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MARY  RUSSELL  MITFORD 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


THE  HOUSE  IN  ST.  MARTIN'S  STREET: 
Being  Chronicles  of  the  Burney  Family. 
Demy  &vo.    «xs.  net. 

MARIA  EDGEWORTH  AND  HER  CIRCLE 
IN  THE  DAYS  OF  BONAPARTE  AND 
BOURBON. 

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FANNY  BURNEY  AT  THE  COURT  OF 
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JANE  AUSTEN  :  Her  Homes  and  Her  Friends. 
Crown  Bvo.     53.  net. 

JUNIPER  HALL:  a  Rendezvous  of  certain  illus- 
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including  Alexander  d'Arblay  and  Fanny  Burney. 
Crown  8v0.  55.  net. 

The  above  5  books  are  illustrated  by  ELLEN  G.  HILL. 

STORY  OF  THE  PRINCESS  DES  URSINS 

IN  SPAIN  (Camereia-Mayor).     Illustrated. 

A  eii)  Edition.     Crown  "&VO.     53.  net. 

THE  BODLEY  HEAD. 


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  BODLEV  HEAD 

NEW  YORK  :  JOHN  LANE  COMPANY.  MCMXX 


The  centre  design  in  the  binding  represents 
a  French  gold  enamelled  watch  which  be- 
longed to  Mrs.  Mitford  and  -was  inherited 
by  her  daughter.  The  original  is  in  fhf 
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  kindli- 
ness 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, 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

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  Emigre  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 

vi 


Preface 

keener  by  the  invincible  shyness  which  con- 
fined the  enjoyment  entirely  to  her  own 
breast/' 

But  is  it  not  to  the  experiences  gained  by 
such  quiet,  shy  children  as  herself  and  Char- 
lotte Bronte  that  we  owe  much  of  our  know- 
ledge 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  eclat  on  the  London 
stage,  and  in  which  John  Kemble  and  Macready 
took  the  leading  parts.  The  public  were  as- 
tonished 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 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

rarely  been  surpassed,  and  that  her  correspond- 
ence, so  full  as  it  is  of  point  in  allusions,  so  full 
of  anecdote  and  of  recollections,  will  be  con- 
sidered 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 


Preface 

as  well  at  sixty  as  I  did  at  sixteen,  and  can  never 
be  sufficiently  grateful  to  God  for  having  per- 
mitted 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 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

i.   AN  AUTHOR'S  BIRTHPLACE         .          .         ...         i 

II.  HAPPY   MEMORIES      ......            9 

III.  VILLAGE    NEIGHBOURS          .  .              .              .              •" "     X3 

IV.  EARLY   LIFE    IN    READING  .              .              .              .22 
V.     LYME   REGIS 2Q 

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  MOLIERE          ...  82 

XII.  RECOLLECTIONS   OF   OLD    READING         ...  92 

XIII.  A   NORTHERN    TOUR IOI 

XIV.  A    ROYAL  VISIT            .  .             .             .             .             .  IIO 

XV.     PLAYS   AND    POETRY IIQ 

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               .             .             .  .  .       l6l 

XXI.     THE   NEW   HOME        .             .             .             .  .  .179 

XXII.    A   LOQUACIOUS  VISITOR     .             .             .  .  .190 

XXIII.  THE   PUBLICATION    OF  "  OUR   VILLAGE"  .  .       203 

XXIV.  A   COUNTRY-SIDE    ROMANCE          .             .  .  .212 

xi 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXV.  A    NEW    PLAYWRIGHT      .              .              .              .              .221 

XXVI.  "  RIENZI  "     .......       230 

XXVII.  FOREIGN    NEIGHBOURS    .              .             .             .             .24! 

XXVIII.  AGREEABLE   JAUNTS         .....       250 

XXIX.  UFTON    COURT         ......       260 

XXX.  A   FURTHER   GLANCE   AT    OUR    VILLAGE     .              .271 

XXXI.  ECCENTRIC   NEIGHBOURS           .                                                 283 

XXXII.  THE    MAY-HOUSES              .....       2Q2 

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 


Xll 


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 

Mary  Russell  Mitford's  birthplace         .        «        .        .        .  1 1 

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  no 

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  Mitforcls'  cottage  in  Three  Mile  Cross  ....  163 

xiii 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

PAGE 

The  village  shop    ....  ...       169 

The  Swan  Inn .173 

A  country  wheelbarrow i?8 

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  bonbonniere 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.  ^ykes 
in  the  possession  of  Lord  Treoweri)        .        .      To  face      262 
Francis  Perkins.    (By  W.  Sykes,  from  a  painting  also  in  the 

possession  of  Lord  Treovueri) .        .        .         .      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,  hsq.) 1  o  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 


xw 


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  writ- 
ings "  breathe  the  air  of  the  hay-fields  and  the 
scent  of  the  hawthorn  boughs,"  and  seem  to 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  door- 
way and  its  tall  windows,  belonged  to  Dr. 
Mitford. 

Here  it  was  that  the  doctor  started  a  prac- 
tice soon  after  his  marriage  with  Miss  Russell, 
the  only  child  and  heiress  of  the  late  Dr.  Russell, 
Rector  of  Ashe,  and  here,  on  the  i6th  December, 
1787,  Mary,  also  an  only  child,  was  born. 


An  Author's  Birthplace 

"  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  glow- 
ing fire,  its  sofas  and  its  easy-chairs,  seemed, 
what  indeed  it  was,  a  very  nest  of  English  com- 
fort. 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  !  ' 

5 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  lead- 
ing 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  foot- 
path, 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 

6 


An  Author's  Birthplace 

the  "  large  old-fashioned  garden/'  itself  gay 
with  flowers  as  of  yore. 

An  adjoining  house  has  arisen,  since  the  Mit- 
fords  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.  In- 
deed 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 

7 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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. 


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  Mitf  ord  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 

9 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

night.  .  .  .  There  he  sat  with  a  dirty  red 
night-cap  over  his  grizzled  hair,  a  dingy  waist- 
coat 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  some- 
thing 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  ofjthe  street  knew  that  they  had  a 
friend  in  the  poor/cobbler. 

10 


MARY   RUSSELL   MITFORD's 
BIRTHPLACE 


Happy  Memories 

"  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  diffi- 
cult 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 

13 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  dis- 
tance 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  neigh- 
bour 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  recollec- 
tions 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 

15 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  ver- 
sion of  the  politics  or  the  gossip  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood. 

"  '  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 

16 


MARY    RUSSELL   MITFORD 
From  ft  miniature 


Village  Neighbours 

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  com- 
pany '  he  used  to  call  them. 

"  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  .  .  .  occupy- 
ing 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 

c  17 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  con- 
sented to  fill  the  post  of  deputy  nursery-maid 
for  the  time,  assisted  in  his  superintendence  by 
our  very  beautiful  and  sagacious  black  New- 
foundland 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, 

18 


Village  Neighbours 

buttercups,  or  ragged-robins  to  make  what  I 
used  to  call  daisy-beds  for  my  doll." 

Here  is  another  pretty  incident  of  the  Aires- 
ford  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  brides- 
maid. 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  import- 
ance 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 

19 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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. 

11  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  sub- 
mitted 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. 

20 


Village  Neighbours 

"  Oh  !  the  blunders,  the  confusion,  the  merri- 
ment 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  jonce  !  ' 


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  dis- 
position 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  for- 
tune on  his  marriage,  for  his  bride-elect  had 
refused  to  have  any  ^settlement  made  concerning 

22 


Early  Life  in  Reading 

property  under  her  own  control,  and  this  for- 
tune had  already  nearly  melted  away. 

In  spite,  however,  of  all  his  thoughtless  ex- 
travagance, 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  con- 
stantly in  her  writings  upon  his  invariable  kind- 
ness to  her  as  a  child,  which  claimed,  she  con- 
sidered, 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. 

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 

23 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

writes,  "  once  going  to  a  church  in  the  town, 
which  we  did  not  usually  attend,  and  being 


SOUTHAMPTON   STREET 


taken  into  Mrs.  Mitford's  pew,  where  I  saw  the 
young  authoress,  Miss  Mitford,  then  about  four 

24 


Early  Life  in  Reading 

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  con- 
forming to  my  nursery  hours,  we  dined  at  Crau- 
ford  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, 
25 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  appoint- 
ment 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 

26 


Early  Life  in  Reading 

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  Pad- 
dington  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  horseman- 
ship 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, 

27 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

returning  home  on  the  morrow  "  without  a 
moment's  weariness  of  mind  or  body." 

About  this  time  Lord  Charles  Murray- Aynsley, 
a  younger  son  oi  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  him- 
self 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  wonder- 
ful. ...  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  bor- 
dered 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, 

29 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  prin- 
cipal 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/ ' 

This  old  porch  had  its  special  historical  associ- 
ation, for  here  William  Pitt  as  a  child  used 
to  play  at  marbles  when  his  father  the  great 
Lord  Chatham  rented  the  Great  House.  Un- 
happily the  porch  has  been  altered  and  injured 

30 


-v  a 


Lyme  Regis 

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  Mon- 
mouth  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  un- 
happy 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. 

p  33 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

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  hand- 
some dentil  cornice,  and  also  in  its  three  tall 
recessed  windows,  whose  side  panels  end  in  fine 
curled  scrolls. 

"  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." 

34 


THE  GREAT   HOUSE 


Lyme  Regjs 

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  culti- 
vated, and  abounds  in  smooth  lawns,  majestic 
trees  and  flowers  of  all  kinds  ;  but  that  part 
which  belongs  to  the  older  portion  of  the  man- 
sion, deserted  for  many  years,  is  left  wild  and 
untended.  It  is,  however,  pathetically  beauti- 
ful 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 

37 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

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  for- 
gotten the  pleasure  which  I  derived  from 
watching  its  clear  crystal  wave/' 

1  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 

38 


Lyme  Regis 

century.  It  was  in  "  Jordan  "  that  they  im- 
mersed 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]  stream- 
lets/' 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  Caver  sham  Bridge  !  " 


CHAPTER  VI 

A  STORMY  COAST 

X 

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, 

40 


A  Stormy  Coast 

still  stirred  by  the  last  breath  of  the  tempest,  and 
on  the  floating  spars  and  parted  timbers  of 
the  wreck.  .  .  . 

"  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  con- 
nected 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  har- 
bour ;  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  ! 

43 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  dis- 
coveries 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  mam- 
moth, 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  ichthyo- 
saurus— a  creature  whose  very  jaw  it  seems 
exceeded  six  feet  in  length,  and  whose  existence 
had  hitherto  been  unknown.  She  also  dis- 

44 


A  Stormy  Coast 

covered  later  on  the  remains  of  the  plesio- 
saurus.1 

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  am- 
monites, etc. — were  exhibited  in  the  window. 
We  entered  and  found  a  little  shop  and  adjoin- 
ing chamber  completely  filled  with  fossil  pro- 
ductions 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 

1  The  entire  skeletons  of  these  actual  creatures  are  now  to 
be  seen  in  the  Natural  History  Museum  at  South  Kensington; 

45 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

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  con- 
fusion, 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  polite- 
ness. 

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  Aiming." 

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." 
46 


IN   THE   DRAWING-ROOM 


A  Stormy  Coast 

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  warn- 
ing, 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 
E  49 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

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,  some- 
thing 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  every- 
body 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. 

