SD1166. Mary Russell Mitford to Lucy Olivia Anderdon
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 382 (in part).
[Three Mile Cross]
January 23rd, 1842.
I congratulate all, my dear young friend, from the bottom of my heart, upon an event so gratifying as dear Mr. A——’s assumption of the silk gown. I had heard before that he was speedily to be called to the Inner Bar, from our mutual friend Mr. D——; he added, “a perilous step for most men, but perfectly safe for him.” The Chancellor’s was a very graceful allusion. Let me follow up the illustration by an earnest wish that you and your dear mama may live to see your excellent father filling the post of commander-in-chief. No man can be fitter for the wool-sack; and the wish, which seems so impossible in many cases, loses even its improbability in this. Keep the books and the leaves of the “Athenæum” as long as you like, my dearest. Mrs. G—— says of the Gregorian translations, that they are “Englished in words which in their point and richness are almost Greek;” and yet I had rather see more “Cloud Houses,” and still rather a long, clear, unmystical narrative poem, full of picturesque description, of dramatic dialogue, and of human interest. Let her (Miss Barrett) once give the world such a work as that, and she will not only sit on the very throne of poetry, but give an impulse to public taste at once elevating and purifying. Heaven be with you all. I could not help writing our poor congratulations.
Text: Chorley, I, 194–195.
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