Letter to <persName ref="#Talfourd_Thos">T.N. Talfourd</persName>, 1821 [July 31] Mary Russell Mitford Lisa M. Wilson Tracy L. Harnish Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford Project University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Elisa Beshero-Bondar Transcription and coding by Lisa M. Wilson Tracy L. Harnish Proofing and corrections by Elisa Beshero-Bondar First digital edition in TEI, date: 22 May 2014. P5. Digital Mitford: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive Greensburg, PA, USA 2013

Reproduced by courtesy of the The John Rylands University Library.

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License Digital Mitford Letters: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive The John Rylands University Library Mitford-Talfourd Correspondence: Letters from Mary Russell Mitford to Thomas Noon Talfourd: vol. 665 JRL English MS 665 no. 2 Coles no. 9 Letter from Mary Russell Mitford to T.N. Talfourd, 1821 July 31.

Folio sheet of paper folded in half to form four quarto pages, with correspondence on 1-3 and address leaf on page 4, then folded in thirds twice more and sealed for posting.

Address leaf bearing no postmarks.

A portion of page 3 has been torn away under the seal.

Red wax seal missing, traces of red wax remain.

 Someone cataloging the letters, apparently other than Mitford, numbered each on page 1. This letter numbered 2.

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--Tuesday. My dear Sir

I send you the first two Acts, all that I have yet put together of Foscari--Not, I assure you, with any view to encroach on your time & attention at a place where they will be so much better occupied but simply to relieve my good friend Mr. Monck, for whose unwearied kindness I can never be sufficiently thankful--by sending off three frankfuls by a private hand.--So now put the papers by--& do not read another word till you are again in progress. You will get the rest of the play in about ten days. I cannot express to you how much I am dissatisfied & disappointed at it--I expected to have done better--but you will tell me what to put out & suggest what to put in & perhaps it may be mendable. If not it can at any time go into the fire, where, by the bye, it very nearly had gone without reaching you. You will find that I have conformed to your the representation of the Venetian government as we find it in the great Dramatists, & confined myself to a Doge & a Senate insted of entering into the real & inextricable complexity of that most intricate State. I did this as much for effect as for convenience.--for in the Drama it seems to me that too strict a preservation of costume is as great an evil as too wide a departure from it--a Dramatic writer cannot explain as a Novelist may do & therefore should not shock the prejudices of an audience by any outstanding novelty. The "Signors of the Night" in Lord Byron's Play seemed to me enough to have broken any illusion--Am I right in this? If not we I could easily break the Senate into such divisions as come nearer to the real form of the Venetian Government.

My play as I have writen it ia an odd compound of Mrs. Hofland's Legend & the real History of the Doge Foscari--The prophecy belongs to the latter division--but I have managed the political part so ill as to have repented fifty times of having departed from the domestic opening, & should certainly write the whole tragedy over again upon the original plan if it were not for the difficulty of finding any one to represent the Mother. My Villain Erizzohangs like a night mare nightmare over the drama.--& yet I don't know how to get rid of him.--Have I stolen the opening scene--or any part of it of from some thing that I ought to remember? Tell me if I have--& pray mark as many parts that occur to you as borrowed. Have I not in my abhorrence to the pompus strut the artifical elevation of the French School fallen into the contrary error & become too familiar? And in trying to preserve the subtle spirit of the dialogue is there not too much of transition & abruptness--too much left to be inferred by the reader or explained by the Actor? Oh my dear Mr. Talfourd--what would become of me if I had not the comfort of resorting to your kindness & your judgement! How can I ever be grateful enough for your goodness to me! I say this for the hundredth time because I am always thinking it.

How sorry I am that your delicacy (I wonder whether any body else ever had so much?) stood in the way of your visitingReading just now--It would have been such a pleasure to have seen you here--& really my flowers are worth looking at--not for rarity or beauty as a florist understands the word, but for gaiety abundance profusion! I never saw such a crowd of bright blossoms--But they will soon be over--this balmy dropping weather which brings them out so beautifully will carry them off--Do you love flowers? Do you sympathize with my passion for them? Or do you laugh at it?--I don't know what I should do without them.

I return to Mr. Baldwin's letter which I put into my pocket intending to give it you in Reading, but forgot it--How many thanks do I owe you on that score too. Mr. Colburn has I think paid for more than I have furnished him with even including the unprinted articles--When Foscari is finished I will take care to get out of his debt.--

I hope you have a great deal to do inAbingdon & at Oxford & that the good report will spread along the line of the circuit & briefs pour in at Towns that were barren last time--We shall be very anxious to hear what you did in Abingdon--It will be Papa's first question on Saturday when he seesMr. May--he and my dear Mother join in kindest remembrances & good wishes.

I am always most gratefully your's M.R. Mitford.

Of course you will keep the two Acts till you get the rest--Is Mr. Macreadylikely to act at Covent Garden? Oh to lose him would be almost as bad as losing you!--Good bye.

Am I wrong to bring in Sforza's name since he does not appear? It looks a little like the introduction of Queen Elizabeth in the Play in the Critic--But as he is a great historical personage & was the real General of Venice at the time I thought it would give something of truth & reality to the scene--He can however be very easily omitted if you think it better--So could the prophecy.--Once more good bye!--I have marked with a pencil two or three passages which I suspect as borrowed--Do you remember them? For the third & last time Good bye!--Had not I better call it theFoscari for fear the old Doge be taken as the Hero? Though of course in the two last acts his part is quite subordinate. I shall seal my letter--there is no other security against my going on over the page & then crossing the whole epistle--I won't say Good bye again because it seems in my hands to have changed its meaning.
To T. N. Talfourd Esqre