558. Mary Russell Mitford to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 225–226.
Three Mile Cross,
Feb. 22, 1837.
My dear Friend,
My father is, I thank Heaven, well. He is charmed with your story of the doves, being a complete bird fancier. He told me a story, when talking of your doves, of having, when a boy of eight years old at school at Hexham, been made free of a strolling company, in consequence of lending them a tame bullfinch to act in “The Padlock,” the first play he ever saw. [1] It would be well for me if I had never seen any; and you are wise for keeping out of the atmosphere. Before I forget it, the work you see advertised is a little volume of “Country Stories.” The novel will come out in the autumn—late in the autumn, I suppose—and I must complete a third work in the winter to make up for this year’s loss of income in “Otto:” [2] so that I have no chance of seeing you, or indeed any other prospect in this life than that of incessant labor, anxiety, and disappointment. God grant me strength to bear it so long as my father lives!
To be sure Amorah [3] is the “Faithful Shepherdess.” If you look further into the plays, you will find that the undramatic character of that charming poem results from its pastoral and poetical qualities. Generally, Fletcher (for Beaumont had little to say in the matter) is highly dramatic, although his plots are wild and improbable and impossible, and deal in the most provoking incongruities. He is a great poet, and certainly next to Shakespeare as a dramatist, whether in tragedy or comedy.
Adieu, my dear Miss Barrett, and believe me,
Ever most faithfully yours,
M. R. Mitford
Henry Chorley wishes me to go to town to sit for the “Portrait Annual;” [4] Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Hemans, Lady Blessington, [5] and myself being the ladies chosen for this first volume.
Address: Miss Barrett, Gloucester Place.
Text: L’Estrange (2), III, 67–68.
1. The Padlock, by Isaac Bickerstaffe (ca. 1735–1812?), based on Cervantes’ The Jealous Husband, and acted at Drury Lane in 1768.
2. Despite Forrest’s professed enthusiasm for Otto of Wittelsbach, a disagreement with Macready over the payment due Miss Mitford caused him to withdraw from his promise to put it on in the current season.
3. L’Estrange probably misread “Amorah” for “Amoret.” Miss Mitford’s comment is in reply to EBB’s query in the previous letter.
4. Chorley was working on The Authors of England, “a series of medallion portraits of modern literary characters” engraved by Achille Collas. It was published in 1838.
5. Marguerite, Countess of Blessington (1789–1849), writer of novels and editor of The Book of Beauty.
___________________
