Letter to <persName ref="#Talfourd_Thos">T.N. Talfourd</persName>, July 29, 1825 Mary Russell Mitford Kellie Donovan-Condron Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford Project University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center Elisa Beshero-Bondar Transcription and coding by Kellie Donovan-Condron Date last checked: 2015-10-16 Proofing and corrections by Elisa Beshero-Bondar Lisa Wilson Kellie Donovan-Condron First digital edition in TEI, date: 20 March 2015. P5. Edition made with help from photos taken by Digital Mitford editors The Digital Mitford editors' photos from this archive are not permitted for public distribution. Photo files: DSCN1176.jpg, DSCN1177.jpg, DSCN1178.jpg, DSCN1179.jpg Digital Mitford: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive Greensburg, PA, USA 2015

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 John Rylands University Library Mitford-Talfourd Correspondence: Letters from Mary Russell Mitford to Thomas Noon Talfourd: vol. 665 JRL English MS 665 no. 20 Coles no. 91 Letter from Mary Russell Mitford to Thomas Noon Talfourd, 1825 July 29.

Folio sheet of paper folded in half to form four quarto pages, with correspondence on 1-4 and address leaf on page 4, then folded in thirds twice more. Letter is torn at the bottom, and a piece is missing from the right edge. Cross-writing on the top of page 1, and on the right edge of page 4.

Round red wax seal right of center on page 4.

 Someone cataloging the letters, apparently other than Mitford, numbered each on page 1. This letter numbered 20.

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 July 29th 1825. My dear friend--

I have received from Charles Kemble the following letter--My dear Madam--I am in Town but have been so very much engaged for the last few days in winding up the affairs of the past season that I could not have paid that attention to your Tragedy Mitfordhad sent her play Charles I to Kemble earlier in the summer. which any work of yours may justly demand--This evening I leave London & shall not return to it till the first week in September; if you will then send the M. S. to Soho Square I shall have great pleasure in reading it; & I can promise you an honest opinion upon its probable success. I need not assure you that it will delight me to find it exceed in promise all your former dramatic efforts, and that my gratification will be encreased tenfold should its performance be productive of a remuneration commensurate with your patience and your toil"--then an answer to some questions I had asked about the Harnesses & a very kind conclusion--Now this letter is certainly kind although rather too much in the "motives of charity" Proverbial rather than a direct quotation. The phrase was in common use in religious as well as legal contexts in the nineteenth century and earlier. spirit quite to hit my fancy--but what a dose of suspence again!--The play is finished Mitfordwas still working on Charles I in June, according to her letter to Talfourd dated June 29, 1825. --& I am quite longing to shew show it to you--shall you be in Town before Charles Kemble returns?--I am very doubtful of it--Mr. Fitzharris, the only person who has seen it says that it will certainly be accepted & succeed--that Charles is now a shewy showy part & one that will please Mr. Kemble--& that if Mr. Young chuses chooses to put his strength to Cromwell it will suit him so well as to make the fortune of the play,which depends entirely small tear at the bottom of each page, with a piece folded up on the representation of that character--But I am afraid even of that--I doubt if I have sustained the tone of the part--& I am sure that the first act is much the best--In short no one can have less hope than I have altogether--I believe in the first place that it will not be accepted--in the second that it will not be licensed--in the third that it will not succeed--People say by way of comforting me that I always think ill of my own doings--but that is a mistake--I never doubted of Rienzi--nor of my little bookas far as it goes--But of this "Charles"I do doubt most exceedingly--It wants incident wants action wants pathos wants interest wants life--& I doubt very much whether the character & the writing be good enough to counterbalance these terrible deficiencies. The only comfort is that the new parts are better than the old--& that if I could once get the encouragement of success, I am sure that after four or five years passed in dramatic composition I could write a good Tragedy--but that will not happen--I shall be driven to spinning out wretched trash of novels--I know it--& I know how utterly contemptible they will be--& how completely I shall sink to the level of the Minerva Press--Well if you return to Town in time you will I know have the goodness to read "Charles" & give me your honest opinion--If the part should please Charles Kemble, the excellent getting up of that house might save the play.--I understand that there are a great many candidates coming forward in Tragedy besides Mr. Fitzharris & Mr. Serle--a Mr. Ward Warde from Dublin is to come out in Leon--Mr. Fitzharris says that he will certainly succeed in that part, which is peculiar & effective & which he plays admirably, but will probably fail afterwards--He says that although much older than himself Mr. Ward Warde & he are so alike on the stage as scarcely to be distinguished from each other. Mr. Bennett is discharged for carelessness & inattention & Mr. Fitzharris is in some hopes that Charles Kemble may either engage him in that situation or at least keep it vacant till he has seen him--He seems to have made up his mind not to take an situation appearance without an engagement--& that perhaps as much from confidence in his own powers as diffidence--certainly at four & twenty he has time enough to go to London--There is no doubt of his being at the head of his profession some day or other in my opinion--By the way he says that the third Act the trial scene which you did not like The paper is torn at the right edge, obliterating this word and the words at the end of the next two lines. is exceedingly dramatic & full of situation to be sure it has now the address to Cromwell at the end--& you must have a natural aversion to Trials--but still I am afraid you are much the better critic of the two.--How do you get on this Circuit? I never look at a paper & therefore do not know--& above all how are you in health? This weather must have been terrible in Court--And how are all at home?--I meant to have waited for the chance of a frank--but M.P.s are scarce & the Circuit post so uncertain that my Father tells me I had better not. wait --No news that I know in Reading--except that young Mr. Vines is looking about for a house, & that Frederick Bulley (Alcestis) has gained the DemyshipA scholarship at Magdalen College, Oxford University, for half of the amount awarded to Fellows. of MaudlinA derivation of Magdalen, now obscure. Source: OED for which his stupid Brother tried twice & failed--Frederick is not yet fifteen & there were six & twenty candidates & only two vacancies, so that this success is very honourable to him & will be very delightful to the Doctor. He is a very fine lad, & seems to have that particular turn which makes what is called a great scholar--a thing for which in my own peculiar opinion mind I have no great veneration The letter skips approximately the middle one-third of the page at this point, to leave blank space for addressing the letter inasmuch as the only one of the species whom I have known For the next few lines, the words at the end of the line curve into the binding and are difficult to read.very intimately (your friend Mr. Burgess) having devoted his whole life to Greek plays certainly does not understand the sense & spirit of them so well as I who do not know the Alphabet--But Frederick has that turn--he will pore for six hours together over the words of Euripides--& a good fellowship & a scholar college tutorship--Oxford in The following words are cross-written along the right margin of the 4th page be the very place for him--He is a nice boy nevertheless, but not so fine a fellow as Richardson the clever & the idle.--I beg ten thousand pardons for this skimble skamble letter--God bless you my dear friend--

Ever your's yours M.R.M.

The following is cross-written across the top of page 1.Pray was Word is obscured by binding tape it Mr. Henry Robinson Coles claims Mitford is probably correct that this is Henry Crabb Robinson, although the record only shows that the attorney was Mr. Robinson. See Coles p. 472, note 13. Needs additional research. who lost your Clients Client's horse cause at Bedford--They have put it very maliciously into the Berks Chronicle & on the eve of an election it had better not have been tried. The old Clothesman Candidateis off.
To T. N. Talfourd Esqre. 1 Oxford Circuit