. ... Just then Clarissa drew, with tempting grace,
+A two-edged weapon from her shining case. He takes the gift with
+reverence and extends The little engine on his fingers’ ends; This just
+behind Belinda’s neck he spread As o’er the fragrant steams she bends
+her head. Swift to the Lock a thousand sprites repair, A thousand wings
+by turns blow back the hair;
+
+The peer now spreads the glittering forfex wide To enclose the Lock;
+now joins it to divide.  ... The meeting points the sacred hair
+dissever From the fair head, for ever and for ever!
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Lock, obtained with guilt and kept with pain, In every place is
+sought, but sought in vain: With such a prize no mortal must be blest,
+So Heaven decrees: with Heaven who can contest? ... Then cease, bright
+nymph! to mourn thy ravished hair Which adds new glory to the shining
+sphere! Not all the tresses that fair heads can boast Shall draw such
+envy as the Lock you lost. For after all the murders of your eye, When
+after millions slain, yourself shall die. ... This Lock the Muse shall
+consecrate to fame, And ‘midst the stars inscribe Belinda’s name.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+UFTON COURT
+
+
+One of the most striking buildings in the beautiful county of Berkshire
+often visited by Miss Mitford is Ufton Court, a stately manor-house of
+considerable extent “that stands on the summit of a steep acclivity
+looking over a rich and fertile valley to a range of wooded hills.”
+
+The court is approached by a double avenue of oaks, on emerging from
+which the fine old Elizabethan mansion is seen rising beyond its
+smooth-spreading lawns and shady trees. It is surmounted “by more gable
+ends than a lazy man would care to count on a sunny day,” and by tall
+clustered chimneys. Its long façade is flanked by two projecting wings,
+and in the centre is a large porch, forming the letter E in the true
+Elizabethan style. The entrance door of solid oak studded with great
+nails might well have resisted an ancient battering-ram.
+
+[Illustration: THE PORCH]
+
+In the northern wing of Ufton Court we come once more upon associations
+with the name of Arabella Fermor—the “fair Belinda” of the “Rape
+of the Lock.” Here it was that she came to live upon her marriage in
+1715 with Mr. Francis Perkins, a member of an ancient Roman Catholic
+family. Mr. Perkins in honour of his bride had the rooms in this wing
+newly decorated in the elegant style of the early eighteenth century.
+The ceiling of the larger room, which is still called Belinda’s
+Parlour, is adorned with mouldings of graceful design, while the small
+panelling on the walls was replaced by the tall decorated panels then
+just come into fashion. In the same way a lofty window was introduced
+to shed light upon the whole.
+
+[Illustration: ARABELLA FERMOR (MRS. PERKINS)
+
+_By W. Sykes_]
+
+[Illustration: FRANCIS PERKINS
+
+_By W. Sykes_]
+
+We learn from an old list of the furniture of Ufton Court that in a
+small room near to Belinda’s Parlour there stood formerly a harpsichord
+and an ombre table, the latter singularly suggestive of the heroine of
+the “Rape of the Lock.”[12]
+
+[Footnote 12: See _The History of Ufton Court_, by H. Mary Sharp.]
+
+Two fine portraits exist of Mr. and Mrs. Perkins, which probably hung
+in Belinda’s room. They are both signed with the name of W. Sykes, an
+artist who flourished in the early part of the eighteenth century. That
+of Mrs. Perkins must have been painted before her marriage, as her
+maiden name is inscribed upon the picture, together with two lines
+from the “Rape of the Lock,” thus:—
+
+
+_Mrs. Arabella Fermor_
+
+“_On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,_ _Which Jews might
+kiss and Infidels adore._”
+
+The lady’s dress is of a soft greenish blue colour so often seen in
+portraits of that period.
+
+The only engravings which exist of these portraits were taken from
+copies of them made by Gardner, but they are not satisfactory, and it
+is to the kindness of the present owner of the original pictures that
+we are indebted for permission to reproduce them in this work.
+
+Mary Russell Mitford has written much of Ufton Court. She delighted in
+wandering about the old rambling mansion. “It retained strong marks of
+former stateliness,” she writes, “in the fine proportion of the lofty
+and spacious apartments, the rich mouldings of the ceilings, the carved
+chimney-pieces and panelled walls; while the fragments of stained glass
+in the windows of the great gallery, the relics of mouldering tapestry
+that fluttered against the walls, and above all the secret chamber
+constructed for a priest’s hiding-place in the days of Protestant
+persecution conspired to give Mrs. Radcliffe-like Castle of Udolpho
+sort of romance to the manor-house.”
+
+[Illustration: BELINDA’S PARLOUR]
+
+“The priest’s hiding-place,” she continues, “was discovered early in
+the nineteenth century. A narrow ladder led down into this gloomy
+resort, and at the bottom was found a crucifix. As many as a dozen
+carefully masked openings into dark hiding-places have been discovered
+in this storey; no doubt they were connected one with the other,
+although the clue to the labyrinth is wanting.”
+
+A broad terrace walk lies behind the Court, and from this terrace a
+flight of stone steps of quaint construction leads down to a beautiful
+walled garden. Here we can imagine Belinda and her friends enjoying the
+delights of a summer evening and surveying the wide view which lies
+beyond the garden of sloping fields to a wooded valley watered by a
+rushing stream.
+
+A pathway of the softest turf leads from the foot of the steps across
+the garden to the pillars of a former gateway surmounted by stone balls
+and flanked by two ancient gnarled yews, which stand like sentinels
+to guard the entrance. In the centre of the garden the turf widens
+to a circular piece of lawn, upon which stands an old sundial. It is
+surrounded by gay flowers of all sorts, and is partly enclosed by a
+rustic fence, forming a fairy garden as it were within the great garden.
+
+[Illustration: THE GARDEN STEPS]
+
+Beyond the main boundary wall the greensward slopes down abruptly to a
+chain of fish ponds. These must have been kept neat and trim when fish,
+so much needed for a Roman Catholic household, was difficult to obtain
+beyond the precincts of the Court. But the ponds are beautiful in
+their neglected condition, with their luxuriant growth of water plants,
+their surrounding trees, whose branches are reflected below, and the
+occasional glimpse of a moorhen skimming past.
+
+Miss Mitford speaks of there being “on the lawn in front of the mansion
+some magnificent elms, splendid both in size and form, and one gigantic
+broad-browed oak—the real oak of the English forest—that must have seen
+many centuries.” Its upper boughs have now gone, but its huge trunk and
+lower foliage still remain.
+
+It is of this oak that a poetess of the day wrote:—
+
+“Triumphant o’er the tooth of time And o’er the woodman’s blade, Yon
+oak still rears its head sublime And spreads its ample shade.”
+
+À propos of Ufton Court, with its ingeniously contrived hiding-places
+for unhappy refugees, Miss Mitford writes: “I am indebted to my friend
+Mrs. Hughes for the account of another hiding-place in which the
+interest is ensured by that charm of charms—an unsolved and insoluble
+mystery.”
+
+On some alterations being projected in a large mansion in Scotland
+belonging to the late Sir George Warrender, the architect, after
+examining and, so to say, studying the house, declared that there was
+a space in the centre for which there was no accounting, and that there
+must certainly be a concealed chamber. Neither master nor servants had
+ever heard of such a thing, and the assertion was treated with some
+scorn. The architect, however, persisted, and at last proved by the
+sure test of measurement ... that the space he had spoken of did exist,
+and as no entrance of any sort could be discovered from the surrounding
+rooms it was resolved to make an incision in the wall. A large and
+lofty apartment was disclosed, richly and completely furnished as a
+bed-chamber; a large four-post bed, spread with blankets, counterpanes,
+and the finest sheets was prepared for instant occupation. The very
+wax lights in the candlesticks stood ready for lighting. The room was
+heavily hung and carpeted as if to deaden sound, and was of course
+perfectly dark. No token was found to indicate the intended occupant,
+for it did not appear to have been used, and the general conjecture
+was that the refuge had been prepared for some unfortunate Jacobite in
+the ‘15, who had either fallen into the hands of the Government or had
+escaped from the kingdom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+A FURTHER GLANCE AT OUR VILLAGE
+
+
+Miss Mitford writes in 1830:—
+
+“Our village continues to stand pretty much where it did, and has
+undergone as little change in the last two years as any hamlet of its
+inches in the county.... I have hinted that it had a trick of standing
+still, of remaining stationary, unchanged and unimproved in this most
+changeable and improving world.... There it stands, the same long
+straggling street of pretty cottages divided by pretty gardens, wholly
+unchanged in size or appearance, unincreased and undiminished by a
+single brick.
+
+“Ah, the in-and-out cottage! the dear, dear home!... No changes there!
+except that the white kitten who sits purring at the window under the
+great myrtle has succeeded to his lamented grandfather, our beautiful
+Persian cat. I cannot find an alteration. To be sure, yesterday evening
+a slight misfortune happened to our goodly tenement, occasioned by the
+unlucky diligence which, under the conduct of a sleepy coachman and
+a restive horse, contrived to knock down and demolish the wall of our
+court, and fairly to drive through the front garden, thereby destroying
+sundry curious stocks, carnations and geraniums. It is a mercy that
+the unruly steed was content with battering the wall.... There was
+quite din enough without any addition. The three insides (ladies)
+squalling from the interior of that commodious vehicle; the outsides
+(gentlemen) swearing on the roof; the coachman still half asleep, but
+unconsciously blowing his horn; we in the house screaming and scolding;
+the passers-by shouting and hallooing; May, who little brooked such an
+invasion of her territories, barking in her tremendous lion note, and
+putting down the other noises like a clap of thunder. The passengers,
+coachman, horses and spectators all righted at last, and no harm done
+but to my flowers and to the wall. May, however, stands bewailing
+the ruins, for that low wall was her favourite haunt; she used to
+parade backwards and forwards on the top of it as if to show herself,
+just after the manner of a peacock on the top of a house. But the
+wall is to be rebuilt to-morrow with old weather-stained bricks—no
+patchwork! exactly in the same form; May herself will not find out the
+difference, so that in the way of alteration this little misfortune
+will pass for nothing. Neither have we any improvements worth calling
+such, except that the wheeler’s green door has been retouched out of
+the same pot (as I judge from the tint) with which he furbished up
+our new-old pony-chaise; that the shop window of our neighbour, the
+universal dealer Bromley’s, hath been beautified, and his name and
+calling splendidly set forth in yellow letters on a black ground; and
+that our landlord of the ‘Rose’ has hoisted a new sign of unparalleled
+splendour.”
+
+Miss Mitford happened to possess an “historic staff” which she greatly
+valued, and which had been handed down from one relative to another
+from its former owner—that Duchess of Athol and Lady of Man of whom
+mention has been made in an earlier chapter.
+
+At the period we are writing of Miss Mitford used the staff rather as
+an ornament than otherwise, being then, as she says, “the best walker
+of her years for a dozen miles round”; but in later life she was glad
+of its support. “Now this staff,” she writes, “one of the oldest
+friends I have in the world, is pretty nearly as well known as myself
+in our Berkshire village.”
+
+One day the stick was not to be found in its usual place in the hall,
+“it was missing, was gone, was lost!” A great search was made for it
+far and wide. “Really, ma’am,” quoth her faithful maid, “there is
+some comfort in the interest the people take in the stick! If it were
+anything alive—the pony, or Fanchon, or ourselves—they could not be
+more sorry. Master Brent, ma’am, at the top of the street, he promises
+to speak to everybody, so does William Wheeler, who goes everywhere,
+and Mrs. Bromley at the shop; and the carrier and the postman. I
+daresay the whole parish knows it by this time! I have not been outside
+the gate to-day, but a dozen people have asked me if we had heard of
+_our_ stick!”
+
+The bustle of the village and the anxiety of Mary were, however, soon
+to be allayed. “At ten o’clock one evening a rustling of the front
+door latch was heard, together with a pattering of little feet, then
+the little feet advanced into the house and some little tongues gained
+courage to tell their good news—the stick was found!
+
+An intimate friend of Miss Mitford’s, a certain Miss James, of Binfield
+Park, had been staying for a short time at the inn hard by, on which
+occasion Mary addressed the following lines to her:—
+
+“The village inn! The wood-fire burning bright, The solitary taper’s
+flickering light! The lowly couch! the casement swinging free! My
+noblest friend, was this a place for thee?  Yet in that humble room,
+from all apart, We poured forth mind for mind and heart for heart,
+Ranging from idlest words and tales of mirth To the deep mysteries of
+heaven and earth.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+No fitting place; yet (inconsistent strain And selfish) come, I
+prythee! come again.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a story entitled _The Black Velvet Bag_ Miss Mitford has given
+an amusing account of some of her shopping experiences in “Belford
+Regis,” her name for Reading, where the various purchases for the small
+household of Three Mile Cross were usually made.
+
+“Last Friday fortnight,” she writes, “was one of those anomalies in the
+weather with which we English people are visited for our sins; a day
+of intolerable wind and insupportable dust, an equinoctial gale out
+of season, a piece of March unnaturally foisted into the very heart
+of May.... On that day did I set forth to the good town of B—— on the
+feminine errand called shopping. I am a true daughter of Eve, a dear
+lover of bargains and bright colours, and, knowing this, have generally
+been wise enough to keep as much as I can out of temptation. At last
+a sort of necessity arose for some slight purchases. The shopping was
+inevitable, and I undertook the whole concern at once, most heroically
+resolving to spend just so much and no more, and half comforting
+myself that I had a full morning’s work of indispensables and should
+have no time for extraneous extravagances.
+
+“There was to be sure a prodigious accumulation of errands and wants.
+The evening before they had been set down in great form on a slip of
+paper headed thus—‘things wanted.’ To how many and various catalogues
+that title would apply—from him who wants a blue riband to him who
+wants bread and cheese! My list was astounding. It was written in
+double columns in an invisible hand.... In good open printing it would
+have cut a respectable figure as a catalogue and filled a decent number
+of pages—a priced catalogue too, for as I had a given sum to carry
+to market I amused myself with calculating the proper and probable
+cost of every article, in which process I most egregiously cheated
+the shop-keeper and myself by copying with the credulity of hope from
+the puffs of newspapers, and expecting to buy fine solid wearable
+goods at advertising prices. In this way I stretched my money a good
+deal further than it would go, and swelled my catalogue, so that at
+last, in spite of compression, I had no room for another word, and was
+obliged to crowd several small but important articles such as cotton,
+laces, pins, needles, shoe-strings, etc., into that very irregular
+and disorderly store-house—that place where most things deposited are
+lost—_my memory_, by courtesy so called.
+
+“The written list was safely consigned, with a well-filled purse, to
+my usual repository, a black velvet bag, and the next morning I and
+my bag, with its nicely balanced contents of wants and money, were
+safely convoyed in a little open carriage to the good town of B——.
+There I dismounted and began to bargain most vigorously, visiting the
+cheapest shops, cheapening the cheapest articles, yet wisely buying
+the strongest and the best, a little astonished at first to find
+everything so much dearer than I had set it down, yet soon reconciled
+to this misfortune by the magical influence which shopping possesses
+over a woman’s fancy—all the sooner reconciled as the monetary list lay
+unlooked at and unthought of in its grave receptacle, the black velvet
+bag.
+
+“On I went with an air of cheerful business, of happy importance, till
+my money began to wax small. Certain small aberrations had occurred,
+too, in my economy. One article that had happened, by rare accident,
+to be below my calculation, and indeed below any calculation—calico at
+ninepence, fine, thick, strong, wide calico at ninepence absolutely
+enchanted me and I took the whole piece; then after buying M.
+[material for] a gown according to order, I saw one that I liked better
+and bought that too. Then I fell in love, was actually captivated by a
+sky-blue sash and handkerchief,—not the poor, thin greeny colour which
+usually passes under that dishonoured name, but the rich full tint of
+the noonday sky, and a cap riband really pink that might have vied
+with the inside leaves of a moss-rose. Then in hunting after cheapness
+I got into obscure shops where, not finding what I asked for, I was
+fain to take something that they had, purely to make a compensation
+for the trouble of lugging out drawers and answering questions. Lastly
+I was fairly coaxed into some articles by the irresistibility of the
+sellers, [in one case] by the fluent impudence of a lying shopman who,
+under cover of a well-darkened window, affirmed on his honour that his
+brown satin was a perfect match to my green pattern, and forced the
+said satin down my throat accordingly. With these helps my money melted
+all too fast; at half-past five my purse was entirely empty, and as
+shopping with an empty purse has by no means the relish of shopping
+with a full one I was quite willing and ready to go home to dinner,
+pleased as a child with my purchases and wholly unsuspecting the sins
+of omission, the errands unperformed, which were the natural result of
+my unconsulted _memoranda_ and my treacherous memory.
