Three Mile Cross February 8 18 th 1821.

Your last kind letter, my dear Friend, gave me more than usual pleasure--so you scold me, do you? Well that is greater proof of kindness than I ever expected to receive. Pray scold me again, for I like it. It makes me laugh & glow checkmark & blush, Like a tickled child--who says " sir don't" & yet puts herself in the way to be teased & pleased again. I would be exceedingly disappointed to be let alone. Scold on, my dear Friend. No fear but I shall give you causes. That expression was very affected--I wonder how I came by it--for I have often remarked the idiom in others as "the very quintessence of affectation." But I am delighted to find that you don't think me affected in general, for I can tell you that amongst two or three of my friends (not the most intimate however) I have that bad name-- checkmarkvery unjustly in my opinion. I have gained it by over frankness checkmark--by letting out real opinions & little ends of character which because unlike their own seem impossible; in short by letting truths which nobody believes. It's astonishing what creatures of habit & imitation young girls generally are--they are as alike as so many shillings & sixpences & have not the capacity to believe that any coin can be genuine which bears a different impress. So Miss Webb & Miss Eliza talk scandal of their poor dear Friend & say she is affected. But however as you do not, nor Miss James, nor Mrs. Dickinson, I shall console myself under my calamity. Mrs. Dickinson was here yesterday. I gave her your message with which she was very much entertained--she begs her compliments in return & says she wishes both the mothers as much pleasure with their darlings as she has with hers. Her little Frances is a beautiful child. The most beautiful I think that I ever saw. Mrs. Dickinson has had great success matchmaking lately--an amusement of which--deny it as she may--she is remarkably fond. We have a celebrated beauty hereabouts, a Miss Broughton(Miss James, no respecter of beauties compares her to Maritornes the Asturian wench of the Inn in a fine gentlemanly dashing spirited girl--who with the usual fate of beauties attracted a good deal of admiration & very little love. On the other hand there was a soft ladylike fair delicate youth with sidewhiskers & a great talent for silence the son grandson & great grandson of three generations of Generals Hawley--who well born well bred & well estated seemed just made to lean upon such a fine manly supporter as Betsy Broughton. So thought Mrs. Dickinson--& the match is made--they are already deep in settlements & wedding cloaths clothes , & the marriage will take place forthwith--how she brought him to the offer I cannot imagine--she says he did it all himself--but I don't believe her. I must tell you of a misfortune that befell me in this case. I was dining at Farley Hill on the very day that it happened to strike Mrs. Dickinson that they would make a good nice couple & had the ill luck to sit next to Mr. Hawley at table, who held his tongue in the most provoking manner possible, & when I made him talk, talked, not nonesense but the dullest gravest prosiest sense, vapid, stale, commonplace, a hundred years behind the spirit of the age, such tame moralities as the first General Hawley might have discussed with one of the Queen Anne's maids of honor. Well after dinner, as I was standing wearily before the drawing room fire indulging in the ennui engendered of Mr. Hawley's silence & conversation, Mrs. Dickinson full checkmark of her new project & wanting my assistance to accomplish it brought Miss Broughton up to me & asked in her quick manner "How do you like Mr. Hawley's face? What does it express?"--"Nothing" said I in a lazy truthtelling tone--little dreaming that I was giving this flattering opinion before his future lady & love--& now must I apologise, like Mrs. Bennett to Lizzy for having so much disliked Mr. Darcy--do you remember? In our old friend . This awkward blunder notwithstanding--& notwithstanding my inevitable habit of laughing at serious things I am really glad of the match--they are both very worthy & well-meaning young people though its a pity they cannot change sexes, & there is great chance of their improving one another & greater still of their being happy together--which is a much better thing.