50 


A   Stormy  Coast 

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  break- 
ing up  of  a  camp  between  Bridport  and  Dor- 
chester, the  party  pursued  their  journey  in  "  a 
sort  of  tilted  cart  without  springs."  "  Doubt- 
less," remarks  Mary,  "  many  a  fine  lady  would 
laugh  at  such  a  shift.  But  it  was  not  as  a  tem- 
porary 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.  Babing- 
ton,  then  one  of  the  physicians  to  Guy's  Hos- 
pital, and  refresh  his  medical  studies  with  ex- 
periments and  lectures.  In  the  meanwhile  his 
spirits  returned  as  buoyant  as  ever,  and  so,  now 
that  fear  had  changed  into  certainty,  did  mine." 

But  at  this  time,  when  the  prospects  of  the 
family  seemed  to  be  irretrievably  overclouded 

52 


A   Flight 

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 
53 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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 

54 


A   Flight 

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 

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Return  to  Reading 

shower  of  rain.  She  speaks  of  "  the  fine  church 
tower  of  St.  Nicholas,1  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  peep- 
ing between  them,  with  all  their  varieties  of 
light  and  shadow." 

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  Rennet  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 

1  St.  Lawrence. 
57 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

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  respect- 
able 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." 

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 

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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  ;  <l  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  obser- 
vation 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 

59 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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 
chiki  ;  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. 

11  Mrs.  Patience  was  very  masculine  in  person, 
tall,  square,  large-boned  and  remarkably  up- 
right. 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 

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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 

61 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  with- 
out 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,  head- 
master of  the  Reading  Grammar  School.  The 
school  consisted  of  a  group  of  buildings  "  stand- 
ing/' 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 

62 


Return  to  Reading 

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  cul- 
prits. 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  sub- 
serviency 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 

63 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  educa- 
tion who  at  once  made  her  mark  felt. 

What,  however,  caused  the  permanent  suc- 
cess 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 

64 


Return  to  Reading 

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  ex- 
treme." 

Dr.  Mitford  had  been  a  warm  friend  to 
M.  St.  Quintin  ever  since  his  arrival  in  Reading, 
and  there  was  much  pleasant  intercourse  be- 
tween the  Mit fords  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. 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE   SCHOOL   IN   HANS   PLACE 

MONSIEUR  and  Madame  St.  Quintin,  on  remov- 
ing 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  ! 

66 


The  School  in  Hans  Place 

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  astonish- 
ing .  .  .  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  com- 
panions, 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 

67 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  ac- 
quainted 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 
^Eneas  as  long  as  I  chose/' 

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  in- 
visible, being  concealed  between  a  mannish  kind 
of  neck-cloth  and  an  enormous  cap,  whose  wide, 
flaunting  strip  hung  over  her  cheeks  and  eyes ; 

68 


The  School  in  Hans  Place 

—to  say  nothing  of  a  huge  pair  of  spectacles. 
Madame,  all  Parisian  though  she  was,  had  the 


••    ..'..-"  fsWj  .N  >\ 


HANS   PLACE 


fidgety  neatness  of  a  Dutch  woman,  and  was 
scandalized  at  our  untidy  habits.  Four  days 
passed  in  distant  murmurs  .  .  .  but  this  was 

69 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  dif- 
ferent 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  medaillon,  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  country- 
man, 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  im- 
possible to  say  whether  the  professor  of  march- 

70 


The  School  in  Hans  Place 

ing  or  the  poor  Frenchwoman  looked  most  dis- 
concerted. Madame  began  a  very  voluble  ex- 
planatory harangue  ;  but  she  was  again  unfor- 
tunate— 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  la  '  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  re- 
moved 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  board- 
ing 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." 

71 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

Dr.  and  Mrs.  Mitford  visited  their  little 
daughter  frequently  during  the  period  of  her 
school  life — often  taking  lodgings  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood 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,  some- 
times 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  care- 
fully 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 

Mile.  Midford 

73 


The  School  in  Hans  Place 
while  on  the  reverse  side  we  read  : — 

Mrs.  St.  Quintin's 

School 

Hans  Place 

June  I7th 

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  represen- 
tation 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  liesons,  their  polished  sarcasms  and  their 
cherished  rivalries  !  They  clung  even  to  their 
manages  de  convenance ;  and  the  very  habits 

74 


A  Glimpse  of  Old  French  Society 

which  would  most  have  offended  our  English 
notions,  if  we  had  seen  them  in  their  splendid 
hotels  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain,  won  toler- 
ance and  pardon  when  mixed  up  with  such 
unaffected  constancy  and  such  cheerful  resig- 
nation." 

There  were  supper  parties  also  given  to  other 
members  of  the  French  society  by  a  cousin  of 
Mary  Mitford's  who  had  married  an  emigre  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  sucre  excluded 
sandwiches,  oysters  and  porter. 

"  At  these  suppers  their  little  schoolgirl 
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/ 

75 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  in- 
jured 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  voila  mise  a  F Anglaise  ' ;  but  as  neither 
herself  nor  her  faithful  femme  de  chambre  could 
or  would  condescend  to  seek  for  patterns  from 
les  grosses  bougeoises  de  ce  Londres  Id  has  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  con- 
trived to  reach  England  with  jewels  enough 
concealed  about  their  persons  to  secure  them  a 
modest  competence.  No  small  part  of  her  good 

76 


A  Glimpse  of  Old  French  Society 

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  pro- 
digious 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  mar- 
quis. Her  husband,  who  had  acted  in  a  diplo- 
matic 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  con- 
trast 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  excel- 

77 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

lent  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 
betise.  Her  poor  husband,  himself  not  the 
wisest  of  men,  quite  dreaded  her  speaking. 

"  It  happened  that  the  Abbe  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- 

78 


A  Glimpse  of  Old  French  Society 

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  com- 
position, 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  im- 
promptu fait  a  loisir  till  the  discomforted 

79 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

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  agree- 
able 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  ft  done  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  abbe,  the 
politician  par  eminence,  where  all  were  poli- 
ticians. M.  1'Abbe  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  Vendee, 

80 


A  Glimpse  of  Old  French  Society 

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,  andjfancy 
him  carried  off  by  the  unassisted  prowess  and 
dexterity  of  M.  1'Abbe  !  " 


*"™v-  f  Sitf^ 


~  >»"" 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   GAY   REALITIES   OF   MOLIERE 

DR.  MITFORD  had  set  his  heart  upon  his 
daughter's  becoming  an  "  accomplished  musi- 
cian/' 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  dis- 
missed his  pupil !  "  Things  being  in  this  un- 
promising state,"  she  writes,  "  I  began  to  enter- 
tain 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  pas- 
sage and  two  double  doors.  This  room,  fitted 

82 


The  Gay  Realities  of  Moli&re 

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  Theatre  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  Zaire. 
There  was  a  certain  romance  in  the  situation, 
an  interest  in  the  story.  ...  So  I  got  through 
Zaire,  and  when  I  had  finished  Zaire  I  proceeded 
to  other  plays — Mdipe,  Merope,  Algire,  Maho- 
met, plays  well  worth  reading,  but  not  so  absorb- 
ing 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 
83 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

exhausted  and  I  had  recourse  to  some  neigh- 
bouring volumes  the  state  of  matters  changed 
at  once.  The  new  volumes  contained  the 
comedies  of  Moliere,  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  galere ! ' 

"  Luckily,  however,  the  person  who  dis- 
covered my  delinquency  was  one  of  my  chief 
spoilers — the  husband  of  our  good  school  mis- 
tress. 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  Moliere  for  my  own  reading/' 

84 


The  Gay  Realities  of  Moliere 

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  Ban- 
nister 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." 

85 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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.  Sid- 
dons  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  pre- 
dominate, 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  grow- 
ing rapidly.  Miss  Rowden  happened  to  be  read- 
ing 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  con- 
sequence omit  some  of  my  other  business.  It 
is  so  extremely  like  Italian  that  I  think  I  shall 
find  it  much  easier  than  I  expected." 

86 


The  Gay  Realities  of  Moliere 

"  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  ^Eneid,  which  I  cannot  say  I  admire 
so  much.  Dry  den  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  ex- 
tremely 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. 

87 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

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  in- 
complete without  it.  St.  Quint  in,  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,  Mile.  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  sup- 
port. 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  school- 
room 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 

88 


The  Gay  Realities  of  Moliere 

master,  a  marquis  of  the  ancien  regime.  I  never 
saw  such  a  contrast  between  two  men.  The 
Frenchman  was  slim,  long  and  pale,  and  allow- 
ing 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  in- 
junction 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. 

:t  No  intercourse  took  place  between  them. 
89 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

Indeed  none  was  possible  since  neither  knew 
a  word  of  the  other's  language.  Betsy  was 
silence  personified,  and  poor  Mile.  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  Mile.  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 

90 


The  Gay   Realities  of  Moliere 

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  Mile.  Rose  too 
much  bewildered  to  speak  or  to  comprehend 
the  happiness  that  had  fallen  upon  her/' 


CHAPTER  XII 

RECOLLECTIONS   OF   OLD   READING 

IN  the  spring  of  the  year  1802  Dr.  Mitford  pur- 
chased 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  balus- 
trades. It  had  fallen  out  of  repair,  and  the 
doctor's  first  plan  was  to  carry  out  such  restora- 
tions 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. 

Mary's  school  life  came  to  an  end  at  the  close 

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Recollections  of  Old   Reading 

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  con- 
certs .  .  .  rather  better  patronized,  to  almost 
weekly  incursions  from  itinerant  lecturers  on 
all  the  arts  and  sciences,  and  from  prodigies  of 

93 


Mary   Russell    Mitford 

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  morn- 
ings 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  re- 
quired. 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  de- 
scription 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.  Noth- 
ing 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.  .  .  . 

94 


Recollections  of  Old   Reading 

'  Tailors,  although  he  was  a  liberal  and  punc- 
tual 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  awk- 
ward curve  it  finally  abutted  upon  the  market- 
place. So  popular  was  this  "  incommodious 
avenue  of  shops  "  that  nobody  dreamt  of  visit- 
ing Belford  without  desiring  to  purchase  some- 
thing 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 

95 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

shepherdess  on  a  mantelpiece,  and  whose  pink 
and  white  complexion  .  .  .  had  the  same  profes- 
sional 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,  includ- 
ing 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  medi- 
ocrity "  he  was  attracted  by  the  appearance  of 

96 


Recollections  of  Old  Reading 

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.  .  .  .  Ex- 
cept for  the  clock  of  time,  which,  however  im- 
perceptibly, 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  ad- 
vancing 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 
H  97 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

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  wan- 
dered 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, 

98 


Recollections  of  Old  Reading 

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." 

In  the  year  1804  the  building  of  the  large  new 
house  at  Graseley  was  completed,  and  it  re- 
ceived the  name  of  Bertram  House,  so  called  in 
honour  of  the  Mitfords'  Norman  ancestor,  Sir 
Robert  Bertram.  The  doctor's  usual  extrava- 
gance 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  architec- 
tural 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  planta- 
tions/' 

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 

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Mary   Russell   Mitford 

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. 