+
+“Home I returned a happy and proud woman, wise in my own conceit, a
+thrifty fashion-monger, laden like a pedlar, with huge packages in
+stout brown holland tied up with whipcord, and genteel little parcels
+papered and pack-threaded in shopman-like style. At last we were
+safely stowed in the pony-chaise, which had much ado to hold us, my
+little black bag as usual in my lap. When we ascended the steep hill
+out of B—— a sudden puff of wind took at once my cottage-bonnet and my
+large cloak, blew the bonnet off my head so that it hung behind me,
+suspended by the riband, and fairly snapped the string of the cloak,
+which flew away much in the style of John Gilpin’s renowned in story.
+My companion, pitying my plight, exerted himself manfully to regain
+the fly-away garments, shoved the head into the bonnet, or the bonnet
+over the head (I do not know which phrase best describes the manœuvre),
+with one hand and recovered the refractory cloak with the other. It was
+wonderful what a tug he was forced to give before that obstinate cloak
+could be brought round; it was swelled with the wind like a bladder,
+animated, so to say, like a living thing, and threatened to carry pony
+and chaise and riders and packages backward down the hill, as if it had
+been a sail of a ship. At last the contumacious garment was mastered.
+We righted, and by dint of sitting sideways and turning my back on my
+kind comrade, I got home without any further damage than the loss of
+my bag, which, though not missed before the chaise had been unladen,
+had undoubtedly gone by the board in the gale, and I lamented my trusty
+companion without in the least foreseeing the use it would probably be
+of to my reputation.
+
+“Immediately after dinner I produced my purchases. They were much
+admired, and the quantity when spread out in our little room being
+altogether dazzling, and the quality satisfactory, the cheapness was
+never doubted. Nobody calculated, and the bills being really lost in
+the lost bag, and the particular prices just as much lost in memory
+(the ninepenny calico was the only article whose cost occurred to me),
+I passed, without telling anything like a fib, merely by a discreet
+silence, for the best and thriftiest bargainer that ever went shopping.
+After some time spent very pleasantly in admiration on one side and
+display on the other we were interrupted by the demand for some of the
+little articles which I had forgotten.
+
+“‘The sewing-silk, please, ma’am.’
+
+“‘Sewing-silk! I don’t know—look about.’
+
+“Ah! she might look long enough! no sewing-silk was there. ‘Very
+strange.’
+
+“Presently came other enquiries. ‘Where’s the tape?’ ‘The tape!’
+
+“‘Yes, my dear; and the needles, pins, cotton, stay-laces, boot-laces.’
+
+“‘The bobbin, the ferret, shirt buttons, shoe-strings?’ quoth she of
+the sewing-silk, taking up the cry, and forthwith began a search.... At
+last she suddenly desisted from her rummage.
+
+“‘Without doubt, ma’am, they are in the reticule, and all lost,’ said
+she in a very pathetic tone.
+
+“‘Really,’ said I, a little conscious stricken, ‘I don’t recollect,
+perhaps I might forget.’
+
+“‘But you never could forget so many things; besides, you wrote them
+down.’
+
+“‘I don’t know. I am not sure.’ But I was not listened to; Harriet’s
+conjecture had been metamorphosed into a certainty; all my sins of
+omission were stowed in the reticule, and before bed-time the little
+black bag held forgotten things enough to fill a sack.
+
+“Never was reticule so lamented by all but its owner; a boy was
+immediately dispatched to look for it, and on his returning
+empty-handed there was even a talk of having it cried. My care, on the
+other hand, was all directed to prevent its being found. I had had the
+good luck to lose it in a suburb of B—— renowned for filching, and I
+remembered that the street was at that moment full of people ... so I
+went to bed in the comfortable assurance that it was gone for ever.
+
+“But there is nothing certain in this world—not even a thief’s
+dishonesty. Two old women, who had pounced at once on my valuable
+property, quarrelled about the plunder, and one of them in a fit of
+resentment at being cheated of her share went to the mayor of B—— and
+informed against her companion. The mayor, an intelligent and active
+magistrate, immediately took the disputed bag and all its contents
+into his own possession, and as he is also a man of great politeness
+he restored it as soon as possible to the right owner. The very first
+thing that saluted my eyes when I awoke in the morning was a note from
+Mr. Mayor with a sealed packet. The fatal truth was visible. There
+it lay, that identical black bag, with its name-tickets, its cambric
+handkerchief, its unconsulted list and its thirteen bills.... I had
+recovered my reticule and lost my reputation!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+ECCENTRIC NEIGHBOURS
+
+
+Mary Russell Mitford had strong likes and dislikes. Her American friend
+Mr. James T. Fields, who knew her well, remarks:[13] “She loathed mere
+dandies, and there were no epithets too hot for her contempt in that
+direction. Old beaux she heartily despised, and speaking of one whom
+she had known, I remember she quoted with a fine scorn this appropriate
+passage from Dickens: ‘Ancient, dandified men, those crippled
+_invalides_ from the campaign of vanity, where the only powder was
+hair-powder and the only bullets fancy balls.’”
+
+[Footnote 13: See _Yesterdays with Authors_.]
+
+In one of her stories we come upon such a character—Mr. Thompson as she
+calls him—a gentleman who had just arrived from London, and whom she
+met at the house of a friend.
+
+“Mr. Thompson was a gentleman of about—Pshaw! nothing is so impolite
+as to go guessing how many years a man may have lived in this most
+excellent world, especially when it is perfectly clear from his dress
+and demeanour that the register of his birth is the last document
+relating to himself which he would care to see produced.
+
+“Mr. Thompson then was a gentleman of no particular age, not quite so
+young as he had been, but still in very tolerable preservation, being
+pretty exactly that which is understood by the phrase an Old Beau.”
+
+And then, after describing the very artificial appearance of his
+physiognomy, she goes on to say: “Altogether it was a head calculated
+to convey a very favourable impression of the different artists
+employed in getting it up.”
+
+A very different personage to the Old Beau is described by Miss Mitford
+in a tale entitled _An Admiral on Shore_.
+
+Admiral Floyd, for so she calls him, had recently come with his wife to
+reside in the neighbourhood, and it was when paying a call upon them in
+their new home—a fine old mansion standing in beautiful grounds, known
+as the White House at Hannonby—that she first made his acquaintance.
+
+“I had been proceeding to call on our new neighbours,” writes Miss
+Mitford, “when a very unaccountable noise induced me to pause at the
+entrance; a moment’s observation explained the nature of the sound. The
+Admiral was shooting wasps with a pocket pistol.... There under the
+shade of tall elms sat the veteran, a little old withered man, very
+like a pocket pistol himself, brown, succinct, grave and fiery. He wore
+an old-fashioned naval uniform of blue, faced with white, which set off
+his mahogany countenance, drawn into a thousand deep wrinkles.... At
+his side stood a very tall, masculine, large-boned, middle-aged woman,
+something like a man in petticoats, whose face, in spite of a quantity
+of rouge and a small portion of modest assurance, might still be called
+handsome, and could never be mistaken for belonging to other than an
+Irish woman.... A younger lady was watching them at a little distance
+apparently as much amused as myself. On her advancing to meet me the
+pistol was put down and the Admiral joined us. We were acquainted in
+a moment, and before the end of my visit he had shown me all over his
+house and told me the whole history of his life and adventures.
+
+“At twelve years old he was sent to sea, and had remained there ever
+since till now, when an unlucky promotion had sent him ashore and
+seemed likely to keep him there. I never saw a man so unaffectedly
+displeased with his own title.
+
+“Being, however, on land, his first object was to make his residence
+as much like a man-of-war as possible, or rather as much like that
+beau-ideal of a habitation, his last frigate, the _Mermaiden_, in which
+he had by different prizes made above sixty thousand pounds. By that
+standard his calculations were regulated. All the furniture of the
+White House at Hannonby was adapted to the proportions of His Majesty’s
+ship the _Mermaiden_. The great drawing-room was fitted up exactly on
+the model of her cabin, and the whole of that spacious and commodious
+mansion made to resemble as much as possible that wonderfully
+inconvenient abode, the inside of a ship; everything crammed into the
+smallest possible compass, space most unnecessarily economized and
+contrivances devised for all those matters which need no contriving at
+all. He victualled the house as for an East India voyage, served out
+the provisions in rations, and swung the whole family in hammocks.
+
+“It will easily be believed that these innovations in a small village
+in a Midland county, where nineteen-twentieths of the inhabitants
+had never seen a piece of water larger than Hannonby great pond,
+occasioned no small commotion. The poor Admiral had his own troubles;
+at first every living thing about the place rebelled—there was a
+general mutiny; the very cocks and hens, whom he had crammed up in
+coops in the poultry yard, screamed aloud for liberty; and the pigs,
+ducks and geese, equally prisoners, squeaked and gabbled for water; the
+cows lowed in their stall; the sheep bleated in their pens; the whole
+livestock of Hannonby was in durance.
+
+“The most unmanageable of these complainers were, of course, the
+servants; with the men, after a little while, he got on tolerably,
+sternness and grog (the wind and sun of the fable) conquered them.
+His staunchest opponents were of the other sex, the whole tribe of
+housemaids and kitchenmaids abhorred him to a woman, and plagued and
+thwarted him every hour of the day. He, on his part, returned their
+aversion with interest; talked of female stupidity, female awkwardness
+and female dirt, and threatened to compound an household of the crew
+of the _Mermaiden_ that should shame all the twirlers of mops and
+brandishers of brooms in the county.
+
+“Especially he used to vaunt the abilities of a certain Bill Jones as
+the best laundress, sempstress, cook and housemaid in the navy; him
+he was determined to procure to keep his refractory household in some
+order; accordingly he wrote to desire his presence, and Bill, unable to
+resist the summons of his old commander, arrived accordingly....
+
+“The dreaded major-domo turned out to be a smart young sailor of
+four or five-and-twenty, with an arch smile, a bright, merry eye and
+a most knowing nod, by no means insensible to female objurgation or
+indifferent to female charms. The women of the house, particularly
+the pretty ones, soon perceived their power, and as the Admirable
+Crichton of His Majesty’s ship the _Mermaiden_ had amongst his other
+accomplishments the address completely to govern his master, all was
+soon in the smoothest track possible.... Under his wise direction and
+discreet patronage a peace was patched up between the Admiral and his
+rebellious handmaids.
+
+“Soothed, guided and humoured by his trusty adherent, and influenced
+perhaps by the force of example and the effect of the land breeze which
+he had never breathed so long before, our worthy veteran soon began to
+show symptoms of a man of this world. He took to gardening and farming,
+for which Bill Jones had also a taste, set free his prisoners in the
+_basse-cour_ to the unutterable glorification and crowing of cock and
+hen and gabbling of goose and turkey, and enlarged his own walk from
+pacing backwards and forwards in the dining-room, followed by his old
+shipmates, a Newfoundland dog and a tame goat, into a stroll round his
+own grounds, to the great delight of those faithful attendants.
+
+“... Amongst the country people he soon became popular. They liked the
+testy little gentleman, who dispensed his beer and grog so bountifully,
+and talked to them so freely. He would have his own way to be sure,
+but then he paid for it; besides, he entered into their tastes and
+amusements, promoted May-games, revels and other country sports,
+patronized dancing dogs and monkeys and bespoke plays in barns. Above
+all he had an exceeding partiality for vagrants, strollers, gipsies and
+such like persons, listened to their tales with a delightful simplicity
+of belief, pitied them, relieved them, fought their battles at the
+bench and the vestry, and got into two or three scrapes with constables
+and magistrates by the activity of his protection.
+
+“Only one counterfeit sailor with a sham wooden leg he found out at a
+question and, by aid of Bill Jones, ducked in the horse-pond for an
+impostor, till the unlucky wretch, a thorough landlubber, was nearly
+drowned, an adventure which turned out the luckiest of his life, he
+having carried his case to an attorney, who forced the Admiral to pay
+fifty pounds for the exploit.
+
+“Our good veteran was equally popular amongst the gentry of the
+neighbourhood. His own hospitality was irresistible, and his frankness
+and simplicity, mixed with a sort of petulant vivacity, combined to
+make him a most welcome relief to the dullness of a country dinner
+party. He enjoyed society extremely, and even had a spare bed erected
+for company, moved thereto by an accident which befell the fat rector
+of Kinton, who, having unfortunately consented to sleep at Hannonby
+one wet night, had alarmed the whole house, and nearly broken his
+own neck by a fall from his hammock.... His reading was none of the
+most extensive: _Robinson Crusoe_, the _Naval Chronicle_, Southey’s
+admirable _Life of Nelson_ and Smollett’s novels formed the greater
+part of his library, and for other books he cared little.
+
+“For the rest he was a most kind and excellent person, although a
+little testy and not a little absolute, and a capital disciplinarian,
+although addicted to the reverse sins of making other people tipsy
+whilst he kept himself sober, and of sending forth oaths in volleys
+whilst he suffered none other to swear. He had besides a few prejudices
+incident to his condition—loved his country to the point of hating all
+the rest of the world, especially the French, and regarded his own
+profession with a pride which made him intolerant of every other. To
+the army he had an intense and growing hatred, much augmented since
+victory upon victory had deprived him of the comfortable feeling of
+scorn. The battle of Waterloo fairly posed him. ‘To be sure to have
+drubbed the French was a fine thing—a very fine thing—no denying that!
+but why not have fought out the quarrel by sea?’”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+THE MAY-HOUSES
+
+
+Miss Mitford delighted in all the simple pleasures of country life, and
+entered into them with the enthusiasm of youth.
+
+On a certain morning in spring-time she and her father set out in their
+pony-chaise to attend the “Maying” at Bramley.
+
+“Never was a day more congenial to a happy purpose,” she writes. “It
+was a day made for country weddings and dances on the green—a day of
+dazzling light, of ardent sunshine falling on hedgerows and meadows
+fresh with spring showers.... We passed through the well-known and
+beautiful scenery of W——[14] Park and the pretty village of M——[15]
+with a feeling of new admiration, as if we had never before felt their
+charms.... On we passed gaily and happily as far as we knew our way,
+perhaps a little further, for the place of our destination was new to
+both of us, when we had the luck, good or bad, to meet with a director
+in the person of the butcher of M——. He soon gave us the customary and
+unintelligible directions as to lanes and turnings, first to the right,
+then to the left, etc....
+
+[Footnote 14: Wokefield Park.]
+
+[Footnote 15: Mortimer.]
+
+“On we went, twisting and turning through a labyrinth of lanes ...
+till we came suddenly on a solitary farm-house which had one solitary
+inmate, a smiling, middle-aged woman, who came to us and offered her
+services with the most alert civility.
+
+“All her boys and girls were gone to the Maying, she said, and she
+remained to keep house.
+
+“‘The Maying! We are near Bramley then? Is there no carriage road?
+Where are we?’
+
+“‘At Silchester, close to the walls, only half a mile from the church.’
+
+“‘At Silchester!’ and in ten minutes we had said a thankful farewell
+to our kind informant, had retraced our steps a little, had turned up
+another lane, and found ourselves at the foot of that commanding spot
+which antiquaries call the amphitheatre, close under the walls of the
+Roman city.”
+
+Miss Mitford has written the following lines on this striking scene:—
+
+“Firm as rocks thy ruins stand And hem around thy fertile land; That
+land where once a city fair Flourished and pour’d her thousands there:
+ Where now the waving cornfields glow And trace thy wide streets as
+they grow. Ah! chronicle of ages gone, Thou dwellest in thy pride
+alone.”
+
+“Under the walls,” she continues, “I [met] an old acquaintance, the
+schoolmaster of Silchester, who happened to be there in his full glory,
+playing the part of cicerone to a party of ladies, and explaining far
+more than he knows, or than anyone knows of streets and gates and sites
+of temples, which, by the way, the worthy pedagogue usually calls
+parish churches. I never was so glad to see him in my life, never
+thought he could have spoken with so much sense and eloquence as were
+comprised in the two words ‘straight forward,’ by which he answered our
+enquiry as to the road to Bramley.
+
+“And forward we went by a way beautiful beyond description, and left
+the venerable walls behind us.... But I must loiter on the road no
+longer. Our various delays of a broken bridge—a bog—another wrong
+turning—and a meeting with a loaded waggon in a lane too narrow to
+pass—all this must remain untold.
+
+“At last we reached a large farm-house at Bramley; another mile
+remained to the Green, but that was impassable. Nobody thinks of
+riding at Bramley.... We must walk, but the appearance of gay crowds
+of rustics, all passing along one path, gave assurance that this time
+we should not lose our way.... Cross two fields more and up a quiet
+lane and we are at the Maying, announced afar off by the merry sound of
+music and the merrier clatter of childish voices. Here we are at the
+Green, a little turfy spot where three roads meet, close, shut in by
+hedgerows, with a pretty white cottage and its long slip of a garden at
+one angle.... In the midst grows a superb horse-chestnut in the full
+glory of its flowery pyramids, and from the trunk of this chestnut the
+May-houses commence. They are covered alleys built of green boughs,
+decorated with garlands and great bunches of flowers—the gayest that
+blow—lilacs, guelder roses, peonies, tulips, stocks—hanging down like
+chandeliers among the dancers; for of dancers, gay, dark-eyed young
+girls in straw bonnets and white gowns, and their lovers in their
+Sunday attire, the May-houses were full. The girls had mostly the look
+of extreme youth, and danced well and quietly like ladies—too much
+so.... Outside was the fun. It is the outside, the upper gallery of the
+world that has that good thing. There were children laughing, eating,
+trying to cheat and being cheated round an ancient and practised vender
+of oranges and ginger-bread; and on the other side of the tree lay a
+merry group of old men.... That group would have suited Teniers; it
+smoked and drank a little, but it laughed a great deal more. There
+were ... young mothers strolling about with infants in their arms, and
+ragged boys peeping through the boughs at the dancers, and the bright
+sun shining gloriously on all this innocent happiness. Oh, what a
+pretty sight it was—worth losing our way for!”
