FOOTNOTES:
[19] Probably Miss Mitford meant T. Zouch’s Memoirs of Sir Philip Sidney, published in 1809.
CHAPTER XV
A BUSY WOMAN
This first year in the cottage at Three Mile Cross was spent in a variety of ways by Miss Mitford. In addition to her reading, she was devoting herself to getting the garden into trim and by taking extended walks in the neighbourhood, particularly in exploring that beautiful “Woodcock Lane”—happily still preserved and, possibly, more beautiful than in Miss Mitford’s day—so called, “not after the migratory bird so dear to sportsman and to epicure, but from the name of a family, who, three centuries ago, owned the old manor-house, a part of which still adjoins it.” A delightful picture of this lane, full of the happiest and tenderest memories, is to be found in Miss Mitford’s Recollections of a Literary Life. It is too long for quotation here, but for its truth to Nature we can testify, for we have ourselves wandered down its shady length, book in hand, marking and noting the passages as this and that point of view was described, and looking away over the fields as she must have looked—somewhat wistfully, we may believe—to where the smoke from the chimneys at Grazeley Court curled upwards from the trees which so effectually hide the building itself from view. While on these walks, accompanied by Fanchon, the greyhound and Flush, the spaniel, she would take her unspillable ink-bottle and writing materials and, resting awhile beneath the great trees, write of Nature as she saw it, spread there before her. Here, undoubtedly, she wrote many of those pictures of rural life and scenery which, at present, form the most lasting memorial of her life and work.
Woodcock Lane, Three Mile Cross.
The monotony—if there could be monotony in such labour—was broken by a short, three-day’s holiday at Richmond and London which gave her a fund of incident wherewith to amuse her friend Sir William in lengthy letters. Of the sights she missed, two were the pictures of Queen Caroline and Mrs. Opie, “that excellent and ridiculous person, who is now placed in Bond Street (where she can’t even hear herself talk) with a blue hat and feathers on her head, a low gown without a tucker, and ringlets hanging down each shoulder. The first I don’t care if I never see at all; for be it known to you, my dear friend, that I am no Queen’s woman, whatever my party may be. I have no toleration for an indecorous woman, and am exceedingly scandalized at the quantity of nonsense which has been talked in her defence. It is no small part of her guilt, or her folly, that her arrival has turned conversation into a channel of scandal and detraction on either side, which, if it continue, threatens to injure the taste, the purity, the moral character of the nation. Don’t you agree with me?
“I heard very little literary news. Everybody is talking of ‘Marcian Colonna,’ Barry Cornwall’s new poem. Now ‘Barry Cornwall’ is an alias. The poet’s real name is Procter, a young attorney, who feared it might hurt his practice if he were known to follow this ‘idle trade.’ It has, however, become very generally known, and poor Mr. Procter is terribly embarrassed with his false name. He neither knows how to keep it on or throw it up. By whatever appellation he chooses to be called, he is a great poet. Poor John Keats is dying of the Quarterly Review. This is a sad, silly thing; but it is true. A young, delicate, imaginative boy—that withering article fell upon him like an east wind. Mr. Gifford’s behaviour is very bad. He sent word that if he wrote again his poem should be properly reviewed, which was admitting the falsity of his first critique, and yet says that he has been Keats’ best friend, because somebody sent him twenty-five pounds to console him for the injustice of the Quarterly.”
Interspersed with these letters to Sir William were many kindly, womanly epistles to Mrs. Hofland and particularly to the painter, Haydon, who, poor man, was always having a quarrel with somebody; sometimes with the Academy and sometimes with his patrons. True to her sex, Miss Mitford was ever on the side of what she considered were the weak and down-trodden, and in this class she placed her friend Haydon. “Never apologize to me for talking of yourself,” she wrote to him; “it is a compliment of the highest kind. It tells me that you confide in my sympathy.”
In November public festivities to celebrate Queen Caroline’s acquittal were held, and Three Mile Cross, not to be outdone in demonstrative sympathy, decided to illuminate. “Think of that! an illumination at Three Mile Cross! We were forced to illuminate. Forced to put up two dozen of candles upon pain of pelting and rioting and all manner of bad things. So we did. We were very shabby though, compared with our neighbours. One, a retired publican, just below, had a fine transparency, composed of a pocket handkerchief with the Queen’s head upon it—a very fine head in a hat and feathers cocked very knowingly on one side. I did not go to Reading; the squibbery there was too much to encounter; and they had only one good hit throughout the whole of that illustrious town. A poor man had a whole-length transparency of the Duke of Wellington saved from the Peace illumination, and, not knowing what to get now, he, as a matter of economy, hung up the noble Duke again topsy-turvy, heel upwards—a mixture of drollery and savingness which took my fancy much. And, certainly, bad as she is, the Queen has contrived to trip the heels of the Ministers.”
As the year progressed, Miss Mitford made another attempt at dramatic work, devoting her energies to a tragedy on the subject of Fiesco, the Genoese nobleman who conspired against Doria. The idea of a play written on this theme had originated during her recent short visit to London, where she had witnessed an “indifferent tragedy, of which the indifferent success brought the author three or four hundred pounds.” Schiller had, it will be remembered, already used the subject, but this did not deter our author from trying her ‘prentice hand on it. When it was finished—she had worked very assiduously—it was sent off to her friend Talfourd for his advice and criticism, and in the hope that should he approve it, he would be able to negotiate for its production at one of the theatres. To Haydon she wrote confiding her fears and hopes. “It is terribly feeble and womanish, of course—wants breadth—wants passion—and has nothing to redeem its faults but a little poetry and some merit, they say, in the dialogue. My anxiety is not of vanity. It is not fame or praise that I want, but the power of assisting my dearest and kindest father.” Talfourd, most anxious to be of service to his little friend—most anxious because he knew much of the sad tragedy of the last few years—managed to secure the interest of Macready, the actor, who promised to consider the manuscript.
Macready’s letter to Talfourd, transcribed for the edification of Sir William Elford, is important inasmuch as it affords some idea of that actor’s readiness, at all times, to help any struggling author who might appeal to him. He never forgot his own early struggles and his fellow-feeling towards others in desperate plight made him wondrous kind. “Mr. Macready wrote the other day to my friend and his friend [Talfourd] who gave him my play, and this mutual friend copied his letter for my edification. It was, in the first place, the prettiest letter I ever read in my life—thoroughly careless, simple, unpresuming—showing great diffidence of his own judgment, the readiest good-nature, the kindest and most candid desire to be pleased—quite the letter of a scholar and a gentleman, and not the least like that of an actor. As far as regarded my tragedy, it contained much good criticism. Mr. Macready thinks—and he is right—that there is too little of striking incident, and too little fluctuation. Indeed, I have made my Fiesco as virtuous and as fortunate as Sir Charles Grandison, and he goes about prôné by everybody and setting everybody to rights much in the same style with that worthy gentleman, only that he has one wife instead of two mistresses. Nevertheless, the dialogue, which is my strong part, has somehow ‘put salt upon Mr. Macready’s tail,’ so that he is in a very unhappy state of doubt about it, and cannot make up his mind one way or the other. The only thing upon which he was decided was that the handwriting was illegible, and that it must be copied for presentment to the managers. This has been done accordingly, and Mr. Macready and they will now do exactly what they like.”