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." 
101 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

At  the  time  of  the  Norman  Conquest  it  ap- 
pears 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  contem- 
porary document  written  in  Norman  French  to 
the  effect  that  Sir  Robert  Bertram  estoit  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.1 

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  baitings,  reached 
Little  Harle  Tower  in  Northumberland  a  few 
days  later. 

1  See  Memories,  by  Lord  Redesdale,  K.C.B.,  published  1915. 

102 


A  Northern  Tour 

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  sim- 
plicity of  her  ordinary  life  made  her  specially 
enjoy  her  new  experiences. 

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Mary  Russell  Mitford 

The  Beaumonts  were  people  of  large  property, 
and  Mary  describes  the  wonderful  attire  of 
Mrs.  Beaumont,  who  appeared  at  the  Lor- 
raines'  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,  arm- 
lets, 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 

104 


A  Northern  Tour 

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  accord- 
ingly. ' (  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  (eigh- 
teen 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. 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

.  .  .  We  passed  Netherwitten  .  .  .  and  Swor- 
land,  the  magnificent  seat  of  the  famous  Alexan- 
der 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  magnifi- 
cent 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  distinc- 
tion to  the  whole  family  ;  and  during  the  whole 
day  I  was  never  for  one  instant  unaccompanied 
by  one  of  the  charming  Lady  Percys,  and  prin- 
cipally 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  sump- 
tuous plateau.  I  met  Sir  Charles  Monck,  my 
cousin  of  Mitford,  and  several  people  I  had 
known  at  Little  Harle.  After  dinner  when  the 

106 


A  Northern  Tour 

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  her- 
self 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  [Mor- 
pethj.  Seventy  miles,  a  splendid  dinner  and  a 

107 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  per- 
sons 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  accom- 
panied 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.  "  WThen 
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 

108 


A  Northern  Tour 

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.1 

1  See  History  of  the  County  of  Essex,  by  Thos.  Wright, 
published  1836. 

no 


A   Royal  Visit 

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  Buck- 
ingham 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  inhabi- 
tants 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  i8th, 
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 

in 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  de- 
tails in  this  newspaper  are  omitted,  we  have 
introduced  them  between  brackets. 

In  explanation  of  an  allusion  to  a  severe  snow- 
storm which  it  was  feared  might  prevent  the 
royal  visit  from  taking  place,  we  would  remark 
that  an  examination  of  seyeral  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  jour- 
nalist, "  the  usual  communication  between  the 
metropolis  and  the  distant  parts  of  the  kingdom 
has  been  nearly  impracticable.  The  Ports- 
mouth mail  coach  is  reported  to  have  lost  its 
way  in  the  snowstorm,  and  many  accidents  to 
passengers  in  other  mail  coaches  are  related." 
"At  Hatfield  Peveral,"  states  a  writer, 

112 


],E  COMTE  D'ARTOIS 
(AFTERWARDS  CHARLES  x) 


A  Royal  Visit 

"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'Angouleme,  Duke 
de  Berry,  Duke  de  Grammont  and  the  Prince 
de  Conde,  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  XVFs  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 
i  113 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

General,  who  commands  at  Colchester,  ordered 
five  hundred  pioneers  to  clear  the  road  from 
that  city  to  Bocking.  On  His  Majesty's  ap- 
proach 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'Angouleme 
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.] 

114 


WHERE   THE    KING    DINED 


A  Royal  Visit 

"  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 — Prospefite  a  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 

117 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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'Angouleme." 

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  RUSSELL  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  perpe- 
trated 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  for- 
tunate 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. 

119 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  pub- 
lished 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/' 

120 


Plays  and  Poetry 


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 
Moliere'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  for- 
merly delivered  before  the  heads  of  certain 
colleges  of  Oxford  at  their  triennial  visitations.1 

"  Many  of  the  old  pupils  will  remember  the 
effect  of  these  performances,  complete  in 
scenery,  dresses  and  decorations,  and  remark- 

1  Dr.  Valpy  was  thus  the  pioneer  of  an  important  move- 
ment to  be  adopted  in  later  years  by  our  great  Universities. 

121 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

able  for  the  effect  produced,  not  only  on  the 
actors,  but  on  an  audience,  of  which  a  consider- 
able 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. 

:'  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  neces- 
sary 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  marvel- 
lously, 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  circum- 
stance only  a  little  injured  the  perfect  grouping 

122 


Plays  and  Poetry 

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  per- 
formances 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  Pere  Brumoy's  '  Theatre  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.  Quin- 
tin  ;  these  latter,  however,  still  continued  to 
live  in  Hans  Place  although  in  a  different 
house.  Mary  went  much  into  society  with  her 

123 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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}.  .  .  .  Billing- 
ton,  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  per- 
fection. 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 

124 


Plays  and  Poetry 

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  up- 
wards 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  pro- 
vincial 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  enig- 
matically and  evidently  with  a  view  to  secrecy, 
whilst  others,  on  the  contrary,  express  his  senti- 
ments 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." 

126 


A  Chosen  Correspondent 

Mary's  attitude  towards  politics  throughout  her 
life  was  naturally  influenced  by  her  surround- 
ings ;  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  misunderstand- 
ing, 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.  Ser- 
vants 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, 

127 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  defend- 
ing 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  cul- 
tivated tastes  and  of  much  refinement.  His 
interest  in  Miss  Mitford  seems  to  have  com- 
menced 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  thou- 

128 


A  Chosen  Correspondent 

sand  times  told,  than  such  good-humoured  con- 
descension 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  charm- 
ing— full  of  old-fashioned  courtesy,  of  quaint 
humour,  and  of  pleasant  and  genial  criticism  on 
literature  and  on  art."1 

Sometimes  he  would  send  Mary  a  few  verses 
he  had  written  upon  some  congenial  subject. 
Amongst  these  occur  the  following  lines,  com- 
posed 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  re- 
marks :  "  Pray  never  refrain  from  writing  much 
because  you  want  time  and  inclination^  to  read 
over  what  you  have  written.  I  would  a  thou- 
sand 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 

1  See  Yesterdays  with  Authors,  by  James  T.  Fields. 
K  129 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  imagi- 
nation 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 

130 


A  Chosen  Correspondent 

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,  some- 
times 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  find- 
ing 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 

131 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  proper- 
ties 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  sen- 
tence 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  pre- 
decessor [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 

132 


A  Chosen  Correspondent 

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,1  '  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  acquies- 
cence ;  I  would  at  any  time  give  a  dozen  civil 
Yes's  for  one  spirited  No,  especially  in  corre- 
spondence, which  is  exactly  like  a  game  of 
shuttle-cock,  and  would  be  at  an  end  in  an  in- 
stant 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  i8th  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 


The  March  of  Mind 

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  ex- 
pression 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, 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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 
Desire  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, 

136 


The  March  of  Mind 

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  occasion- 
ally 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  oui  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  un- 
looked-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  Mit- 
ford  '  was  drunk  with  applause." 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  pene- 
trate 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  a  propos 

138 


The  March  of  Mind 

of  a  toast.  "  The  Cause  of  Education  through- 
out 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  specula- 
tions, was  frequently  involved  in  money  diffi- 
culties. 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,  fur- 

139 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

niture,  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  sus- 
pense. .  .  .  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  cen- 
sured 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 

140 


The  March  of  Mind 

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  un- 
luckily one  of  the  finest  whist  players  in  Eng- 
land) 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 

141 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  admir- 
able 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 

142 


The  March  of  Mind 

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.'  " 


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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  in- 
culcated that  can  serve  to  amuse,  to  occupy,  or 
adorn  youth — youth  which  needs  so  little  amuse- 
ment or  ornament ! — something  should  be  in- 
stilled that  may  add  pleasure  and  respectability 
to  age." 

About  this  time  Sir  William  paid  a  visit  to 

144 


Versatility  and  Playfulness 

Bath.  Mary  writes  :  "  What  says  Bath  of 
Rokeby?  But  Bath,  I  suppose,  is,  as  to  litera- 
ture, 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.  '  0,  la  Solitude 
est  une  belle  chose  ;  mais  ilfaut  avoir  quelqu'une  a 
qui  Von  puisse  dire,t  La  Solitude  est  une  belle 
chose  I '  ...  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  acquaint- 
ance. You  will  find  just  the  same  plain,  awk- 
ward, blushing  thing  whom  you  profess  to  re- 
member. ...  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 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

marry  Sir  William  Elf  or  d,  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  com- 
plained of  Miss  Mitford's  writing  being  some- 
what 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  opera- 
tion 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 

146 


Versatility  and  Playfulness 

little  nook  ;  nothing  visible  but  lawn  and  plan- 
tation ;   whilst  breathing  the  odours  of  the  firs, 


•jf 


BERTRAM    HOUSE 


whose  fragrance  this  wet  summer  has  been  past 
anything  I  could  have  conceived/' 

Mossy  was  the  name  of  her  dog.    Throughout 
her  life  Mary  Mitford  was  much  attached  to 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  remark- 
ing :  "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  musi- 
cians it  is  a  crime  of  Use  majeste  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  modu- 

148 


Versatility  and  Playfulness 

lated  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  re- 
markable in  their  delightful  dramas  .  .  .  than 

149 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  incrus- 
tations, but  so  thinly,  so  delicately  clothed  that 
every  twig,  every  fibre,  every  ramification  re- 
mained perfect,  alike  indeed  in  colour,  but  dis- 
playing 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 

150 


Versatility  and  Playfulness 

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  dis- 
cussion." 

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  neigh- 
bours 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  donne.'  " 

Mary  Mitford  always  enjoyed  writing  to  Sir 
William  upon  literary  matters,  as  the  reader 
knows,  and  comparing  their  respective  opinions. 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

"  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  confi- 
dants 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 — Fenelon,  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  Seeker  for 
guides,  and  go  for  amusement  to  Miss  Edge- 


Versatility  and  Playfulness 

worth  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  gentle- 
manly 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  deshabille 
— 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  -Bias  .  .  .  while  she  sticks  to  that  she  is 
very  good  ;  her  comic  powers  are  really  exceed- 
ingly 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  cen- 
tury 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 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

world  since  the  days  of  Shakespeare  !  1  am 
just  fresh  from  reading  Dr.  Carrie'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  char- 
acter contained  in  almost  everything  he  wrote 
(even  in  his  songs)  as  Burns."  After  speaking 
of  "  his  versatility  and  his  exhaustless  imagina- 
tion/' she  says  :  "  By  the  way,  my  dear  Sir 
William,  does  it  not  appear  to  you  that  versa- 
tility is  the  true  and  rare  characteristic  of  that 
rare  thing  called  genius — versatility  and  play- 
fulness ?  ' 

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 


Versatility  and  Playfulness 

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  hilLto  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, 
11  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 

156' 


From  Mansion  to  Cottage 

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  composi- 
tion, in  colour,  and  in  that  great  quality  of  tell- 
ing a  story  which  appeals  at  once  to  every  mind. 
Our  delight  was  sincerely  felt,  and  most  enthu- 
siastically 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  amuse- 
ment 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. 