Have you read ? I don't advise you so to do--any more than I should advise you to have the nightmare. And yet it's a very grand thing. I never read much of Mr. Maturin's writing before-- I did not like & just skimmed I did not like & left off in the middle, & & the rest I never met with. But I have read fairly through almost without taking breath--nobody can lay that down--& yet nobody I should think would ever wish to read it a second time--it is so inconceivably painful. But there's power, terrible power--some matchless painting of external scenery-& some touches of pathos & horror equal to any written except the elder Dramatists. With all these merits there are a thousand faults--particularly a font of grandiloquence which is you know the patrimony of Ireland from Lady Morgan to Charles Philipps Phillips .--Now I am going to talk about but you may read on for a little till you meet with a hook--& truly if I were to have a wager I would bet that you went on after you met with the hook. What! Shall there be a Blue Beard's chamber in a letter & you have the key & not open it! Is not a man as curious as a woman? I am quite certain that you will read on--but I shall put the hooks notwithstanding Now for it [ seems to be the most painful of any book that Walter Scott has ever written--the not excepted. The catastrophe hangs over one like a sense of real calamity--it is like some over time misfortune--long expected--& yet when it comes even more crushing than fear had anticipated--There is a sense of helpless grief--of powerful pity--I would rather read again than . Besides there is too much villainy--the author has not protected us as he generally does by interposing some sweet & frank & delightful character between his knaves & villains & the reader's feelings. And we the less forgive this from the age in which he has placed the story--an age of fine spirits of fierce intellect--of noble during. Why such men as Shakespeare Raleigh & Spenser must have purified the very air--the atmosphere that they breathed could not have nourished a Varney or a Lambourne. is very powerful too--full of fine delineation of manners--& Queen Elizabeth is a matchless portrait--It is much stronger & more finished than the or the , though I prefer either of them--& will probably be cried up as a second . But I regret to find his spirit saddened & darkened--I fear we shall have no more Oldbucks or Dandie Dinmonts or Barons of Bradwardine. Tell me what you think of ] And now goodbye for a day or two my dear Sir William--Here is quite enough for one dose--Is there not?--

Feb. 9th --I have a frank in view & shall therefore finish hastily--Pray do you see those magazines respecting one of which I made my false step? If you do you will have seen that there has been something like a battle between the Editors, Mr. Lockhart [Sir W. Scott's son in law] John Gibson Lockhart alias Dr. Morris, alias Christopher North &c &c &c editor of 'sHere, Mitford seems to believe that Lockhart, editor of 's Magazine, wrote under pseudonyms Christopher North and Dr. Morris Christopher North was actually the pen name of Blackwood's writer John Wilson. "Peter Morris" was the pseudonym Lockhart used in . challenged John Scott Editor of 's--who upon some etiquette of Editorship or the Duell (which I as a woman cannot of course understand) refused to fight & has pub lished the documents. These documents are very diverting chiefly from their profound & statesman like gravity--You will find them at the begining of the last no. of the London. . For the other is a trumpery catchpenny thing--'s is the "real Simon Pure." --

Pray what do you mean to do with yourself this Spring? Are you bound for Bath or for London? In a word have we any chance of seeing you? You must not pass us again--Will you--I am fairly sick of the Queen. So really will not say another word of her except that your mark of Shippification is the very best thing I have seen on the subject.--Very glad you like Mr. Palmer's politics--though as to moderation--he is about as moderate as Sir Francis Burdett or Mr. Hobhouse. I have not seen him these six months or more--his Reading constituents complain of his absence & I am very much afraid that a candidate with money & residence would oust our poor friend in spite of all the patriotism of Reading & the its Members. Don't tell Lady Madelina that I say so!--Pray is it true that your friend & neighbour Sir Morpeththreatened to bring in Cobbett if he were not released? This is the Whig story--& truly if he did I think he was right--He & Mr. Swan seem to have been very unjustly imprisoned--Whilst the present system lasts nothing can be so inconsistent as to make sacrifices to the purity of Cornish Boroughs.--Well I won't begin talking politics.--Adieu my dear friend. Write to me very soon--& believe me ever

most gratefully yours MR Mitford. M. R. Mitford.

Kindest regards from Papa & Mama--I hope you have been all quite well this unhealthy winter.--Once more goodbye my dear Friend--Pray write soon.

Reading February Ten> 1821 Sir Wm Elford Bart Bickham J. B. Monck Plymouth