The consideration of the manuscript was prolonged, and it was not until the midsummer of the following year (1821), that it was finally returned on its author’s hands as unsuitable. Meanwhile, her friends in London had been busy in her interest and she was now working “as hard as a lawyer’s clerk” in writing for the magazines—poetry, criticism, and dramatic sketches. Confessing to a “natural loathing of pen and ink which that sort of drudgery cannot fail to inspire,” she mentions that she now has no leisure, “scarcely a moment to spare, even for the violets and primroses.” The necessity for polish was impressed upon her. “You would laugh if you saw me puzzling over my prose. You have no notion how much difficulty I find in writing anything at all readable. One cause of this is, my having been so egregious a letter-writer. I have accustomed myself to a certain careless sauciness, a fluent incorrectness, which passed very well with indulgent friends, such as yourself, my dear Sir William, but will not do at all for that tremendous correspondent, the Public. So I ponder over every phrase, disjoint every sentence, and finally produce such lumps of awkwardness, that I really expect, instead of paying me for them, Mr. Colburn and Mr. Baldwin will send me back the trash. But I will improve.... I am now occupied in dramatic sketches for Baldwin’s Magazine—slight stories of about one act, developed in fanciful dialogue of loose blank verse. If Mr. Baldwin will accept a series of such articles they will be not merely extremely advantageous to me in a pecuniary point of view (for the pay is well up—they give fifteen guineas a sheet), but excellent exercises for my tragedies. At the same time I confess to you that nothing seems to me so tiresome and unsatisfactory as writing poetry. Ah! how much better I like working flounces! There, when one had done a pattern, one was sure that one had got on, and had the comfort of admiring one’s work and exulting in one’s industry all the time that one was, in fact, indulging in the most comfortable indolence. Well! courage, Missy Mitford! (as Blackwood’s Magazine has the impudence to call me!) Courage, mon amie!”
Nothing daunted by the failure of Fiesco, and notwithstanding the pressure of work for the magazines, Miss Mitford was devoting all the time she could spare to a fresh tragedy, the subject this time being the Venetian Doge Foscari. The project was submitted to Talfourd’s judgment and approved, and by October the finished play was in his hands for presentation to the managers. As ill luck would have it, Byron had been working quietly at a play on the identical subject, and his was announced on the very day that Miss Mitford’s Foscari was to be handed to a manager for his perusal. “I am so distressed at the idea of a competition,” she wrote; “not merely with his lordship’s talents, but with his great name; and the strange awe in which he holds people; and the terrible scoffs and sneers in which he indulges himself; that I have written to Mr. Talfourd requesting him to consult another friend on the propriety of entirely suppressing my play—and I heartily wish he may. If it be sent back to me unoffered, I shall immediately begin another play on some German story.”
Talfourd decided that the play should take its chance, and in December had the satisfaction of hearing that Macready, who had read it, had passed it on to the manager with a strong recommendation that it be accepted. In the construction of the play and the development of the characters, Miss Mitford had been guided by the assumption that, in the event of its being accepted the actors Kemble, Young and Macready would take the leading parts. Unfortunately, however, a little dissension between these actors just at the critical moment, led to the secession of Charles Kemble and to hesitancy in the case of Young, with the result that Macready was the only one left to fulfil the author’s original purpose. The tragedy represented much hard work, for Macready was, very properly, an extremely critical man and before he would agree to submit the play, had asked its author to revise one of the acts at least three times—which she did, without demur.
Late in December of that same year she received an intimation that the play was rejected. It was a heavy blow, for, although she had half expected it from the outset, the prolonged negotiations had led her to hope that her fears would not be realized; and, she was counting much on the pecuniary advantages of its production. Talfourd softened the blow in his own kindly way. He wrote:—“I have with great difficulty screwed myself up to the point of informing you that all our hopes are, for the present, cruelly blighted. Foscari has been returned by Mr. Harris to Mr. Macready, with a note, of which the following is an exact copy:—
‘My dear Sir,—I return you the tragedy of Foscari, and it is with regret that I am obliged to express an opinion that it would not succeed in representation. The style is admirably pure and chaste, and some of the scenes would be highly effective; yet as a whole it would be found wanting in that scale by which the public weigh our performances of the first class. Should the ingenious author at any time bestow the labour of revision and alteration on the tragedy, I should be most happy to have a reperusal of it—Ever yours, H. Harris.’ I am quite sickened at this result of all your labours and anxieties. The only consolation I can offer is, that Mr. Macready assures me he never knew a refusal which came so near an acceptance; for Harris has spoken to him in even higher terms of eulogy than he has written; and I have seen another letter of Harris’s, about other plays, in which he puts Foscari far above all others that he has rejected, and in point of style and writing, above one of Shiel’s [Richard Lalor Sheil] that is to be acted. You see, he holds open a prospect of its being reconsidered, if altered. Whether you will adopt this suggestion is for your own decision; but certainly this play has quite prepared the way for most respectful attention to any piece you may send in hereafter.”
Before proceeding to alter her play, Miss Mitford took the precaution to secure and read Byron’s Two Foscari, and was delighted to find that he had dealt with the subject at a point subsequent to her own, so that the plays were not likely to clash. Furthermore, she found little in Byron’s work to commend, and thought it could scarcely meet with any success from representation. “Altogether, it seems to me that Lord Byron must be by this time pretty well convinced that the drama is not his forte. He has no spirit of dialogue—no beauty in his groupings—none of that fine mixture of the probable with the unexpected which constitutes stage effect in the best sense of the word. And a long series of laboured speeches and set antitheses will very ill compensate for the want of that excellence which we find in Sophocles and in Shakespeare, and which some will call Nature, and I shall call Art.” And as proof that her judgment was not warped by petty jealousy—jealousy of Byron, on her part, would indeed have been stupid—it is interesting to recall the criticism which Macready made in his “Diaries” some years after, when seriously reading Byron’s Foscari with a view to its adoption. Under date April 24, 1834, he wrote:—“Looked into the Foscari of Byron. I am of opinion that it is not dramatic—the slow, almost imperceptible progress of the action ... will prevent, I think, its success in representation.” In June, 1835, he wrote:—“Read over Lord Byron’s Foscari, which does not seem to me to contain the power, or rather the variety and intensity of passion which many of his other plays do.”