• 

:<  Hay  don  was  at  that  period  a  remarkable 
person  to  look  at  and  listen  to.  ...  His  figure 
was  short,  slight,  elastic  and  vigorous  ;  his  com- 
plexion 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  re- 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

marked  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  writ- 
ing on  the  sketch  gave  rise  to  our  long  corre- 
spondence, 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  pro- 
tracted  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 
I  £3°°°  left  by  Dr.  Russell  to  his  daughter  and 
Hier  offspring.     This  sum,  placed  in  the  funds, 
was  happily  held  in  trust  by  the  Mitfords'  fast 
1  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 

158 


From  Mansion  to  Cottage 

of  her  mother,  he  says  :  "  That  £3000  I  con- 
sider 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."1 

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  penni- 
less," 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  affec- 
tion 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  pic- 

1  See  Life  and  Friendships  of  Mary  Russell  Mitford,  by 
W.  J.  Roberts. 

159 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

turesque  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," 


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  her- 
self 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  pil- 
grims, 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  resi- 
dence is  a  cottage — no  not  a  cottage,  it  does  not 
deserve  the  name--a  messuage  or  tenement, 
M  161 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  con- 
sists of  a  series  of  closets  .  .  .  which  they  call 
parlours  and  kitchens  and  pantries,  some  of 
them  minus  a  corner  which  has  been  unnatur- 
ally 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  pre- 
sent the  squeeze  sits  upon  us  as  uneasily  as 
tight  stays,  and  is  almost  as  awkward  looking. 

"  Nevertheless  we  are  really  getting  very  com- 
fortable 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  pre- 
datory habits  by  being  lost  all  the  morning  in  a 
large  rat  hole  and  stealing  the  milk  for  our  tea 
this  afternoon." 

Ten  days  later  Mary  writes  to  a  female 

162 


irrc 


THE    MITFORDS'   COTTAC-i: 


Three  Mile  Cross 

friend  :  "  We  are  still  at  this  cottage,  which  I 
like  very  much.  .  .  .  Indeed  I  had  taken  root 
completely  till  yesterday,  when  some  neigh- 
bours of  ours  (pigs,  madam)  got  into  my  little 
flower  court  and  made  havoc  among  my  pinks 
and  swreet-peas,  and  a  little  loosened  the  fibres 
of  my  affection.  At  the  very  same  moment  the 
pump  was  announced  to  be  dry,  which,  con- 
sidering 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  stand- 
ing 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  unim- 
proved 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. 

165 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

We  will  begin  at  the  lower  end,  and  proceed  up 
the  hill. 

"  The  tidy  square  red  cottage1  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.  Re- 
monstrance 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.  .  .  . 

lt  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 

1  This  house,  though  unaltered  in  appearance,  is  now  an 
inn  called  "  The  Fox  and  Horn." 

166 


Three  Mile  Cross 

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  trans- 
parencies and  the  man  of  shoes  must  have  felt 
for  each  other  on  that  evening.  Our  shoe- 
maker 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,  protec- 
tress 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 

167 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  gen- 
tility 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  re- 
pository for  bread,  shoes,  tea,  cheese,  tape, 
ribands  and  bacon,  for  everything,  in  short, 
except  the  one  particular  thing  which  you  hap- 
pen 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  ABC,  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. 

"  Divided  from  the  shop  by  a  narrow  yard," 
continues  Miss  Mitford,  "  and  opposite  the  shoe- 

168 


THE   VILLAGE   SHOP 


Three  Mile  Cross 

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 

171 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

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  porcu- 
pine, 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/' 

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 

172 


Three  Mile  Cross 

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. 

11  Next  door  [to  the  house  under  repair],"  con- 
tinues 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  intel- 
lect, in  power  and  in  self-will.  She  manages 
everybody  in  the  place,  her  schoolmistress  in- 
cluded .  .  .  makes  the  lazy  carry  her,  the  silent 
talk  to  her,  the  grave  romp  with  her  ;  does  any- 
thing 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  some- 
times 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 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  squab- 
bling woman !  The  curate  is  nothing  to  him. 
He  is  fit  to  be  perpetual  churchwarden." 

176 


Three  Mile  Cross 

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  "  carry- 
ing his  gown. 

On  quitting  the  village  Miss  Mitford  ex- 
claims :  "  How  pleasantly  the  road  winds  up 
the  hill  between  its  broad  green  borders  and 
hedgerows,  so  thickly  timbered  !  .  .  .  We  are 

x  177 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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,  peep- 
ing 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." 


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 

179 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

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  hap- 
pily 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. 

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 

180 


The  New  Home 

table  she  used  to  write  her  stories  of  village  life, 
The    window    looks    down    upon    the    "  shoe- 


THE   WRITING    PARLOUR 


maker's  *'  little  shop,  with  its  pointed  roof  and 
tiny  window  panes.    It  must  be  quite  unchanged 

181 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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 

182 


The  New  Home 

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  com- 
fortable." 

The  projecting  piece  of  building  seen  in  the 
sketch  in  the  front  of  the  cottage  was  appro- 
priated 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  shoe- 
maker'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  magnifi- 
cent avenue  of  elms  that  border  a  long  stretch 
of  grass — one  of  the  old  drover's  roads — extend- 
ing 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 

183 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

gives  to  the  outline  almost  the  look  of  an  amphi- 
theatre. "  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  hay- 
field  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 

184 


THE  WHEELWRIGHT'S  SHOP 


The  New  Home 

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." 

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  ac- 
quainted with  its  charms. 

"  This  country  is  eminently  flowery,"  she 
writes.  "  Besides  the  variously  tinted  prim- 
roses 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." 

187 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

She  loved  the  winding  rivers  that  water  her 
part  of  the  country  ;  the  "  pleasant  and  pas- 
toral 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  wander- 
ing 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  beau- 
tiful !  "  she  exclaims.  "  The  sun  just  disap- 
pearing, 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 

188 


The  New  Home 

that  glorious  sky,  and  then  to  see  that  magnifi- 
cent 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  im- 
measurable majesty  of  nature  and  the  unspeak- 
able goodness  of  God  who  has  spread  an  enjoy- 
ment so  pure,  so  peaceful  and  so  intense  before 
the  meanest  and  the  lowest  of  His  creatures/' 


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  pas- 
sages. 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  Jon- 
son  called  The  Silent  Woman  Miss  Mitford  re- 
marks :— 

"  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 

190 


A  Loquacious  Visitor 

the  possibility  that  any  petticoatecl  thing,  were 
she  as  hardy  as  a  Scotch  fir,  should  stir  out ; 
four  days  chained  by  '  sad  civility '  to  that  fire- 
side 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  gratifica- 
tion 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 

191 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

ust  have  listened  herself  ;  and  yet  her  country- 
man 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  ex- 
hausts the  breath  that  might  be  better  em- 
ployed. .  .  .  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  possi- 
bility 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. 

"  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,  '  Us  ont  tous  un  grand  talent  pour 
le  silence.'  ...  It  is  the  tete-Mete  that  kills,  or 

192 


r TS&r.  •  &*<.  ?  <V.v .  v- •#-%- 
^•!-  .^  .;/>•.   f:  ^ViiV-tU^- 


^^f'J^x^C 
.^Slja^  ', 


>y..;v/ 
/  • >: 'fi&r*^^=^==^ 

I  •  \^ N  >^-^-\t/^=—=~_ --  - 


WHERE  THE  CURATE  LODGP.D 


A  Loquacious  Visitor 

the  small  fireside  circle  of  three  or  four  where 
only  one  can -speak  and  all  the  rest  must  seem 
to  listen — seem  I  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  ^aid,  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  re- 
sounding 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 


Mary   Russell   Mitforcl 

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  pal- 
ings 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 

196 


. 

m ; 


**  tint 


A  Loquacious  Visitor 

one  side,  parted  from  the  flower-beds  by  a  row 
of  rich  geraniums,  is  our  out-of-door  drawing- 
room. 

:<  I  know  nothing  so  pleasant  as  to  sit  there 
on  a  summer  afternoon,  with  the  western  sun 
flickering  through  a  great  elder  tree,  and  light- 
ing 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  pleasant est  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 
199 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

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  in- 
visible 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  pro- 
fusion 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  tra- 

200 


A  Loquacious  Visitor 

dition,  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,  how-, 
ever,  proceed  from  disrespect,  the  spicer  gatherer 
being  engaged  in  sniffing  with  visible  satisfac- 
tion the  leaves  and  stalks.  '  It  has  a  fine  veno- 
mous 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  repu- 

201 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

tation,  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  prac- 
titioner, an  interloper,  and  hates  me  accordingly. 
He  has  very  little  cause,  [for]  my  quackery, 
being  mostly  of  the  cautious,  preventive,  safe- 
guard, 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  prognos- 
tics, 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  partiali- 
ties 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 

203 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  descrip- 
tions 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  any- 
thing 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 

204 


The  Publication  of  Our  Village 

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  pres  he 
declares  the  picture  to  be  exact." 

Miss  Mitford  thus  prefaces  her  work  in  the 
first  sketch  entitled  Om  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  neigh- 
bourhood, 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 

205 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

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  {o  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/' 

206 


The  Publication  of  Our  Village 

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 
Mayflower1 ;  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  ! 

"  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 

1  Her  favourite  greyhound. 
207 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  apprecia- 
tion 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  '  violet- 
ing  '  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 

208 


The  Publication  of  Our  Village 

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  suc- 
ceeded 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 
Blackwood1  in  which  I  am  very  pleasantly 
mentioned  in  the  last  article,  the  '  Noctes 
Ambrosianae.'  " 

It  was  under  this  title,  the  reader  may  remem- 
ber, that  the  celebrated  "  Christopher  North  " 
(John  Wilson)  was  bringing  out  a  series  of  enter- 
taining conversations  on  all  sorts  of  subjects 
supposed  to  be  spoken  by  North  himself  and  a 
few  fellow  habitues  of  an  old-fashioned  Edin- 
burgh 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  Am- 
brosianse." 

1  Blackwood 's  Edinburgh  Magazine. 
P  209 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 


'  NOCTES  AMBROSIAN^E  " 

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  admir- 
able 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  charac- 
ter, 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  ex- 
cessively. 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 

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The  Publication  of  Our  Village 

o'  huts  and  hovels  without  riggin'  by  the  way- 
side, 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  gentle- 
men 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. 

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 

212 


A  Country-side  Romance 

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 


'/»/.«:.'.•      >•    •'        Afc    O  x       '     ' 


OLD   BERKSHIRE    FARM 


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 

213 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

which  a  honeysuckle  in  full  bloom  was  wreath- 
ing 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.  Mat- 
thews herself  into  her  own  comfortable  parlour. 
u  On  my  begging  that  I  might  cause  no  inter- 
ruption 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  granddaughter 
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  im- 
patience 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 

214 


A  Country-side  Romance 

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,  open- 
ing 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  !  ' 

11  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  !  ' 

215 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

"  '  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  un- 
equivocal '  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  counten- 
ance,— 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. 

216 


A  Country-side  Romance 

"  '  Humph  !  '  said  Mrs.  Matthews. 

"  '  For  shame,  Susan  !  Pray  don't,  grand- 
mother !  '  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  neigh- 
bourhood, 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 

217 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

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  Novem- 
ber, 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  dreari- 

218 


A  Country-side  Romance 

ness  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  grey- 
hound 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 

219 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  re- 
mained in  the  haze  ;  then  more  and  more  dis- 
tinctly 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  ex- 
pedition 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  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  writing  plays  for  the  stage. 
She  had  heard  that  occasionally  large  sums  of 
money  were  gained  by  the  authors  of  successful 

221 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

dramas,  and  she  was  encouraged  in  her  under- 
taking 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  pro- 
duced 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  en- 
couragement." 

