Letter to <persName ref="#Haydon">B.R. Haydon</persName>, October 2, 1820. Mary Russell Mitford Eric S. Hood Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford Project University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Elisa Beshero-Bondar Transcription and coding by Eric S. Hood Proofing and corrections by Rebecca Nesvet Elisa Beshero-Bondar Lisa M. Wilson First digital edition in TEI, date: June 2, 2014. P5. Digital Mitford: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive Greensburg, PA, USA

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. 420 Letter from Mary Russell Mitford to B. R. Haydon, 02 October 1820.

Folio sheet of paper folded in half to form four quarto pages, with correspondence on 1-4 with address leaf also on page 4, then folded in thirds twice more and sealed for posting.

Address leaf bearing the following postmarks: 1) black circular mileage stamp reading READING . 2)Red double circle Evening Duty stamp reading B1 OC 71820 . 3) Sepia-inked oval Delivery stamp reading * OC * 7 * 1820 F.Nn

Red wax seal, only partially visible

 Red crayon or thick red pencil. Probably a different hand from Mitford's, drawing a diagonal line across pages 1-4. Someone cataloguing the letters has placed an X on page 1.

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. To facilitate searching, where Mitford’s spelling and hyphenation of words deviates from the standard, we use 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.
October 2nd 1820. Three Mile Cross My dear Sir

Your most welcome parcel containing Mr. Keats’s charming poems & your own charming letter arrived here only yesterday. I hope before that time that you received a post from me informing you of the safe arrival of your dogs & begging you to come and see them soon. I shall not send off this letter till you have answered our petition with a yes—for I will not anticipate the possibility of a refusal, but I must thank you immediately for the great pleasure I have derived from your packet. Mr. Keats’s poetry is exquisite—so fresh & racy & full of fine juices. If anything can make the Quarterly Reviewers & Blackwood’s people blush this volume will, but they have probably lost that sign of grace. The notice of the fate of Endymion in the advertisement was a fine rebuke. I hope Mr. Keats is better. Is he in good hands? Has he any near female relation, sister, wife or mother to take care of him? Don’t fancy that I under value the kindness of manly friendship but where there is kindness there should be a woman. Nursing & taking care are the most precious of our privileges. —Now for your very able article on the Scottish novels. It was really a pity to waste such excellent writing on a letter. I wish you would take the affair in hand. Mr. Haslitt, delightful writer as he is, does not produce so much effect as you do, partly because he is by profession a “setter up & puller down of kings”. We are accustomed to see him tossing great names into a topsy turvy confusion, & partly that he has a trick of escaping occasionally from some serious and earnest criticism by a piece of sudden pleasantry which gives an air of Persiflage to all that he has said. He is the most delightful critic in the world-- puts all his taste, his wit, his deep thinking, his matchless acuteness into his subject, but he does not put his whole heart & soul into it & you do & there is the difference. What charms me most in Mr. Haslitt is the beautiful candour which he bursts forth sometimes from his own prejudices—much as the charms of Dr. Johnson in the Comic Writers & the account of the Reformation in the Age of Elizabeth. I admire him so ardently that when I begin to talk of him I never know how to stop. I could talk on for an hour in a see saw of praise and blame as he himself does of Beaumont & Fletcher & some of his old favourites. I remember his article in Baldwin’s Magazine. It was excellent—only not quite so good as your letter. Certainly those novels are over-rated. One cannot help suspecting that the Scotchmen who compare them so gravely to our great Authors are better acquainted with the works of Walter Scott than with those of Milton or Shakespeare. You have exposed the absurdity of such comparisons admirably. One consequence of the exaggerated praise will be a violent reaction in public opinion. They will sink as much below their merit in the next generation as they have risen above it in this—like the Dramatists I have mentioned, Beaumont & Fletcher who were at one time preferred to Shakespeare & at another scarcely heard of, & whom by the way much more than Shakespeare Walter Scott resembles. Rebecca in Ivanhoe is exactly one of Fletcher's women—another Aspatia or Bellario . Besides the faults you have pointed out a very great one in my mind is the tendency of these books to foster a melodramatic has he a want of strong excitement which is the besetting sin of the age—a sin much cherished by our great theatres by Lord Byron’s poetry & by these novels.—After all I have a feeling of remorse about me for saying a word against them. It seems ungrateful even to nourish a detracting thought of such sources of innocent & attainable amusement. I am so grateful too for one circumstance that you mention. Every body can talk of them. What a comfort that is—what a resource to a person who has no great variety of conversation to have something to say to a stranger when we have settled the weather. How thankful we ought to be for an Author who has provided us all with a spell to set talk a flowing, to unclose the shyest lips by such a simple “open Sesame” as Have you read The Abbot or Do you like The Monastery.—The part of these works that please me the most are those that approach nearest to common life Oldbuck & Edie Olchiltree —Pleydell and Dandie Dinmont—Give me such as these—& take who will Elspeth Balfour Dirk Hatteraick Meg Merrilies & all such questionable compounds of witch and gipsey. This is a sad ignominious confession and goes near to prove that “the gods have not made me poetical”—but such is the melancholy sort. My dear Mr. Haydon how ashamed I ought to be to send such impertinence to you—but you are so indulgent that one is not half so afraid of you as is proper—& my pleasure at hearing from you an opinion I had long entertained setting pen a going irresistibly. Ah you little guessed what a shower bath would fall about your ears when you pulled the string. Well I will not say another word about Walter Scott I am determined. —How are you off for Summer in London? These few days have brought it back to us in all its splendor. I am writing out of doors in our little arbour--with my attention a good deal distracted by a superb butterfly which is hovering about a large tuft of China Asters close by—now fluttering round & round in the sun & now swinging in the rich blossoms. The butterflies love China Asters—so do I. They come when flowers begin to be so rare & precious—their colours are so rich—& they are so hardy. They lift up their gay heads and will live let the weather be what it may. Now goodbye for today I shall not finish till I hear from you. Oh I hope you will come. We shall be more disappointed than words can tell is you do not.

Good bye dear Sir.

Friday 6th—Having the opportunity of a frank I shall send this off to beg to know if you can come to us next Sunday fortnight the 22nd--or the Monday—Papa and Mama go into Hampshire will but shall be returned by that time and most happy & proud to see you & to shew you better the week after in Oxfordshire.—My Father desires me to say that if you should prefer to see a coursing meeting for a Cup there will be one at engaged on the 22nd, do come then—the weather will be better & the days longer & the earliest time is always the best. Adieu my dear Sir & ever yours

M. R. Mitford.
B. R. Haydon Esqre St. John's Place Lisson Grove North Regent's Park London