Letter to <persName ref="#Haydon">B. R. Haydon</persName>, <date when="1820-09-14">September 14, 1820</date> Mary Russell Mitford M. Stephanie Murray Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford Project University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center Elisa Beshero-Bondar Transcription and coding by M. Stephanie Murray Elisa Beshero-Bondar Lisa M. Wilson First digital edition in TEI, date: 4 June 2013. P5. Edition made with help from photos taken by Digital Mitford editors Digital Mitford photo files: 14Sept1820BRHaydon1.jpg, 14Sept1820BRHaydon2.jpg, 14Sept1820BRHaydon3.jpg, 14Sept1820BRHaydon4.jpg Digital Mitford: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive Greensburg, PA, USA 2013

Reproduced by courtesy of the Reading Central Library.

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License Digital Mitford Letters: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive Reading Central Library The letters of Mary Russell Mitford, vol. 4, 1819-1823 qB/TU/MIT Vol. 4 Horizon No.: 1361550 ff. 415 Letter from Mary Russell Mitford to Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1820 September 14.

One sheet of paper, two surfaces photographed.

No address leaf.

No seal.

 Red crayon or thick red pencil. Probably a different hand from Mitford's that marks many of her letters, sometimes drawing diagonal lines across pages, and sometimes writing words overtop and perpendicularly across Mitford's writing. A red line is drawn from top left to bottom right on leaves two, three, and four. On leaf four, a red line is drawn from top left to bottom right across each of the two text blocks. Lines of text are crossed out on leaves three and four. On leaf three, "All in a letter to Sir William Elford" is written perpendicularly to the Mitford text. There is no red crayon on leaf one. Someone, apparently other than Mitford, perhaps cataloging letters and describing them, who left grey pencil marks and numbered her letters now in the Reading Central Library's collection. This letter is numbered "7" in the top left of the first leaf. Someone, apparently other than Mitford, who occasionally left notes in a spidery thin hand to explain or document details in Mitford's letters in the margins of her pages, noted in the manuscripts held at Reading Central Library. This annotator may be William Harness or A. G. L'Estrange. The annotator has written B. R. Haydon Eq Esq. fragment at the top of leaf one.

Mitford’s spelling and punctuation are retained, except where a word is split at the end of a line and the beginning of the next in the manuscript. Where Mitford’s spelling and hyphenation of words deviates from the standard, in order to facilitate searching we are using the TEI elements “choice," “sic," and “reg" to encode both Mitford’s spelling and the regular international standard of Oxford English spelling, following the first listed spelling in the Oxford English Dictionary. The long s and ligatured forms are not encoded.

 Added note to end about fragmentary state of this letter. Updated header and added back list. Proofed against ms.
Three Mile Cross Sept. 14th 1820. My dear Sir

My Father has begun a negociation negotiation respecting the greyhounds the issue of which I shall know before I finish this letter & will then tell you the particulars--I am so sorry that they should inconvenience you--So sorry that we should not ourselves have room for them--So sorry that just now when you have so well earned every sort of pleasure, one so simple & so pure should be taken from you. These regrets are very useless--but one cannot help feeling them.--

Do not commit such a mistake as to fancy your hand writing illegible--I can read it as well as print--The Characters are peculiar but the moment one knows them by heart one reads them as easily as a scholar reads Greek. Oh my dear Mr. Haydon if only you were but to see some of the young-lady Correspondences which befall one sometimes--a full sheet of foolscap twice crossed in a hand all Ms & Ns--a series of ups & downs which defy guessing--I was forced to turn off a cousin of my own a delightful woman whose letters had but one fault that of being wholly unintelligible from beginning to end--nothing could be prettier looking than her hand only it was utterly unreadable. Never think of calling that writing of yours which shews shows so plainly the rapidity & energy of your spirit, a scrawl--with what a delightful hieroglyphic you eked it out in your stage Iago! I have seen Kean both in Othello & Iago, & I felt like you his terrible power in the former. To see Kean in Othello is a very painful pleasure. If I may say it without danger of being suspected of affectation I must confess that I do not much like acted plays. Kean is disappointing & unequal--& Kemble was cold--& one loses all the sweetness & poetry of those delicious plays in these great theatres where nothing but the coarser strokes tell--In short it is altogether owing to my intense love & admiration of for Shakespeare & the old Dramatists that I never desire to see a favorite play acted. Did you ever read two plays by Thomas May the Historian of the Long Parliament which I wonder Mr.Hazlitt did not mention --The Heir & The Old Couple? They are as sweet & beautiful as a May morning.--Do you read the Scotch Novels? Have you read the Abbot? Do you like it? I was disappointed beccause every alternate work has been excellent, & as the Monastery was bad I expected this to be very good-- & after all it is ungrateful to impute as a fault the failure of one's own too high expectations--It is very pleasant reading though not a work that would have made a reputation like Waverley or Old Mortality. The real fault lies in the subject. Mary Queen of Scots is a person of whom in spite of her sins we have dreamt all our life long. There is not a man of any imagination who has not made her romance in his own mind long before now--The Bodleian Mary full of beauty & grace--the love of men the envy of women--She who makes possible all that has been feigned of nymph of Goddess there is no writing up to what one fancies of her.--Schiller has tried & Alfieri & both have failed--but I think Sir Walter Scott's failure the most egregious of any--He takes the Venus down from her pedestal & makes her scold--he disenchants the Lady Dulcinea--he lets the glaring daylight into the magic lantern & puts out the dreamy pictures--Now this is not a friends office--nor a Poets--This is another fault too--All the plot that is not of Queen Mary is filled by a twin brother & sister confusion, like that of Viola & Sebastian in Twelfth Night--& let the Edinburgh Reviewers say what they willWalter Scott at the side of Shakespeare cuts no better a figure than Reynolds by the side of Vandyke. Nevertheless the book is pleasant and free from his peculiar faults as from his striking beauties--only one old hag--no fortune scene--no prophecy & no ghost. How sorry I am to hear so bad an account of Mr. Keats!--When I write to Miss James I will mention your kind permission to send me his book. I am delighted that you were pleased with her letter--she is a sweet &The rest of this letter is missing.