Having satisfied herself that she had nothing to fear from Byron’s work she once more applied herself to her own in the endeavour to supply it with those elements in which she and her kindly critics knew it to be deficient—but it was a labour. “I am so thoroughly out of heart about the Foscari that I cannot bear even to think or speak on the subject. Nevertheless, the drama is my talent—my only talent—and I mean to go on and improve. I will improve—that is my fixed determination. To be of some little use to those who are dearest to me was the only motive of my attempt, and I shall persevere.”
CHAPTER XVI
“GOD GRANT ME TO DESERVE SUCCESS”
Still working at high pressure with her magazine articles, Miss Mitford was able to give the promised attention to Foscari, and in June, 1822, dispatched it with its new fifth act—it was the seventh revision of this particular act—to London and, this time, to Charles Kemble for she now held the opinion that the play was not exactly suited to Macready’s style. In the meantime, it was her intention to write something more ambitious “a higher tragedy, with some fine and splendid character, the real hero for Macready, and some gallant-spirited youth, who may seem the hero, for Mr. Kemble.”
Having sent off the manuscript she tried hard to forget it and to possess her soul in patience, but now and again in her letters—very few, now that she was so busy—there are indications of her anxiety. “If my Foscari were to succeed I should be tempted to have a pony-chaise myself”—this because a friend had called and given her the pleasure of a short ride—“I do so love a drive in a pony-chaise! You know, everything that I want or wish I always say ‘if Foscari succeeds.’ I said so the other day about a new straw bonnet, and then about a white geranium, and then about a pink sash, and then about a straw work-basket, and then about a pocket-book, all in the course of one street.”
In August and September she paid flying visits to town to see Kemble about the play and found him so charming that she confessed—hoping no one would tell Mrs. Kemble!—she was the least in the world in love with him and that he ranked second to Napoleon in her imagination. He made her a promise that, subject to the approval of Macready—then on an Italian tour—he would produce the play the first of the season. “Nothing I believe, is certain in a theatre till the curtain is fairly drawn up and let down again; but, as far as I can see, I have, from the warm zeal and admirable character of the new manager and his very clever and kind-hearted lady, every reason to expect a successful début. Wish for me and Foscari. You have all my kindest and gratefulest thoughts, though a tremendous pressure of occupation will not allow me to express them so often as I used to do.”
Unfortunately Kemble was unable to fulfil his promise, Macready having arranged first for the production of another play, “but,” said she, “Charles Kemble, my dear Charles Kemble says—almost swears—it shall be acted this season, and with new dresses and new scenery. There has been a terrible commotion in consequence of C. Kemble’s reluctance to delay. If it were not for my absolute faith in him I should despair.”
Kemble kept his promise, as well as he was able, by producing the play during the year 1826, but only at the expense of a quarrel with Macready—a quarrel fanned by Mrs. Kemble who, although Miss Mitford had written of her as “the clever, kind-hearted lady” was subsequently described in a letter to Talfourd, as making statements “so artificial, so made up, so untrue, so circular—if she had said a great deal less without the fine words and the ‘Dear Madams’ I should have believed her much more.”
At this juncture, and before there was any idea of the possibility of friction between himself and Kemble, Macready had suggested to Miss Mitford that she should write him a historical play and went so far as to outline the plot. To have such a suggestion from the great tragedian was in itself sufficient to send her into an ecstasy—here was proof positive of his belief in her—and so, submitting the project for Talfourd’s approval, and being urged by him to proceed, she set to work at fever heat, towards the close of 1822, on the play of Julian. It was strenuous work and all the while the author was torn with the fear that she would not be able to produce anything worthy of Macready. Dr. Valpy was being continually referred to for his judgment on the various characters—whether they were too weak or too strong—too prudish or too improper—and Talfourd was besought to “speak the truth, fearlessly, and say whether I shall give it up.” At last it was finished and was sent to Macready and Talfourd for their judgment and criticism.
“My execution falls very short of your design,” she wrote; “but indeed it is not for want of pains—I think one reason why it is so ill done, is the strong anxiety I had to do well—to justify your and Mr. Macready’s kind encouragement—the stimulus was too great.” Both Macready and Talfourd made corrections and suggestions, which the author duly acted upon and thereby won unstinted praise from her two friendly critics. “I hope you and he are as right in your praise, as in your censure—but I confess that I am not yet recovered from my astonishment at the extent of your approbation—I am afraid you overrate it—sadly afraid. And yet it is very delightful to be so overrated. It would be a shame if I did not improve with the unspeakable advantage of your advice and your kindness and all the pains you have taken with me.”
On Julian, which she characterized as worth a thousand of Foscari, she was ready to stake all her dramatic hopes and when, at length, in February, 1823, Macready read the play in the green-room and promised its production in ten days or a fortnight, her delight was unbounded. It was produced in the second week of March, with Macready as the principal character, and met with instant success. The author went to town on a visit to her friend, Mrs. Hofland, in Newman Street, that she might the better enjoy the exquisite pain and pleasure of seeing her play presented for the first time. Although she had sent and received many messages to and from Macready, through their mutual friend Talfourd, she had not met him until this occasion and it is no figure of speech to say that they were each considerably struck with the other. Miss Mitford’s verdict on the interview, conveyed in a letter to Sir William Elford, was “He is just such another soul of fire as Haydon—highly educated, and a man of great literary acquirements—consorting entirely with poets and young men of talent. Indeed it is to his knowledge of my friend Mr. Talfourd that I owe the first introduction of my plays to his notice.”
The result to Miss Mitford in cash on the production of Julian was £200, not a vast sum in the light of present-day successes, but still very fair considering that it only ran for eight days, having to be withdrawn in favour of another play. In any case the money was very acceptable to the inmates of the little cottage at Three Mile Cross. The endeavour to clear up outstanding debts weighed heavily on Miss Mitford and, short of a reserve for the barest necessities, the whole of her income was being devoted to that end. A few things of value had been saved from the wreck of the Bertram House establishment, notably some choice engravings, and those were sent to Mrs. Hofland in London who had promised to warehouse them until such time as the owners, having acquired a larger house, might send for them. Any hope of this contingency, which Miss Mitford may have entertained, had been dispersed by the year 1823, and so we find her writing in June of that year begging Mrs. Hofland to try and dispose of some of the pictures to Messrs. Hurst and Robinson and to arrange for the sale of the rest either at Sotheby’s or Robins’s.
It was indeed a most anxious year, notwithstanding the triumph of Julian and the fact that its author was one of the most talked-of women of the day.
Mary Russell Mitford.
(From a painting by Miss Drummond, 1823.)
