With her mother now convalescent, the year 1824 opened to find Miss Mitford more composed in mind. She was still turning over in her mind her friend Macready’s great commission, but as he had bade her take plenty of time, she occupied herself with gathering together and polishing theLady’s Magazinearticles on country life with a view to their publication in volume form. Mr. George B. Whittaker, of Ave Maria Lane—“papa’s godson, by-the-by”—was the chosen publisher and we may be certain that there was much fussing and discussion between the parties concerned before the details were finally arranged. Mr. Whittaker was, according to his godfather’s daughter, “a young and dashing friend of mine, this year sheriff of London, and is, I hear, so immersed in his official dignities as to have his head pretty much turned topsy-turvy, or rather, in French phraseology, to have lost that useful appendage; so I should not wonder now, if it did not come out, till I am able to get to town and act formyself in the business, and I have not yet courage to leave mamma.”
Had Mr. Whittaker known what was in store for him he would probably have lost his head; but neither author nor publisher had the faintest notion that the modest volume, then projecting, was to be the forerunner of a series destined to take the world by storm and to be the one effort—apart from dramatic and sonneteering successes, which were to fade into obscurity—by which alone the name of Mary Russell Mitford was to be remembered.
Its modest title—Our Village—was the author’s own choice, and it was to consist of essays and characters and stories, chiefly of country life, in the manner of theSketch Book, but without sentimentality or pathos—two things abhorred by the author—and to be published with or without its author’s name, as it might please the publisher. “At all events,” wrote Miss Mitford to Sir William, “the author has no wish to beincognita; so I tell you as asecret to be told.”
“When you seeOur Village,” she continued, “(which if my sheriff be not bestraught, I hope may happen soon), you will see that my notions of prose style are nicer than these galloping letters would give you to understand.”
The excitement of preparing for the press revived her old interest in life and stirred her once again to indulge in that free and blithesomecorrespondence which had been so unceremoniously dropped when her domestic troubles seemed so overpowering. Her introduction to Macready had been followed by an introduction to his sister whom, as usual, Miss Mitford found to be all that was charming. In her impulsive fashion she quickly divined the characters of both and wrote of her impressions to her confidant, Sir William. “They are very fascinating people, of the most polished and delightful manners, and with no fault but the jealousy and unreasonableness which seem to me the natural growth of the green-room. I can tell you just exactly what Mr. Macready would have said of me andJulian. He would have spoken of me as a meritorious and amiable person, of the play as a first-rate performance, and of the treatment as ‘infamous!’ ‘scandalous!’ ‘unheard-of!’—would have heaped every phrase of polite abuse which the language contains on the Covent Garden manager; and then would have concluded as follows:—‘But it is Miss Mitford’s own fault—entirely her own fault. She is, with all her talent, the weakest and most feeble-minded woman that ever lived. If she had put matters intomyhands—if she had withdrawnThe Foscari—if she had threatened the managers with a lawsuit—if she had published her case—if she had suffered me to manage for her; she would have been the queen of the theatre. Now, you will see her the slave of Charles Kemble.She is the weakest woman that ever trode the earth.’ This is exactly what he would have said; the way in which he talks of me to every one, and most of all to myself. ‘Is Mr. Macready a great actor?’ you ask. I think that I should answer, ‘He might have been a veryGREATone.’ Whether he be now I doubt. A very clever actor he certainly is; but he has vitiated his taste by his love of strong effects, and been spoilt in town and country; and I don’t know that I do call him a very great actor ... I have a physical pleasure in the sound of Mr. Macready’s voice, whether talking, or reading, or acting (except when he rants). It seems to me very exquisite music, with something instrumental and vibrating in the sound, like certain notes of the violoncello. He is grace itself; and he has a great deal of real sensibility, mixed with some trickery.”
Photo of ShopThe old Wheelwright’s Shop at “Our Village,” in 1913.
The old Wheelwright’s Shop at “Our Village,” in 1913.
As far as it goes, and based on so slight an acquaintance, the portrait is not much short of the truth, as witness Macready’s own diaries wherein, strong man that he was, he set down all his faults and failings. But he was a much-provoked man, the reason being that he never did, or could, descend to the low level of his tormentors. As for his being, or not being, a great actor, Miss Mitford must be forgiven her hasty judgment; posterity rightly disagrees with her.
Spring was just merging into summer and thethoughts of jaded and satiated townfolk were turning to the consideration of green fields and smiling meadows when the first modest little volume ofOur Villageissued shyly forth from George Whittaker’s office. “Cause it to be asked for at the circulating libraries,” urged the designing author of all her friends.