But  before  Foscari  had  appeared  on  the  stage 
her  play  of  Julian,  having  been  read  and  ap- 
proved 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  Co  vent  Garden 
theatre,  Mary  Mitford  continued  her  dramatic 
work. 

But  she  had  to  go  through  many  trials  con- 

222 


A  New  Playwright 

nee  ted  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, 

223 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

"  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  disapproba- 
tion from  beginning  to  end.  .  .  .  William  Har- 
ness 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/' 

Mary  herself  was  not  present  at  this  wonder- 
ful 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. 

224 


FRITH    STREET,    SOHO  SQUARE 


A  New  Playwright 

Generally  the  messenger  of  good  tidings  was 
poor  Hay  don,  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  ex- 
periences connected  with  the  performance  of 
her  plays,  and  amongst  these  she  has  recorded 
her  first  sight  of  a  theatre  by  daylight. 

"  Td  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] 

227 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  saunter- 
ing languidly  through  their  parts  in  the  closest 
of  bonnets  and  thickest  of  shawls  ;  untidy 
ballet  girls  (there  was  a  dance  in  Foscari}  walk- 
ing 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. 

u  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  every- 
where !  .  .  . 

"  No  end  to  the  absurdities  and  discrepancies 
of  a  rehearsal !  I  contributed  mj?  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  en- 
treaty that  he  would  not  suffer  them  to  fire 

228 


A  New  Playwright 

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  her- 
self 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  remark- 
able. 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 

230 


Rienzi 

it  very  beautifully  told  in  the  last  volume  of 
Gibbon,  and  still  more  graphically  related  in 
L'Abbe  de  Sadi's  Memoires  pour  la  Vie  de 
Petrarque." 

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  d6but.  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  !  ' 

231 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  nth  of 
October  ;  that  is  to  say,  next  Saturday  fort- 
night. 

"  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  sensi- 
bility, 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  repre- 
sentation 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/' 

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 : 

232 


IN  GREAT  QUEEN   STREET 


Rienzi 

"  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  com- 
plete 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  : — 

235 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

"  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  cor- 
diality 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/1 

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 

236 


Rienzi 

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- 

237 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  dis- 
appointment that  she  had  to  endure.  Her  play 
of  Charles  I,  the  subject  of  which  was  sug- 
gested 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  for- 
bidden, 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 

238 


Rienzi 

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  dis- 
tance and  the  kindness  and  the  benefits  shine 
vividly  out." 

An  edition  of  her  collected  works  was  pub- 
lished 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  un- 
hashed  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 

239 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

are  made  interesting  by  the  truth  and  sprightli- 
ness  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  uncertain- 
ties 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/' 


t 
A  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  neigh- 
bourhood/' writes  Miss  Mitford  in  one  of  her 
stories,  "is  the  Lime  Cottage  at  Burley-Hatch. 
It  consists  of  a  low-browed  habitation,  so  en- 
tirely 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  sicle  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  Therese  de  G.,  an 
emigree  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. 
R  241 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

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  content- 
ment. 

"A  very  popular  person  is  Mademoiselle 
Therese — 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  gar- 
den 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  power- 
ful, 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  move- 
ment; a  round  and  darkly  complexioned  face, 
somewhat  faded  and  passee  but  still  striking 

242 


Foreign  Neighbours 

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  in- 
vented sundry  legends  to  excuse  the  solecism, 
and  talk  of  duels  fought  pour  Vamour  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 

243 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

that  is  certain  is  that  Mademoiselle  Therese 
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  after- 
noons, 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 

244 


Foreign  Neighbours 

of  life  ;  illustrating  her  descriptions  by  a  series 
of  spirited  drawings  of  costumes  and  characters 
done  by  herself,  and  always  finishing  by  pro- 
ducing 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  Therese'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  Bour- 
bons 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  Bour- 

245 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

bons  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  cot- 
tage :  but  in  less  than  three  months,  luckily 
before  Mr.  Foreclose  had  found  a  purchaser, 
-mademoiselle  came  home  again.  She  com- 
plained 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'Angouleme)  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 I"1 

Another  foreign  neighbour,  described  by 
Miss  Mitford,  was  an  old  French  emigre  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, 

1  We  think  this  place  may  have  been  intendedffor  Burgh- 
field  Hatch. 

246 


Foreign  Neighbours 

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  gingerbread.  It  is  a  question  by 
which  of  his  trades  poor  Matthew  gains  least." 

Here  it  was  that  the  old  emigre  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  Abbe,  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.  1' Abbe's  snuff  made  her 
nervous.  At  last  poor  M.  1'Abbe  fell  ill,  really 
ill,  dangerously  ill,  and  Matthew  Wise  went  in 
all  haste  to  summon  Mr.  Hallett  (the  apothe- 
cary). ... 

"  Now  Mr.  Hallett  was  what  is  usually  called 
a  rough  diamond.  He  piqued  himself  on  being 
a  plain  downright  Englishman  [and]  he  had  such 

247 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

an  aversion  to  a  Frenchman,  in  general,  as  a 
cat  has  to  a  dog  :  and  was  wont  to  erect  him- 
self 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  re- 
signation 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  Abbe's  spirits,  and  our  good  apothe- 
cary 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 

248 


Foreign  Neighbours 

he  solaced  himself  with  a  fluent  volley  of  execra- 
tions in  his  own  language,  which .  the  Abbe 
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.  1'Abbe  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. 


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/1 
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/' 

250 


<F 


THE   WEST   GATE,   SOUTHAMPTON 


Agreeable  Jaunts 

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  hill- 
side, its  regular  white  buildings  rising  terrace 
above  terrace,  crescent  above  crescent,  glitter- 
ing in  the  sun,  and  charmingly  varied  by  the 
green  trees  of  its  park  and  gardens.  .  .  .  Very 
pleasant  is  Bath  to  look  at.  But  when  con- 
trasted with  its  old  reputation  as  the  favourite 
resort  of  the  noble  and  the  fair  ...  it  is  im- 
possible not  to  feel  that  the  spirit  has  departed  ; 
that  it  is  a  city  of  memories,  the  very  Pompeii 
of  watering-places/' 

Again  she  writes  :  "  A  place  full  of  associa- 
tions 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 

253 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

haunted  me.  Whenever  it  rained  I  thought  of 
Anne  Elliott  meeting  Captain  Went  worth,  when 
driven  by  a  shower  to  take  refuge  in  a  shoe-shop. 


~    ..  ~f 


PULTENEY    BRIDGE 


Whenever  I  got  out  of  breath  in  climbing  up- 
hill I  thought  of  that  same  charming  Anne 
Elliott,  and  of  that  ascent  from  the  lower  town 

254 


Agreeable  Jaunts 

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 
u  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  Rich- 
mond. 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  coun- 
try, 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 

255 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  land- 
scape/' she  continues,  "  is  the  river,  the  beau- 
tiful 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  remem- 
brances of  Johnson  and  Boswell  and  Goldsmith 
and  Burke  ;  here  again  the  elegant  house  of 
Owen  Cambridge  ;  close  by  the  celebrated  villa 

256 


Agreeable  Jaunts 

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-mattres,  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  inter- 
sected 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. 

s  257 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  uncon- 
scious 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  ringers'  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, 

258 


Agreeable  jaunts 


.  .  .  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." 


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  fagade  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. 

In  the  northern  wing  of  Ufton  Court  we  come 
once  more  upon  associations  with  the  name  of 

260 


THE 


ARABELLA    FKRMOK    (MRS.   PERKINS) 
By  W.  Sykes 


FRANCIS    PERKINS 
By  W.  Sykes 


Ufton  Court 

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  re- 
placed 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. 

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  harp- 
sichord and  an  ombre  table,  the  latter  singularly 
suggestive  of  the  heroine  of  the  "  Rape  of  the 
Lock/'1 

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 

1  See  The  History  of  Ufton  Court,  by  H.  Mary  Sharp. 
263 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

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  por- 
traits 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  per- 
mission 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  con- 
structed 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/' 

264 


Ufton  Court 

"  The  priest's  hiding-place/'  she  continues, 
was  discovered  early  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 


BELINDA'S  PARLOUR 


tury.     A   narrow  ladder   led  down  into   this 
gloomy  resort,  and  at  the  bottom  was  found  a 

265 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

crucifix.  As  many  as  a  dozen  carefully  masked 
openings  into  dark  hiding-places  have  been  dis- 
covered 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  en- 
trance. 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. 

Beyond  the  main  boundary  wall  the  green- 
sward 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 

266 


..-.,*,  r  ••;;>.:,,.. 
,.-:•;••:.-:•:;  .•'••"..^-.i-*  .  - . 

>'-^cvv---'.rsN;«y.v. 

-^St^lP^ 

x --,0 .--..'  .•/•V»»:^>JSrAr>!   ^  " 

&l*y.-$ 

$&&& 


•  ~m '  *  m  nprr^TTm^TrfuT^I^iU'  •'  i» •  -^ 

-  '^r^^raiF. i-^Tnci^^ 


THE   GARDEN    STEPS 


Ufton  Court 

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  cen- 
turies." 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." 

A  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  examin- 

269 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

ing  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  dis- 
covered 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,  coun- 
terpanes, 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  change- 
able 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  un- 
diminished  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,  yes- 
terday evening  a  slight  misfortune  happened  to 
our  goodly  tenement,  occasioned  by  the  un- 
lucky diligence  which,  under  the  conduct  of  a 

271 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  batter- 
ing 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  passen- 
gers, coachman,  horses  and  spectators  all  righted 
at  last,  and  no  harm  done  but  to  my  flowers 
and  to  the  wall.  May,  however,  stands  bewail- 
ing the  ruins,  for  that  low  wall  was  her  favourite 
haunt ;  she  used  to  parade  backwards  and  for- 
wards 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  patch- 
work !  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 

272 


A  Further  Glance  at  Our  Village 

for  nothing.  Neither  have  we  any  improve- 
ments 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  "  his- 
toric 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  other- 
wise, 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 

T  273 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  our- 
selves— 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.  Brom- 
ley at  the  shop  ;  and  the  carrier  and  the  post- 
man. 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  ? 
274 


A   Further  Glance  at  Our  Village 

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  pur- 
chases 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  insupport- 
able 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 

275 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  accumu- 
lation 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  respect- 
able 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  cata- 
logue, 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, 

276 


A  Further  Glance  at  Our  Village 

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,  cheapen- 
ing 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 
unlocked  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  calcula- 
tion— calico  at  ninepence,  fine,  thick,  strong, 
wide  calico  at  ninepence  absolutely  enchanted 

277 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

me  and  I  took  the  whole  piece  ;  then  after  buy- 
ing 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  irresisti- 
bility 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  unsuspect- 
ing the  sins  of  omission,  the  errands  unper- 

278 


A   Further  Glance  at  Our  Village 

formed,  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  manoeuvre) , 
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 

279 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

pony  and  chaise  and  riders  and  packages  back- 
ward 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  satis- 
factory, 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  ad- 
miration 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/ 

280 


A  Further  Glance  at  Our  Village 

"  '  Sewing-silk  !     I  don't  know — look  about/ 

"  Ah  !  she  might  look  long  enough  !  no  sew- 
ing-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  for- 
gotten 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 

281 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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. 

tf  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  pro- 
perty, 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  reti- 
cule 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  :*  "  She 
loathed  mere  dandies,  and  there  were  no 
epithets  too  hot  for  her  contempt  in  that  direc- 
tion. Old  beaux  she  heartily  despised,  and 
speaking  of  one  whom  she  had  known,  I  remem- 
ber she  quoted  with  a  fine  scorn  this  appro- 
priate passage  from  Dickens  :  '  Ancient,  dan- 
dified men,  those  crippled  invalides  from  the 
campaign  of  vanity,  where  the  only  powder  was 
hair-powder  and  the  only  bullets  fancy  balls/ 

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  per- 

1  See  Yesterdays  with  Authors. 
283 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

fectly  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  bis  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 

284 


Eccentric  Neighbours 

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  por- 
tion 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  adven- 
tures. 