During her stay in London to witness the production of Julian and at one of her interviews with Macready the two had discussed another play project, various subjects for treatment being suggested—among them that of Procida (subsequently abandoned because Mrs. Hemans was found to be at work on it), and Rienzi which Miss Mitford very much favoured but Macready did not as he thought her outline of the plot would entail on her a greater strain than she could stand. For a time the matter was left in abeyance, as she had much, just then, wherewith to occupy her mind. Kemble was threatening her with a lawsuit if, as she much desired, she withdrew Foscari—she rather feared that its production after Julian would do her no good—and she was so tossed about, as she said, between him and Macready, “affronting both parties and suspected by both, because I will not come to a deadly rupture with either,” that she got quite ill with worry. To add to her miseries the editor of the Lady’s Magazine absconded, owing her £40. “Oh! who would be an authoress!” she wofully wrote to her old friend Sir William. “The only comfort is that the magazine can’t go on without me [its circulation had gone up from two hundred and fifty copies to two thousand since she had written for it]; and that the very fuss they make in quarrelling over me at the theatre proves my importance there; so that, if I survive these vexations, I may in time make something of my poor, poor brains. But I would rather serve in a shop—rather scour floors—rather nurse children, than undergo these tremendous and interminable disputes and this unwomanly publicity. Pray forgive this sad no-letter. Alas! the free and happy hours, when I could read and think and prattle for you, are past away. Oh! will they ever return? I am now chained to a desk, eight, ten, twelve hours a day, at mere drudgery. All my thoughts of writing are for hard money. All my correspondence is on hard business. Oh! pity me, pity me! My very mind is sinking under the fatigue and anxiety. God bless you, my dear friend! Forgive this sad letter.”
It was truly a sad letter, so unlike the usually bright, optimistic woman, that he would be dense indeed who failed to read in it other than evidence of a strain almost too great for this gentle woman to bear. And what of Dr. Mitford at this time? What was he doing in the matter of sharing the burden which he alone, through negligence and wicked self-indulgence, had thrust upon his daughter? Truly he was now less often in town and the famous kennel was in process of being dispersed—there was neither room nor food for greyhounds at Three Mile Cross—but short of his magisterial duties, which were, of course, unremunerated, his time was scarcely occupied. At last the fact of his daughter’s worn-out condition seems to have been borne in upon him and in her next letter to Sir William, dated in May, 1823, she has the pleasure to record:
“My father has at last resolved—partly, I believe, instigated by the effect which the terrible feeling of responsibility and want of power has had on my health and spirits—to try if he can himself obtain any employment that may lighten the burthen. He is, as you know, active, healthy, and intelligent, and with a strong sense of duty and of right. I am sure that he would fulfil to the utmost any charge that might be confided to him; and if it were one in which my mother or I could assist, you may be assured that he would have zealous and faithful coadjutors. For the management of estates or any country affairs he is particularly well qualified; or any work of superintendence which requires integrity and attention. If you should hear of any such, would you mention him, or at least let me know? The addition of two, or even one hundred a year to our little income, joined to what I am, in a manner, sure of gaining by mere industry, would take a load from my heart of which I can scarcely give you an idea. It would be everything to me; for it would give me what, for many months, I have not had—the full command of my own powers. Even Julian was written under a pressure of anxiety which left me not a moment’s rest. I am, however, at present, quite recovered from the physical effects of this tormenting affair, and have regained my flesh and colour, and almost my power of writing prose articles; and if I could but recover my old hopefulness and elasticity, should be again such as I used to be in happier days. Could I but see my dear father settled in any employment, I know I should. Believe me ever, with the truest affection,
“Very gratefully yours, M. R. M.”
A pathetic and tragic letter! At last the scales had dropped from her eyes. And yet, though the letter is, as it stands, an implicit condemnation of her father’s laziness, it is overburdened with affectionate praise of him and a catalogue of virtues in all of which his life had proved him notably and sadly deficient. Dr. Mitford, regenerated, as presented by his daughter, cuts a sorry figure; for him the art of “turning over a new leaf” was lost, if indeed he ever practised it. Proof of this was forthcoming in the next letter addressed to the same correspondent and written three months later! “I hasten my dear and kind friend, to reply to your very welcome letter. I am quite well now, and if not as hopeful as I used to be, yet less anxious, and far less depressed than I ever expected to feel again. This is merely the influence of the scenery, the flowers, the cool yet pleasant season, and the absence of all literary society; for our prospects are not otherwise changed. My dear father, relying with a blessed sanguineness on my poor endeavours, has not, I believe, even inquired for a situation; and I do not press the matter, though I anxiously wish it, being willing to give one more trial to the theatre. If I could but get the assurance of earning for my dear father and mother a humble competence I should be the happiest creature in the world. But for these dear ties, I should never write another line, but go out in some situation as other destitute women do. It seems to me, however, my duty to try a little longer; the more especially as I am sure separation would be felt by all of us to be the greatest of all evils.
“My present occupation is a great secret; I will tell it to you in strict confidence. It is the boldest attempt ever made by a woman, which I have undertaken at the vehement desire of Mr. Macready, who confesses that he has proposed the subject to every dramatic poet of his acquaintance—that it has been the wish of his life—and that he never met with any one courageous enough to attempt it before. In short, I am engaged in a grand historical tragedy on the greatest subject in English story—Charles and Cromwell. Should you ever have suspected your poor little friend of so adventurous a spirit? Mr. Macready does not mean the author to be known, and I do not think it will be found out, which is the reason of my so earnestly requesting your silence on the subject. Macready thinks that my sex was, in great part, the occasion of the intolerable malignity with which Julian was attacked.” [A scathing article on Julian appeared in one of the magazines and was considered, by both Macready and Miss Mitford, to have been inspired, if not written, by Kemble.]
Continuing her letter Miss Mitford detailed how she proposed to treat the subject and concluded with another appeal for interest in securing her father employment:—“Pray, my dear friend, if you should hear of any situation that would suit my dear father, do not fail to let me know, for that would be the real comfort, to be rid of the theatre and all its troubles. Anything in the medical line, provided the income, however small, were certain, he would be well qualified to undertake. I hope there is no want of duty in my wishing him to contribute his efforts with mine to our support. God knows, if I could, if there were any certainty, how willingly, how joyfully, I would do all.... If I were better, more industrious, more patient, more consistent, I do think I should succeed; and I will try to be so. I promise you I will, and to make the best use of my poor talents. Pray forgive this egotism; it is a relief and a comfort to me to pour forth my feelings to so dear and so respected a friend; and they are not now so desolate, not quite so desolate, as they have been. God grant me to deserve success!”
