Three Mile Cross August 24th, 1820. To Sir William Elford

As Papa is going to this Club dinner which you my dear Friend wish so devoutly at the ---Mitford anonymizes the place. She likely means "the devil." I take the opportunity of getting a frank to reply to your kind & delightful & most welcome letter.--What you say of Lady Madelina is charming--she must be a most fascinating woman--& something better than a fascinating woman to have excited such admiration in you. I hope I shall see her. I went into Reading yesterday to call on her if she were arrived--but she was not. I saw Mr. Palmer & pleased him very much (for he is exceedingly fond & proud of her) by telling him something of what you said. She came however at night, I understand from some friends who have been here today--but today I myself was out coursing according to an engagement of a fortnight's standing. Very likely she will call tomorrow, if not I will wait on her Saturday. You will comprehend, my dear Friend, that your opinion has excited this desire of an honour which to confess the truth I have hitherto rather shunned--I don't know why--but in spite of my age & my rotundity & rubincundity which seem to take away myright to such feelings, I am by fits & starts desperately shy--I have a particular aversion to seeing people who desire to see one as they would desire to see Punch, which I rather understood to be the case with the party in question. Another thing was, that her particular friend & favourite in this neighborhood is a person whom I do not like. A single woman of eight & thirty with manners too light, too bold too young for eighteen--rouge on her cheeks and a leer in her eyes--a rattle without an idea--full of the outward and visible signs of cheerfulness, but with none of the inward and spiritual grace--a person whose hoity-toityness is depressing beyond beyond conception--this was the favorite of the chosen, of one whose station & talents gave her the power to chuse choose --And this it was that gave me the impression which you must have seen & which you have so completely counteracted. But I have not you yourself something judged of people by their associates? Don't you like to meet with good company in the hearts of your friends, as well as at their tables? Now that we shall have you to talk about we shall get on excellently--& except that she will be furiously disappointed, & that I shall be shy & ashamed when ever I think of my letters--those letters which are first like so many bottles of ginger beer, bouncing & frothy & flying in every body's face--with these trifling drawbacks we shall admire one another as much as is proper & possible. N. B. I hope & trust my dear friend that friend that you will have the discretion to keep this paragraph to yourself--at least not to let any one see it bythrough whom it can by any chance work round to her Ladyship's ears.

Reading--& which is worse Three Mile Cross is Queen-mad.--Our opinions I believe are exactly alike--The letter was a firebrand tossed by a hand as reckless as it is mischievous. I have no patience with the meetings, & Addresses & the intolerable quantity of nonsense that is talked on the occasion. She may or she may not be guilty to the extent imputed--she may or she may not be able to prove the crime--but no one can think her innocent--It is impossible. No modest woman could endure to hear that which she hears day by day--The courage she displays is the hard impudence of guilt--not the firmness of virtue.--Besides, my dear Sir William, women do not give up reputation except for the gratification of passion.--She cannot be innocent. I say this without having read a syllable of the trial--for having perfectly made up my mind I do not wish to litter my brains with a quantity of trash just to settle whether an immodest woman be a little more or less bad than I had imagined. You will laugh at my earnestness, but really I am provoked at the quantity of Queenery Here, in a construction akin to "Whiggery," "Queenery" is used to denote followers of the Queen's party. that is going on here not in this house for Papa and Mama are very moderate but everywhere elseis going on here--There has been a meeting at Reading, & the address was signed by a thousand of the Inhabitants men and boys--& I am sorry to say by some soldiers quartered there. Is this wise?--The hold she has on the soldier's affections is really alarming--we hear of it on all sides. God grant the trial were safely over! If it do pass by tranquilly, it will do some good by showing ministers that a standing army is a two edged sword.--You see I have not lost all my WhigWhiggery--though I am no Queen's woman, I am indeed not a little disgusted at the part the opposition have taken in the question. Tell me what you think on the subject. For though I have said that our opinions were alike, I spoke only from my mypreconceived ideas of your mode of thinking.--I can generally guess what you will say on most points. On Haydon's Picture for instance I foresaw that you did not like the disjointed Head. After all, I myself only like it conditionally--think it answers to the Artist's own design of perfect abstraction--thoughts turned inward & upward--a mind absorbed in the contemplation of its own divine task of immeasurable love--loving the present in the glorious future--This was his intention & this he has accomplished. But I do not think that this was the best expression he would have given--& the disproportion was visible even to my unlearned eyes, though I could not have imagined it to be so monstrous. Moreover no authority can reconcile me to the glory--I do not believe that our Saviour was surrounded by any other light than the moral effulgence of his divine virtues, & why should that which did not exist in nature be represented in an imitation of nature? Your praise of the rest of the is a most valuable sanction to my ardent admiration. I am afraid he will not dispose of it as he had hoped--the subscription with the limitation to 10 guineas has entirely failed & he now means to throw it open without limitation--but as those who would have given their 50d. have already given their 10£. I do not foresee much of an advantage from this change. His best chance is in its being purchased by some rich patron of Art--though the largeness of the price & of the picture are both against him. Nevertheless he is going on ding dong with a picture quite as large--& this intensity of purpose & and of will--this absolute devotion to one great end is what I admire in him.--I like his simplicity too, his kindheartedness, his perfect singleness of mind. He is something of a "Gunpowder Percy" A reference to Shakespeare's . Falstaff: "Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead."to be sure, & there is a stern brightness in his insufferable eyes which is exceedingly startling & disagreeable--nevertheless little as I have seen of him--I do like him very much. Next to Napoleon & Chantrey& Wordsworth. I think him the greatest man of the Age--but Napoleon is the man--there is no putting any body within a million of miles of the Exile of St. Helena. Miss James brought me a little Cast of him from Birmingham which cost sixpence & which is really the most beautiful thing ever seen. He is looking down upon me at this moment with the most gracious benignity. My little dog is, as dogs & children always are, a great physiognomist--moreover she is a very fastidious lady--won't go bear one person in a hundred--& has generally speaking a singular aversion to busts & pictures. Mama put Napoleon down to her expecting that she would as usual growl & bark--when to our great astonishment she ran up to the last put her paws on the shoulders & kissed the beautiful lips mouth three times--She who never in her life kissed any but smiling lips & lips that she loved--Lucy's or mine.--We have lost poor dear Lucy--our faithful & excellent servant. It is like losing a limb--I never saw or knew such perfect devotedness as she displayed--she was really absorbed in me--loved all whom I loved--was glad when I was glad & sorry when I was sorry. Poor dear Lucy! She is married & I have not even the consolation of liking the bridegroom--He is a demure boy--too young--too grave--too fine--too . I know no harm of him & the society of such an excellent & affectionate creature must improve him--but still I cannot like him--& I cannot like a woman of 30 marrying a lad of 20. The poor dear face cried for a fortnight before the wedding, night & day. & I really believe if her successor had not arrived that she would even at the last have left her lover in the lurch. I have been to see her according to promise, & she went out coursing with me. She lives in a very beautiful country Mortimer West End--& Silchester--fine localities!--the next time you come & see as you must go to see the old walls at Silchester & we will call upon Lucy--& is coursing be not quite out of season have a course. I should like you to see what a fine animation a brace of greyhouds after a hare gives to a Landscape.--Did you ever see one?--So you have actually altered that pretty landscape? Really I had not a notion of making a criticism when I remarked to you the effect of those sunny fields. I meant merely to admire the manner in which you had succeeded in the difficult attempt of painting a view from a hill--I have no doubt however but that a Common is equally beautiful--I have a passion for Commons--those pretty irregular green patches with cottages round them & dipping fronds glancing so brightly & crossing foot paths among the scattered trees seem to me the characteristics of English scenery--Ah! they are passing away! We shall soon see nothing but straight hedgerows & gravelled lanes. I sigh over every inclosure bill--& am always delighted when some glorious obstinate bumpkin of the true John Bull breed takes it into his head to quarrel with the Lord of the Manor & oppose one--as is luckily the case in this Parish of Shinfield.