+
+We hear of another Maying which took place in a neighbouring hamlet
+of “Our Village,” which Miss Mitford calls Whitley Wood, into which
+narrative is interwoven an amusing account of the love affairs of mine
+host of the “Rose”—the village inn hard by the Mitfords’ cottage.
+
+“Landlord Sims, the master of the revels,” writes Miss Mitford, “and
+our very good neighbour, is a portly, bustling man of five-and-forty
+or thereabout, with a hale, jovial visage, a merry eye, a pleasant
+smile and a general air of good-fellowship.... There is not a better
+companion or a more judicious listener in the county.... No one can
+wonder at Master Sim’s popularity.
+
+“After his good wife’s death this popularity began to extend itself in
+a remarkable manner amongst the females of the neighbourhood. [His]
+Betsy and Letty were good little girls, quick, civil and active, yet,
+poor things, what could such young girls know of a house like the
+‘Rose’? All would go to rack and ruin without the eye of a mistress!
+Master Sims must look out for a wife. So thought the whole female
+world, and apparently Master Sims began to think so himself.
+
+[Illustration: OLD SHOEING FORGE]
+
+“The first fair one to whom his attention was directed was a rosy,
+pretty widow, a pastry-cook of the next town who arrived in our
+village on a visit to her cousin the baker for the purpose of giving
+confectionery lessons to his wife. Nothing was ever so hot as that
+courtship. During the week that the lady of pie-crust stayed, her
+lover almost lived in the oven.... It would be a most suitable match,
+as all the parish agreed.... And when our landlord carried her back to
+B—— in his new-painted green cart all the village agreed that they were
+gone to be married, and the ringers were just setting up a peal when
+Master Sims returned alone, single, crestfallen, dejected; the bells
+stopped of themselves, and we heard no more of the pretty pastry-cook.
+For three months after that rebuff mine host, albeit not addicted to
+assertions, testified an equal dislike to women and tartlets, widows
+and plum-cake....
+
+“The fit, however, wore off in time, and he began again to follow the
+advice of his neighbours and to look out for a wife, up street and down
+street.... The down-street lady was a widow also, the portly, comely
+relict of our drunken village blacksmith, who began to find her shop,
+her journeymen and her eight children ... rather more than a lone woman
+could manage, and to sigh for a helpmate to ease her of her cares....
+Master Sims was the coadjutor on whom she had inwardly pitched, and
+accordingly she threw out broad hints to that effect every time she
+encountered him ... and Mr. Sims was far too gallant and too much in
+the habit of assenting to listen unmoved ... and the whispers and
+smiles and hand-pressings were becoming very tender.... This was his
+down-street flame.
+
+“The rival lady was Miss Lydia Day, the carpenter’s sister, a slim,
+upright maiden, not remarkable for beauty and not quite so young as
+she had been, who, on inheriting a small annuity from the mistress
+with whom she had spent the best of her days, retired to her native
+village to live on her means. A genteel, demure, quiet personage was
+Miss Lydia Day, much addicted to snuff and green tea, and not averse to
+a little gentle scandal—for the rest a good sort of woman and _un très
+bon parti_ for Master Sims, who ... made love to her whenever she came
+into his head.... Remiss as he was, he had no lack of encouragement
+to complain of—for she ... put on her best silk, and her best simper,
+and lighted up her faded complexion into something approaching a blush
+whenever he came to visit her. And this was Master Sims’ up-street love.
+
+“So stood affairs at the ‘Rose’ when the day of the Maying arrived, and
+the double flirtation ... proved on this occasion extremely useful.
+Each of the ladies contributed her aid to the festival, Miss Lydia by
+tying up sentimental garlands for the May-house ... the widow by giving
+her whole bevy of boys and girls a holiday and turning them loose
+in the neighbourhood to collect flowers as they could. Very useful
+auxiliaries were these eight foragers; they scoured the country far and
+near—irresistible mendicants, pardonable thieves!
+
+“... By the time a cricket match [which opened proceedings] was over
+the world began to be gay at Whitley Wood. Carts and gigs and horses
+and carriages and people of all sorts arrived from all quarters....
+Fiddlers, ballad-singers, cake, baskets—Punch—Master Frost crying
+cherries—a Frenchman with dancing dogs—a Bavarian woman selling
+brooms—half a dozen stalls with fruit and frippery—and twenty noisy
+games of quoits and bowls and ninepins gave to the assemblage the
+bustle, clatter and gaiety of a Dutch fair. Plenty of eating in the
+booths ... and landlord Sims bustling everywhere, assisted by the
+little light-footed maidens, his daughters, all smiles and curtsies,
+and by a pretty black-eyed young woman—name unknown—with whom, even
+in the midst of his hurry, he found time, as it seemed to me, for a
+little philandering. What would the widow and Miss Lydia have said? But
+they remained in happy ignorance—the one drinking tea in most decorous
+primness in a distant marquee, the other in full chase after the most
+unlucky of all her urchins.
+
+“Meanwhile the band struck up in the Mayhouse, and the dance, after
+a little dinner, was fairly set afloat—an honest English country
+dance—with ladies and gentlemen at the top and country lads and lassies
+at the bottom; a happy mixture of cordial kindness on the one hand and
+pleased respect on the other. It was droll though to see the beplumed
+and beflowered French hats, the silks and the furbelows sailing and
+rustling amidst the straw bonnets and cotton gowns of the humbler
+dancers.
+
+“Well! the dance finished, the sun went down, and we departed. The
+Maying is over, the booths carried away and the May-house demolished.
+Everything has fallen into its old position except the love affairs
+of landlord Sims. The pretty lass with the black eyes, who first made
+her appearance at Whitley Wood, is actually staying at the Rose Inn on
+a visit to his daughters, and the village talk goes that she is to be
+the mistress of that thriving hostelry and the wife of its master....
+Nobody knows exactly who the black-eyed damsel may be—but she’s young
+and pretty and civil and modest, and without intending to depreciate
+the merits of either of her competitors, I cannot help thinking that
+our good neighbour has shown his taste.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+WALKS IN THE COUNTRY
+
+
+The above title is given to many a delightful ramble to which Mary
+Russell Mitford takes her readers.
+
+Writing one day in the month of June, she exclaims: “What a glowing,
+glorious day! Summer in its richest prime, noon in its most sparkling
+brightness, little white clouds dappling the deep blue sky, and the
+sun, now partially veiled and now bursting through them with an
+intensity of light.... We are going to drive to the old house at
+Aberleigh, to spend a morning under the shade of those balmy firs and
+amongst those luxuriant rose trees and by the side of that brimming
+Loddon river.
+
+“‘Do not expect us before six o’clock,’ said I as I left the house.
+
+“‘Six at soonest,’ added my charming companion, and off we drove in our
+little pony-chaise drawn by an old mare, and with the good-humoured
+urchin, Henry’s successor, who takes care of horse and chaise, and cow
+and garden for our charioteer.
+
+“My comrade ... Emily is a person whom it is a privilege to know. She
+is quite like a creation of the older poets, and might pass for one of
+Shakespeare’s or Fletcher’s women stepped into life; just as tender, as
+playful, as gentle and as kind....
+
+[Illustration: BRIDGE ON THE LODDON]
+
+“But here we are at the bridge! Here we must alight! ‘This is the
+Loddon, Emily. Is it not a beautiful river? rising level with its
+banks, so clear and smooth and peaceful ... bearing on its pellucid
+stream the snowy water-lily, the purest of flowers, which sits
+enthroned on its own cool leaves looking chastity itself, like the lady
+in Comus ...’. We must dismount here and leave Richard to take care of
+our equipage under the shade of these trees whilst we walk up to the
+house. See, there it is! We must cross this stile, there is no other
+way now.
+
+“And crossing the stile we were immediately ... in full view of the
+Great House, a beautiful structure of James the First time, whose
+glassless windows and dilapidated doors form a melancholy contrast with
+the strength and entireness of the rich and massive front. The story
+of that ruin—for such it is—is always to me singularly affecting. It
+is that of the decay of an ancient and distinguished family gradually
+reduced from the highest wealth and station to actual poverty.... But
+here we are in the smooth, grassy ride on the top of a steep turfy
+slope descending to the river, crowned with enormous firs and limes of
+equal growth, looking across the winding waters into a sweet, peaceful
+landscape of quiet meadows, shut in by distant woods. What a fragrance
+is in the air from the balmy fir trees and the blossomed limes! What
+an intensity of odour! And what a murmur of bees in the lime trees!
+And what a pleasant sound it is! the pleasantest of busy sounds, that
+which comes associated with all that is good and beautiful—industry and
+forecast, and sunshine and flowers.
+
+“Emily exclaimed in admiration as we stood under the deep, strong,
+leafy shadow and still more ... when roses, really trees, almost
+intercepted our passage.
+
+“‘On, Emily! farther yet! Force your way by that jessamine—it will
+yield; I will take care of this stubborn white rose bough.’ ... After
+we won our way through that strait, at some expense of veils and
+flounces, she stopped to contemplate and admire the tall, graceful
+shrub whose long, thorny stems, spreading in every direction, had
+opposed our progress, and now waved those delicate clusters over our
+heads.... ‘What an exquisite fragrance!’ she exclaimed, ‘and what a
+beautiful flower! so pale and white and tender, and the petals thin and
+smooth as silk! What rose is it?’
+
+“‘Don’t you know? Did you never see it before? It is rare now, I
+believe, and seems rarer than it is because it only blossoms in very
+hot summers; but this, Emily, is the musk-rose—that very musk-rose of
+which Titania talks, and which is worthy of Shakespeare and of her.’”
+
+Having reached some steps that led to a square summer-house, formerly
+a banqueting-hall with a boat-house beneath it, they were soon close
+to the old mansion. “But it looked sad and desolate,” remarks Miss
+Mitford, “and the entrance, choked with brambles and nettles, seemed
+almost to repel our steps.”
+
+Later on a halt was made on the further side of the river for “Emily”
+to take a sketch, and this entailed “a delicious walk, when the sun,
+having gone in, a reviving coolness seemed to breathe over the water,”
+and, lastly, a drive home amid the lengthening shadows. So ended their
+pleasant jaunt.
+
+The old house known now as Arborfield House was rebuilt some years
+after Miss Mitford knew it. The style is, of course, quite modern,
+but the beautiful grounds, with their magnificent trees and the river
+winding through them, remain unchanged, together with the luxuriant
+flower gardens, but which are now carefully tended. We have wandered
+through those grounds and have seen the poplars and acacias and firs
+gracefully blending their foliage together as she has described them.
+
+[Illustration: IN ABERLEIGH PARK]
+
+Miss Mitford had a decided liking for gipsies, and they often figure
+in her village stories. “There is nothing under the sun,” she writes,
+“that harmonizes so well with nature, especially in her woodland
+recesses, as that picturesque people who are, so to say, the wild
+genus—the pheasants and roebucks of the human race.”
+
+In one of these tales, after describing a spot of singularly wild
+beauty some miles distant from her home, where a dark deep pool lay
+beneath the shade of great trees, she says:—
+
+“In this lovely place I first saw our gipsies. They had pitched their
+little tent under one of the oak trees.... The party consisted only
+of four—an old crone in a tattered red cloak and black bonnet who was
+stooping over a kettle of which the contents were probably as savoury
+as that of Meg Merrilees, renowned in story; a pretty black-eyed girl
+at work under the trees; a sunburnt urchin of eight or nine, collecting
+sticks and dead leaves to feed their out-of-door fire; and a slender
+lad two or three years older, who lay basking in the sun, with a couple
+of shabby dogs of the sort called mongrel in all the joy of idleness,
+whilst a grave, patient donkey stood grazing hard by. It was a pretty
+picture, with its soft autumnal sky, its rich woodiness, its sunshine,
+its verdure, the light smoke curling from the fire, and the group
+disposed around so harmless poor outcasts! and so happy—a beautiful
+picture! I stood gazing at it till I was half ashamed to look longer,
+and came away half afraid that they should depart before I could see
+them again.
+
+“This fear I soon found to be groundless. The old gipsy was a
+celebrated fortune-teller.... The whole village rang with the
+predictions of this modern Cassandra.... I myself could not help
+admiring the real cleverness, the genuine gipsy tact with which she
+adapted her foretellings to the age, the habits and the known desires
+and circumstances of her clients.
+
+“To our little pet Lizzie, for instance, a damsel of seven, she
+predicted a fairing; to Ben Kirby, a youth of thirteen, head batter of
+the boys, a new cricket ball; to Ben’s sister Lucy, a girl some three
+years his senior, a pink top-knot; whilst for Miss Sophia Matthews, an
+old-maidish schoolmistress ... she foresaw one handsome husband; and
+for the smart widow Simmons two, etc. etc.
+
+“No wonder that all the world—that is to say all our world—were crazy
+to have their fortunes told—to enjoy the pleasure of hearing from such
+undoubted authority that what they wished to be should be. Amongst the
+most eager to take a peep into futurity was our pretty maid Harriet;
+although her desire took the not unusual form of disclamation, ‘nothing
+should induce her to have her fortune told, nothing upon earth!’ ‘She
+never thought of the gipsy, not she!’ and to prove the fact she said
+so at least twenty times a day. Now Harriet’s fortune seemed told
+already; her destiny was fixed. She, the belle of the village, was
+engaged, as everybody knows, to our village beau Joel Brent; they were
+only waiting for a little more money to marry.... But Harriet, besides
+being a beauty, was a coquette, and her affections for her betrothed
+did not interfere with certain flirtations which came like Isabella ‘by
+the by,’ and occasionally cast a shadow of coolness between the lovers.
+There had probably been a little fracas in the present instance, for
+she [remarked] ‘that none but fools believed in gipsies; that Joel had
+had his fortune told and wanted to treat her to a prophecy, but she was
+not such a simpleton.’
+
+“About half an hour after the delivery of this speech I happened, when
+tying up a chrysanthemum, to go to our wood yard for a stick of proper
+dimensions and there, enclosed between the faggot pile and the coal
+shed, stood the gipsy in the very act of palmistry, conning the lines
+of fate in Harriet’s hand.... She was listening too intently to see me,
+but the fortune-teller did, and stopped so suddenly that her attention
+was awakened and the intruder discovered.
+
+“Harriet at first meditated a denial. She called up a pretty
+unconcerned look, answered my silence (for I never spoke a word) by
+muttering something about ‘coals for the parlour,’ and catching up
+my new-painted green watering-pot instead of the coal-scuttle began
+filling it with all her might ... [while making] divers signs to the
+gipsy to decamp. The old sybil, however, budged not a foot, influenced
+probably by two reasons, one the hope of securing a customer in the
+new-comer, whose appearance is generally, I am afraid, the very reverse
+of dignified, rather merry than wise, the other a genuine fear of
+passing through the yard gate on the outside of which a much more
+imposing person, my greyhound Mayflower, who has a sort of beadle
+instinct anent drunkards and pilferers and disorderly persons of all
+sorts, stood barking most furiously.
+
+“... But the fair consulter of destiny, who had by this time recovered
+from the shame of her detection, extricated us from our dilemma by
+smuggling the old woman away through the house.
+
+“Of course, Harriet was exposed to some raillery and a good deal
+of questioning about her future fate, as to which she preserved an
+obstinate but evidently satisfied silence. At the end of three days,
+however, [the prescribed period] when all the family except herself
+had forgotten the story, our pretty soubrette, half bursting with the
+long retention, took the opportunity of lacing on my new half-boots
+to reveal the prophecy. ‘She was to see within the week, and this was
+Saturday, the young man, the real young man, whom she was to marry.’
+
+“‘Why, Harriet, you know, poor Joel.’
+
+“‘Joel indeed! the gipsy said that the young man, the real young man,
+was to ride up to the house dressed in a dark great-coat (and Joel
+never wore a great-coat in his life—all the world knew that he wore
+smock-frocks and jackets) and mounted on a white horse—and where should
+Joel get a white horse?’
+
+“‘Had this real young man made his appearance yet?’
+
+“‘No; there had not been a white horse past the place since Tuesday; so
+it must certainly be to-day.’