"  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 
285 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  Mer- 
maiden,  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  Mer maiden.  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  innova- 
tions 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 

286 


Eccentric  Neighbours 

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  com- 
plainers  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  oppo- 
nents 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  stu- 
pidity., 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,  semp- 
stress, cook  and  housemaid  in  the  navy  ;  him 
he  was  determined  to  procure  to  keep  his  re- 
fractory household  in  some  order  ;  accordingly 
he  wrote  to  desire  his  presence,  and  Bill,  unable 
to  resist  the  summons  of  his  old  commander, 
arrived  accordingly.  .  .  . 

287 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

"  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,  b,y  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  hand- 
maids. 

"  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  New- 
foundland dog  and  a  tame  goat,  into  a  stroll 

288 


Eccentric  Neighbours 

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  par- 
tiality 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 
u  289 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

amongst  the  gentry  of  the  neighbourhood.  His 
own  hospitality  was  irresistible,  and  his  frank- 
ness and  simplicity,  mixed  with  a  sort  of  petu- 
lant 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  excel- 
lent 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 

290 


Eccentric  Neighbours 

had  an  intense  and  growing  hatred,  much 
augmented  since  victory  upon  victory  had  de- 
prived 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  ?  '  " 


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-  -1  Park 

and  the  pretty  village  of  M 2  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 

1  Wokefield  Park.  2  Mortimer. 

292 


The  May-Houses 

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.  ... 

"  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  May- 
ing, 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  infor- 
mant, had  retraced  our  steps  a  little,  had  turned 
up  another  lane,  and  found  ourselves  &t  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  : 

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Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  Sil- 
chester,  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 

294 


The  May-Houses 

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 

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Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  in- 
fants 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  Mit fords' 
cottage.. 

"  Landlord  Sims,  the  master  of  the  revels," 
writes  Miss  Mitford,  "and  our  very  good  neigh- 
bour, 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  com- 
panion 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, 

2Q6 


The  May-Houses 

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. 


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 

207 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  neigh- 
bours 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  coad- 
jutor 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 

298 


The  May-Houses 

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  tres  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  ex- 
tremely 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 

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Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  May- 
300 


The  May-Houses 

house,  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  morn- 
ing 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  com- 
panion, 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. 

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Walks  in  the  Country 

"  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 


BRIDGE   ON    THE    LODDON 


stepped  into  life  ;   just  as  tender,  as  playful,  as 
gentle  and  as  kind.  .  .  . 

"  But  here  we  are  at  the  bridge  !     Here  we 
must  alight  !     '  This  is  the  Loddon,  Emily.     Is 

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Mary  Russell   Mitford 

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  dis- 
mount 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  glass- 
less  windows  and  dilapidated  doors  form  a 
melancholy  contrast  with  the  strength  and  en- 
tireness  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  ! 

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Walks  in  the  Country 

What  an  intensity  of  odour  !  And  what  a  mur- 
mur 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  fore- 
cast, 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  in- 
tercepted 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/  ' 
x  305 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  Mit- 
ford 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. 

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,  especi- 

306 


IN   ABERLEIGH    PARK 


Walks  in  the  Country 

ally  in  her  woodland  recesses,  as  that  picturesque 
people  who  are,  so  to  say,  the  wild  genus— 
the  pheasants  and  roebucks  of  the  human 


race/1 


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 

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Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  predic- 
tions 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 

310 


Walks  in  the  Country 

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  affec- 
tions 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  prob- 
ably 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  dis- 
covered. 

'  Harriet  at  first  meditated  a  denial.     She 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

called  up  a  pretty  unconcerned  look,  answered 
my  silence  (for  I  never  spoke  a  word)  by  mutter- 
ing something  about  '  coals  for  the  parlour/ 
and  catching  up  my  new-painted  green  water- 
ing-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 

312 


Walks  in  the  Country 

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  Joe) 
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  appear- 
ance yet  ?  ' 

"  '  No  ;  there  had  not  been  a  white  horse 
past  the  place  since  Tuesday  ;  so  it  must  cer- 
tainly 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 

313 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

rode  ;  another,  but  he  was  old  farmer  Lewing- 
ton,  a  married  man  ;  a  third,  but  he  was  little 
Lord  L—  — ,  a  schoolboy  on  his  Arabian  pony. 
Besides,  they  all  passed  the  house.  .  .  . 

:t  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,  trium- 
phant 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  biographer1 — a  contemporary — writes  : 

"  In  the  summer  time  when  she  gave  straw- 
berry 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,  con- 
sidered by  some  "to  be  even  better  than  her 
books,"  delivered,  as  it  was,  by  a  "  voice  beau- 
tiful as  a  chime  of  bells." 

It  was  in  the  year  1847  that   Miss  Mitford 

1  Rev.  A.  G.  L'Estrange. 
315 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

first  made  the  acquaintance  of  Mr.  James  T. 
Fields — a  distinguished  American — both  author 
and  publisher — whose  "  bright,  genial,  vivacious 
letters JJ  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  ac- 
quaintance 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 

316 


A  Centre  of  Interest 

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  gingerbread  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. 

317 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

"  .  .  .  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  observa- 
tions 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  representa- 
tion 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  fore- 
most 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 

318 


A  Centre  of  Interest 

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  Athenceum.  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 

319 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

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  conserva- 
tory, 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  ? 

1 '  As  we  drove  [later]  along  those  umbrageous 
lanes,  and  crossed  the  sweet  pastoral  Loddon, 
she  stayed  her  pony  phaeton  [at  times]  to  ad- 
mire some  goodly  house,  or  picturesque  par- 
sonage, [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." 

320 


A  Centre  of  Interest 

"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  differ- 
ence 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  char- 
acter. ...  A  sport  that  has  no  drawback  of 
cruelty  or  vulgarity  in  it,  but  has  every  recom- 
mendation 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 

Y  321 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

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  in- 
domitable 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  I ' 

"  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  ex- 
clusive 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  con- 
ferred a  benefit  upon  our  fireside  which  will 
make  you  even  more  beloved  than  formerly, 
for  now  we  shall  always  have  you  at  hand." 

322 


A  Centre  of  Interest 

Miss  Mitford  held  communion  either  person- 
ally 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  ornee  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  reputa- 
tion." 

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 

323 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

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  pro- 
cured 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  sur- 
rounded 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  "ex- 
pressed an  interest  in  two  flowers  known  to  me 
only  by  the  vivid  descriptions  of  Miss  Mar- 
tineau  ;  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 

324 


A  Centre  of  Interest 

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  re- 
spected/' 

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. 

3*5 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

'  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,  especi- 
ally 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  re- 
questing 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." 

326 


A  Centre  of  Interest 

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  fathers  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 

328 


A  London  Welcome 

how  much  I  am  gratified  by  his  praise."  Speak- 
ing 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  quanti- 
ties more  of  poets,  etc.  .  .  .  Mr.  Willis  has 
sailed  for  America.  Mr.  Moore  and  Miss  Edge- 
worth  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  3ist  Miss  Mit- 
ford  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  com- 
pany 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  ail !  ... 

'  In  the  evening  we  had  about  fifty  people, 
329 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

amongst  others,  Edwin  Landseer,  who  invited 
himself  to  come  and  paint  Dash.  He  is  a  charm- 
ing 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  in- 
tellect 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. 

"  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 

330 


DR.   MITFORD 


A  London  Welcome 

published  some  translations  from  ^Eschylus  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  acquaint- 
ance :  "  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  (Edipus  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  andjnost^affecting  conception.  And 

331 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

there  is  Euripides  with  his  abandon  to  the 
pathetic,  and  ^Eschylus  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.1 
My  earliest  book  was  Percy's  Reliques,  the  de- 
light 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  biassed  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. 

"  Are  you  a  great  reader  of  the  old  English 
drama  ?  I  am — preferring  it  to  every  other 
sort  of  reading  ;  of  course,  admitting  and  re- 
gretting 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 

1  "  The  Romaunt  of  the  Page." 

332 


A  London  Welcome 

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  in- 
timate 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  in- 
valuable 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  un- 
troubled 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 

333 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

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  well1  I  should 
be  the  happiest  creature  in  the  world,  so  strong 
was  the  influence  of  that  happy  scene/' 

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,  t°  Lord  Melbourne  concludes  with  these 
words  :  "I  am  emboldened  to  take  this  step 

1  Miss  Barrett's  health  was  causing  much  anxiety  to  her 
friends. 

334 


A  London  Welcome 

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  exer- 
tion and  send  those  white  hairs  with  sorrow  to 
the  grave." 

On  the  3ist  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  cer- 
tainty, however  small,  in  sickness  or  old  age. 
.  .  .  But  the  real  gratification  of  this  trans- 
action 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  Palmer- 
ston  and  many  others,  some  of  whom  I  had 
never  even  seen,  has  been  such  as  to  make 

335 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  in- 
terest which  these  stories  had  excited,  and  I  am 
intensely  grateful  for  it." 

Miss  Mitford  was  further  cheered  in  her  out- 
look 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  periodi- 

336 


A  London  Welcome 

cal  selling  for  threepence  halfpenny  should  en- 
gage 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.1 

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  3ist  March,  1836,  that  Pickwick 
first  made  its  appearance,  electrifying  the  read- 
ing 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  P 
Well!  ...  It  is  fun.  London  life — but  with- 
out anything  unpleasant ;  a  lady  might  read  it 
all  aloud;  and  it  is  so  graphic,  so  individual 

1  See  Life  and  Friendships  of  Mary  Russell  Mitford,  by 
W.  J.  Roberts. 

z  337 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

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  com- 
plete and  perfect  as  any  bit  of  comic  writing 
in  the  English  language.  You  must  read  the 
Pickwick  Papers." 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

A   BRAVE   HEART 

Two  new  works  by  Mary  Russell  Mitford  had 
been  recently  published — Belford  Regis  and 
Country  Stones.  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  popu- 
larity 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. 

339 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

Country  Stories  appeared  two  years  later. 
She  dedicated  the  work  to  her  valued  friend, 
the  Rev.  William  Harness,  "  whose  old  heredi- 
tary 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  corre- 
spondence 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  re- 
main ;  for  to  say  nothing  of  the  frightful  pre- 
cedent 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. 