Again how pathetic! And how tragic is this spectacle of a worn-out woman of thirty-six, pleading for help and comfort, and promising, like a little child, to be good and work hard; and that notwithstanding her twelve hours a day at the self-imposed task—which she now finds to be drudgery—or the terror with which she views this great opportunity now offered her by Macready and which she dare not refuse lest she be blamed for letting slip any chance of earning money. And all that a worthless father may be shielded and the real cause of the trouble be obscured.
To add to her burdens—her mother was taken suddenly and seriously ill shortly after the above letter was written, necessitating the most careful and vigilant nursing. Her complaint—spasmodic asthma—was so bad that, as the daughter recorded, “I have feared, night after night, that she would die in my arms.” Eventually she recovered, but meanwhile, of course, all literary work had to be abandoned, not only because of the constant attention which the patient’s condition demanded but by reason of the “working of the perpetual fear on my mind which was really debilitating, almost paralyzing, in its effect.”
CHAPTER XVII
OUR VILLAGE IS PUBLISHED
With her mother now convalescent, the year 1824 opened to find Miss Mitford more composed in mind. She was still turning over in her mind her friend Macready’s great commission, but as he had bade her take plenty of time, she occupied herself with gathering together and polishing the Lady’s Magazine articles on country life with a view to their publication in volume form. Mr. George B. Whittaker, of Ave Maria Lane—“papa’s godson, by-the-by”—was the chosen publisher and we may be certain that there was much fussing and discussion between the parties concerned before the details were finally arranged. Mr. Whittaker was, according to his godfather’s daughter, “a young and dashing friend of mine, this year sheriff of London, and is, I hear, so immersed in his official dignities as to have his head pretty much turned topsy-turvy, or rather, in French phraseology, to have lost that useful appendage; so I should not wonder now, if it did not come out, till I am able to get to town and act for myself in the business, and I have not yet courage to leave mamma.”
Had Mr. Whittaker known what was in store for him he would probably have lost his head; but neither author nor publisher had the faintest notion that the modest volume, then projecting, was to be the forerunner of a series destined to take the world by storm and to be the one effort—apart from dramatic and sonneteering successes, which were to fade into obscurity—by which alone the name of Mary Russell Mitford was to be remembered.
Its modest title— Our Village—was the author’s own choice, and it was to consist of essays and characters and stories, chiefly of country life, in the manner of the Sketch Book, but without sentimentality or pathos—two things abhorred by the author—and to be published with or without its author’s name, as it might please the publisher. “At all events,” wrote Miss Mitford to Sir William, “the author has no wish to be incognita; so I tell you as a secret to be told.”
“When you see Our Village,” she continued, “(which if my sheriff be not bestraught, I hope may happen soon), you will see that my notions of prose style are nicer than these galloping letters would give you to understand.”
The excitement of preparing for the press revived her old interest in life and stirred her once again to indulge in that free and blithesome correspondence which had been so unceremoniously dropped when her domestic troubles seemed so overpowering. Her introduction to Macready had been followed by an introduction to his sister whom, as usual, Miss Mitford found to be all that was charming. In her impulsive fashion she quickly divined the characters of both and wrote of her impressions to her confidant, Sir William. “They are very fascinating people, of the most polished and delightful manners, and with no fault but the jealousy and unreasonableness which seem to me the natural growth of the green-room. I can tell you just exactly what Mr. Macready would have said of me and Julian. He would have spoken of me as a meritorious and amiable person, of the play as a first-rate performance, and of the treatment as ‘infamous!’ ‘scandalous!’ ‘unheard-of!’—would have heaped every phrase of polite abuse which the language contains on the Covent Garden manager; and then would have concluded as follows:—‘But it is Miss Mitford’s own fault—entirely her own fault. She is, with all her talent, the weakest and most feeble-minded woman that ever lived. If she had put matters into my hands—if she had withdrawn The Foscari—if she had threatened the managers with a lawsuit—if she had published her case—if she had suffered me to manage for her; she would have been the queen of the theatre. Now, you will see her the slave of Charles Kemble. She is the weakest woman that ever trode the earth.’ This is exactly what he would have said; the way in which he talks of me to every one, and most of all to myself. ‘Is Mr. Macready a great actor?’ you ask. I think that I should answer, ‘He might have been a very GREAT one.’ Whether he be now I doubt. A very clever actor he certainly is; but he has vitiated his taste by his love of strong effects, and been spoilt in town and country; and I don’t know that I do call him a very great actor ... I have a physical pleasure in the sound of Mr. Macready’s voice, whether talking, or reading, or acting (except when he rants). It seems to me very exquisite music, with something instrumental and vibrating in the sound, like certain notes of the violoncello. He is grace itself; and he has a great deal of real sensibility, mixed with some trickery.”
The old Wheelwright’s Shop at “Our Village,” in 1913.
As far as it goes, and based on so slight an acquaintance, the portrait is not much short of the truth, as witness Macready’s own diaries wherein, strong man that he was, he set down all his faults and failings. But he was a much-provoked man, the reason being that he never did, or could, descend to the low level of his tormentors. As for his being, or not being, a great actor, Miss Mitford must be forgiven her hasty judgment; posterity rightly disagrees with her.
Spring was just merging into summer and the thoughts of jaded and satiated townfolk were turning to the consideration of green fields and smiling meadows when the first modest little volume of Our Village issued shyly forth from George Whittaker’s office. “Cause it to be asked for at the circulating libraries,” urged the designing author of all her friends.
The book caught on; its pages were redolent of the country; its colour was true and vivid; it told of simple delights and did for Berkshire what no author had ever previously done for any place. Charles Lamb, then in the full enjoyment of his fame as Elia, said that nothing so fresh and characteristic had appeared for a long time. Sir William Elford was delighted but ventured the suggestion that the sketches would have been better if written in the form of letters, but this the author denied by reminding him that the pieces were too long, and too connected, for real correspondence; “and as to anything make-believe, it has been my business to keep that out of sight as much as possible. Besides which, we are free and easy in these days, and talk to the public as a friend. Read Elia, or the Sketch Book, or Hazlitt’s Table-Talk, or any popular book of the new school, and you will find that we have turned over the Johnsonian periods and the Blair-ian formality to keep company with the wigs and hoops, the stiff curtseys and low bows of our ancestors. ‘Are the characters and descriptions true?’ you ask. Yes! yes! yes! As true as is well possible. You, as a great landscape painter, know that in painting a favourite scene you do a little embellish, and can’t help it; you avail yourself of happy accidents of atmosphere, and if anything be ugly, you strike it out, or if anything be wanting, you put it in. But still the picture is a likeness; and that this is a very faithful one, you will judge when I tell you that a worthy neighbour of ours, a post captain, who has been in every quarter of the globe, and is equally distinguished for the sharp look-out and bonhomie of his profession, accused me most seriously of carelessness in putting The Rose for The Swan as the sign of our next door neighbour; and was no less disconcerted at the misprint (as he called it) of B for R in the name of our next town. A cela près, he declares the picture to be exact. Nevertheless I do not expect to be poisoned. Why should I? I have said no harm of my neighbours, have I? The great danger would be that my dear friend Joel might be spoilt; but I take care to keep the book out of our pretty Harriette’s way; and so I hope that that prime ornament of our village will escape the snare for his vanity which the seeing so exact a portrait of himself in a printed book might occasion. By the way, the names of the villagers are true—of the higher sketches they are feigned, of course.”