+
+“A good look-out did Harriet keep for white horses during this fateful
+Saturday, and plenty did she see. It was the market day at B——, and
+team after team came by with one, two and three white horses; cart
+after cart and gig after gig, each with a white steed; Colonel M——‘s
+carriage, with its prancing pair—but still no horseman. At length one
+appeared, but he had a great-coat whiter than the animal he rode;
+another, but he was old farmer Lewington, a married man; a third, but
+he was little Lord L——, a schoolboy on his Arabian pony. Besides, they
+all passed the house....
+
+“At last, just at dusk, just as Harriet, making believe to close our
+casement shutters, was taking her last peep up the road something
+white appeared in the distance coming leisurely down the hill. Was
+it really a horse? Was it not rather Titus Strong’s cow driving home
+to milking? A minute or two dissipated that fear; it certainly was a
+horse, and as certainly it had a dark rider. Very slowly he descended
+the hill, pausing most provokingly at the end of the village, as if
+about to turn up the Vicarage lane. He came on, however, and after
+another short stop at the ‘Rose,’ rode full up to our little gate, and
+catching Harriet’s hand as she was opening the wicket, displayed to the
+half-pleased, half-angry damsel the smiling, triumphant face of her own
+Joel Brent, equipped in a new great-coat and mounted on his master’s
+newly purchased market nag. Oh, Joel! Joel! The gipsy! the gipsy!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+A CENTRE OF INTEREST
+
+
+As Mary Russell Mitford’s fame as a writer began to spread wider and
+wider her cottage became a centre of interest and attraction to all
+those who had learnt to love her works. Her chief biographer[16]—a
+contemporary—writes:
+
+[Footnote 16: Rev. A. G. L’Estrange.]
+
+“In the summer time when she gave strawberry parties, the road leading
+to the cottage was crowded with the carriages of all the rank and
+fashion in the county. By example as well as precept she ‘brightened
+the path along which she dwelt.’ Her kindly nature did not exhaust
+itself in a girlish enthusiasm for pets and flowers, but went forth to
+meet her fellow-men and women whose virtues seemed to expand and whose
+faults to vanish at her approach.”
+
+Her conversation had a peculiar charm, considered by some “to be even
+better than her books,” delivered, as it was, by a “voice beautiful as
+a chime of bells.”
+
+It was in the year 1847 that Miss Mitford first made the acquaintance
+of Mr. James T. Fields—a distinguished American—both author and
+publisher—whose “bright, genial, vivacious letters” and “spirited
+lectures on ‘Charles Lamb,’ ‘Longfellow,’ and others” are highly spoken
+of by contemporaries.
+
+Mr. Fields writes in his interesting book entitled _Yesterday with
+Authors_:—
+
+“It was a fortunate hour for me when kind-hearted John Kenyon said,
+as I was leaving his hospitable door in London one summer midnight:
+‘you must know my friend Miss Mitford. She lives directly in the line
+of your route to Oxford, and you must call with my card and make
+her acquaintance.’ The day selected for my call at her cottage door
+happened to be a perfect one in which to begin an acquaintance with
+the lady of ‘Our Village.’ She was then living at Three Mile Cross ...
+on the high road between Basingstoke and Reading [where] the village
+street contained the public-house and several small shops near-by.
+There was also close at hand the village pond full of ducks and geese,
+and I noticed several young rogues on their way to school were occupied
+in worrying their feathered friends. The windows of the cottage
+were filled with flowers, and cowslips and violets were plentifully
+scattered about the little garden. I remember the room into which
+I was shown was sanded, and a quaint old clock behind the door was
+marking off the hour in small but loud pieces. The cheerful lady called
+to me from the head of the stairs to come up into her sitting-room. I
+sat down by the open window to converse with her, and it was pleasant
+to see how the village children, as they went by, stopped to bow and
+curtsy. One curly-headed urchin made bold to take off his well-worn
+cap, and waited to be recognized as ‘little Johnny.’ ‘No great
+scholar,’ said the kind-hearted lady to me, ‘but a sad rogue among
+our flock of geese. Only yesterday the young marauder was detected by
+my maid with a plump gosling stuffed half-way into his pocket!’ While
+she was thus discoursing of Johnny’s peccadilloes, the little fellow
+looked up with a knowing expression, and very soon caught in his cap
+a ginger-bread dog which she threw to him from the window. ‘I wish he
+loved his book as well as he relishes sweet cakes,’ she sighed, as the
+boy kicked up his heels and disappeared down the lane....
+
+“From that day our friendship continued, and during other visits to
+England I saw her frequently, driving about the country with her in her
+pony-chaise and spending many happy hours in the new cottage which she
+afterwards occupied at Swallowfield.
+
+“... She was always cheerful and her talk is delightful to remember.
+From girlhood she had known and been intimate with most of the
+prominent writers of her time, and her observations and reminiscences
+were so shrewd and pertinent that I have scarcely known her equal.
+
+“When she talked of Munden and Bannister and Fawcett and Emery, those
+delightful old actors for whom she had such an exquisite relish, she
+said they had made comedy to her a living art full of laughter and
+tears. How often have I heard her describe John Kemble, Mrs. Siddons,
+Miss O’Neil and Edmund Kean, as they were wont to electrify the town in
+her girlhood! With what gusto she reproduced Elliston, who was one of
+her prime favourites, and tried to make me, through her representation
+of him, feel what a spirit there was in the man....
+
+“I well remember, one autumn evening, when half a dozen friends were
+sitting in her library after dinner, talking with her of Tom Taylor’s
+life of Haydon, then lately published, how graphically she described
+to us the eccentric painter whose genius she was among the foremost to
+recognize. The flavour of her discourse I cannot reproduce; but I was
+too much interested in what she was saying to forget the main incidents
+she drew for our edification during those pleasant hours now far away
+in the past.”
+
+William Howett had paid a visit to the cottage at Three Mile Cross in
+the late summer of 1835, which he described in an article that appeared
+in the _Athenæum_. As he drove from Reading he says:—
+
+“The sound of the sheep bells came pleasantly from the pastures where
+the eye ranged over wide level fields cleared of their corn and all the
+wayside was hung with such heavy and jetty clusters of blackberries
+as scarcely ever were seen in another place.... And now I came to
+the sweetest lanes branching off right and left under trees that met
+across them and lo! ‘Three Mile Cross!’ ‘But which is Miss Mitford’s
+cottage?’ That was the question I asked of two women that stood in the
+street. ‘Oh, sir, you’ve passed it. It is where that green bush hangs
+over the wall.’ I knocked and who came but Ben Kirby and no other,
+and who quickly presented herself but Mary Russell Mitford! The very
+person that every reader must suppose her to be, the sunny-spirited,
+cordial-hearted, frank, kind, unaffected, genuine, English lady.
+
+“We had known each other before, though we had never seen each
+other, and we shook hands as old true friends should do; and in the
+next moment passed through that ‘nut-shell of a house’ (her own
+true expression) into a perfect paradise of flowers, and flowering
+fragrance. We passed along the garden into the conservatory, and found
+her father Dr. Mitford, the worthy magistrate, and two accomplished
+ladies her friends.
+
+“Now, if anyone should ask me to describe more particularly this place
+what can I say but that it is most graphically described by the writer
+herself? Has she not told you that her garden is her great delight?
+Has she not told you that in summer she and her honoured father live
+principally in the conservatory (a ‘rural arcade’ as she calls it) and
+is it not so? And is it not a sweet summer abode with that glowing,
+odorous bee-haunted garden all lying before it?
+
+“As we drove [later] along those umbrageous lanes, and crossed the
+sweet pastoral Loddon, she stayed her pony phaeton [at times] to admire
+some goodly house, or picturesque parsonage, [and I noticed that] every
+rustic face we met brightened into smiles, and for every one she had
+a counter smile, or a kind passing word. Everything you see of her
+only shows how truly she has spread the vitality of her heart over her
+pages, and everything you see of the country with what accuracy she
+sketches.”
+
+Mary was much pleased and touched by this graceful and warm-hearted
+account by Mr. Howett of his visit to Three Mile Cross, and she wrote
+to him on the subject.
+
+In his answer, written at Nottingham, after expressing his great
+satisfaction at her pleasure, he goes on to say: “I shall send you
+a paper to-morrow containing the account of the great cricket match
+played here between Sussex and Nottingham.... We wished you had been
+there—a more animated sight of the kind you never saw....
+
+“I could not help seeing what a wide difference twenty years has
+produced in the character of the English population. What a contrast in
+this play to bull-baiting and cock-fighting! So orderly, so manly, so
+generous in its character.... A sport that has no drawback of cruelty
+or vulgarity in it, but has every recommendation of skill, taste,
+health and generous rivalry. You, dear Miss Mitford,” he continues,
+“have done a great deal to promote this better spirit, and you could
+not have done more had you been haranguing Parliament, and bringing in
+bills for the purpose.”
+
+There are many letters extant from Mary Howett to Miss Mitford, and
+we should like to give the following written in February, 1836: “This
+new edition of _Our Village_ I have been coveting ever since I saw
+the advertisement of it, and I will tell you why. It is one of those
+cheerful, spirited works, full of fair pictures of humanity which,
+especially when there are children who love reading, and being read to,
+becomes a household book, turned to again and again, and remembered and
+talked of with affection. So it is by our fireside, it is a work our
+little daughter has read and loves to read, and which our little son
+Alfred, a most indomitable young gentleman, likes especially.... He is
+as yet a bad reader and therefore he is read to; and his cry is ‘Read
+me the _Copse_!’ or ‘Read me the _Nutting_,’ or a ‘_Ramble into the
+Country_!’
+
+“Such, dear Miss Mitford, being the case when I saw the new edition
+advertised, I began to cast in my mind whether or not we could buy it,
+for perhaps you know that _literary_ people, though _makers_ of books,
+are not exclusive _buyers_ thereof, you may think then what was my
+delight—and the delight of us all—when a parcel came in, the string
+was cut, and behold it contained no other than those long-coveted and
+favourite volumes! Thank you, therefore, dearest Miss Mitford; you have
+conferred a benefit upon our fireside which will make you even more
+beloved than formerly, for now we shall always have you at hand.”
+
+Miss Mitford held communion either personally or by correspondence with
+several warm-hearted Americans, besides her friend Mr. James T. Fields.
+
+George Ticknor, the celebrated author of _The History of Spanish
+Literature_, and a partner in Mr. Fields’ publishing firm, when on a
+visit to England in 1835, made a pilgrimage with his family to Three
+Mile Cross. He writes in his diary of this visit:—
+
+“We found Miss Mitford living literally in a cottage neither _ornée_
+nor poetical, except inasmuch as it had a small garden, crowded with
+the richest and most beautiful profusion of flowers. She has the
+simplest and kindest manners, and entertained us for two hours with the
+most animated conversation, and a great variety of anecdote, without
+any of the pretensions of an author by profession, and without any of
+the stiffness that generally belongs to single ladies of her age and
+reputation.”
+
+Writing to her afterwards he says: “We shall none of us ever forget the
+truly delightful evening we spent in your cottage at ‘Our Village.’”
+
+Daniel Webster, the orator and patriot so greatly valued in the United
+States, also made his appearance in Three Mile Cross, together with
+some members of his family, in their transit from Oxford to Windsor.
+
+“My local position between these two points of attraction,” writes
+Mary, “has often procured for me the gratification of seeing my
+American friends when making that journey; but during _this_ visit a
+little circumstance occurred so characteristic, so graceful, and so
+gracious that I cannot resist the temptation of relating it.
+
+“Walking in my cottage garden we talked naturally of the roses and
+pinks that surrounded us, and of the different indigenous flowers
+of our island and of the United States.... We spoke of the primrose
+and the cowslip immortalized by Shakespeare and by Milton; and the
+sweet-scented violets, both white and purple of our hedgerows and
+our lanes; that known as the violet [yellow] being, I suspect, the
+little wild pansy (viola tricolor) renowned as the love-in-idleness of
+Shakespeare’s famous compliment to Queen Elizabeth.... I expressed an
+interest in two flowers known to me only by the vivid descriptions of
+Miss Martineau; the scarlet lily of New York and of the Canadian woods,
+and the original gentian of Niagara. I observed that our illustrious
+guest made some remark to one of the ladies of his party; but I little
+expected that so soon after his return as seeds of these plants could
+be procured, I should receive a packet of each, signed and directed by
+his own hand. How much pleasure these little kindnesses give! And how
+many such have come to me from over the same wide ocean!”
+
+On New Year’s Day, 1830, Mrs. Mitford died after a short illness. An
+affecting account of her last hours was written by her daughter, in
+which she says: “No human being was ever so devoted to her duties—so
+just, so pious, so charitable, so true, so feminine, so generous....
+Never thinking of herself, the most devoted wife and the most faithful
+friend. She died in a good old age, universally beloved and respected.”
+
+Mrs. Mitford was buried in Shinfield Church—the parish church of Three
+Mile Cross and the other surrounding villages where the Mitfords used
+to worship. We have visited the place, which does not seem to have
+changed much since Miss Mitford described it in one of her village
+stories.
+
+She speaks of “the tower of the old village church fancifully
+ornamented with brick-work, and of the churchyard planted with broad
+flowering limes and funereal yew-trees, also of a short avenue of
+magnificent oaks leading up to the church.
+
+“It stands,” she says, “amidst a labyrinth of green lanes running
+through a hilly and richly wooded country whose valleys are threaded by
+the silver Loddon.”
+
+In the month of June of this same year Mary received an interesting
+letter from the American authoress, Miss Sedgwick, whose works,
+especially those for children, were much read in this country some
+years ago.
+
+“You cannot,” she remarks, “be ignorant that your books are re-printed
+and widely circulated on this side of the Atlantic, but ... it is
+probably difficult for you to realize that your name has penetrated
+beyond our maritime cities, and is familiar and honoured and loved
+through many a village circle, and to the borders of the lonely depths
+of unpierced woods—that we venerate ‘Mrs. Mosse’ and are lovers of
+‘Sweet Cousin Mary’ ... and, in short, that your pictures have wrought
+on our affections like realities.
+
+“... My niece, a child of nine years old, who is sitting by me, not
+satisfied with requesting that her _love_ may be sent to Miss Mitford,
+has boldly aspired to the honour of addressing a postscript to her,
+and I ... not forgetting who has allowed us a precedent for spoiling
+children, have consented to her wishes. Forgive us both, dear Miss
+Mitford.”
+
+In her little letter the child asks after the various characters in the
+stories that have taken her fancy, not forgetting the pretty greyhound
+Mayflower.
+
+Miss Mitford responds in the following way:—
+
+“My dear young friend,
+
+“I am very much obliged to you for your kind enquiries respecting the
+people in my book. It is much to be asked about by a little lady on the
+other side of the Atlantic, and we are very proud of it accordingly.
+‘May’ was a real greyhound, and everything told of her was literally
+true; but alas! she is no more.... ‘Harriet’ and ‘Joel’ are not married
+yet; you shall have the very latest intelligence of her. I am expecting
+two or three friends to dinner and she is making an apple-tart and
+custards—which I wish with all my heart that you and your dear aunt
+were coming to partake of. The rest of the people are all doing well in
+their several ways, and I am always, my dear little girl,
+
+“Most sincerely yours, M. R. MITFORD.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+A LONDON WELCOME
+
+
+In the spring of 1836 Miss Mitford paid a short visit to London. She
+stayed in the house of her father’s old friend Sergeant Talfourd, No.
+56 Russell Square. Her stories were so well known by this time, and
+so universally admired, that she received quite an ovation from the
+literary world. Dinners and receptions were given in her honour, and
+she had the pleasure of meeting many a writer whose works she valued
+highly but whose personality was hitherto unknown to her.
+
+Amongst these was the poet Wordsworth. Writing to her father on May
+26th she says:—
+
+“Mr. Wordsworth, Mr. Landor and Mr. White dined here. I like Mr.
+Wordsworth of all things; he is a most venerable-looking old man,
+delightfully mild and placid, and most kind to me”; and again she
+writes: “You cannot imagine how very very kindly Mr. Wordsworth speaks
+of my poor works. You who know what I think of him can imagine how
+much I am gratified by his praise.” Speaking of the other guests, she
+says:—
+
+“Mr. Landor is a very striking-looking person, and exceedingly clever.
+Also we had a Mr. Browning, a young poet (author of _Paracelsus_), and
+Mr. Proctor and Mr. Chorley, and quantities more of poets, etc.... Mr.
+Willis has sailed for America. Mr. Moore and Miss Edgeworth are not in
+town....
+
+“There was a curious affair to-night. All the Sergeants went to the
+play in a body [to see Sergeant Talfourd’s _Ion_]. Lord Grey and his
+family were in a private box just opposite to us, and the house was
+filled with people of that class, and the pit crammed with gentlemen.
+Very very gratifying was it not?”
+
+Writing to her father on May 31st Miss Mitford says:—
+
+“At seven William [Harness] came to take me to Lord Dacre’s. It is a
+small house, with a round table that only holds eight. The company was
+William, Mrs. Joanna [Baillie], Mrs. Sullivan (Lady Dacre’s daughter,
+the authoress), Lord and Lady Dacre, a famous talker called Bobus Smith
+(otherwise the great Bobus) and my old friend Mr. Young the actor, who
+was delighted to see me, and very attentive and kind indeed. But how
+kind they were all!...
