Painting of Mary Russell Mitford.Mary Russell Mitford.(From a painting by John Lucas, in the National Portrait Gallery.)
Mary Russell Mitford.(From a painting by John Lucas, in the National Portrait Gallery.)
It was through Miss Mitford that William Harness was first introduced to Talfourd, although, judging by certain circumstances which arosefrom time to time, we hold the opinion that William Harness, who demanded more from his friends than did Miss Mitford, never really appreciated the acquaintance. Harness was for ever questioning the other’s motives, and more than once hinted his suspicions to Miss Mitford who at once defended the other—as was her wont. Talfourd’s jealousy was, let us say, pardonable, but when it turned to venom, as it did, we dare not condone. Meeting Macready one evening of the following November, the conversation turned on Miss Mitford and a new play she was projecting and which Mr. Forrest,[27]a rival to Macready, was to produce. “I have no faith in her power of writing a play, and to that opinion Talfourd subscribed to-night—concurring in all I thought of her falsehood and baseness!” These are Macready’s own words, but fortunately Miss Mitford died without knowledge of them, otherwise her faith in her old idol would have been rudely shattered. Talfourd, of whom she had ever spoken kindly; whose career she had watched, glorying in his successes; who had himself praised her talent for the Drama and urged her to forsake all else for it, and now concurred in another’s disparaging references to that same talent—“concurring in all I thought of her falsehood and baseness!”
This London visit closed with a dinner-party at Lord and Lady Dacre’s—Lady Dacre was a relative of the Ogles and therefore distantly connected with the Mitfords. “It is a small house, with a round table that only holds eight,” wrote Miss Mitford, and, as she proceeded to relate that fifty people assembled, and offers no further explanation, we wonder how they were accommodated. The company included Edwin Landseer, “who invited himself to come and paint Dash”—the favourite spaniel—“Pray tell Dash.”
Mr. Kenyon was also there—he had just brought about the introduction to Miss Barrett, and was consequently in high esteem—of whom Miss Mitford told her friend Harness that he had written a fine poem, “Upper Austria,” to be found in that year’sKeepsake, as a test of his sanity. “From feelings of giddiness, he feared his head was attacked. He composed these verses (not writing themuntil the poem of four hundred or five hundred lines was complete) as a test. It turned out that the stomach was deranged, and he was set to rights in no time.”
A wonderful fortnight this, with its introductions to all the notables—“Jane Porter, Joanna Baillie, and I know not how many other females of eminence, to say nothing of all the artists, poets, prosers, talkers and actors of the day.”
“And now I am come home to work hard, if the people will let me; for the swarms ofvisitors, and the countless packets of notes and letters which I receive surpass belief.”
With the introduction to Miss Barrett a new correspondent was added to the already large list with whom Miss Mitford kept in touch, and from the middle of the year 1836 the letters between the two friends were frequent and voluminous. The early ones from Three Mile Cross display an amusing motherliness on the part of their writer, containing frequent references to the necessity of cultivating style and clearness of expression, all of which Miss Barrett took in good part and promised to bear in mind. But in this matter of letter-writing Miss Mitford was really expending herself too much—it was a weakness which she could never overcome—and the consequence was that she either neglected her work or performed it when the household was asleep. Then, still further obstacles to a steady output arrived in the person of the painter Lucas, who wanted to paint another portrait of his friend, and was only put off by being allowed to paint the Doctor, the sittings for which were given at Bertram House, then in the occupation of Captain Gore, a genial friend of the Mitfords. The portrait was a great success, every one praising it. “It is as like as the looking-glass,” wrote the delighted daughter to Miss Jephson. “Beautiful old man that he is! and is the pleasantest likeness, the finest combination of power, and beauty, and sweetness,and spirit, that ever you saw. Such a piece of colour, too! The painterused all his carmine the first day, and was forced to go into Reading for a fresh supply. He says that my father’s complexion is exactly like the sunny side of a peach, and so is his picture. Imagine how grateful I am! He has come all the way from London to paint this picture as a present to me.”
Following Lucas, came Edmund Havell, a young and rising artist from Reading, a lithographer of great ability. He came to paint Dash—Landseer being unable to fulfil his promise because of an accident. “Dash makes an excellent sitter—very grave and dignified, and a little conscious—peeping stealthily at the portrait, as if afraid of being thought vain if he looked at it too long.”
These were the diversions which Miss Mitford permitted herself, and when they were over and the approach of winter caused a natural cessation of the hosts of visitors who thronged the cottage during the fine weather, she devoted herself with energy to a new book, to be entitledCountry Stories, for which Messrs. Saunders & Otley were in negotiation.
FOOTNOTES:[27]He was alleged to have instigated the riotous demonstration against Macready in Boston, U.S.A., twelve years later.
[27]He was alleged to have instigated the riotous demonstration against Macready in Boston, U.S.A., twelve years later.
[27]He was alleged to have instigated the riotous demonstration against Macready in Boston, U.S.A., twelve years later.