The sales were beyond the wildest dreams of the author and publisher, for it was well reviewed in all the literary papers and discussed in all the literary circles. “Where is Our Village?” was the question folk were asking each other, and when the secret leaked out, there was a constant stream of traffic from here, there and everywhere to the quiet village of Three Mile Cross, whose inhabitants were the last of all to discover that they had been “put into a book.” What a theme for the cobbler over the way! How he must have neglected his work to watch the congratulating visitors who thronged the cottage opposite, all asking the beaming and delighted author “How she thought of it?” and “Why she did it?” And when, at length, a copy of the book itself found its way to the parlour of the George and Dragon and the cobbler saw himself as “the shoemaker opposite,” we can almost fancy we catch the gratified light in his eye and hear his astonished—“Well! I’ll be jiggered!”
And since no letter to any of her numerous correspondents ever contained so charming a description, here let us quote from Our Village its author’s picture of her own dwelling:—“A cottage—no—a miniature house, with many additions, little odds and ends of places, pantries, and what-nots; all angles, and of a charming in-and-out-ness; a little bricked court before one half, and a little flower-yard before the other; the walls, old and weather-stained, covered with hollyhocks, roses, honeysuckles, and a great apricot tree; the casements full of geraniums (ah! there is our superb white cat peeping out from among them); the closets (our landlord has the assurance to call them rooms) full of contrivances and corner-cupboards; and the little garden behind full of common flowers, tulips, pinks, larkspurs, peonies, stocks, and carnations, with an arbour of privet, not unlike a sentry-box, where one lives in a delicious green light, and looks out on the gayest of all gay flower-beds. That house was built on purpose to show in what an exceeding small compass comfort may be packed.”
That is Miss Mitford’s miniature of her village home. Seeking it to-day, the literary pilgrim would be sadly disappointed if he carried this description in his mind. The walls have been stuccoed—that ugliest of make-believes—and a wooden sign The Mitford springs from between the windows in an attempt—honest enough, no doubt—to compete with its neighbour The Swan, the sign of which swings all a-creak over the garden-wall. It has lost its cottage aspect, the windows are modern and even the chimney-pots have been replaced by up-to-date pottery contrivances and a zinc contraption which tries to look ornamental but is not—in striking contrast to the village shop next door which is still the village shop as described by Miss Mitford, “multifarious as a bazaar; a repository for bread, shoes, tea, cheese, tape, ribands, and bacon”; full of that delightfully mixed odour, a pot-pourri of eatables and wearables, which always characterizes such establishments; proudly ruled by a Brownlow, one of a line of Brownlows unbroken from long before Miss Mitford’s day.
Inside, The Mitford is less of a disappointment, for most of the rooms remain unchanged, and one quickly sees how truly its delighted owner limned it when she wrote of its angles and in-and-out-ness. Unhappily the garden behind has been spoiled by the erection of a large hall wherein the gospel is preached, light refreshments may be partaken of, and the youth of the village assemble o’ nights to tighten their muscles on trapeze and horizontal bar. In Miss Mitford’s day they achieved this end by following the plough—but other times other manners, and we are not for blaming them altogether. The pity is—and it is our only grumble—that when that truly noble philanthropist, William Isaac Palmer, conceived the notion of honouring Miss Mitford’s memory by preserving her residence, he did not insist on a restoration which would have perpetuated the external, as well as the internal, features of the cottage.
Miss Mitford’s Cottage at Three Mile Cross, as it is to-day (1913), with the sign of the Swan Inn on the one hand, and Brownlow’s shop on the other.
Was Our Village its author’s announcement to all and sundry, that come what might, whether of want, drudgery, or disillusionment, she could still carry her head high, look the world in the face— and smile? Probably it was. A strong case can be made out for the view that, apart altogether from her love of rurality, Our Village was a deliberate glorification of the simple life which had been forced upon her, a deliberate pronouncement that Home was still Home, though it had been transferred from the magnificence of Bertram House with its retinue of servants, to an extremely humble cottage set between a village “general” on the one side and a village inn upon the other.
With all the success which now seemed to crowd upon our author, the year was not without its anxieties for, shortly after her mother’s recovery, her father was taken suddenly ill and, as was his wont on such occasions, required a great deal of attention. He made a fairly speedy recovery, however, and in July we read of him and Mrs. Mitford taking exercise in a “pretty little pony-chaise” the acquisition of which the daughter proudly records—it was a sign, however slight, of amended fortunes. Late in the year, Dr. Mitford had a relapse and became seriously ill, and even when convalescent was left so weak that he was a source of considerable anxiety to his wife and daughter. This illness must have convinced Miss Mitford that it would be futile to count upon her father as a bread-winner, and that conviction seems to have spurred her to work even harder than before. The Cromwell and Charles play still simmered in her mind, while there were a “thousand and one articles for annuals” to be written, together with the working-up of a new tragedy to be called Inez de Castro. Not satisfied with all that, she wrote in the July to William Harness, asking whether he could influence Campbell, then editing the New Monthly Magazine, to engage for a series—“Letters from the Country,” or something of that sort—“altogether different, of course, from Our Village in the scenery and the dramatis personae, but still something that might admit of description and character, and occasional story, without the formality of a fresh introduction to every article. If you liked my little volume well enough to recommend me conscientiously, and are enough in that prescient editor’s good graces to secure such an admission, I should like the thing exceedingly.”
Talfourd wrote urging her to a novel, but this she wisely declined, and commenced to work, in great haste on still another tragedy which had been suggested by a re-reading of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It was no new project, for she had written of it “in strict confidence” to Sir William Elford more than a year before, but it had been left to lie fallow until an opportunity arose for its execution. When the suggestion was made to Macready he at once saw the possibilities in the theme and promised to give the play his best consideration, although he made the significant suggestion that not only should the author’s name be kept a dead secret, but that the play should be produced under a man’s name because the newspapers of the day were so unfair to female writers.
Luckily the haste with which she had started on Rienzi soon subsided, and it was not ready until 1826 when Macready took it and the Cromwellian play with him on an American tour, promising to do nothing with either unless they could be produced in a manner satisfactory to the author. The original intention had been to produce Rienzi at Covent Garden that year, but the idea was abandoned.
