SD1260. Mary Russell Mitford to Charles Boner
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 13, 390–391 (in part).
[Three Mile Cross]
[Postmark: 14 July 1846]
How can I ever thank you half enough my dear Mr Boner for the two charming Volumes which I have just received & for the surprise the honour & the gratification of the prefatory address[.] …
Poor poor Haydon! He was my old & intimate friend & correspondent for above 35 years– At one time he used to write to me 3 or 4 times a week, & although my occupations & my business & dislike of letter-writing had much diminished that closeness of intercourse yet the friendship continued unbroken. This event quite upset me & I have hardly recovered it yet. I shall transcribe for you a letter on the subject from Miss Barrett which I think you will like to see. She says: [“]The shock of Mr Haydon’s death overcame me for several days– Our correspondence had ceased a full year & a half—but in the last week he wrote several notes to me, & by his desire I have under my care boxes & pictures of his which he brought himself to the door. Never did I anticipate this! Never did I imagine it was other than one of the passing embar[r]assments so unhappily frequent with him! Once before he had asked me to give shelter to things belonging to him, which when the storm had blown over he took back again– I did not suppose that in this storm he was to sink– Poor noble soul!—and be sure that the pecuniary embarassment was not what sunk him– It was a mind still more lost. It was the despair of the ambition by which he lived & without which he could not live. In the self-assertion which he had struggled to hold up through life he went down into death. He could not bear any longer the neglect the disdain the blur cast on him by the age, & so he perished. The Cartoon disappointment—the grotesque antagonism of Tom Thumb, to which he recurred most bitterly to me in one of his last notes– These things were too much– The dwarf slew the giant. His love of reputation you know was a disease with him, & for my part I believe that he died of it– That is my belief– In the last week he sent me his portrait of you among the other things– When he proposed sending it he desired me to keep it for his sake—but when it came a note also came to say that he could not make up his mind to part with it—he would lend it to me for a while. A proof with the rest that his act was not premeditated—a moment of madness—or a few moments of madness—who knows!” So for our great Poetess. I knowing how dotingly fond he was of his wife & children believe that he calculated upon the sympathy that would follow the event, & that in the infinite whirl of thought preceding such a deed the notion of sacrificing himself to their interest mingled. Mrs Haydon from whom I heard yesterday imputes it wholly to the conduct of a friend on whom he had relied during the last twenty years. She does not name him. However that may be the effect will be a most comfortable provision for his wife & family– She has a pension of £50 a year from the Queen & one of £25 from Lady Peel– 400 was subscribed the first day at Mr Sergeant Talfourd’s (to whom as to Elizabeth Barrett I introduced him). … Your verses are full of truth & beauty– I have sent them to a local paper of great circulation & begged some copies to be struck off, & shall send one to you, one to Mrs Haydon & one to Miss Barrett. … I have not been to France this year—nor even to London except to see dear Elizabeth Barrett, for a reason which I will tell you when we meet. Elizabeth Barrett is better & better– She walks to the Booksellers at the corner of the street & drives to Hampstead & Highgate.– …
Address, on integral page: Charles Boner / St Emeran / Ratisbon / Bavaria.
Publication: Memoirs and Letters of Charles Boner, ed. R.M. Kettle (London, 1871), I, 95–100.
Manuscript: Yale University.
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