340 


A  Brave  Heart 

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  break- 
ing 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  nth  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  think- 
ing/that .,  this  was  more  to  show  sympathy  and 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  re- 

342 


A  Brave  Heart 

marks  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  determina- 
tion was  at  once  taken  that  all  the  creditors 
should  have  complete  satisfaction.  "  Every- 
body 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  atten- 
tion that  were  showered  upon  her  and  which 
went  straight  to  her  heart.  Conspicuous  among 
these  was  the  welcome  act  of  her  friend  Mr. 

343 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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. 

"  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, 

344 


A  Brave  Heart 

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  P  The  author,  Mr.  Ruskin,  was  here 
last  week  and  is  certainly  the  most  charming 
person  I  have  ever  known."  In  her  Recollections 

345 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

of  a  Literary  Life  Miss  Mitford  speaks  with  ad- 
miration of  his  "  boldness  "  in  demolishing  old 
idols  and  setting  up  new!  ''Often,"  she  re- 
marks, "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  lan- 
guage, 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 

346 


A  Brave  Heart 

functions  for  the  perpetual  comfort,  and  exalt- 
ing 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  ap- 
petite. 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 

347 


Mary   Russell   Mitfbrd 

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  aston- 
ished at  His  reproof/'1 

Mary  Mitford  continued  her  intimate  corre- 
spondence 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 

1  See  Cook's  Life  of  Ruskin. 
348 


A   Brave  Heart 

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  trans- 
lator) says  that  he  is  quite  unspoilt,  as  simple 
as  a  child  and  with  as  much  poetry  in  his  every- 
day 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  Ander- 
sen'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  i6th,  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  allevia- 
tions [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 

35o 


Farewell  to  Three  Mile  Cross 

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  Ameri- 
cans, 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  con- 
tentment, 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 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

American  editions.  Think  of  the  American 
editions  of  my  prose.  Our  Village  has  been  re- 
printed 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  Athe- 
naeum, 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.  .  .  . 

35* 


Farewell  to  Three  Mile  Cross 

"  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  Recol- 
lections 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  ex- 
periences 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  ex- 
citement 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  confis- 
cated years  ago  by  the  Austrians.  It  does  one's 
2  A  353 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  influ- 
ence upon  the  nation  we  feel  sure  she  would  have 
changed  her  opinion. 

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  estima- 

354 


Farewell  to  Three  Mile  Cross 

tion  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 


?3&mr 

:v*£^$M-i, 

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to  araa£l$^ 


^  r  ^-&^5^BW^i;<«^^>»^£4HBii^  •/,  :\;-| , 


OLD   HOUSE    NEAR    SWALLOWFIELD 

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,  un- 
affected conversation,  added  a  charm  that  will 
be  more  easily  understood  than  I  can  otherwise 

355 


Mary  Russell   Mitford 

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 

356 


Farewell  to  Three  Mile  Cross 

cottage  is  falling  about  my  ears,"  she  writes  to 
a  friend  in  April,  1850.  V  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  doubt- 
ful. 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  ol  woods  and  fields  in  one  country  place 
who  can  understand  that  strong  local  attach- 
ment." 

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). 

357 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

"  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.  Gary — 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  imple- 
ments of  dirt  and  noise — men,  women,  children, 
cows,  horses,  waggons,  carts,  pigs,  dogs,  geese 

358 


Farewell  to  Three  Mile  Cross 

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  wood- 
land 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 !  " 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

SWALLOWFIELD 

THE  (i  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  Swallow- 
field  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 
,  woody  lanes  that  form  the  distinc- 


tive character  of  English  scenery.    Very  lovely 


Swallowfield 

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 

361 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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. 

"  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  elo- 
quently of  the  sights  and  sounds  about  us  that 
her  talk  seemed  to  me  '  far  above  singing/  .  .  . 

362 


— -f     J 


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KSt^^; 


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THE   LAST   HOME 


Swallowfield 

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  neigh- 
bourhood 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  fre- 
quently 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  Mit- 
ford was  a  young  writer  in  whom  she  was  much 
interested — James  Payn.  In  his  Literary  Re- 
collections he  calls  her  "  the  dear  little  old  lady, 
looking  like  &  venerable  fairy,  with  bright 
sparkling  eyes,  a  clear  incisive  voice,  and  a 
laugh  that  carried  you  away  with  it." 

365 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

Mary  Mitford's  mind,  in  spite  of  advancing 
years,  was  ever  open  to  new  ideas  and  new  im- 
pressions, 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  Long- 
fellow'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  re- 
presents the  mind,  the  lofty  brow  full  of  thought, 

366 ' 


Swallowfield 

and  the  wrinkle  of  humour  in  the  eye  !  (Be- 
tween 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  phy- 
sician— 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  !  " 

367 


Mary  Russell  Mitford 

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  fort- 
night— 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 

368 


Swallowfield 

works  of  fiction  she  says :  "  The  greatest  fictions 
of  the  world  are  the  truest.  Look  at  the  Vicar 
of  Wake  field,  look  at  the  Simple  Story,  look  at 
Scott,  look  at  Jane  Austen,  greater  because 
truer  than  all/'  In  the  same  letter  she  re- 
marks :— 

"  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.  A 
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." 

2   B  369 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

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  pro- 
duction 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 

370 


Swallowfield 

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  Mitf  ord ! 
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 

372 


Peaceful  Closing  Years 

great  things,  has  hardly  answered  his  expecta- 
tions. ...  I  am  still  unable  to  stand  or  walk 
unless  supported  by  Sam's  strong  hands.  How- 
ever 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." 

373 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

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  exer- 
cise 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  Stones.  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 

374 


Peaceful  Closing  Years 

the  adverse  circumstances  under  which  the  com- 
position 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," 

375 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

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  out- 
side ;  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 — Haw- 
thorne, Longfellow,  Holmes,  etc.  etc.  And  one 
lady,  Mrs.  Sparkes,  wife  of  Jared  Sparks,  Presi- 
dent 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  astound- 

376 


Peaceful  Closing  Years 

ing.  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  remon- 
strated with  Mary  Mitford  for  what  she  con- 
sidered 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." 

A  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 
377 


Mary   Russell   Mitford 

had  been  rapidly  growing  worse,  though  her 
letters  show  that  her  bright  spirit  was  not 
broken  by  her  continued  sufferings  and  in- 
creased 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  ist,  1855,  nine  days  only  before 
her  death,  she  wrote  the  following  letter  to  a 
friend  :  "It  has  pleased  Providence  to  pre- 
serve 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 

378 


Peaceful  Closing  Years 

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  in- 
creasing with  the  increase  of  education." 

The  end  came  on  January  loth  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,  "  un- 
disturbed by  any  trace  of  the  cares  and  trials 
she  had  endured,  were  overspread  by  an  ex- 
pression 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. 

379 


Mary   Russell  Mitford 

"  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." 


rx<P 


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Al /-%;...- 


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INDEX 


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  Aln- 
wick  Castle,  1806,  descrip- 
tion of,  104-7 

Austen,  Jane,  M.  R.  M.'s 
admiration  of,  253-255, 
368-369 

Aynsley,  Lord  CharlesJMurray, 
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,  in-ii8 

Aynsley,  Lady,  wife  of  the 
above,  first  cousin  of  Dr. 
Mitford,  is  visited  by 


M.  R.  M.  in  Northumber- 
land in  1806,  at  Little  Harle 
Tower,  takes  her  to  Aln- 
wick  Castle,  103-107  ;  de- 
scribes visit  from  Louis 
XVIII  in  Bocking  Deanery 
in  letter  to  Mrs.  Mitford, 
111-118 


Baillie,  Joanna,  meets  M.  R. 
M.  in  society,  329 

Barrett,  Miss  Elizabeth.  See 
under  Mrs.  Barrett  Brown- 
ing 

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  inter- 
esting correspondence,  330- 
334 ;  her  marriage,  her 
correspondence  with  M. 
R.  M.,  348 


Chorley,    Henry,    meets    M. 
R.    M.    in    London,    329 ; 


381 


Index 


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  in- 
fluence on  M.  R.  M.,  their 
interesting  correspondence, 
128-133  ;  his  views  upon 
Our  Village,  203-205 

Exeter,  Bishop  of,  i 


Fermor,  Arabella  (the  "  Be- 
linda "  of  "  The  Rape  of  the 
Lock"),  marries  Mr.  Perkins 
and  lives  at  Ufton  Court, 
257-264 

Fields,  James  T.,  American 
publisher  and  author,  de- 
scribes first  visit  to  M.  R. 
M.  at  Three  Mile  Cross,  her 
surroundings  and  interest- 
ing 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,  pub- 
lication of  The  Scarlet  Letter, 
House  of  Seven  Gables,  etc., 
etc.,  M.  R.  M.'s  interest  in 
them,  367 

Hay  don,  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),  au- 
thoress, letter  to  M.  R.  M. 
on  Our  Village,  321-322 

Howett,  William,  author,  de- 
scribes 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 


Index 


Kingsley,  Charles,  341  ;    de- 
scribed by  M.  R.  M.,  366 


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  meet- 
ing, 137-139 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wads- 
worth,  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, 
1 10-1 1 8  ;  his  remarkable 
memory,  136,  137 

Lyme  Regis,  removal  of  Mit- 
fords  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  role  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  ;  wit- 
nesses performance  of  Fos- 
cari, 221  ;  portrait  by 
Lucas,  330  ;  illness  and 
death,  confusion  of  his 
affairs,  341-343 

Mitford,  Mrs.,  ne'e  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, Decem- 
ber 1 6th,  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  Read- 
ing, 1791,  her  early  recol- 
lections of  the  town,  22- 
25  ;  a  flying  visit  to  Lon- 
don, 25-28 ;  removal  of 
family  to  Lyme  Regis, 
I795,  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 


383 


Index 


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  influ- 
ence, 82-88  ;  an  incident 
of  school  life,  88-91  ;  leaves 
school,  1802,  recollections 
of  old  Reading,  92-99 ; 
removal  of  family  to  Ber- 
tram House,  99-100  ;  her 
visit  to  Northumberland 
with  her  father,  guests  of 
Lord  and  Lady  Murray 
Aynsley,  visits  to  Am  wick 
Castle,  Morpeth and  Cheviot 
Hills,  returns  home,  104- 
109 ;  early  poems  pub- 
lished in  1810— n,  success- 
ful, 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  inter- 
esting 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, 
I37~I39 ;  more  loss  of 
money  owing  to  her  father's 
gambling,  139-140  ;  flat- 
tering recognition  by 


American  publishers,  141- 
143  ;  Sir  William  Elford's 
visit  to  Bertram  House, 
their  correspondence  re- 
sumed, writes  of  singers 
and  actors  of  the  day,  and 
distinguished  writers,  144- 
155  ;  Hay  don'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  ap- 
proved by  Macready, 
Foscari  performed  at 
Co  vent  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,  per- 
formed in  New  York, 
tribute  from  James  Crissy, 
230-240 ;  her  stories  of 
two  Emigres  neighbours, 


384 


Index 


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  May- 
ings and  visits  Silchester, 
292-301  ;  a  trip  to  Aber- 
leigh  (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  Web- 
ster, 315-325  ;  words  on 
her  mother's  death,  letter 
to  a  child,  325-327  ;  stays 
with  Sergeant  Talfourd, 
receives  warm  welcome 
from  leading  writers,  cor- 
respondence with  Miss  Bar- 
rett (afterwards  Mrs.  Bar- 
rett Browning),  328-334  ; 
pecuniary  anxieties,  re- 
ceives pension,  undertakes 
fresh  literary  work,  334- 

