857. Mary Russell Mitford to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 135–137.
Three Mile Cross,
[early October 1841] [1]
I prefer the man of action to the man of letters—the mere man of letters. But, certainly, the cultivation and faculty enhances and embellishes the sterner stuff. But I am made for mere country pleasures, rather than for those of literature. I was this afternoon for an hour on Heckfield Heath: [2] a common dotted with cottages and a large piece of water backed by woody hills; the nearer portion of ground a forest of oak and birch, and hawthorn and holly, and fern, intersected by grassy glades; a road winding through; and behind us the tall trees of Strathfieldsaye Park. [3] On an open space, just large enough for the purpose, a cricket match was going on—the older people sitting by on benches; the younger ones lying about under the trees; and a party of boys just seen glancing backward and forward in a sunny glade, where they were engaged in an equally merry and far more noisy game. Well, there we stood, Ben and I and Flush, watching and enjoying the enjoyment we witnessed. And I thought if I had no pecuniary anxiety, if my dear father were stronger and our dear friend well, I should be the happiest creature in the world, so strong was the influence of that happy scene.
Let me say, my sweetest, that the “Romaunt of the Page” (which is a tragedy of the very deepest and highest order) always seems to me by far the finest thing that you have ever written; and I do entreat and conjure you to write more ballads or tragedies—call them what you will—like that; that is to say, poems of human feelings and human actions. They will be finer, because truer, than any “Psyche” can be.
I enclose a note to Mr. Haydon. Miss Arabel will like his vivacity and good spirits. Those high animal spirits are a gift from heaven, and frequently pass for genius; or rather make talent pass for genius—silver-gilded. Mr. Lucas is of a far higher and purer stamp. There is no gilding there, it is the true metal and without alloy, as far, I think, as can be said of any mortal. [4]
Did I tell you his story? His father was a clerk in the War Office, an inferior clerk; and he, showing very strongly a genius for design when a boy, was apprenticed to Reynolds the mezzotint engraver. [5] At Mr. Reynolds’s he worked six days in every week from eight o’clock in the morning till eight o’clock at night, and he did work so honestly towards his master and himself that he could now earn from £1200 to £2000 a year as an engraver; but his aim was higher. His master being of so much eminence as to have such pictures as the “Chapeau de Paille,” [6] &c., to engrave, he rose at four in the morning, abstracted from his breakfast and dinner hours every moment not absolutely required for the support of life, and devoted every stolen minute to the study of oil-painting in those great pictures, and that with such success that the moment he was out of his time he was ready and able to earn his bread as a portrait painter—not only to earn his own bread, but to support (as he has done ever since) a widowed mother. [7] One of his early patrons was Mr. Milton, [8] Mrs. Trollope’s brother, and at his request, he thinking that any one whose name was at all known would be of service to the young artist, I sat to him for my portrait. [9] Of course it was a failure. A plain, middle-aged woman could hardly be otherwise. We paid for it the too modest sum that he required, and never demanded it after it returned from the exhibition, where, in spite of its ugliness, it had a good place. He did not like the picture and did not send it back. We had, however, been charmed with him; had heard with delight of his rapidly increasing reputation; and had perhaps been of some little use to him in the early part of his career, by recommending him to different friends. This, however, was nothing; his own great talent, astonishing industry, and exemplary character were his best patrons. However, when we met in town, I said to him, “You used to like our poor cottage. Come and see us again; will you not?” and he answered, “I have been hoping that you would say this, because that head of you is upon my conscience, and I want to paint it over again.” I replied, of course, “No; I asked you to come and see us for recreation, not for work. I shan’t sit to you, I assure you.” “Well,” said he, “if you won’t let me paint you, you’ll let me paint your father?” And I could not resist; and he did come; and the portrait of my father is one of the very finest ever painted, and only less precious to me than the original. [10] Think of the difference of his prices now and then; think of his coming to my father as he would to Prince Albert, and you will feel the full value of his unostentatious and generous piece of kindness.
I love John Lucas. He is less talked of than many who have not half his real reputation; but next to Sir Thomas Lawrence, no man has painted half so many of the highest nobility. [11] The Duke of Wellington (an excellent judge) will sit to nobody else. [12] The Duchesse de Dino, [13] Princess Lieven, [14] and all the great foreigners preferred him to any portrait painter at home or abroad. I must enclose you a letter about him, from a dear friend, received to-day, and a note to him for Miss Arabel. He has now more pictures bespoken than he can paint for two years. Oh! if I had but a head of you by him! What a head of you he would make! I should like Mr. Barrett to see his portraits, and to know him. He is modest almost to shyness; but it is such a mind, so well worth a little trouble to get at. I love John Lucas. His wife [15] have never seen.
The tamarind water has been my father’s best friend; it has given great relief. Love to all.
Yours most faithfully,
M. R. Mitford.
Address: Miss Barrett, Wimpole Street.
Text: L’Estrange (2), III, 63–66 (as 17 October 1836).
1. Dated by the reference to letters of introduction to Haydon and Lucas; EBB acknowledged these in letter 860.
2. Heckfield Heath was about 5 miles S. of Three Mile Cross.
3. The Duke of Wellington’s estate.
4. For a report of Arabella Moulton-Barrett’s visit to the studios of Haydon and Lucas, see letter 861.
5. Samuel William Reynolds (1773–1835), painter and engraver, studied under William Hodges and John Raphael Smith and was employed by Turner.
6. The portrait of Susanna Fourment, now in the National Gallery, London, painted ca. 1620 by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1641).
7. Mrs. William Lucas (née Calcott).
8. The 1829 Royal Academy exhibition included Lucas’s portrait of the twin sons of Henry Milton (1784?–1850). The 1830 exhibition included Lucas’s painting of Milton himself. Lucas also painted Milton’s wife. All three are reproduced in John Lucas, Portrait Painter, 1828–1874, by Arthur Lucas (1910), facing p. 6.
9. This was also shown in the 1829 R.A. exhibition. It is reproduced in Mary Russell Mitford: The Tragedy of a Blue Stocking, by W.J. Roberts (1913), facing p. 290.
10. This portrait, painted in 1836, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1838, where Arabella and Henrietta Moulton-Barrett saw it (see letter 636). It is reproduced in vol. 4, facing p. 41.
11. Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830), Portrait-Painter in Ordinary to George III and George IV and President of the Royal Academy, had painted many of the members of the royal family and nobility, several European sovereigns and notables, as well as Pope Pius VII.
12. One of Lucas’s portraits of Wellington was shown at the Royal Academy in 1840. Sixteen portraits of Wellington are catalogued in John Lucas, Portrait Painter, 1828–1874, six of them being reproduced.
13. Dorothea, Duchess de Dino (née de Courland, 1793–1862), later Duchess de Talleyrand (1838) and Duchess de Sagan (1843), was in London while Talleyrand was Ambassador, where she exerted considerable social and diplomatic influence.
14. Dorothea Christopherovna, Princess de Lieven (née Benckendorff, 1785–1857), spent many years in London, where her husband was Russian Ambassador; her influence was greater than his and her correspondents included Prime Ministers Earl Grey and the Earl of Aberdeen. Lucas’s portrait of her, painted in 1833, is reproduced in Princess Lieven, by H. Montgomery White (1938), facing p. 236.
15. The former Miss Milborough Morgan.
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