Letter to <persName ref="#Elford_SirWm">Sir William Elford</persName>, January 3, 1822 Mary Russell Mitford Lisa M. Wilson Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford Project University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Elisa Beshero-Bondar Transcription and coding by Lisa M. Wilson Martha Peterson First digital edition in TEI, date: February 6, 2019. P5. Edition made with help from photos taken by Digital Mitford editors Digital Mitford photo files: Digital Mitford: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive 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. xxx Letter from Mary Russell Mitford to Sir William Elford, 1822 January 3. Change to reflect your letter addressee and date. Use this format and punctuation.-->

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. 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. 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 may be William Harness or A. G. L'Estrange.

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.

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Three Mile Cross Jany. 3rd 1822.

This is the first real absolute letter (notes that are dated Tuesday morning & Wednesday Evening & and so forth don't count in this case) the first genuine letter that I have set down to write in 1822 & it shall be addressed to one of the kindest & best of my Correspondents. Your very long & delightful letter gives the best possible proof of life & spirits, & I assure you, my dear Sir William, it is quite a consolation to think of a dear friend who is well & happy. This singularly mild & unhealthy season has been fatal to several many of my oldest & most valued connexions--In three weeks I have to condole with three correspondents on the death of a father or a Mother--my kindest & most partial friend Mr. Perry being one of them--Well I will not sadden you by talking of sad things

so you have a real fancy to see my Puff--I have the strongest possible inclination to gratify you & if I can by coaxing, scolding, stealing or otherways procure a Reading paper of that week you shall have it. My own copy I have been swindled out of in a very atrocious manner--But I certainly will get one for you if I can, because I should like you to see Mr. Talfourd's Epilogue which is capital in one way, & my critique which is no less famous in another--I think you cannot fail to be amused at the very grave face & begowned & bewigged dignity which I have put on for the occasion--You have no notion what an easy thing it is to seem learned.--As to my own Play--what part of my Tragi-comical distresses did I tell you? Where were we in that equally doleful & comical history? Had I told you that the Play was written under advice which seemed excellent for three principal characters--Young Charles Kemble & Macready--that Charles Kemble from disgust at the other two had seceded, from the Theatre, & that in consequence of alterations suggested by Mr. Macready Mr. Young's character had become too unimportant for a man of his dignity--in the language of a Charade my second had quarreled with my first & my third affronted my second & extinguished my first. The consequence of all this was easy to foresee--the play was presented to Mr. Harris, & after a great deal of hesitation rejected in terms of such praise & admiration, as would have satisfied any Author who wrote from Vanity--Mr. Macready says for my consolation that no refusal was ever so much like an acceptance--that Mr. Harris actually prefers it to a Tragedy which he has taken--& that, in short, it has been refused merely because the state of the performers is such that it could not be acted with a fair chance of success. This is you see very poor consolation--Indeed I am not sure whether to have come so very near the mark is not more provoking than to have utterly failed--One comfort however there is--This Play has certainly cleared the way for most respectful attention to any piece that I may send in hereafter--And I have accordingly already begun Tragedy on a story purely imaginative which I intend to write without any respect for the Mr. Young's or the Charles Kembles, with one leading character for Mr. Macready & a number of inferior ones which may be filled up my any walking Gentleman--walking sticks they might call them--which the Theatre may happen to have in pay. Don't you think I am very bold & persevering? Pray praise me--& pity me--I am forced to pity myself sometimes or I should never get on at all--I have entirely lost the fluency which I used to possess ten years ago & write with a difficulty a labour a fastidiousness that seem almost incredible--besides ? every thing ? --nothing but the certain conviction that I should fail hinders me Washington Irving from trying a Comedy. Mr. Talfourd says I should succeed--but I cannot think so--I will at all events try another Tragedy first.

Have you read the Pirate? And do you like it? I think you will say no to both questions--you have not probably yet had time to read it--& you have heard enough of the story to be pretty sure that you shall not like it. I don't at all. There is a great deal too much about Zetland superstitions & Zetland manners, & Zetland revelry--& there is an old witch who would of herself be enough to spoil the finest thing that ever was written. What a fancy the great Unknown has for a witch! I verily believe this Norna is the 9th or 10th of that species which he has produced--& of all of them she is the worst, by far the worst--he has given her a poem in prose to recite after the fashion of Ossian, Chateaubriand & those sort of people--& there is such a quantity of her too! Altogether The Pirate is perhaps nearly on a par with the later works--for there has been nothing very great since Ivanhoe (notwithstanding the beauty of one or two scenes in the Monastery)--nothing like the Antiquary & Waverley & Guy Mannering & Old Mortality-- the Antiquary being to my taste the one & unrivalled of them all. (By the bye in an article which ? strangely at ? purposes of the scotch hovels in the last ? ? Oldbuck & Pleydell & the high comic character called the "fool" & "the Rose"--What manner of taste call you this?) --One of the best things in the Pirate is some excellent raillery on the subject of breeding clubs & ?--& the best one seems to be that where Mrs. ? produces her boiled goose to feast ? ? but then the witch comes in--& there's an end on(?)--as ?? would say--I thoroughly agree wtih you, for your reasons & others, as to the certainty of the books being written by Sir W. Scott, & thank you very much for your transcript ??'s charming anecdote.