I suppose we must talk about books a little must not we! Pray my dear friend have you heard of a novel called ? It is written by Miss Holford who seems to me a bolder woman than the Queen. The Miss Holford who wrote a very fine Poem called . Well this novel is a portrait or rather a hideous caricature of Lord Byron, nobody can mistake it--& yet God forbid it should be at all true. It is dedicated in terms of great affection & familiarity to Miss Joanna Baillie--for which I am very sorry, since such a sanction will make every body suppose it a retaliation on Lady Byron's part which should of all things have been avoided. But what can Miss Holford expect but to be empaled in Lord B's next Poem? By the bye I heard a curious anecdote of him yesterday from a very truth-telling person. A gentleman was with him on a visit to an old house in the country which had the reputation of being haunted--They had been telling ghost stories all the evening & in the middle of the night he was awakened by Lord B. with his hair on end & his teeth chattering--who declared that his room was full of strange shapes & sounds that he could not return to it, & begged his man to allow him to sit by the side of his bed till day light. which he did I have always thought he would end by being a Methodist.--Did I mention to you the second Volume of the American book which is so incredibly good--the ? It is a little sentimental--too sentimental certainly-=but the comic part is excellent--particularly the account of Little Britain. I should think the Americans must crow over Mr. Washington Irvine Irving like a hen with one chick. (Do Hens crow? I suspect here is a little confusion of metaphor.)--Winter nights by Dr. Drake ought to be such a book as the --is that when I read it--but it is altogether another thing being indeed the most daring and barefaced specimen of book making which I have met with even in this book making age. Only think of the mean impudence in transcribing pretty nearly all Goldsmith--half Young--three parts of Collins & a good lump of the under the pretence of pointing out three or four unknown, unheard of, authors who have no beauties to detect--& so he compounds his book. Fine thievery--is it not? One forgave him & indeed thanked him for making a book of scraps of because the books he stole from were both good & scarce--but to filch from Cowper & Goldsmith & Pope is past bearing.--I am now stuck fast in the heaviest book I ever plunged into. Coxe's . Don't read it. It is molten lead. Six dreary endless volumes of military detail & political intrigue--most prosingly written--I shall certainly give it up.

What an extraordinary thing it is that so many grown persons have had the whooping Cough this summer! Mama feels much sympathy for Mr. Elford having been a sufferer years agoin a similar way herself. who with the additional circumstance of being big with child --I should think it very easy to make a good likeness of you--I hope it will be in the London Exhibition next year. I shall like to see it.--Adieu my very dear Friend. Excuse this stupid letter--I have been walking all day & my brains seem blown away by the fine keen Silchester air--notwithstanding which I may say with Anacreon's Dove "I have chattered like a Pie." You will take this for two letters at least. Pray write soon.

Kindest comp ts compliments from all here--Ever my dear Sir William most affectionately your's yours M.R.M.

I hope the parrot was found--or rather that he was enticed back--what a tantalizing thing to have a petthat hears & answers & will not come to the voice of the charmer.--My dear Friend Adieu. Pray write soon.--Lady M.P. has not made her appearance.

Reading August twenty five 1820 Sr Wm Elford Bart Bickham J.B. Monck Plymouth