337  ',    writes   on   first   ap- 
pearance of  Pickwick,  337- 

338  ;     publication   of    Bel- 
ford    Regis,    and    Country 
Stories,  Our  Village,  trans- 
lated   into    Spanish,    339- 
340 ;     writes    to    William 
Harness    on     Church    re- 
forms, 340-341  ;    death  of 
her  father,    1842,  resolves 
to  pay  all  his  debts   but 
whole  sum  subscribed  by 

2  c  385 


friends,  receives  constant 
supply  of  books  from  Mr. 
George  Love  joy,  little 
Henry,  adopted  child  of 
the  family,  34J-345  '>  her 
interest  in  Modern  Painters 
and  friendship  for  Ruskm, 
her  words  on  Browning's 
poems,  Hans  Andersen  in 
London,  345-349  ;  letters 
to  Mr.  Fields,  Country 
Stories  republished,  com- 
mencing 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  M  le 
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  Swallow- 
field  Park,  360-365  ;  her 
interest  on  works  of  Long- 
fellow, Hawthorne,  O.  W. 
Holmes,  and  Whittier,  366- 
368 ;  Recollections  of  a 
Literary  Life  published,  its 
success  in  America,  her 
admiration  of  Jane  Aus- 
ten's works,  her  remarks  on 
Shelley  and  on  Saint  Beuve, 
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, 


Index 


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 
ist,  1855,  buried  in  Swal- 
lowfield  churchyard,  376- 
380 

Molie're,  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  Ambrosi- 
anae  "  upon  the  publica- 
tion of  Our  Village,  209- 
211 


Our  Village,  publication  of, 
March,  1824,  its  success, 
etc.  (see  under  Mary  Rus- 
sell Mitford),  203-211 


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  Swallow- 
field  Park,  365,  371  ;  M. 
R.  M.'s  Atherton  dedicated 
to  her,  375 


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 
emigres,  74-91 

Sedgwick,  American  author- 
ess, her  letters  to  M.  R.  M., 
220,  326-327 

Seward,  Anna,  "  Swan  of 
Lichfield,"  M.  R.  M.'s  early 


386 


Index 


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.  (ne'e  Butt), 
sees  M.  R.  M.  when  a  child, 
23-25  i  ner  recollections  of 
Abbey  School,  Reading, 
64-65 

Swallowfield,  M.  R.  M.  re- 
siding at,  360-380 

Swallowfield  Park,  abode  of 
the  Russell  family,  365 


Talfourd  Sergeant,  author  of 
Ion,  present  at  perform- 
ance 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),  de- 
scribes visit  to  M.  R.  M.  at 
Three  Mile  Cross  in  1835, 
323  ;  visits  her  at  Swallow- 
field,  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  Vir- 
ginia," 352,  and  of  his 
poem  on  Burns,  368 

Wordsworth,  William,  his  per- 
sonality described  by  M. 
R.  M.,  328-329 


Young,  Charles  Mayne,  per- 
forms leading  r61e  in  Rienzi, 
232-235 


387 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


MARIA  EDGEWORTH  AND  HER  CIRCLE  IN 
THE  DAYS  OF  BONAPARTE  AND  BOURBON. 
With  numerous  Illustrations  by  ELLEN  G.  HILL.  Demy 
8vo,  2 is.  net 

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JOHN  LANE,  THE  BODLEY  HEAD,  VIGO  ST.,  W.  1 


BY  THE   SAME  AUTHOR 


THE  HOUSE  IN  ST.  MARTIN'S  STREET:  Being 
Chronicles  of  the  Burney  Family.  By  CONSTANCE  HILL, 
Author  of  Jane  Austen:  Her  Homes  and  Her  Friends, 
Juniper  Hall,  Maria  Edgeivorth  and  Her  Circle  in  the 
Days  of  Bonaparte  and  Bourbon.  With  numerous  Illustra- 
tions by  ELLEN  G.  HILL,  and  Portraits,  &c.,  reproduced 
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JUNIPER  HALL:  A  Rendezvous  of  certain  Illus- 
trious Personages  during  the  French  Revolution,  including 
Alexander  D'Arblay  and  Fanny  Burney.  By  CONSTANCE 
HILL.  With  numerous  Illustrations  by  ELLEN  G.  HILL, 
and  Reproductions  from  various  Contemporary  Portraits. 
Crown  8vo,  $s.  net. 

Times. — "  This  book  makes  another  on  the  long  and  seductive  list  of  books 
that  takes  up  history  just  where  history  proper  leaves  off.  .  .  .  We  have  given 
but  a  faint  idea  of  the  freshness,  the  innocent  gaiety  of  its  pages  ;  we  can  give 
none  at  all  of  the  beauty  and  interest  of  the  pictures  that  adorn  it." 

Daily  Telegraph. — "  One  of  the  most  charming  volumes  published  within 
recent  years.  .  .  .  Miss  Hill  has  drawn  a  really  idyllic  and  graphic  picture 
.  .  .  capitally  illustrated  by  authentic  portraits." 

Daily  Chronicle. — "  Miss  Hill's  artistic  and  interesting  compilation." 
Daily  News. — "  Miss  Constance  Hill  has  given  a  vivid  picture  of  a  vanished 
time." 

JANE  AUSTEN:  HER  HOMES  AND  HER 
FRIENDS.  By  CONSTANCE  HILL.  With  numerous 
Illustrations  by  ELLEN  G.  HILL,  together  with  Photo- 
gravure Portraits.  Crown  8vo,  price  55.  net. 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  PRINCESS  DES  URSINS 
IN  SPAIN  (CAMARERA  MAJOR).  By  CONSTANCE 
HILL.  With  Twelve  Illustrations  and  a  Photogravure 
Frontispiece.  New  Edition.  Crown  8vo,  price  5$.  net 

JOHN  LANE,  THE  BODLEY  HEAD,  VIGO  ST.,  W.  J 


THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


FANNY  BURNEY 
AT  THE  COURT  OF 
QUEEN  CHARLOTTE. 

With  Illustrations  by  ELLEN  G.  HILL. 

Demy  %vo,  i6j.  net. 

Pall  Mall  Gazette.—"  For  the  collection  and  collation  of  much  fresh  matter 
Miss  Hill  with  her  pen  and  Miss  Ellen  with  her  pencil  have  taken  infinite 
pains." 

Times. — "  One  of  the  most  entertaining  books  of  the  season.  .  .  .  For 
such  delightful  pilgrims  in  this  vale  of  tears  as  Fanny  Burney  can  one  ever 
be  too  grateful  ?  " 

British  Weekly.—"  Miss  Hill  has  made  a  thoroughly  charming  volume. 
There  are  some  plenty  illustrations  which'  add  to  the  pleasure  of  the  book. 
Miss  Hill  is  once  more  to  be  congratulated  upon  the  skill  and  sympathy  with 
which  she  has  done  her  work." 

Westminster  Gazette.—"  Miss  Hill  tells  the  story  of  Fanny  Burney's  five 
years  in  office,  as  Keeper  of  the  Robes,  with  all  the  grace  and  charm  that 
distinguish  her  previous  volumes." 

Observer. — "  This  latest  book  shows  the  same  nice  learning  and  the  same 
gentle  distinction.  This  entertaining  and  instructive  volume." 

Sketch. — "  Of  scores  of  such  entertaining  things  is  Miss  Hill's  Fanny 
Burney,  a  book  which  all  should  read  and  read  again." 

Bookman. — "  We  are  glad  to  have  these  hitherto  unpublished  passages, 
for  everything  that  concerns  Miss  Fanny  is  of  considerable  interest .  The  value 
of  the  book,  it  may  at  once  be  said,  is  much  enhanced  by  the  well-selected 
portraits  and  by  the  delightful  drawings  scattered  throughout  the  volume  by 
Miss  Ellen  Hill." 

Standard. — "  Lively  and  fascinating  book.  .  .  .  The  greatest  compliment 
we  can  pay  Miss  Hill  is  to  say  that  in  her  pages  we  get  on  intimate  terms 
not  merely  with  Fanny  Burney,  but  with  nearly  everybody  then  at  Windsor> 
from  George  III  and  Queen  Charlotte  down  to  all  who  danced  attendance  at 
the  Court." 


JOHN  LANE,  THE  BODLEY  HEAD,  VIGO  ST.,  W.  1 


TALES  RETAILED  OF  CELEBRI- 
TIES. By  SIR  WARREN  HASTINGS  D'OYLY. 
Demy  8vo,  JS.  6d.  net. 

Sir  W.  H.  D'Oyly,  who  has  spent  a  great  many  years  in  the  Indian  Civil 
Service,  retails  in  this  volume  a  series  of  amusing  stories  of  men  and  things. 
Always  bright  and  witty,  he  makes  what  he  has  seen  and  heard  live  again 
for  us,  and  the  book  forms  an  admirable  anecdotic  history  of  life  in  India 
during  the  latter  part  of  last  century. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN:  The  Practical 

Mystic.  By  FRANCIS  GRIERSON,  author  of 
"The  Valley  of  Shadows,"  "Illusions  and 
Realities  of  the  War,"  etc.  With  an  Introduc- 
tion by  John  Drinkwater.  Crown  8vo,  55.  net. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  the  greatest  practical  mystic  the  world  has  known  for 
nineteen  hundred  years,  is  the  one  man  whose  life  and  example  ought  to  be 
clearly  set  before  the  English-speaking  peoples  at  this  supreme  climax  in 
the  history  of  civilization. 

The  careful  study  given  by  Mr.  Grierson  to  the  life  of  Lincoln,  which 
resulted  in  the  writing  of  The  Valley  of  Shadows,  will  be  equally  apparent  in 
this  present  volume,  which  depicts  faithfully  the  spiritual  atmosphere  in 
which  Lincoln  lived  and  moved,  thought  and  worked. 

THE  RECOLLECTIONS   OF   LADY 

GEORGIAN  A  PEEL.  By  her  daughter  ETHEL 
PEEL.  With  numerous  Illustrations.  Demy 
8vo,  i6s.  net. 

Lady  Georgiana  Peel  is  a  daughter  of  Lord  John  Russell,  and  her  recol- 
lections date  back  to  the  forties  when  she  entered  Society  as  a  girl. 

She  writes  most  entertainingly  and  with  intimate  knowledge  of  many 
matters  of  great  historical  and  social  interest — of  Queen  Victoria's  marriage, 
of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  of  Lord  Macaulay,  of  John  Bright,  and  of  many 
other  personalities  and  events  of  that  time. 

PATRON     AND     PLACE-HUNTER. 

A  Study  of  George  Bubb  Dodington,  Lord 
Melcombe.  By  LLOYD  SANDERS.  With  16 
Illustrations.  Demy  8vo,  165-.  net. 

A  fascinating  biography  of  one  of  the  most  interesting  personalities  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 


JOHN  LANE,  THE  BODLEY  HEAD,  VIGO  ST.,  W.  1 


Hill,  Constance 

5023      Mary  Russell  Mitford 
H5 


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