yes the second Vol. of the sketch book is certainly a little Americanish --a little heavy--a little mawkish--& very ? & unfaithful in his English details--Mr. Washington Irving is excellent in humour, & in old dutch Colonists & other American diversities--but he must not meddle with us proud English--I wish he would give an American novel with all the peculiarities the vulgarities & the affectations of that ridiculous country. We have a fine specimen of New York manners close by--a rich friend of ours was taken in by Mr. Birkbeck's fine plausible lies (there's a glorious illustration of my system for you--that book of Birkbeck's seemed as true as Robinson Crusoe!) & intending to embark some 20 or 40,000(?) in the Illinois, sent out a son of seventeen to reconnoitre. Mr. Fearon's fine antidote & other accounts soon determined him to keep his money in England--but the son staid on--not in the Illinois that disagreed with him--but in New York--& is only lately returned--a very good sort of young man I believe, but the most complete transatlantic coxcomb that ever eyes beheld. He is somenm, smooth & smirking--smiling like Malvolio though not like him cross gartered--superficial as a newspaper or a review talking in a strange outlandish jargon half of it too fine for common wear & half too course --a mixture of tissue & ? cloth--? gallant** to a distressing degree--he never sees you seated but he cants an ottoman under your feet, or standing, or walking but he claps a chair down behind you--so that the singer at a piano sometimes finds herself blockaded by a double row of seats-- His cloakings & shawlings are worse than any cold & he walks in a dancing step. Jany. 9th 1822 I have at last succeeded in borrowing a Reading paper--but as I could only get it on promising to return it I must give you the trouble to send it back to me when you ? have read it. you will find mention made of a little boy of the name of Richardson who performed a part in the Chorus , ?? , & the Epilogue-- I never saw in my life so much promise of dramatic talent-- talk of the Young Rosuies ? ! Look at little Richardson-- he is the son of ? master at Reading; who on this occasion signed in the ?, & really one of the most delightful facts of the evening was to watch the poor dancing master's fear of joy which followed every look sword & movement of this lovely boy--I have just been reading Lord Byron's Plays--The Two Foscari of course was the first object with me--but he has taken up the business just where I left it off, so that it does not at all clash with mine. The Dog ? is well executed I think--but young Foscari notwithstanding ? good speeches is utterly imbecile--an ultra sentimentalist ? clings no one knows why or ? with a love like dotage to the country which has disgraced & exiled & tortured & finishes by killing him--& his wife Marina is a mere scold. Both that & Sardanapalus are miserably wise drawn & spun out--one is really quite tired in reading them. Cain is of a higher strain--& yet though there is nothing in it bolder than Milton has put into the mouth of his Satan one is s om ehow shocked at Lucifer's speeches in Cain which never happens in Paradise Lost . The impression is different-- I don't know why but it is so. Altogether it seems to me that Lord Byron must be by this time pretty well convinced that the Drama is not his forte--he has no spirit of dialogue--no beauty in his groupings--none of that fine mixture of the probable with the unexpected which constitutes stage effect in the best sense of the word--& a long series of laboured speeches & set antitheses will very ill compensate for the want of that excellence which we find in Sophocles & in Shakespeare & which you will call nature & I shall call Art--Pray do you ever paint animals? We have a Greyhound called May-Flower of excellency grace & ? symmetry--just of the colour of the May blossom--like marble with the sun upon it--& she kills every hare she sees takes them up in the middle of the back & brings them in her mouth to my father & lays them down at his feet--I assure you she is quite a study whilst bringing the hares--the fine contrast of colour--her beautiful position, head & tail up & her long neck arched like that of a swan--with the light shade shifting upon her beautiful limbs & her black eyes really emitting light. I wish you could see May Flower. Farewell my dear friend--

I have only room to say how much I am always yours M. R. Mitford

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