SD1170. Mary Russell Mitford to Lucy Olivia Anderdon
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 382–383 (in part).
[Three Mile Cross]
March 4th, 1842
The enclosed scrap was written almost as soon as I had despatched my last note, and I hoped to have told you before now that I had taken Mr. Collier’s “Memoirs,” so kindly lent, and which I feel as so great and valuable a trust, safely to your fair friend (one can hardly make up one’s mind to say aunt) at Farley Hill. But my father has been very ill again, with an attack of English cholera, and, his stomach once disordered, he is better one day and worse another. Then my poor pony has been, and still is, very ill of influenza. I believe that I shall lose him. In short, “there’s nae luck about the house.” My only real good fortune consists in kind friends—the best wealth, after all—surely the best earthly wealth; and of the many who are good to us, none are kinder or more valued than the dear family in Bedford Place. Be quite sure that your book is taken every care of, and that the moment I can get so far it shall travel to Farley Hill. I don’t like to trust it to the postman. Do you see the “Athenæum?” I should suppose that any circulating library would lend it to subscribers. My reason for asking is, that dear Miss Barrett has published in the last number another article on the early Greek Christian poets, and will publish two more, which I should like you to see. The prose is quite as extra-ordinary as her poetry—so rich, and powerful, and brilliant. There is about it, too, the same vitality, the same allusion to out-door things—things of the day (Trafalgar Square and the Column to be therein erected), which, as your dear mama observed, with the fine sense of the relation of things for which her observations are so frequently distinguished, holds forth a welcome hope of her own comparative recovery, at least of her prolonged life. She has gained strength, too, during this wretched winter, for she now walks to the sofa; and altogether I am hopeful as to her health. Is it not a remarkable instance of sympathy that she had just finished Lewis and Hayley, the memoirs of both? She enquires for a book which has often excited my curiosity, but which I never saw—the six volumes of Anna Seward’s “Letters,” published by Constable, to whom she bequeathed them. [1] I have read her “Memoirs of Dr. Darwin,” and Sir Walter Scott’s Life of herself; and I have her novel (a narrative poem) called “Louisa,” with the Elegies on Captain Cook and Major André, on which her reputation as a poetess was founded. Would you like to see the book? If you would, I shall be delighted to send it to you. Scott’s account of her is pleasing, and shows that she was more agreeable as a woman than as a poetess. Only think of her transcribing six volumes of her own letters! If I were to copy one of mine, [2] it would never go, so heartily ashamed should I be of its carelessness. It is only afterwards that a record of by-past thought and feeling becomes interesting.
This is the enclosed scrap referred to:— I thank you heartily, my ever dear love, for the perusal of the Collier “Memoir.” It is very curious and interesting. I have taken the liberty of marking with a light pencil line that I especially like in the editor’s part, which, indeed, is admirably filled throughout. I greatly, too, like the Diary; and the Letter to Sir Stephen Fox is very striking. In Richardson’s curious correspondence (a book of which I have lost five volumes, having only one remaining), there is much about Miss Collier—or, I rather think, both the Miss Colliers. Once again I thank you very heartily for this among your many kindnesses. After finishing my last letter, I finished Lewis’s “Memoirs.” It is grievous to think how—by the publication of a book [3] that never ought to have been written or thought, far less printed—he stamped himself with an evil fame; for really he seems to have been one of the most benevolent, kind persons that ever lived. I think you would like his “Memoirs,” and the “West Indian Journal.” The ballad, “Bill Jones,” of which Scott gave him the story, and which is versified in the plainest manner, and almost verbatim, is very striking. I remember, too, being much pleased, years ago, with the “Anacreon.” Poor Lewis! I can’t get him out of my head.– And yet the book is wretchedly done. It’s the man’s own character that forces itself upon one, in spite of the biographer; and the more strongly, of course, from the reaction—having before thought so ill of him. He died as early as Byron; and I am much more certain (humanly speaking) that he, if he had been spared, would have redeemed himself nobly, than I can feel about the other. There was in the one so much self-denial and care for others;—precisely what “Childe Harold” wanted. Have you read “Two Years before the Mast?” [4] I am sure you would like it: it is full of truth and goodness.
If you cannot procure the “Athenæum,” I’ll contrive to send you the numbers. The poetry in the last paper is quite worthless. It is our dear friend who turns all she touches into gold.
Text: Chorley, I, 196–199.
1. They were bequeathed to Sir Walter Scott—much to his literary distaste. Every one who came near the woman, liked her for her cordial generosity. But her writings, as works of art, are sad failures—reflecting all the autumn faults of a decaying literary time.—C.
2. Yet Miss Mitford was willing to “prepare her Letters to Sir W. Elford, for publication.”—C.
3. “The Monk.”
4. By Dana, an American author.—C.
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