+
+“In the evening we had about fifty people, amongst others, Edwin
+Landseer, who invited himself to come and paint Dash. He is a charming
+person; recollected me instantly, and talked to me for two whole
+hours.... You may imagine that I was very gracious to the best dog
+painter that ever lived, who asked my leave to paint Dash.... Edwin
+Landseer says that it is the most beautiful and rarest race of dogs
+in existence—the dogs who have most intellect and most _countenance_.
+Stanfield had talked to him of his intention to paint my country, and
+then Edwin Landseer resolved to paint my dog....
+
+“Edwin Landseer has a fine Newfoundland dog whom he has often painted,
+and who is content to maintain his posture as long as his master keeps
+his palette in his hand, however long that may be; but the moment the
+palette is laid down off darts Neptune and will sit no more that day....
+
+“It is very odd that Mr. Knight should want to paint _me_. Mr. Lucas
+will make the most charming picture of all—_of you_.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+_John Lucas_
+
+DR. MITFORD]
+
+“I told you, my dearest father, that Mr. Kenyon was to take me to
+the giraffes and the Diorama, with both of which I was delighted. A
+sweet young woman whom we called for in Gloucester Place went with
+us—a Miss Barrett—who reads Greek as I do French, and has published
+some translations from Æschylus and some most striking poems. She is
+a delightful young creature, shy and timid and modest. Nothing but
+her desire to see me got her out at all, but now she is coming to us
+to-morrow night also.”
+
+Again she writes of her on further acquaintance: “Miss Barrett has
+translated the most difficult of the Greek plays (the _Prometheus
+Bound_). If she be spared to the world you will see her passing all
+women and most men as a narrative and dramatic poet. Our sweet Miss
+Barrett!—to think of virtue and genius is to think of her.... She is
+so sweet and gentle and so pretty that one looks at her as if she were
+some bright flower.”
+
+The two corresponded afterwards, and their letters are full of
+interest. We should like to quote a passage from one of Miss Barrett’s
+upon the Greek drama. “The Œdipus is wonderful,” she writes, “the
+sublime truth which pierces through to your soul like lightning seems
+to me to be the humiliating effect of guilt, even when unconsciously
+incurred. The abasement, the self-abasement, of the proud, high-minded
+King before the mean mediocre Creon, not because he is wretched, not
+because he is blind, but because he is criminal, appears to me a
+wonderful and most affecting conception. And there is Euripides with
+his abandon to the pathetic, and Æschylus who sheds tears like a strong
+man and moves you to more because you know that his struggle is to
+restrain them.”
+
+Miss Mitford writes to her friend in October of this year (1836):—
+
+“I have just read your delightful ballad.[17] My earliest book was
+_Percy’s Reliques_, the delight of my childhood, and after them came
+Scott’s _Minstrelsy of the Borders_, the favourite of my youth, so that
+I am prepared to love ballads, although perhaps a little biased in
+favour of great directness and simplicity by the earnest plainness of
+my old pet. Do read Tennyson’s _Ladye of Shalott_. You will be charmed
+with its spirit and picturesqueness.
+
+[Footnote 17: “The Romaunt of the Page.”]
+
+“Are you a great reader of the old English drama? I am—preferring it to
+every other sort of reading; of course, admitting and regretting the
+grossness of the age, but that from habit one skips without a thought,
+just as I should over so much Greek or Hebrew which I knew that I
+could not comprehend. Have you read Victor Hugo’s plays? ... and his
+_Notre Dame_? I admit the bad taste of these, the excess, but the power
+and the pathos are to me indescribably great. And then he has broken
+through the conventional phrases and made the French a new language.
+He has accomplished this partly by going back to the old fountains,
+Froissart, etc. Again these old chronicles are great books of mine.”
+
+Mary Russell Mitford’s letters written to intimate friends were at all
+times a true reflection of her mind and nature, and it is interesting
+to learn from a passage in her _Recollections of a Literary Life_ what
+her opinion was of the value of letters, “provided they are truthful
+and spontaneous.” “Such is the reality and identity belonging to
+letters written at the moment,” she writes, “and intended only for
+the eye of a favourite friend, that it is probable that any genuine
+series of epistles, were the writer ever so little distinguished, would
+possess the invaluable quality of individuality, a quality which so
+often causes us to linger before an old portrait of which we know no
+more than it is a Burgomaster by Rembrandt or a Venetian Senator by
+Titian. The least skilful pen when flowing from the fullness of the
+heart, and untroubled by any misgivings of after publication, shall
+often paint with as faithful and life-like a touch as either of these
+great masters.”
+
+Writing to Miss Barrett of her country rambles in the autumn of 1836
+she says: “I was this afternoon for an hour on Heckfield Heath, a
+common dotted with cottages and a large piece of water backed by woody
+hills; the nearer portion of the ground a forest of oak and birch and
+hawthorn and holly and fern, intersected by grassy glades.... On an
+open space just large enough for the purpose a cricket match was going
+on,—the older people sitting on benches, the younger ones lying about
+under the trees; and a party of boys just seen glancing backward and
+forward in a sunny glade, where they were engaged in an equally merry
+and far more noisy game. Well, there we stood, Ben and I and Dash,
+watching and enjoying the enjoyments we witnessed. And I thought if I
+had no pecuniary anxiety, if my dear father were stronger and our dear
+friend well[18] I should be the happiest creature in the world, so
+strong was the influence of that happy scene.”
+
+[Footnote 18: Miss Barrett’s health was causing much anxiety to her
+friends.]
+
+The pecuniary anxiety here referred to had been growing greater and
+greater. The literary earnings of the devoted daughter seem to have
+melted away in the father’s speculations. At last she was urged by her
+valued friend William Harness to apply to Government for a pension—an
+application which was strongly supported by influential friends. Her
+petition, dated May, 1837, to Lord Melbourne concludes with these
+words: “I am emboldened to take this step by the sight of my father’s
+white hairs and the certainty that such another winter as the last
+would take from me all power of literary exertion and send those white
+hairs with sorrow to the grave.”
+
+On the 31st May Miss Mitford writes to her friend Miss Jephson:—
+
+“I cannot suffer one four-and-twenty hours to pass, my own dearest
+Emily, without telling you what I am sure will give you so much
+pleasure, that I had to-day an announcement from Lord Melbourne of a
+pension of £100 a year. The sum is small, but that cannot be considered
+derogatory, which was the amount given by Sir Robert Peel to Mrs.
+Hemans and Mrs. Somerville, and it is a great comfort to have something
+to look forward to as a certainty, however small, in sickness or old
+age.... But the real gratification of this transaction has been the
+kindness, the warmth of heart, the cordiality and the delicacy of every
+human being connected with the circumstances. It originated with dear
+William Harness and that most kind and zealous friend, Lady Dacre; and
+the manner in which it was taken up by the Duke of Devonshire, Lord and
+Lady Holland, Lord and Lady Radnor, Lord Palmerston and many others,
+some of whom I had never even seen, has been such as to make this one
+of the most pleasurable events of my life....
+
+“Is not this very honourable to the kind feelings of our aristocracy? I
+always knew that I had as a writer a strong hold in that quarter; that
+they turned with disgust from the trash called fashionable novels to
+the common life of Miss Austen, the Irish tales of Miss Edgeworth, and
+my humble village stories; but I did not suspect the strong personal
+interest which these stories had excited, and I am intensely grateful
+for it.”
+
+Miss Mitford was further cheered in her outlook upon life by an offer
+to edit an important publication called _Finden’s Tableaux_, a large
+quarto work illustrated by fine steel engravings from the works of the
+leading artists of the day, and handsomely bound in leather elaborately
+ornamented—a style then much in vogue. She gladly accepted the offer
+and was soon applying to Miss Barrett, her “Sweet Love,” for a
+contribution in the shape of a poem. The poem was supplied, bearing the
+title of “A Romance of the Ganges,” and was followed in course of time
+by many others.
+
+This offer was followed in September, 1836, by a commission from the
+editors of _Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal_. “It is one of the signs
+of the times,” writes Miss Mitford, “that a periodical selling for
+threepence halfpenny should engage so high-priced a writer as myself;
+but they have a circulation of 200,000 or 300,000.” This was her
+passing comment on the transaction, but it was to be of far more
+lasting importance than she anticipated, resulting as it did in a close
+friendship with William Chambers, and in a scheme of collaboration in
+which she took a prominent part.[19]
+
+[Footnote 19: See _Life and Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford_, by W.
+J. Roberts.]
+
+Mr. William Chambers paid a visit to Three Mile Cross in 1847, when he
+and Miss Mitford and the latter’s warm friend, Mr. Lovejoy, of Reading,
+talked over a scheme for forming Rural Libraries.
+
+It was on the 31st March, 1836, that _Pickwick_ first made its
+appearance, electrifying the reading world. It came out in monthly
+numbers, price one shilling. Of the first number, it seems, 400 copies
+were printed, but by the time it had reached the fifteenth number no
+less than 40,000 were issued!
+
+Miss Mitford writes to her friend Miss Jephson in June, 1837:—
+
+“So you never heard of the _Pickwick Papers_? Well!... It is fun.
+London life—but without anything unpleasant; a lady might read it all
+_aloud_; and it is so graphic, so individual and so true that you
+could curtsy to all the people as you met them in the street.... All
+the boys and girls talk his fun—the boys in the streets; and yet they
+who are of the highest taste like it the most. Sir Benjamin Brodie
+takes it to read in his carriage between patient and patient, and Lord
+Denman studies _Pickwick_ on the bench whilst the jury are deliberating.
+
+“Do take some means to borrow the _Pickwick Papers_. It seems like
+not having heard of Hogarth, whom he resembles greatly, except that
+he takes a far more cheerful view, a Shakespearian view, of humanity.
+It is rather fragmentary except the trial, which is as complete and
+perfect as any bit of comic writing in the English language. You must
+read the _Pickwick Papers_.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+A BRAVE HEART
+
+
+Two new works by Mary Russell Mitford had been recently
+published—_Belford Regis_ and _Country Stories_. Belford Regis, as the
+reader may remember, was her pseudonym for the good town of Reading.
+
+She writes in June, 1835, to Sir William Elford: “I thank you very
+much, my ever dear and kind friend, for your kind letter, and I rejoice
+that you like my book. It has been most favourably received and is, I
+find, reckoned my best; although when one considers that _Our Village_
+has passed through fourteen large editions in England and nearly as
+many in America, one can hardly expect an increase of popularity and
+has only to hope for an equal success for any future production.”
+
+There was a still further proof of the popularity of _Our Village_ at
+this time, as Miss Mitford learnt from a friend travelling in Spain
+that he had come across a copy of the work translated into Spanish.
+
+_Country Stories_ appeared two years later. She dedicated the work to
+her valued friend, the Rev. William Harness, “whose old hereditary
+friendship,” she writes, “has been the pride and pleasure of her
+happiest hours, her consolation in the sorrows and her support in the
+difficulties of life.”
+
+It was to him that she opened her heart on religious matters more
+than to anyone else, and it is interesting to learn from their
+correspondence her opinions upon such matters as the question of Church
+Reform, then beginning to be discussed.
+
+After receiving a volume of Sermons by the Rev. William Harness, she
+writes:—
+
+“It is a very able and conciliatory plea for the Church. My opinion (if
+an insignificant woman may presume to give one) is that certain reforms
+ought to be; that very gross cases of pluralities should be abolished
+... that some few of the clergy are too rich, and that a great many are
+too poor. But although not holding all her doctrines, I heartily agree
+with you that, as an establishment, the Church ought to remain; for to
+say nothing of the frightful precedent of sweeping away property, which
+would not stop there, the country would be overrun with fanatics....
+But the Church must be (as many of her members are) wisely tolerant.
+Bishops must not wage war with theatres, nor rectors with a Sunday
+evening game of cricket.”
+
+Happily reforms in such matters were soon to be brought forward by
+Charles Kingsley and many others. Charles Kingsley, when he was made
+Rector of Eversley, was a neighbour of Miss Mitford’s and became in
+time her fast friend.
+
+During the year 1842 Dr. Mitford’s health rapidly declined and his
+devoted daughter was nearly worn out by her constant attendance upon
+him. He had a strange notion which he held pertinaciously that all
+outdoor exercise was bad for her, while, in fact, her short strolls
+in her garden or in the neighbouring fields was the only change that
+could keep her from breaking down. When after some hours spent in weary
+watching she had seen her father fall asleep, she would steal out of
+the house with Dash for a companion for a scamper round the meadows.
+“How grateful I am,” she writes at this time, “to that great gracious
+Providence who makes the most intense enjoyment the cheapest and the
+commonest.”
+
+Dr. Mitford died on the 11th day of December. He was buried by his
+wife in Shinfield Church, being followed by an imposing procession of
+neighbours and friends. We cannot help thinking that this was more to
+show sympathy and respect for Miss Mitford than from special respect
+to him.
+
+That she loved her father dearly in spite of all his faults is very
+certain, and that she was not blind to these faults is also certain.
+But she looked upon them at all times very much in the same way as she
+did when a young girl on hearing of his money losses. “Poor Papa!” she
+would exclaim, “I am so sorry for him, I wish he would deal with honest
+people.”
+
+A beautiful expression of a dying mother to her children has been
+handed down in our family, “Cover each other’s faults,” she said,
+“with a mantle of love.” Miss Mitford did this and perhaps sometimes
+unwisely, but her life was the happier for it. She never knew the
+misery of condemning the conduct of her father.
+
+“But her father was not the only person whom Miss Mitford egregiously
+overestimated, and unconsciously flattered,” writes Mrs. Tindal.
+“She looked upon her friends through rose-coloured spectacles, she
+exaggerated their good gifts and multiplied their graces; she hoped and
+believed great things of them.”
+
+Dr. Mitford had continued to squander the small means of the household
+to the last, and so powerless was his daughter to prevent this (without
+giving him great pain) that she remarks in a letter to one with whom
+she was intimate: “I have to provide for expenses over which I have no
+more control than my own dog Dash.”
+
+When the true state of affairs became known Miss Mitford was faced with
+a list of liabilities amounting to nearly £1000, but her determination
+was at once taken that all the creditors should have complete
+satisfaction. “Everybody shall be paid,” she exclaimed, “if I have to
+sell the gown off my back, or pledge my little pension.”
+
+But this could never be allowed. Her friends and admirers were eager
+to show their desire to help one who, by her beautiful writings and
+unselfish life, had done so much for the good of humanity. Miss Mitford
+was astonished and touched by the letters she received. “I only pray
+God,” she writes, “that I may deserve half that has been said of me.”
+
+Money was subscribed on all sides, and by the month of March following
+nearly the whole thousand pounds had already been handed over to her,
+whilst in addition to this some hundreds of pounds were promised. Many,
+too, were the acts of kind and unostentatious attention that were
+showered upon her and which went straight to her heart. Conspicuous
+among these was the welcome act of her friend Mr. George Lovejoy, the
+well-known bookseller of Reading, in supplying her with books. He was
+a man of considerable learning, and his library was noted from its
+earliest days for its fine collection of foreign works, which made it
+especially valuable to Miss Mitford, whose love of French literature
+was so marked.
+
+Writing to a friend who had offered to lend her some books she explains
+that she has already seen them. “I have at this moment,” she writes,
+“eight sets of books belonging to Mr. Lovejoy. I have every periodical
+within a week, often getting them literally the day before publication.”
+
+About this time a source of happiness came into Mary Mitford’s life in
+the shape of a little child of two years old, the son of her attached
+servant K——, whom she soon looked upon as a son of the household, and
+who as time went on became her constant little companion in her strolls
+about the country.
+
+A few years later Mary was suffering from an attack of lameness and
+she had recourse for help to that same “historic staff” whose loss had
+caused so much bustle and excitement in the village of Three Mile Cross.
+
+[Illustration: Verses written by M. R. Mitford,
+
+July 12th 1847]
+
+“Long before little Henry could open the outer door, there he would
+stand,” she writes, “the stick in one hand, and, if it were summer,
+a flower in the other, waiting for my going out, the pretty Saxon
+boy with his upright figure, his golden hair, his eyes like two stars,
+and his bright intelligent smile.”
+
+Woodcock lane was a chosen resort where Mary, her servant “the hemmer
+of flowers,” little Henry and the dogs would proceed to a certain green
+hillock “redolent of wild thyme and a thousand fairy flowers, delicious
+in its coolness, its fragrance and its repose.” Here whilst Mary sat on
+the turf with pen in hand and paper on knee jotting down her thoughts,
+she would still keep an eye on the child who was gathering flowers hard
+by. “Do not gather them all, Henry,” she would say, “because some one
+who has not so many pretty flowers at home as we have may come this way
+and would like to gather some.”
