SD804. Mary Russell Mitford to Lady Dacre
Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 330–331 (in part).
[Reading]
Sunday July 3rd [1836]
Many thanks my dear Lady Dacre for your most kind letter, & the still kinder present which you are so good as to intend for me. You can hardly give the volume to one who will prize it more for its own sake & for your’s. Many years ago I met with two or three of your translations from Petrarch (indeed they were the first evidences of your genius that I did meet with except a fine drawing of cattle at Kishley) & was so charmed with them as to transcribe them—a young-ladylike evidence of admiration which I very rarely indulge in—& now that I know all your kindness & am to receive the translations from yourself I shall set no common value upon the gift. To translate Poetry into Poetry is a most difficult task– The mere putting it into verse is common enough.—— I knew that you would be charmed with Miss Barrett’s book. Did I tell you her story? Ten years ago she was living with her father at a fine place amongst the Malvern Hills, the eldest of ten children. He was then a man of £15,000 a year. A cousin came to him & showed him a will dated 60 years before under which he claimed £75,000. Mr Barrett, who had never heard of the claim showed the will to a lawyer who advised him to dispute it.– He did so; & after the cause had been driven from court to court it has been given against him with enormous costs & interest, so that his place in Herefordshire is sold, & he is living to use his own expression “a broken down down man” in London. Of course the poverty is only comparative—people who live in Gloucester Place are probably what I should call rich—still with ten children coming into life the change is of course great; & the mother being dead, & the father utterly dispirited, my lovely young friend has been living in the middle of gaiety in a seclusion the most absolute—seeing nobody but the old scholar to whom the “Prometheus” is inscribed, & chiefly occupied in teaching her little brothers Greek– One other person however she did see—Mr Kenyon who is her distant relation, & to whom I owe the happiness of her friendship, perceived at once the splendid talent & the exquisite charm (for most charming she is) & begged her to come to his home to meet Mr Wordsworth & Mr Landor who were staying with him– She shrank away from the very name of a party—& then Mr Kenyon, who is one of the most delightful & kindest persons upon earth, (ask William Harness his opinion about that dear friend of his & mine) coaxed her into going with us to see the Giraffes & the Diorama—after which I saw her frequently & she came to meet the great Poet, & will I think get rid of all that is painful in her shyness, retaining the most graceful modesty, if once brought forward in the Society she is so fitted to adorn. She is very pretty, very gentle, very graceful, & with a look of extreme youth which is in itself a charm. You would be delighted with her. I enclose you a letter which will shew how affectionate she is—I send it quite in confidence—shew it to no one else & do not mention it—but your ladyship being already interested by her extraordinary power I send this letter (in spite of its affectionate flattery) to shew you the childlike sweetness of character which accompanies all this talent. The “Essay on Mind” which she sent me with this letter was written before she was seventeen– It is a wonderful production—with notes as full of learning as those to the Prometheus. Henry Cary (son of the Translator of Dante & of Pindar & himself one of the most distinguished scholars of the day) was reading it here yesterday—& declared that she had read books & alluded to them familiarly as if read by every body that no young man at Oxford in his day ever thought of looking into.– Of course this learning is very wonderful, & seems especially so to me who am exceedingly ignorant—but the real wonder is her power of writing—the force the fire the vigour the tension of that Preface—& the clearness & beauty of style of some of the smaller poems—that especially to which she alludes as written in Miss Courtenay’s Album & which is still unprinted. If events lead her to write on, & she be blest with life & health I have no doubt of her being the most remarkable woman that ever lived. —Her address is 74 Gloucester Place—but I don’t think she can be “got at” without Mr Kenyon—John Kenyon Esqre 4 Harley Place—& he must be reached through Mr Harness. —Of course my little opera was for your Ladyship, & greatly honoured it is by your kind acceptance. I have not seen the Miss B’s book– Sufficient for me to write a novel (alas how little of it is written!) that has so much chance of being bad, without reading the bad novels of other people. I am quite of your ladyship’s mind about the comparative merit & comparative honour of novel writing & play writing– One real Tragedy—one play tragic or comic embued with real dramatic spirit is worth in my mind all the novels ever written by any living person– Have you heard of Mr E. L. Bulwer’s forthcoming Tragedy? I am told that there is one, not to be acted but printed, on the story of Louis 14t.h & La Vallière[.] One is curious to see what he will make of it. The story is not at all dramatic—& novel writing is certainly a bad school for Tragedy.
May I beg my best respects to Mrs Sullivan (I am sure she will like Miss Barrett’s book) & to those of your Ladyship’s circle who are so good as to remember me
Ever my dear Lady Dacre most gratefully your’s
M R Mitford
I do not apologize for blobs & blunders—you would not wish me to make a copy of my letters—& I don’t think I could avoid erasures & interlineations even if I did.
Address, on integral Page: The Lady Dacre.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
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