The book caught on; its pages were redolent of the country; its colour was true and vivid; it told of simple delights and did for Berkshire what no author had ever previously done for any place. Charles Lamb, then in the full enjoyment of his fame asElia, said that nothing so fresh and characteristic had appeared for a long time. Sir William Elford was delighted but ventured the suggestion that the sketches would have been better if written in the form of letters, but this the author denied by reminding him that the pieces were too long, and too connected, forrealcorrespondence; “and as to anything make-believe, it has been my business to keep that out of sight as much as possible. Besides which, we are free and easy in these days, and talk to the public as a friend. ReadElia, or theSketch Book, or Hazlitt’sTable-Talk, or any popular book of the new school, and you will find that we have turned over the Johnsonian periods and the Blair-ian formality to keep company with the wigs and hoops, the stiff curtseys and low bows of our ancestors. ‘Are the characters and descriptionstrue?’ you ask. Yes! yes! yes! As true as is well possible. You, as a great landscape painter, know that in painting a favourite scene you do a little embellish, and can’t help it; you avail yourself of happy accidents of atmosphere, and if anything be ugly, you strike it out, or if anything be wanting, you put it in. But still the picture is a likeness; and that this is a very faithful one, you will judge when I tell you that a worthy neighbour of ours, a post captain, who has been in every quarter of the globe, and is equally distinguished for the sharp look-out andbonhomieof his profession, accused me most seriously of carelessness in puttingThe RoseforThe Swanas the sign of our next door neighbour; and was no less disconcerted at themisprint(as he called it) of B for R in the name of our next town.A cela près, he declares the picture to be exact. Nevertheless I do not expect to be poisoned. Why should I? I have said no harm of my neighbours, have I? The great danger would be that my dear friend Joel might be spoilt; but I take care to keep the book out of our pretty Harriette’s way; and so I hope that that prime ornament of our village will escape the snare for his vanity which the seeing so exact a portrait of himself in a printed book might occasion. By the way, the names of the villagers are true—of the higher sketches they are feigned, of course.”
The sales were beyond the wildest dreamsof the author and publisher, for it was well reviewed in all the literary papers and discussed in all the literary circles. “Where isOur Village?” was the question folk were asking each other, and when the secret leaked out, there was a constant stream of traffic from here, there and everywhere to the quiet village of Three Mile Cross, whose inhabitants were the last of all to discover that they had been “put into a book.” What a theme for the cobbler over the way! How he must have neglected his work to watch the congratulating visitors who thronged the cottage opposite, all asking the beaming and delighted author “How she thought of it?” and “Why she did it?” And when, at length, a copy of the book itself found its way to the parlour of theGeorge and Dragonand the cobbler saw himself as “the shoemaker opposite,” we can almost fancy we catch the gratified light in his eye and hear his astonished—“Well! I’ll be jiggered!”
And since no letter to any of her numerous correspondents ever contained so charming a description, here let us quote fromOur Villageits author’s picture of her own dwelling:—“A cottage—no—a miniature house, with many additions, little odds and ends of places, pantries, and what-nots; all angles, and of a charming in-and-out-ness; a little bricked court before one half, and a little flower-yard before the other; the walls, old and weather-stained,covered with hollyhocks, roses, honeysuckles, and a great apricot tree; the casements full of geraniums (ah! there is our superb white cat peeping out from among them); the closets (our landlord has the assurance to call them rooms) full of contrivances and corner-cupboards; and the little garden behind full of common flowers, tulips, pinks, larkspurs, peonies, stocks, and carnations, with an arbour of privet, not unlike a sentry-box, where one lives in a delicious green light, and looks out on the gayest of all gay flower-beds. That house was built on purpose to show in what an exceeding small compass comfort may be packed.”
That is Miss Mitford’s miniature of her village home. Seeking it to-day, the literary pilgrim would be sadly disappointed if he carried this description in his mind. The walls have been stuccoed—that ugliest of make-believes—and a wooden signThe Mitfordsprings from between the windows in an attempt—honest enough, no doubt—to compete with its neighbourThe Swan, the sign of which swings all a-creak over the garden-wall. It has lost its cottage aspect, the windows are modern and even the chimney-pots have been replaced by up-to-date pottery contrivances and a zinc contraption which tries to look ornamental but is not—in striking contrast to the village shop next door which is still the village shop as described by Miss Mitford, “multifarious as a bazaar; a repository for bread,shoes, tea, cheese, tape, ribands, and bacon”; full of that delightfully mixed odour, a pot-pourri of eatables and wearables, which always characterizes such establishments; proudly ruled by a Brownlow, one of a line of Brownlows unbroken from long before Miss Mitford’s day.