+
+Miss Mitford’s many visitors from far and near had all a kindly word
+for the little lad—Mr. Fields especially was much interested in him.
+
+In the month of January, 1847, when the first volume of _Modern
+Painters_ was just published, Mary Mitford wrote to a friend: “Have you
+read an English Graduate’s _Letters on Art_? The author, Mr. Ruskin,
+was here last week and is certainly the most charming person I have
+ever known.” In her _Recollections of a Literary Life_ Miss Mitford
+speaks with admiration of his “boldness” in demolishing old idols and
+setting up new! “Often,” she remarks, “he was right, though sometimes
+wrong, but always striking, always eloquent, always true to his own
+convictions.... Many passages of _Modern Painters_ are really poems in
+their tenderness, their sentiment and their grandeur.
+
+“But the greatest triumph of Mr. Ruskin,” she remarks, “is that long
+series of cloud pictures, unparalleled, I suppose, in any language,
+whether painted or written.” Here follows a long quotation of which we
+would give two passages.
+
+“It is a strange thing,” writes the author, “how little, in general,
+people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which Nature
+has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and
+evident purpose of talking to him, and teaching him than in any other
+of his works; and it is just the part in which we least attend to
+her.... The noblest scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by
+few; it is not intended that man should live always in the midst of
+them; he injures them by his presence, he ceases to feel them if he
+be always with them; but the sky is for all; bright as it is, it is
+not ‘too bright nor good for human nature’s daily food.’ It is fitted
+in all its functions for the perpetual comfort, and exalting of the
+heart, for the soothing it and purifying it from its dross and dust.”
+
+The acquaintance with Mr. Ruskin soon ripened into a warm friendship,
+which was the cause of much happiness to Miss Mitford during the last
+years of her life. His attentions to her when she was unwell were
+unremitting either in the way of interesting books to entertain her or
+of delicacies of the table to tempt her appetite. On one occasion when
+she was confined to her bed from the effects of a fall, he writes to
+her: “I do indeed sympathize most deeply in the sorrow (it may without
+exaggeration be so called) which your present privation must cause you,
+especially coming in the time of spring—your favourite season.... After
+all though your feet are in the stocks, you have the Silas spirit, and
+the doors will open in the mid-darkness.”
+
+After an important event in his life had occurred in 1848, he writes:
+“Two months ago I was each day on the point of writing to you to ask
+for your sympathy—the kindest and keenest sympathy that, I think, ever
+filled the breadth and depth of an unselfish heart.” And then alluding
+to the Revolution of 1848 he says: “I should be very happy just now
+but for these wild storm clouds bursting on my dear Italy and my fair
+France. My occupation gone and all my earthly treasures ... perished
+amidst ‘the tumult of the people and the imagining of vain things.’
+... I begin to feel that ... these are not times for watching clouds
+or dreaming over quiet waters, that some serious work is to be done,
+and that the time for endurance has come rather than for meditation,
+and for hope rather than for happiness. Happy those whose hope, without
+this severe and tearful rending away of all the props and stability
+of earthly enjoyments, has been fixed ‘where the wicked cease from
+troubling.’ Mine has not; it was based on ‘those pillars of the earth’
+which are astonished at His reproof.”[20]
+
+[Footnote 20: See Cook’s _Life of Ruskin_.]
+
+Mary Mitford continued her intimate correspondence with Miss Barrett
+after the latter’s marriage with Robert Browning—which was a source
+of much happiness to both. She warmly admired Mrs. Barrett Browning’s
+poems, as we have already seen, but Browning’s poems were not equally
+intelligible or attractive to her, and in a letter to a friend she thus
+quaintly criticizes his style and writing: “I am just reading Robert
+Browning’s Poems,” she says, “there is much more in them than I thought
+to find.... He ought to be forced to write journey-work for his daily
+bread (say for the _Times_) which would make him write clearly.”
+
+In the summer of 1847 Hans Andersen was in England. “He is the lion of
+London this year,” writes Miss Mitford. “Dukes, princes, and ministers
+are all disputing for an hour of his company, and Mr. Boner (his best
+translator) says that he is quite unspoilt, as simple as a child and
+with as much poetry in his everyday doings as in his prose.... Mr.
+Boner sent me the other day for dear Patty Lovejoy’s album (she is a
+sweet little girl of eleven years old) an autograph of Spohr’s and one
+of Andersen’s. The latter is so pretty that I must transcribe it for
+you.
+
+“‘How blue are the mountains! How blue the sea and the sky! It is the
+expression of love in three different languages.
+
+H. C. Andersen.’
+
+London, July 16th, 1847.”
+
+The Mr. Boner alluded to was a valued friend of Miss Mitford’s with
+whom she corresponded much during the later years of her life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+FAREWELL TO THREE MILE CROSS
+
+
+Writing to her American friend Mr. Fields in December, 1848, after
+a sharp attack of illness, Miss Mitford says: “But I have many
+alleviations [to my sufferings] in the general kindness of the
+neighbourhood, the particular goodness of many admirable friends, the
+affectionate attention of a most attached and affectionate old servant,
+and above all in my continued interest in books and delight in reading.
+I love poetry and people as well at sixty as I did at sixteen, and can
+never be sufficiently grateful to God for having permitted me to retain
+the two joy-giving faculties of admiration and sympathy, by which we
+are enabled to escape from the consciousness of our own infirmities
+into the great works of all ages and the joys and sorrows of our
+immediate friends.” Much as she loved reading, however, Miss Mitford
+did justice to another source of comfort for women that is open to all,
+namely needle-work, “that most effectual sedative, that grand soother
+and composer of woman’s distress,” as she truly styles it.
+
+“Is American literature,” she asks Mr. Fields, “rich in native
+biography? Just have the goodness to mention to me any lives of
+Americans, whether illustrious or not, that are graphic, minute and
+outspoken. I delight in French memoirs and English lives, especially
+such as are either autobiography or made out by diaries and letters;
+and America, a young country, with manners as picturesque and
+unhackneyed as the scenery, ought to be full of such works.”
+
+And again she writes later on: “I have been reading the autobiographies
+of Lamartine and Chateaubriand.... What strange beings these Frenchmen
+are! Here is M. de Lamartine at sixty, poet, orator, historian and
+statesman, writing the stories of two ladies—one of them married—who
+died for love of him! Think if Mr. Macaulay should announce himself
+a lady-killer, and put the details not merely into a book but into a
+feuilleton!”
+
+Writing to Mrs. Barrett Browning (then in Italy) in March, 1850,
+she says: “My _Country Stories_ are just coming out, to my great
+contentment, in the ‘Parlour Library’ for a shilling, or perhaps
+ninepence—that being the price of Miss Austen’s novels. I delight
+in this, and have no sympathy with your bemoanings over American
+editions. Think of the American editions of my prose. _Our Village_
+has been reprinted in twenty or thirty places, and _Belford Regis_ in
+almost as many; and I like it. So do _you_, say what you may.”
+
+And writing to the same friend a year later, when Miss Mitford’s health
+was improving, she says: “You will wonder to hear that I have again
+taken pen in hand. It reminds me of Benedick’s speech—‘When I said I
+should die a bachelor I never thought to live to be married,’ but it
+is our friend Henry Chorley’s fault.” And writing to Mr. Fields on
+the same subject, she says: “After eight years’ absolute cessation of
+composition, Henry Chorley, of the Athenæum, coaxed me last summer into
+writing for a lady’s journal which he is editing for Messrs. Bradbury &
+Evans, certain Readings of Poetry, old and new, which will, I suppose,
+form two or three separate volumes when collected.... One pleasure will
+be the doing what justice I can to certain American poets—Mr. Whittier,
+for instance, whose ‘Massachusetts to Virginia’ is amongst the finest
+things ever written ... and I foresee that day by day our literature
+will become more mingled with rich, bright novelties from America, not
+reflections of European brightness but gems all coloured with your own
+skies and woods and waters....
+
+“I shall cause my book to be immediately forwarded to you, but I don’t
+think it will be ready for a twelvemonth. There is a good deal in it
+of my own prose, and it takes a wider range than usual of poetry,
+including much that has never appeared in any of the specimen books.”
+
+This work ultimately bore the title of _Recollections of a Literary
+Life_. It forms delightful reading, for the author has blended with her
+own recollections of the poets or of the places they have immortalized
+many interesting experiences of her own life given in her best style
+of writing. It is a truly remarkable work when we consider how much
+its author was suffering from impaired health during the period of its
+composition.
+
+The years 1849-50 were years of sudden changes and convulsions in the
+political world of the Continent, and a whiff of the general excitement
+penetrated even to little Three Mile Cross!
+
+Mary Mitford writes to an American friend: “We have here one of the
+Silvio Pellico exiles—Count Carpinetta—whose story is quite a romance.
+He is just returned from Turin, where he was received with enthusiasm,
+might have been returned as Deputy for two places, and did recover some
+of his property confiscated years ago by the Austrians. It does one’s
+heart good to see a piece of poetical justice transferred to real life.”
+
+As a rule Miss Mitford’s judgment, both of books and of character, was
+singularly sane, but there were some exceptions, her admiration of
+Louis Napoleon being one of “her most potent crazes,” as a warm friend
+styled it. She believed that his becoming Emperor would work much good
+for France, but had she lived long enough to become acquainted with his
+real character and to witness its baleful influence upon the nation we
+feel sure she would have changed her opinion.
+
+[Illustration: OLD HOUSE NEAR SWALLOWFIELD]
+
+Among the many visitors from all parts to Three Mile Cross who were
+desirous to see the author of _Our Village_ there was a certain Dr.
+Spencer T. Hall, who had been giving lectures on scientific subjects at
+Reading. He recorded his pleasant experiences in an article published
+in a newspaper of the day of which we have a copy before us. After
+describing Miss Mitford’s cottage by the roadside he goes on to say:
+“A good garden at the back of the house produced some of the finest
+geraniums and strawberries in the kingdom; and with presents of these
+to her London or country friends she could gracefully, and to them
+very agreeably, repay their occasional presents of new books and game,
+for no woman stood higher in the estimation of some of the ‘county
+families’ than did that cottage peeress, on whom they continued their
+calls and compliments just as in more showy if not more happy days.
+In a corner at the end of the garden there was a rustic summer-house,
+and this was where our little party took tea, to which the hostess, by
+her quiet, unaffected conversation, added a charm that will be more
+easily understood than I can otherwise describe it when I say that it
+was rich and piquant as her village stories or that pleasant gossip
+to be found in the volume she afterwards published under the title of
+_Recollections of a Literary Life_, and with which I trust the whole
+country for its own sake is now familiar.”
+
+The reader may remember mention being made earlier in this work of the
+wheelwright’s picturesque workshop in the village of Three Mile Cross,
+which stands at the turn of Church Lane near to the village pond.
+
+Writing to a friend in November, 1850, Mary Mitford remarks: “Just now
+I have been much interested in a painting that has been going on in
+the corner of our village street—the inside of an old wheelwright’s
+shop—a large barn-like place open to the roof, full of detail, with the
+light admitted through the half of hatch doors, and spreading upwards.
+It is a fine subject, and finely treated. The artist is one not yet
+much known of the name of Pasmore.... It is capitally peopled too—with
+children picking up chips and watching an old man sharpening a saw and
+peeping in through windows, stretching up to look through them.”
+
+For some years past the cottage at Three Mile Cross had been gradually
+getting into decay, so that at last Miss Mitford was obliged to
+contemplate a change of abode. “My poor cottage is falling about my
+ears,” she writes to a friend in April, 1850. “We were compelled to
+move my little pony from his stable to the chaise house because there
+were in the stable three large holes big enough for me to escape
+through. Then came a windy night and blew the roof from the chaise
+house, and truly the cottage proper, where we two-legged creatures
+dwell, is in little better condition; the walls seem to be mouldering
+from the bottom, crumbling as it were like an old cheese, and whether
+anything can be done with it is doubtful. Besides which as it belongs
+to Chancery wards there is a further doubt whether the master will
+do what may be done.... Yet I cling to it—to the green lanes—to the
+commons, the copses, the old trees—every bit of the old country. It
+is only a person brought up in the midst of woods and fields in one
+country place who can understand that strong local attachment.”
+
+The move, however, was inevitable, but in the meantime a cottage
+in the neighbourhood had been found that would suit Miss Mitford’s
+requirements, and thither her chief belongings, consisting of a library
+of some thousands of volumes and of much furniture, was carted and the
+removal accomplished in the month of September (1851).
+
+“It was grief to go,” she writes; “there I had toiled and striven and
+tasted as deeply of bitter anxiety, of fear and of hope as often falls
+to the lot of woman. There in the fullness of age I had lost those
+whose love had made my home sweet and precious.... Friends many and
+kind; strangers, whose mere names were an honour, had come to that
+bright garden and that garden room. There Mr. Justice Talfourd had
+brought the delightful gaiety of his brilliant youth, and poor Haydon
+had talked more vivid pictures than he ever painted. The illustrious
+of the last century—Mrs. Opie, Miss Porter, Mr. Cary—had mingled there
+with poets, still in their earliest dawn. It was a heart-tug to leave
+that garden.”
+
+When she was finishing the last series of stories for _Our Village_,
+Miss Mitford had addressed some lines of farewell to the spot that she
+loved so dearly, and we would give them here. “Sorry as I am,” she
+writes, “to part from a locality which has become almost identified
+with myself, this volume must and shall be the last.
+
+“Farewell, then, my beloved village! The long straggling street, gay
+and bright in this sunny, windy April morning, full of all implements
+of dirt and noise—men, women, children, cows, horses, waggons, carts,
+pigs, dogs, geese and chickens, busy, merry, stirring little world,
+farewell! Farewell to the breezy common, with its islands of cottages
+and cottage gardens, its oaken avenues populous with rooks; its clear
+waters fringed with gorse, where lambs are straying; its cricket ground
+where children already linger, anticipating their summer revelry; its
+pretty boundary of field and woodland and distant farms; and latest
+and best of its ornaments, the dear and pleasant mansion where dwell
+the neighbours of neighbours, the friends of friends; farewell to ye
+all! Ye will easily dispense with me, but what I shall do without you I
+cannot imagine. Mine own dear village, farewell!”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+SWALLOWFIELD
+
+
+The “flitting” was accomplished in September, 1851. “I was compelled to
+move from the dear old house,” writes Miss Mitford; “not very far; not
+much further than Cowper when he migrated from Olney to Weston and with
+quite as happy an effect.
+
+“I walked from the one cottage to the other in an Autumn evening when
+the vagrant birds whose habit of assembling here for their annual
+departure gives, I suppose, its name of Swallowfield to the village,
+were circling and twittering over my head.
+
+“Here I am now in this prettiest village, in the snuggest and cosiest
+of all snug cabins; a trim cottage garden divided by a hawthorn hedge
+from a little field guarded by grand old trees; a cheerful glimpse of
+the high road in front, just to hint that there is such a thing as the
+peopled world; and on either side the deep, silent, woody lanes that
+form the distinctive character of English scenery. Very lovely is
+my favourite lane, leading along a gentle declivity to the valley of
+the Loddon, by pastoral water meadows studded with willow pollards,
+past picturesque farm-houses and quaint old mills, the beautiful river
+glancing here and there like molten silver.”
+
+Again she writes: “I am charmed with my new cottage.... It stands under
+the shadow of superb old trees, oak and elm, upon a scrap of common
+which catches every breeze and I see the coolest of waters from my
+window.”
+
+We have visited Swallowfield Cottage, have been into its various rooms
+and have wandered about its pretty garden. No wonder that Miss Mitford
+felt it to be a sweet and peaceful home to retire to! The front court
+is now a pretty piece of garden with a small lawn and with borders
+of flowers on either side of the path which leads to the front door
+from the garden gate. The house has been enlarged in recent years by
+the addition of a small wing on the left-hand side, while two shallow
+bay-windows have also been introduced—but it is still a cottage in
+appearance.
+
+On the right-hand side there still rises the tall acacia tree with the
+syringa bush by its side of which Miss Mitford speaks. “So you do not
+write out of doors,” she writes to a literary friend. “I _do_, and am
+writing at this moment at a corner of the house under a beautiful
+acacia tree with as many snowy tassels as leaves. It is waving its
+world of fragrance over my head mingled with the orange-like odours
+of a syringa bush. I have a love of sweet smells that amounts to a
+passion.”
+
+The larger garden at the back as well as the small front garden are
+kept up with reverent care by their present owner; so that they seem to
+suggest the presence of their flower-loving mistress.
+
+Wild flowers, too, so dear to her heart, were to be seen just beyond
+her garden fence. “Have you the white wild hyacinth [in your parts]?”
+she asks a friend. “It makes a charming variety amongst its blue
+sisters and is amongst the purest of white flowers—all so pure. A bank
+close to my little field is rich in both. Have you fritillaries? They
+are beautiful in our water meadows, looking like painted glass.”
+
+Miss Mitford’s many friends both English and American were soon
+visiting her in her new home.
