Letter to <persName ref="#Talfourd_Thos">T. N. Talfourd</persName>, June 21, 1821 Mary Russell Mitford Lisa M. Wilson Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford Project University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center Elisa Beshero-Bondar Transcription and coding by Lisa M. Wilson Date last checked: 2015-10-05 Proofing and corrections by First digital edition in TEI, date: 3 June 2013. P5. Edition made with help from photos taken by Digital Mitford editors Digital Mitford photo files: DSCF6093.jpg, DSCF6094.jpg, DSCF6095.jpg, DSCF6096.jpg Digital Mitford: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive Greensburg, PA, USA 2013

Courtesy of The University of Manchester.

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License Digital Mitford Letters: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive The University of Manchester Mitford-Talfourd Correspondence: Letters from Mary Russell Mitford to Thomas Noon Talfourd: vol. 665 JRL English Ms. 665 (R69047), Coles no. 7 Letter from Mary Russell Mitford to Sir William Elford, 1821 June 21. The envelope and postmark for this letter are reportedly at Harvard, not at Rylands. Rylands ms. letter indicates this date.-->

One sheet of paper, folded in half once, four surfaces photographed.

Missing address leaf.

First leaf torn on top edge; does not affect text.

No seal present.

 Someone, apparently other than Mitford, perhaps cataloging letters and describing them, who left grey pencil marks and numbered her letters. This letter is numbered "1" in the top right of the first leaf.

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.
Three Mile Cross June 21st 1821.

I can but thank you again & again, my dear Sir, for your exceeding kindness, & lament more than ever the trouble that I give you--I assure you this regret is not a form of words but a real feeling--I am so sorry to trespass on your valuable time--so very sorry--& yet when you bid me write and tease you with my doubts & difficulties I have not resolution to relinquish the comfort of telling them to you & the benefit of your advice.----What you say of the Plots is exactly what I feel--None of Miss James’shit my fancy except that one last scene to which it seems difficult to adapt any train of events that should be unobjectionable--free I mean from licentious love, & the lovely boy & girl story which is totally unfit for representation, but of which if I be lucky enough to keep my footing in the London I will certainly make a little Drama for that publication. Mrs. Hofland's story seems the best--I knew from the first that the Catastrophe would never do--neither do I like the sort of posthumous jealousy the triple refined sentiments of the Mother--her character would be excessively difficult to manage & scarcely worth the pains after all. Now I find on consulting the History of Venicethat the Doge Foscari was turned out after a long & glorious government at the age of 95--which affront rather than the death of his son broke his heart. And on this hint I think it will be better to make the Senator Donato (for whose murder Dr. Moore says young Foscari was sentenced) grasping ambitiously at the Dogal Bonnet. At the beginning of the Play Foscari may be absent commanding the armies of the Republic--Donato may propose in the Senate the dismissal of the Doge on account of his great age &c--Foscari may return suddenly with news of a great Victory, detect & overthrow Donato's faction & reject indignantly the hand of his beloved Camilla when offered as the price of his fathers degradation. This gives rise to a public quarrel between Foscari, Donato & his son Cosmo--& a cloak found near the dead Senator left by Foscari in hastening from a stolen visit to Camilla will be sufficient ground for suspicion in Cosmo Donato, whom I intend to make a bold gallant generous character, & who the moment the sentence is past passed begins to harbour doubts of its justice which must be strengthened by the many small circumstances & end in the detection by him of the real murderer too late however to save Foscari who in an agony of impatient grief had swallowed poison--or stabbed himself (which shall it be?)--& dies on the stage in the midst of the friends who come to announce his triumphant acquittal. Tell me if you think this will do? And pray if any alteration should suggest itself to you let me know it--I am not myself pleased with the scheme--but as I can hit on nothing better I think at least to write an act or two & try if I can work myself up into something like passion. I am terribly afraid of the first scene before the Senate--& still more of the Trial--but I will write an Act or two certainly--though if you should meet with any thing better I would relinquish this immediately. You will see that Cosmo Donato is created for Mr. Charles Kemble--I could make nothing of the Doge--an uphill character who has little to do but to suffer--No Mr. Macready must be Foscari--Write to me, my dear Mr. Talfourd, if you think he would not--write & stop me immediately--one word would be enough--Mr. Macready is my only inspiration. Amongst my other perplexities I don’t know whether Cosmo Donato & Foscari should be friends or enemies--Which would be best? But these things will arrange themselves. Pray forgive this unconscionable programme of a Play that may never be written. Your indulgence has completed the spoiling me--a job which was pretty far advanced before you took it in hand.

My father had heard of your short visit to Reading & had likewise learnt from Mr. Wakefield the curious story of the sturdy domestic & the affronted Commissioner--What a scene must it have been! By the bye your opponents the Slades are Cousins of ours, as far off I suppose as the twentieth degree--& as I have in all its injustice & unreasonableness the true North country clannish feeling, I cannot help wishing my Cousins success, though I know very little against about them & never heard of the affair before--& though their adversary has done such a right & wise thing as to engage you in his cause. Did you hear when at Reading that the dear Doctor Valpy has been annoyed again by persons encroaching on his play ground & means to try the right at the next Assizes. Oh how sorry I am that these Assizes will be at Abingdon! What a treat it would be to hear you on a subject which would authorise & demand a kind of eloquence so glowing & so genial--so different from the common run of law cases--And you will speak--will you not? Even if there should be half a dozen Senior Counsel? Oh you must speak for the dear Doctor's sake--I am only afraid that the offenders will be penitent & the Doctor placable & that it will not be tried at all. You will not doubt how exceedingly we lamented not seeing you--Shall you come to Reading in your way to the Sessions? If you do we shall rely on that pleasure.

What you say of "Our Village" Coles suggests that "Our Village" here refers to the story/sketch of the same name rather than the entire series. This may be the sketch that became the first story in Our Village of 1824 (Coles #6, p. 40, note 11). is encouraging & comfortable--I had looked on prose composition as a thing not only difficult merely, but impossible--I shall now take heart. If Mr. Baldwin should not find Claudia's Dream & Taylor & Hessey should wish to have it, I will send another copy--though I have nothing but my rough draft--which bad as my finished things may be, is I assure you much worse--to say nothing of the writing. My dear Mr. Talfourd figure to yourself my worst hand!--all blots & interlineations--& the dialogue all in a mess! Oh there never was such a skein of tangled silk! Nevertheless I will wind it off at a moment's warning if the other copy be not found--I have the strongest possible desire not to be turned off for Mr. Croly--a person whose doings I admire quite as little as you do. Perhaps I had better transcribe my little Drama at all events.

On looking up this page it seems dictated by the Demon of Tautology--But it's all my Father's fault--I have been writing all this time in the room where he is settling a matrimonial difference between a young Couple in our neighborhood George Mitford was magistrate and chairman of the bench in the Reading division, county of Berkshire, according to Coles (#7, p. 40, note 9). Presumably this is why he is "settling a matrimonial difference."(Dear me--I never saw a finer man or prettier woman--to think that they should fight! Oh dear!)--And Papa is haranguing & the husband explaining & the wife crying--I wonder that I can write a word--Besides I am curious as to the termination--they came desiring to be parted, never to look at one another again--but there is a relenting I think--a touch of the old love--Yes they will certainly make up. And Papa's admonitions will be an excuse to themselves & to each other--Oh yes they will forgive.

Adieu, my dear Sir--

Ever most sincerely & gratefully your's M.R.M.