Inside,The Mitfordis less of a disappointment, for most of the rooms remain unchanged, and one quickly sees how truly its delighted owner limned it when she wrote of its angles and in-and-out-ness. Unhappily the garden behind has been spoiled by the erection of a large hall wherein the gospel is preached, light refreshments may be partaken of, and the youth of the village assemble o’ nights to tighten their muscles on trapeze and horizontal bar. In Miss Mitford’s day they achieved this end by following the plough—but other times other manners, and we are not for blaming them altogether. The pity is—and it is our only grumble—that when that truly noble philanthropist, William Isaac Palmer, conceived the notion of honouring Miss Mitford’s memory by preserving her residence, he did not insist on a restoration which would have perpetuated the external, as well as the internal, features of the cottage.
Photo of CottageMiss Mitford’s Cottage at Three Mile Cross, as it is to-day (1913), with the sign of theSwan Innon the one hand, and Brownlow’s shop on the other.
Miss Mitford’s Cottage at Three Mile Cross, as it is to-day (1913), with the sign of theSwan Innon the one hand, and Brownlow’s shop on the other.
WasOur Villageits author’s announcement to all and sundry, that come what might, whether of want, drudgery, or disillusionment, she could still carry her head high, look the world in the face— and smile? Probably it was. A strong case can be made out for the view that, apart altogether from her love of rurality,Our Villagewas a deliberate glorification of the simple life which had been forced upon her, a deliberate pronouncement that Home was still Home, though it had been transferred from the magnificence of Bertram House with its retinue of servants, to an extremely humble cottage set between a village “general” on the one side and a village inn upon the other.
With all the success which now seemed to crowd upon our author, the year was not without its anxieties for, shortly after her mother’s recovery, her father was taken suddenly ill and, as was his wont on such occasions, required a great deal of attention. He made a fairly speedy recovery, however, and in July we read of him and Mrs. Mitford taking exercise in a “pretty little pony-chaise” the acquisition of which the daughter proudly records—it was a sign, however slight, of amended fortunes. Late in the year, Dr. Mitford had a relapse and became seriously ill, and even when convalescent was left so weak that he was a source of considerable anxiety to his wife and daughter. This illness must have convinced Miss Mitford that it would be futile to count upon her father as a bread-winner, and that conviction seems to have spurred her to work even harder than before. TheCromwell and Charlesplay still simmeredin her mind, while there were a “thousand and one articles for annuals” to be written, together with the working-up of a new tragedy to be calledInez de Castro. Not satisfied with all that, she wrote in the July to William Harness, asking whether he could influence Campbell, then editing theNew Monthly Magazine, to engage for a series—“Letters from the Country,” or something of that sort—“altogether different, of course, fromOur Villagein the scenery and thedramatis personae, but still something that might admit of description and character, and occasional story, without the formality of a fresh introduction to every article. If you liked my little volume well enough to recommend me conscientiously, and are enough in that prescient editor’s good graces to secure such an admission, I should like the thing exceedingly.”
Talfourd wrote urging her to a novel, but this she wisely declined, and commenced to work, in great haste on still another tragedy which had been suggested by a re-reading of Gibbon’sDecline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It was no new project, for she had written of it “in strict confidence” to Sir William Elford more than a year before, but it had been left to lie fallow until an opportunity arose for its execution. When the suggestion was made to Macready he at once saw the possibilities in the theme and promised to give the play his best consideration, although he made the significant suggestionthat not only should the author’s name be kept a dead secret, but that the play should be produced under a man’s name because the newspapers of the day were so unfair to female writers.
Luckily the haste with which she had started onRienzisoon subsided, and it was not ready until 1826 when Macready took it and the Cromwellian play with him on an American tour, promising to do nothing with either unless they could be produced in a manner satisfactory to the author. The original intention had been to produceRienziat Covent Garden that year, but the idea was abandoned.
In the meantime preparations were well advanced for a second series ofOur Village, “my bookseller having sent to me for two volumes more.” Eventually the series extended to five volumes, the publication of which ranged over the years 1824 and 1832. Of these volumes there appeared, from time to time, a number of most eulogistic reviews, particularly noticeable among them being those of “Christopher North” in theNoctes AmbrosianaeofBlackwood’s Magazine. In reviewing the third volume he wrote:—“The young gentlemen of England should be ashamed o’ theirsells fo’ lettin’ her name be Mitford. They should marry her whether she wull or no, for she would mak baith a useful and agreeable wife. That’s the best creetishism on her warks”—a criticism as amusing as it was true.