In the meantime preparations were well advanced for a second series of Our Village, “my bookseller having sent to me for two volumes more.” Eventually the series extended to five volumes, the publication of which ranged over the years 1824 and 1832. Of these volumes there appeared, from time to time, a number of most eulogistic reviews, particularly noticeable among them being those of “Christopher North” in the Noctes Ambrosianae of Blackwood’s Magazine. In reviewing the third volume he wrote:—“The young gentlemen of England should be ashamed o’ theirsells fo’ lettin’ her name be Mitford. They should marry her whether she wull or no, for she would mak baith a useful and agreeable wife. That’s the best creetishism on her warks”—a criticism as amusing as it was true.
CHAPTER XVIII
MACREADY AND RIENZI
In the previous chapter we mentioned that Rienzi was not ready until 1826 and that its production at Covent Garden during that year was postponed because of a disagreement between Macready and Young. As a matter of fact the play was finished to the mutual satisfaction of its author, and her friends Talfourd and Harness, early in 1825, but when submitted to Macready he would only accept it on condition that certain rather drastic alterations were made. In this he was perfectly justified for, be it remembered, he was not only an actor of high rank but a critic of remarkable ability—a combination of scholar and actor which caused him to be consulted on every point connected with the drama and whose judgment was rarely wrong. Upon hearing his decision Miss Mitford appears to have lost her composure—we will charitably remind ourselves that she had put much labour and thought into this play—and to have rushed off to consult the two friends who, having read the play, had already pronounced it ready for presentation. Upon hearing Macready’s suggestions Harness was considerably piqued, the more so as in addition to his clerical duties, he was, at this time, enjoying a considerable reputation as a dramatic critic, his writings in the magazines being eagerly looked for and as eagerly read when they appeared. There is no doubt that he, backed up by Talfourd, counselled Miss Mitford not to adopt Macready’s suggestions, but Macready was not the man to brook interference from outsiders and told Miss Mitford that not only must she alter the play in accordance with his views, but without delay if she required him to produce it. This naturally placed the author in an awkward position for she knew, as Macready knew, that he was the person for whom the play had been written and that, did he refuse it, there was no other person on the English stage who could, by any chance, do justice to it. To refuse his request would mean a serious loss to her, and so, humiliated for the moment, she set to work in great haste to carry out Macready’s wishes. It was done with an ill grace, for it seemed to Miss Mitford as so much unnecessary labour, especially as critics like Talfourd and Harness had said so. It was unfortunate that, in her bitterness, she overlooked the fact that Macready was, under the circumstances, entitled to every consideration, seeing he had most at stake in the matter of reputation, etc.
The story of this little breeze got about—possibly it only reached the ears of a few—but it got about, and some person, some evil-disposed person, fully cognizant of the feud which existed between Kemble and Macready wrote an open letter “To Charles Kemble, Esq., and R. W. Ellison, Esq., On the Present State of the Stage,” in which the writer urged these gentlemen to exercise themselves and prevent the Drama from “going to the dogs,” suggesting the cause of and offering a remedy for the degeneration. The article was published in Blackwood’s Magazine for June, 1825, and bore indubitable evidence of having been written by some person possessed of an extraordinarily intimate knowledge of Miss Mitford and her affairs. It began:—“Gentlemen,—It will, I fear, appear to you as somewhat officious that a stranger, possessing no other skill in the mysteries of theatrical politics than the constant perusal of every play bill, and a very frequent seat in the middle of the pit can afford him, should thus attempt to call away your thoughts from the many anxious and perplexing occupations in which you are engaged, and demand your attention to his unsolicited advice on the management of Covent Garden and Drury Lane.” Having thus introduced himself the writer proceeded to animadvert on what he asserted was the decline in the public taste for the legitimate drama, instancing the fact that the managers had been forced to introduce variety shows in order to keep up the receipts; and he went on to say that “the present depressed state of the national drama is the fault of your Great Actors—I mean of your soi-disant Great Actors—of Messrs. Kean, Young and Macready.” The arrogant pretensions of these gentlemen were such as not to allow an author to tell his story exactly as he conceived it. “Would any play so written, have a chance of being represented?” proceeded the writer, arguing that it would not because these actors refused to play any but the hero and insisted on the author keeping down the minor rôles.
“Are you not compelled to sacrifice the interest of the author which ought to be your first concern, whether you consider your duty to the public or yourselves, to the caprice and absurd vanity of your principal performers? The author must obey the directions of the performer; the whole order and process of the work is reversed; and the dramatist is expected to mould his character to fit the actor, instead of the actor modelling his preparation to the conception of the author.”
Up to this point the article, though offensive to the actors named, was nothing more than the outburst of a man who might be voicing a public grievance; but he continued in a strain which proved at once that he was something more than a lover of and regular attendant at the play—that he was indeed in the confidence of one, at least, of the authors he was championing. “The history of the lately rejected tragedy of Rienzi is strikingly illustrative of the evils that attend the operation of the present system. The authoress, a person not a little distinguished in the literary world, had selected, for the exercise of her talent, a passage of history which Gibbon has recommended as peculiarly calculated for dramatic representation. The plot was completed and shown to Mr. Macready. He was delighted with the production. The chief part was very effective both in language and situation, and only required a very few and slight alterations to render it worthy the abilities of any of the great actors. He wished an entirely new first act; this was indispensable; that Rienzi might be introduced striking to the earth an injurious patrician, as Moses smote the Egyptian, because this circumstance had peculiarly pleased Mr. Macready’s fancy when a boy at school. To make room for the introduction of this important incident, the second and third acts, to the great injury of the general interest and original arrangement of the tragedy, were to be compressed into one. The fifth act, which had been framed in the most strict conformity with the truth of History, was to be re-written; that the character of Rienzi might, to the very dropping of the curtain, hold its paramount station on the stage.
“All these alterations were to be made in a fortnight. The authoress was then to return to town with the play and superintend in person the rehearsals and the getting-up of the piece; but at all events the work must be ready in a fortnight. In a fortnight the play was mangled and distorted, and fitted to Mr. Macready’s exaggerated and melo-dramatic measures of performing; the author arrived in London to attend the bringing-out of the play; she called on Mr. Macready with the manuscript; to her utter astonishment, he received her with the greatest coolness:—‘There was no hurry for the play. The managers had another piece at the theatre, which must at all events be produced first.’”
Having thus divulged details of a most intimate character—circumstantial to a degree—the writer proceeded to argue that this sort of treatment must make authors of the front rank give up dramatic work in disgust, and then wound up with the suggestion that if these great actors, with their absurd mannerisms, refused to abide by a code which would banish the present bad state of affairs, then let them go to the country and in twelve months they would be completely forgotten.