+
+[Illustration: THE LAST HOME]
+
+“I have often been with her,” writes Mr. Fields, “among the wooded
+lanes of her pretty country, listening to the nightingales, and on such
+occasions she would discourse so eloquently of the sights and sounds
+about us that her talk seemed to me ‘far above singing.’...
+
+She knew all the literature of rural life and her memory was stored
+with delightful eulogies of forests and meadows. When she repeated
+or read aloud the poetry she loved, her accents were ‘like flowers’
+voices, if they could speak.’
+
+“... One day we drove along the valley of the Loddon and she pointed
+out the Duke of Wellington’s seat of Strathfieldsaye.... But the
+mansion most dear to her in that neighbourhood was the residence of
+her tried friends the Russells of Swallowfield Park. It is indeed a
+beautiful old place, full of historical and literary associations,
+for there Lord Clarendon wrote his story of the Great Rebellion. Miss
+Mitford never ceased to be thankful that her declining years were
+passing in the society of such neighbours as the Russells.... She
+frequently told me that their affectionate kindness had helped her over
+the dark places of life more than once, when without their succour she
+must have dropped by the way.”
+
+Among the many friends who hurried to Swallowfield to pay their
+respects to Miss Mitford was a young writer in whom she was much
+interested—James Payn. In his _Literary Recollections_ he calls her
+“the dear little old lady, looking like a venerable fairy, with bright
+sparkling eyes, a clear incisive voice, and a laugh that carried you
+away with it.”
+
+Mary Mitford’s mind, in spite of advancing years, was ever open to new
+ideas and new impressions, so that she gladly hailed the arrival of
+works just published in America.
+
+She writes to Mr. Fields, who on leaving England had proceeded
+to Italy, to thank him for sending her an illustrated edition of
+_Longfellow’s Poems_ together with a copy of the _Golden Legend_:
+“I hope I shall be only one among the multitude who think this the
+greatest and best thing he has done yet, so racy, so full of character,
+of what the French call local colour, so in its best and highest sense,
+original.... Then those charming volumes of De Quincey and Sprague and
+Grace Greenwood, and dear Mr. Hawthorne and the two new poets, who if
+also young poets will be fresh glories for America. How can I thank you
+enough for all these enjoyments? I have fallen in with Mr. Kingsley,
+and a most charming person he is ... you must know Mr. Kingsley. He is
+very young too, really young, for it is characteristic of our ‘young
+poets’ that they generally turn out middle-aged and very often elderly.”
+
+And again writing to Mr. Fields she says: “I was delighted with Dr.
+Holmes’s poems for their individuality. How charming a person he must
+be! And how truly the portrait represents the mind, the lofty brow full
+of thought, and the wrinkle of humour in the eye! (Between ourselves I
+always have a little doubt of genius when there is no humour; certainly
+in the very highest poetry the two go together—Scott, Shakespeare,
+Fletcher, Burns.) Another charming thing in Dr. Holmes is that every
+succeeding poem is better than the last.... And I like him all the
+better for being a physician—the one truly noble profession. There are
+noble men in all professions, but in medicine only are the great mass,
+almost the whole, generous, liberal, self-denying, living to advance
+science and to help mankind.
+
+“I rejoice to hear of another romance by the author of _The Scarlet
+Letter_. That is a real work of genius.”
+
+On receiving _The House of Seven Gables_ a little later on, she
+apologizes to Mr. Fields for a delay in thanking him for his kind gift
+saying that she delayed doing so until she had read the book twice.
+“At sixty-five,” she remarks, “life gets too short to allow us to read
+every book once and again; but it is not so with Mr. Hawthorne, the
+first time one sketches them (to borrow Dr. Holmes’s excellent word)
+and cannot put them down for the vivid interest; the next one lingers
+over the beauty with a calmer enjoyment. Very beautiful this book is!”
+
+Later on she writes to Mr. Fields of Whittier: “He sent me a charming
+poem on Burns, full of tenderness and humanity and the indulgence which
+the wise and good can so well afford, and which only the wisest and
+best can show to their erring brethren.”
+
+She writes early in January, 1852, of her _Recollections of a Literary
+Life_: “My book is out at last, hurried through the press in a
+fortnight—a process which half killed me and has left the volumes no
+doubt full of errata,—and you, I mean your House, have not got it. I
+am keeping a copy for you personally. People say that they like it. I
+think you will, because it will remind you of this pretty country and
+of an old Englishwoman who loves you well.”
+
+And later on she writes to Mr. Fields: “Thank you for telling me about
+the kind American reception of my book.... I do assure you that to be
+heartily greeted by my kinsmen across the Atlantic is very precious to
+me.”
+
+Miss Mitford writes to her friend Mrs. Hoare on the subject of Jane
+Austen’s works: “Your admiration of Jane Austen is so far from being
+a ‘heresy,’ that I never met any high literary people in my life who
+did not prefer her to any female prose writer.... For my own part I
+delight in her.” And again writing of truth in works of fiction she
+says: “The greatest fictions of the world are the truest. Look at the
+_Vicar of Wakefield_, look at the _Simple Story_, look at Scott, look
+at Jane Austen, greater because truer than all.” In the same letter she
+remarks:—
+
+“Yes, I ought to have liked Shelley better. But I have a love of
+clearness—a perfect hatred of all that is vague and obscure—and I still
+think with the grand exception of the ‘Cenci’ and of a few shorter
+poems, that there was rather the making of a great poet, if he had been
+spared, than the actual accomplishment of any great work. It was an
+immense promise.”
+
+“If you have command of French books,” she writes to another friend,
+“read Saint Beuve’s _Causeries du Lundi_—charming volumes, full of
+variety and attractive in every way.”
+
+During the late autumn of 1852 Miss Mitford was busy writing an
+Introduction to a complete edition of her _Dramatic Works_ which her
+publishers were preparing to bring out. À propos of this undertaking
+she writes: “For my own part I am convinced that without pains there
+will be no really good writing.... I am still so difficult to satisfy
+that I have written a long preface to the _Dramatic Works_ three times
+over, many parts far more than three times.”
+
+This Introduction forms very interesting reading, giving as it does an
+account of her own experiences, together with many shrewd and clever
+remarks and criticisms. We have quoted several passages in our chapters
+upon the production of the plays.
+
+The work was dedicated to Mr. Bennock, a warm friend and a patron of
+Art and Letters, who had first suggested the idea to the author of
+gathering together all her plays in this way and editing them.
+
+On the 24th December of this same year Miss Mitford had a severe
+accident from an overturn of her pony-chaise in Swallowfield Park.
+She was thrown violently down on the hard gravel road and was much
+bruised and shaken although no bones were actually broken. In spite
+of her sufferings she indites a letter to her friend Miss Jephson in
+which she says: “I am writing to you at this moment with my left arm
+bound tightly to my body and no power of raising either foot from
+the ground.... The muscular power of the lower limbs seem completely
+gone.... So much for the bad; now for the consolation. Nobody else was
+hurt, nobody to blame; the two parts of me that are quite uninjured
+are my head and my right hand. K. is safe in bed and Sam is really
+everything in the way of help that a man can be, lifting me about, and
+directing a stupid old nurse and a giddy young maid with surprising
+foresight and sagacity. I need not tell you how kind everybody is;
+poor Lady Russell comes every day through mud and rain and wind....
+Everybody comes to me, everybody writes to me, everybody sends me books.
+
+“Mr. Bentley has done me good by giving me something to think of in
+writing no less than three pressing applications for a second series of
+_Recollections_, and, although I am forbidden anything like literary
+composition, and even most letter writing, yet it is something to
+plan and consider over. I shall (if it please God to grant me health
+and strength to accomplish this object) introduce several chapters on
+French literature, and am at this moment in full chase of all Casimir
+Delavigne’s ballads.”
+
+Miss Jephson writes to a mutual friend when sending on this letter
+to him: “Dear Miss Mitford! She is like lavender, the sweeter the
+more it is bruised. How wonderful are her spirits and energy after
+such an accident!... I am glad she is thinking of a second series of
+_Recollections_. She cannot be idle; it would be death to her.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+PEACEFUL CLOSING YEARS
+
+
+The winter of 1852-3 was unusually cold, and Miss Mitford suffered much
+from rheumatism supervening upon the effects of her accident. For many
+months she was entirely confined to her room. She writes to her friend
+Mr. Fields in March: “Here I am at Easter still a close prisoner from
+the consequences of the accident that took place before Christmas....
+But when fine weather—warm, genial, sunny weather—comes I will get
+down in some way or other, and trust myself to that which never hurts
+anyone, the honest open air. Spring, and even the approach of spring,
+has upon me something the effect that England has upon you. It sets me
+dreaming—I see leafy hedges in my dreams and flowery banks, and then I
+long to make the vision a reality.”
+
+She writes again to Mr. Fields in the month of June: “I am in
+somewhat better trim, although the getting out of doors and into the
+pony-chaise, from which Mr. May hoped such great things, has hardly
+answered his expectations.... I am still unable to stand or walk unless
+supported by Sam’s strong hands. However I am in as good spirits as
+ever, and just at this moment most comfortably seated under the acacia
+tree at the corner of my house—the beautiful acacia, literally loaded
+with snowy chains—the flowering trees this summer—lilacs, laburnums,
+rhododendrons, azalias—have been one mass of blossoms, and none as
+graceful as this waving acacia.... On one side a syringa ... a jar of
+roses on the table before me—fresh-gathered roses, the pride of Sam’s
+heart; and little Fanchon at my feet, too idle to eat the biscuits with
+which I am trying to tempt her—biscuits from Boston, sent to me by Mrs.
+Sparks, whose kindness is really indefatigable, and which Fanchon ought
+to like upon that principle if upon no other, but you know her laziness
+of old. Well, that is a picture of Swallowfield Cottage at this moment.”
+
+Among the many gifts from admiring readers of the _Recollections of a
+Literary Life_ that arrived at Swallowfield were choice plants for the
+garden. No less than twelve climbing roses for the front of her house
+appeared from the Hertfordshire nurseries, also two seedlings called in
+honour of her the “Miss Mitford” and the “Swallowfield.”
+
+Mary Mitford writes to Mr. Fields:—
+
+“Never, my dear friend, did I expect to like so well a man who came in
+your place as I do like Mr. Ticknor.... It is delightful to hear him
+talk of you, and to feel that sort of elder brotherhood which a senior
+partner must exercise is in such hands. He was very kind to little
+Harry, and Harry likes him _next_ to you. He came here on Saturday with
+the dear Bennocks, and the Kingsleys met him. Mr. Hawthorne was to have
+come but could not leave Liverpool so soon, so that is a pleasure to
+come.
+
+“Mr. Ticknor will tell you that all is arranged for printing with
+Colburn’s successors, Hurst and Blackett, two separate works, the plays
+and dramatic scenes forming one, the stories to be headed by a long
+tale, of which I have always had the idea in my head to form almost a
+novel. God grant me strength to do myself and my publishers justice in
+that story!”
+
+The title of the new book was _Atherton and other Stories_. They are as
+fresh and bright in style as if the author were in perfect health, and
+yet it was, as she writes to Mr. Fields, “in the midst of the terrible
+cough, which did not allow me to lie down in bed, and a weakness
+difficult to describe, that I finished _Atherton_.”
+
+In her short Preface Miss Mitford mentions the adverse circumstances
+under which the composition had been carried on, and expresses her
+thankfulness to the merciful Providence for “enabling me still to
+live by the mind, and not only to enjoy the never-wearying delight of
+reading the thoughts of others, but even to light up a sick chamber and
+brighten a wintry sky by recalling the sweet and sunny valley which
+formed one of the most cherished haunts of my happier years.” And
+then she closes this, her last work, with the words: “And now, gentle
+reader, health and farewell.
+
+M. R. MITFORD.
+
+SWALLOWFIELD, _March, 1854_.”
+
+_Atherton_ was dedicated to her valued friend Lady Russell, and was
+published in three volumes during the month of April. It was also
+published shortly afterwards in America. She writes to Mr. Fields on
+May 2nd: “Long before this time you will, I hope, have received the
+sheets of _Atherton_. It has met with an enthusiastic reception from
+the English press, and certainly the friends who have written to me on
+the subject seem to prefer the tale which fills the first volume to
+anything that I have done. I hope you will like it. I am sure you will
+not detect in it the gloom of a sick chamber.”
+
+And writing to an English friend also in May she says: “Thank you for
+your kindness in liking _Atherton_. It has been a great comfort to me
+to find it so indulgently, so very warmly, received. Mr. Mudie told Mr.
+Hurst that the demand was so great that he was obliged to have four
+hundred copies in circulation.”
+
+In this same letter she says: “I am sitting now at my open window,
+not high enough to see out, but inhaling the soft summer breezes,
+with an exquisite jar of roses on the window-sill and a huge sheaf of
+fresh-gathered meadow-sweet giving its almondy fragrance from outside;
+looking on blue sky and green waving trees, with a bit of road and some
+cottages in the distance, and [hearing] K——‘s little girl’s merry voice
+calling Fanchon in the court.... An avalanche of kindness has come from
+America, where, as in Paris, my book has been reprinted. Letters to me
+or for me addressed through my friend Mr. Fields have arrived, I think,
+from almost every man of note in the States—Hawthorne, Longfellow,
+Holmes, etc. etc. And one lady, Mrs. Sparkes, wife of Jared Sparks,
+President of Harvard University, Cambridge, gravely invites me, with
+man-servant and maid-servant, pony and Fanchon, to go and take up my
+abode with them for two or three years, an unlimited hospitality which
+seems to English ears astounding. Cambridge is close to Boston, where
+most of the literary men of America live, and if I were not such a
+helpless creature really one would be tempted to go and thank all these
+warm-hearted people for their extraordinary kindness.”
+
+And writing in August she says: “I do not think there is an authoress
+of name who has not sent me messages full of the kindest interest.
+It is one of the highest mercies by which this visitation has been
+softened that I can still give my thoughts and time and love and
+sympathy, not merely to dear friends, but to books and flowers and the
+common doings of this workaday world.”
+
+A lady friend on one occasion had remonstrated with Mary Mitford for
+what she considered a misplaced enthusiasm. “Ah, my dear friend!” she
+responds, “do not lecture me for loving and admiring! It is the last
+green branch in the old tree, the lingering touch of life and youth.”
+
+À propos of a tendency of hers to extoll at times some modern poem
+that had taken her fancy as being superior to the great poems of old,
+Mr. Fields quotes a saying of Pascal’s that “the heart has reasons
+that reason does not know.” “Miss Mitford,” he says, “was a charming
+exemplification of this wise saying.”
+
+During the autumn of 1854 Mary’s condition had been rapidly growing
+worse, though her letters show that her bright spirit was not broken
+by her continued sufferings and increased weakness, nor her mind in
+any way clouded. Her last letter to Mr. Fields was written on December
+23rd, 1854, only eighteen days before she died. In it she says: “God
+bless you, my dear friend! May He send to both of you health and
+happiness and length of days and so much of this world’s goods as is
+needful to prevent anxiety and insure comfort. I have known many rich
+people in my time, and the result has convinced me that with great
+wealth some deep black shadow is as sure to walk as it is to follow the
+bright sunshine. So I never pray for more than the blessed enough for
+those whom I love best.”
+
+On January 1st, 1855, nine days only before her death, she wrote the
+following letter to a friend: “It has pleased Providence to preserve
+to me my calmness of mind and clearness of intellect, and also my
+powers of reading by day and by night, and which is still more my love
+of poetry and literature, my cheerfulness and my enjoyment of little
+things. This very day not only my common pensioners the dear robins,
+but a saucy troop of sparrows and a little shining bird of passage
+whose name I forget, have all been pecking at once at their tray of
+bread-crumbs outside the window. Poor, pretty things! How much delight
+there is in these common objects if people would learn to enjoy them;
+and I really think that the feeling for these simple pleasures is
+increasing with the increase of education.”
+
+The end came on January 10th and was in accordance with her sweet
+life. As she lay with her hand in that of her dear friend Lady Russell
+she expired so quietly that the actual moment of her departure was
+not realized. “The features of her face in death,” we are told,
+“undisturbed by any trace of the cares and trials she had endured, were
+overspread by an expression of intense repose and peace and charity
+such as no living face had ever known.”
+
+In the introduction to her _Dramatic Works_ Miss Mitford remarks that
+she “hopes the plays will be as mercifully dealt with as if they were
+published by her executor, and that the hand that wrote them were laid
+in peaceful rest where the sun glances through the great elms in the
+beautiful churchyard of Swallowfield.” And there she lies in the heart
+of the country she so dearly loved and amidst the sights and sounds
+that she most cherished.
+
+We would close this book with the words of a friend and contemporary
+author who knew Miss Mitford well.