It will be readily conceded that the article was extremely offensive towards Macready, and, as he afterwards maintained, very damaging too. He claimed that the damage it made to his reputation resulted in the reduction of his income by one-half and that it made him seriously consider an immediate retirement from the stage—a course which he abandoned only because of his children and their dependence upon him.
The article was an anonymous one, signed “Philo-Dramaticus” and by reason of the inner knowledge it revealed of what were unquestionably private conversations between Miss Mitford and Macready, suspicion fell on William Harness. Taxed with its authorship, he denied the accusation and was not believed. The subject was one upon which every one was talking; in club-land and in stage-land the question was being continually asked: “Who wrote the Blackwood article?”
Poor Macready was sorely wounded and wrote to Miss Mitford. The letter reached her at a time when she was suffering from an abscess, confined to her bed. She dreaded these embroilments; she was for peace; but in this case she was, to some extent, to blame in not acting on Macready’s advice, without seeking the further advice of her friends. Macready now desired to learn from her whether she knew the author of the malignant article, and whether she had authorized the person to write so in her behalf. The situation was difficult; how to answer these queries she knew not. That she knew, or suspected, the author, is without a doubt for she must have written to that person on the point. In her extremity she got her mother to write to their mutual friend Talfourd and since it is so important we quote it in full:—
“My dear Friend,—I am obliged to make use of my mother’s hand to write to you having been for a week past confined to my bed with an abscess which prevents me turning on either side—it proceeds from neglected inflammation, I having taken it for a boil—There is no danger I believe although much fever and very great pain. The letter from Mr. Macready which I got arrived this morning—I have not answered it, nor shall I until I hear from you—What can I say? You will see from the enclosed note (which I send in strict confidence) he wrote the article. I suspected William Harness and I asked him and you see what he says—What can I say? The statement, however inaccurate in trifling matters, is yet substantially true as you will know—although it is possible that had I behaved with more patience and submission (and I most sincerely wish I had) the result might have been different—It is very rarely that a quarrel takes place between two persons without some touch of blame on either side—and a sick bed is not a place to deny one’s faults—Still the statement is substantially true and was undoubtedly derived from my own information—in which is bitterness of disappointment—although the publication was so far from being authorized by me that I do not know anything that ever gave me more pain, but what can I do? I cannot disavow my kind and zealous friend William Harness—I cannot disavow that part of the statement which is true—and nothing less than an entire disavowal would satisfy Mr. Macready, yet God knows how I dread one of his long narratives—What can I do? I have had to-day another most pleasant note from Mr. Harness—They are delighted with Charles I—Mr. Hope read it without laying down and said: ‘It was a very fine play—that Charles was excellent, and Cromwell excellent, the Queen very good and the action quite sufficient.’ This is very pleasant from the author of Anastatius—William does not say a word about Cromwell’s cant, and if he, the clergyman, does not mind it, I should hope that George Colman[20] would not, especially as it is now a high tory play. I shall tell William to send the MS. to your house or Chambers (which?) as soon as I know you are returned.
“It is certainly quite a new thing especially Cromwell—For in spite of my having written Charles up as much as possible, Oliver is the life of the piece—God bless you my dear friend—
“Kind regards from all—
“Ever yours,
“M. R. M.”
“Could you write to Mr. M.? Would that be prudent? I don’t know that it would—He evidently wants a complete disavowal—I wonder what he means to do—Do write me your advice most minutely—And pray forgive the trouble.”
Dismissing from our minds that portion which deals with “Charles I” and what the critics thought of it and confining ourselves to the other matter, we shall plainly see that Miss Mitford’s suspicions as to the author had undergone a change by her receipt of the note from the real culprit and as she mentions her original suspicion regarding William Harness we may permissibly infer that he and the culprit were not one and the same. What Talfourd did with the note which was submitted to him in strict confidence is not known to us. Probably he returned it to Miss Mitford. In any case the letter from which we took our copy bore no clue, and the identity of the person who wrote the offending article cannot therefore be revealed. It is, however, quite clear from the postscript that Miss Mitford was apprehensive lest Macready should resort to law and that is a view which is strengthened by her appeal to Talfourd, who was a lawyer, to write his advice most minutely.
Whether Miss Mitford ever replied to Macready, and, if so, what was its purport, are questions which we can only surmise from a statement, made by Macready, some years later, but we do know that, for many years after, the great actor nursed a grievance against Miss Mitford and cherished a bitter resentful feeling against Harness, believing the latter to be the person who had written the Blackwood article. In his Diary, after an interval of eleven years—i.e. February, 1836—recalling his endeavours to be of service to Miss Mitford he writes of her as requiting him “by libel and serious injury,” while throughout that and the following year are many entries containing disparaging remarks about her and her “inability to write a play.”
Of Harness, in this same Diary, he wrote still more bitterly. “I believe the Rev. Mr. Harness was among my slanderers at the time” is a reference to the old grievance, written under date June 30, 1835. In the July following he classes Harness with those “who gain their livelihood and draw their gratifications from the imagined triumphs of their envious and malignant nature”; in March, 1836, he writes of Harness’ “blackguardism and rascality” and so on, frequently through the Diary until January 8, 1839. On this day Harness called on him by appointment to discuss a play by Mrs. Butler (Fanny Kemble) and, after the business was transacted, Macready detained him by saying there was another matter on which he wished to speak with him. “I observed to him that whatever faults of character might be ascribed to me, I was incapable of doing any one an injury wittingly; that my notions of honour and virtue, such as they were, were strictly revered by me, and if I had done him a wrong, I held myself bound to expatiate [sic] it in every possible way. I then mentioned to him the libellous article which in June, 1825, had been written against me in Blackwood’s Magazine; the effect it had had in raising the Press against me; the partial contradiction that Miss Mitford had given it.... He was evidently much embarrassed and seemed to suffer much; his mode of expressing himself was confused and rambling; he said that he must acknowledge that he was inculpated so far as that he had heard the story told by Miss Mitford, and had communicated it to the writer of the article, but that he had not written it.... I told him that I was very glad to hear that he was not the author, as I was happy to think well of all men, and was very sorry that I had suspected him of the fact. He was going away, when he turned back, having passed the door, and said, ‘I think we ought to shake hands.’ I gave him my hand, saying, ‘I was very happy to do so,’ and we parted. My heart was much lighter, and I fear his was much, very much heavier, as it is evident, though not the author, that he was deeply implicated in that shocking transaction—that assassination of my character. I think of him with perfect charity, and with the most entire and cheerful forgiveness.”[21]
Thus ended this extraordinary and lengthy feud begotten of a trifling incident which unwisdom magnified. Truly Miss Mitford might justly doubt the proverb that “in multitude of counsellors there is safety.” It was a sorry business in which neither of the participants can be said to have shone.