+
+“Pleasant is the memory because happy was the life, kindly the nature
+and genial the heart of Mary Russell Mitford. She had her trials and
+she bore them well; trusting and ever faithful to the _Nature_ she
+loved; sending forth from her poor cottage at Three Mile Cross—from its
+leaden casement and narrow door—floods of light and sunshine that have
+cheered and brightened the uttermost parts of the earth.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+A
+
+Abbey School, Reading, its interesting associations, 63-65
+
+Alresford, Hants, birthplace of Mary Russell Mitford, description of,
+1-2; Broad Street, Dr. Mitford’s house in, 5
+
+Andersen, Hans, his visit to England, his words in an album, 349
+
+Anning, Mary, an inhabitant of Lyme Regis, discovers the gigantic
+fossil bones of the Ichthyosaurus, receives a visit from the King of
+Saxony, Kenyon’s verses upon her, 44-46
+
+Athol, Dowager Duchess of, M. R. M. visits her at Alnwick Castle, 1806,
+description of, 104-7
+
+Austen, Jane, M. R. M.’s admiration of, 253-255, 368-369
+
+Aynsley, Lord Charles Murray, son of the Dowager Duchess of Athol,
+visited by M. R. M. in Northumberland in 1806, 103-105; receives visit
+from Louis XVIII, in Bocking Deanery, 111-118
+
+Aynsley, Lady, wife of the above, first cousin of Dr. Mitford, is
+visited by
+
+M. R. M. in Northumberland in 1806, at Little Harle Tower, takes her to
+Alnwick Castle, 103-107; describes visit from Louis XVIII in Bocking
+Deanery in letter to Mrs. Mitford, 111-118
+
+
+B
+
+Baillie, Joanna, meets M. R. M. in society, 329
+
+Barrett, Miss Elizabeth. See under Mrs. Barrett Browning
+
+Bath, M. R. M.’s visit to, 252-255
+
+_Belford Regis_, by M. R. M., published 1835, 339
+
+Bonar, Charles, translator of Hans Andersen’s’ works, friend of M. R.
+M., 349
+
+Browning, Robert, meets M. R. M., 329; his marriage, 348
+
+Browning, Mrs. Barrett, first meets M. R. M. before her marriage,
+1836, their interesting correspondence, 330-334; her marriage, her
+correspondence with M. R. M., 348
+
+
+C
+
+Chorley, Henry, meets M. R. M. in London, 329; persuades her to resume
+literary work, 352
+
+Cobbett, William, friend of Dr. Mitford, 126-127
+
+_Country Stories_, published 1835, 339-340
+
+Cowper, William, his letters, 131-132
+
+
+E
+
+Elford, Sir William, his influence on M. R. M., their interesting
+correspondence, 128-133; his views upon _Our Village_, 203-205
+
+Exeter, Bishop of, 1
+
+
+F
+
+Fermor, Arabella (the “Belinda” of _The Rape of the Lock_), marries Mr.
+Perkins and lives at Ufton Court, 257-264
+
+Fields, James T., American publisher and author, describes first visit
+to M. R. M. at Three Mile Cross, her surroundings and interesting
+conversation, 316-319; M. R. M.’s letters to him, 350-1; describes his
+visit to her at Swallowfield, 362-365; her letters to him, 368, 372,
+376-378
+
+_Foscari_, M. R. M.’s tragedy of, performed at Covent Garden, 5th
+November, 1826, 223-227
+
+
+H
+
+Hall, Dr. Spencer T., his visit to Three Mile Cross, 354-356
+
+Harness, Rev. William, valued friend of the Mitfords, his wise
+guardianship of a bequest of Dr. Russell, his views on Dr. Mitford’s
+conduct, 158-159; meets M. R. M. in London, 329; M. R. M.’s letter to
+him on Church Reforms, 340-341
+
+Hawthorne, Nathaniel, publication of _The Scarlet Letter_, _House of
+Seven Gables_, etc., etc., M. R. M.’s interest in them, 367
+
+Haydon, Benjamin Robert, his picture the “Judgment of Solomon,” becomes
+friend of M. R. M., described by M. R. M., 318-319; his Life by Tom
+Taylor, 318
+
+Hemans, Mrs., letter to M. R. M., on publication of _Our Village_,
+208-209, 220
+
+Holmes, Dr. (Oliver Wendell), M. R. M.’s admiration of his poems and
+personality, 366-367
+
+Howett, Mrs. (Mary), authoress, letter to M. R. M. on _Our Village_,
+321-322
+
+Howett, William, author, describes visit to M. R. M. at Three Mile
+Cross, letter to M. R. M., 319-321
+
+
+J
+
+Jephson, Miss, letters to her from M. R. M., 335-336, 370-371
+
+
+K
+
+Kenyon, John, friend of the Mitfords, his lines on Mary Anning, 46; his
+words on M. R. M. to James T. Fields, 316
+
+Kingsley, Charles, 341; described by M. R. M., 366
+
+
+L
+
+Landor, Walter Savage, meets M. R. M. in London, 228, 229
+
+Landseer, Edwin, offers to paint M. R. M.’s dog, 330
+
+Lansdowne, Lord, proposes M. R. M.’s health at meeting, 137-139
+
+Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, M. R. M.’s words on his poems and the
+_Golden Legend_, 366
+
+Louis XVIII and court at Gosfield Hall, his visit to Bocking Deanery
+described by Lady Charles Aynsley, 110-118; his remarkable memory, 136,
+137
+
+Lyme Regis, removal of Mitfords to, in 1795, the Great House described
+by M. R. M., its association with the Monmouth Rebellion, 29-39
+
+
+M
+
+Macready, William Charles, takes leading rôle in _Foscari_, 222-224
+
+Mitford, Dr., marriage and birth of child, 2; his gambling, loss of
+fortune, starts practice in Reading, 22, 23; removal to Lyme Regis,
+29-50; further losses, flight to London to debtors’ Sanctuary, wins
+prize in lottery, 52-56; builds Bertram House, 92; further losses,
+139-141; obliged to leave Bertram House, settles at Three Mile Cross,
+158-162; witnesses performance of _Foscari_, 221; portrait by Lucas,
+330; illness and death, confusion of his affairs, 341-343
+
+Mitford, Mrs., née Russell, only child and heiress of Dr. Russell,
+Rector of Ashe, marriage with Dr. Mitford, birth of her only daughter,
+Mary, in 1787, home in Alresford, 2-8; visits her daughter in Hans
+Place, 72; another visit, 87, 88; letter on Louis XVIII’s visit to
+Bocking, 113-118; her death, New Year’s Day, 1830; buried in Shinfield
+churchyard, her daughter’s tribute, 325-326
+
+Mitford, Mary Russell, born at Alresford, Hants, December 16th, 1787,
+2; early recollections of her home in Broad Street, precocious power
+of reading, 5-8; their village neighbours, at a rustic wedding,
+9-21; removal of family to Reading, 1791, her early recollections of
+the town, 22-25; a flying visit to London, 25-28; removal of family
+to Lyme Regis, 1795, her recollections of the Great House, etc.,
+29-39; rambles on the shore, 40-44; sudden loss of fortune, flight to
+London, 49-51; family takes refuge in debtors’ Sanctuary, a lottery
+ticket bought, turns up a prize, 52-55; sent to a school in Hans
+Place, her recollections of it, 64-73; amusing account of old French
+Society, 74-81; interest in French drama, visits to the theatre,
+great actors of the day, Miss Rowden’s inspiring influence, 82-88; an
+incident of school life, 88-91; leaves school, 1802, recollections
+of old Reading, 92-99; removal of family to Bertram House, 99-100;
+her visit to Northumberland with her father, guests of Lord and Lady
+Murray Aynsley, visits to Alnwick Castle, Morpeth and Cheviot Hills,
+returns home, 104-109; early poems published in 1810-11, successful,
+119-121; describes performances of “Greek tragedies,” by Dr. Valpy’s
+pupils, 121-123; short visit to London, 123-125; writes of Cobbett
+and Sir Francis Burdett, 126-128; introduced to Sir William Elford,
+becomes his chosen correspondent, their interesting letters, 128-133;
+in London in June, 1814, witnesses the assemblage of Crowned Heads
+on the fall of Napoleon, sees the Duke of Wellington, 134-137; an
+ovation to M. R. M. at a public meeting, 137-139; more loss of money
+owing to her father’s gambling, 139-140; flattering recognition by
+American publishers, 141-143; Sir William Elford’s visit to Bertram
+House, their correspondence resumed, writes of singers and actors of
+the day, and distinguished writers, 144-155; Haydon’s “Judgment of
+Solomon,” describes the artist, 156-158; further losses of property,
+forced to quit Bertram House, the family settle in Three Mile Cross,
+M. R. M.’s detailed account of their cottage and the village, 161-178;
+describes village scenes, and a sunset over the Loddon, 182-189; _The
+Talking Lady_, 190-196; describes her garden, a quack doctor, 196-202;
+publication of _Our Village_, the opening paragraph, letters received
+about it, its early success, 203-211; _Patty’s New Hat_, 212-217; a fog
+in the country, Mrs. Heman’s words, 217-220; tries hand at tragedy,
+_Foscari_ and _Julian_ approved by Macready, _Foscari_ performed
+at Covent Garden Theatre, 1826, M. R. M. present and describes its
+success, 221-229; writes _Rienzi_, produced at Drury Lane Theatre, its
+great success, M. R. M. in town, letters of congratulation, performed
+in New York, tribute from James Crissy, 230-240; her stories of two
+émigrés neighbours, 241-249; describes visits to Southampton, Bath,
+Richmond Park, and Hampton Court, 250-259; writes of Ufton Court and
+its associations, 264-270; writes of Three Mile Cross in 1830, _The
+Black Velvet Bag_, 271-282; stories of eccentric neighbours, 283-291;
+attends country Mayings and visits Silchester, 292-301; a trip to
+Aberleigh (Arborfield) on the Loddon, 302-306; stories of gipsies,
+306-314; her friendship with James T. Fields, his visit to Three Mile
+Cross, also visits from William Howett, George Ticknor, and Daniel
+Webster, 315-325; words on her mother’s death, letter to a child,
+325-327; stays with Sergeant Talfourd, receives warm welcome from
+leading writers, correspondence with Miss Barrett (afterwards Mrs.
+Barrett Browning), 328-334; pecuniary anxieties, receives pension,
+undertakes fresh literary work, 334-337; writes on first appearance
+of _Pickwick_, 337-338; publication of _Belford Regis_, and _Country
+Stories_, _Our Village_, translated into Spanish, 339-340; writes
+to William Harness on Church reforms, 340-341; death of her father,
+1842, resolves to pay all his debts but whole sum subscribed by
+friends, receives constant supply of books from Mr. George Lovejoy,
+little Henry, adopted child of the family, 341-345; her interest in
+_Modern Painters_ and friendship for Ruskin, her words on Browning’s
+poems, Hans Andersen in London, 345-349; letters to Mr. Fields,
+_Country Stories_ republished, commencing her _Recollections of a
+Literary Life_, an Italian exile in Three Mile Cross, her views on
+Louis Napoleon, receives a visit from Dr. Spencer Hall, decides to
+leave Three Mile Cross, her farewell to the village, 350-359; settles
+at Swallowfield, describes her cottage and garden, visits from Mr.
+Fields, Mr. James Payne and others, her affection for the Russells
+of Swallowfield Park, 360-365; her interest on works of Longfellow,
+Hawthorne, O. W. Holmes, and Whittier, 366-368; _Recollections of a
+Literary Life_ published, its success in America, her admiration of
+Jane Austen’s works, her remarks on Shelley and on Saint Bouve, writes
+introduction to her dramatic works, 368-370; her severe accident, her
+courage, cheerful letters to Mr. Fields, kind attentions from far and
+near, visits from Mr. Ticknor, writes _Atherton and Other Stories_,
+dedicated to Lady Russell, its great success, 370-376; her last
+illness, her delight in beauty of nature to the end, her last letter
+to Mr. Fields, her death, January 1st, 1855, buried in Swallowfield
+churchyard, 376-380
+
+Molière, M. R. M.’s early delight in his comedies, 84-85
+
+“Monsieur” (Le Conte d’Artois) visits Lord and Lady Aynsley in Bocking
+Deanery, 114-118
+
+
+N
+
+North, Christopher (John Wilson), his amusing scene in the “Noctes
+Ambrosianæ” upon the publication of _Our Village_, 209-211
+
+
+O
+
+_Our Village_, publication of, March, 1824, its success, etc. (see
+under Mary Russell Mitford), 203-211
+
+
+P
+
+Pepys (Samuel), M. R. M. on his “Memoirs,” 153
+
+_Pickwick_, publication of, 31 March, 1836, its great success, 337-338
+
+Pope (Alexander), M. R. M.’s early remarks on him as a letter writer
+and poet, 132-133; quotation from _Rape of the Lock_, 258-259; its
+heroine Belinda, 260-263
+
+
+R
+
+Racine, his “Athalie,” 221
+
+Reading (“Belford Regis”), removal of Mitford family to, 1791,
+22-23; M. R. M.’s early recollections of, 25, 56-59, 63-65; shopping
+adventures, 271-282
+
+_Recollections of a Literary Life_, by M. R. M., 352; published in
+January, 1852, its success in America, 368
+
+_Rienzi_, M. R. M.’s tragedy of, performed at Drury Lane, October 4,
+1828, 232-235 (see under Mary Russell Mitford)
+
+Rowden, Miss, a teacher in the school in Hans Place, her inspiring
+influence on M. R. M., 68, 85-88
+
+Russell, Dr., Rector of Ashe, his daughter marries Dr. Mitford, 2
+
+Russell, Lady, of Swallowfield Park, 365, 371; M. R. M.’s _Atherton_
+dedicated to her, 375
+
+
+S
+
+St. Quintin, M., arrival in Reading, becomes head of Abbey School,
+marries the English teacher, removes School to Hans Place, London,
+1798, M. R. M. becomes their pupil, 64-68; his hospitality to émigrés,
+74-91
+
+Sedgwick, American authoress, her letters to M. R. M., 220, 326-327
+
+Seward, Anna, “Swan of Lichfield,” M. R. M.’s early strictures on her
+writing, 130-132
+
+Shakespeare, William, M. R. M.’s early appreciation of _Much Ado About
+Nothing_, 133
+
+Shelley (Percy Bysshe), M. R. M. on his poems, 369
+
+Sherwood, Mrs. (née Butt), sees M. R. M. when a child, 23-25; her
+recollections of Abbey School, Reading, 64-65
+
+Swallowfield, M. R. M. residing at, 360-380
+
+Swallowfield Park, abode of the Russell family, 365
+
+
+T
+
+Talfourd Sergeant, author of _Ion_, present at performance of
+_Foscari_, 222-224; M. R. M. at his house in London, interesting
+society, 328-330
+
+Three Mile Cross, prototype of _Our Village_, description of, 156-183
+(see under Mary Russell Mitford)
+
+Ticknor, George (American author and publisher), describes visit to M.
+R. M. at Three Mile Cross in 1835, 323; visits her at Swallowfield, 374
+
+Trollope, Mrs. (authoress), describes performance of _Rienzi_ in New
+York, 236
+
+
+U
+
+Ufton Court (in Berkshire), description of, 260-269
+
+
+V
+
+Valpy, Dr., headmaster of Reading Grammar School, man of great
+influence, 62-65; introduces acting of Greek tragedy in original
+language, described by M. R. M., 121-123
+
+Voltaire, M. R. M. reading his tragedies at school, 83
+
+
+W
+
+Walpole (Horace), M. R. M.’s admiration for his letters, 132; her words
+upon him, 257
+
+Webster, Daniel (American statesman and author), his visit to Three
+Mile Cross described by M. R. M., 323-325
+
+Whittier (John Greenleaf), M. R. M.’s admiration of his “Massachusetts
+to Virginia,” 352; and of his poem on Burns, 368
+
+Wordsworth, William, his personality described by M. R. M., 328-329
+
+
+Y
+
+Young, Charles Mayne, performs leading rôle in _Rienzi_, 232-235
+
+
+
+
+_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+
+=THE HOUSE IN ST. MARTIN’S STREET=: Being Chronicles of the Burney
+Family.
+
+_Demy 8vo._ =21s.= _net._
+
+=MARIA EDGEWORTH AND HER CIRCLE IN THE DAYS OF BONAPARTE AND BOURBON.=
+
+_Demy 8vo._ =21s.= _net._
+
+=FANNY BURNEY AT THE COURT OF QUEEN CHARLOTTE.=
+
+_Demy 8vo._ =16s.= _net._
+
+=JANE AUSTEN=: Her Homes and Her Friends.
+
+_Crown 8vo._ =5s.= _net._
+
+=JUNIPER HALL=: a Rendezvous of certain illustrious personages during
+the French Revolution, including Alexander d’Arblay and Fanny Burney.
+
+_Crown 8vo._ =5s.= _net._
+
+The above 5 books are illustrated by ELLEN G. HILL.
+
+=STORY OF THE PRINCESS DES URSINS IN SPAIN= (Camerera-Mayor).
+Illustrated.
+
+_New Edition. Crown 8vo._ =5s.= _net._
+
+
+THE BODLEY HEAD.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76491 ***