Judging by the hundreds of Miss Mitford’s letters which we have handled, full of closely-written and often indecipherable characters, we are of opinion that she was singularly fortunate in finding a printer able and willing to ascertain their meaning. Her condolences with her friend, Sir William, on his “press-correcting miseries” are, though extravagant, very diverting and, in these days of trade-unionism, throw an interesting light on the personnel of Valpy’s little establishment in Tooke’s Court. “I am well entitled to condole with you, for I have often suffered the same calamity. It is true that my little fop of a learned printer has in his employ three regularly-bred Oxonians, who, rather than starve as curates, condescend to marshal commas and colons, and the little magical signs which make the twenty-four letters, as compositors; and it is likewise true, that the aforesaid little fop sayeth—nay, I am not sure that he doth not swear—that he always gives my works to his best hands. Now, as it is not mannerly for a lady to say ‘you fib,’ I never contradict this assertion, but content myself with affirming that it is morally impossible that the aforesaid hands can have that connection with a head which is commonly found to subsist between those useful members. Some great man or other—Erasmus, I believe—says that ‘Composing is Heaven, preparing for publication Purgatory, and correcting for the press’—what, must not be mentioned to ‘ears polite.’ And truly, in my mind, the man was right. From these disasters I have, however, gained something:—‘Sweet are the uses of adversity’; and my misfortunes have supplied me with an inexhaustible fund of small charity towards my unfortunate brethren, the mal-printed authors. For, whereas I used to be a most desperate and formidable critic on plural or singular, definite and indefinite, commas and capitals, interrogations and apostrophes, I have now learnt to lay all blunders to the score of the compositor, and even carry my Christian benevolence so far that, if I meet with divers pages of stark, staring nonsense (and really one does meet with such sometimes), instead of crying, ‘What a fool this man must be—I’ll read no more of his writing!’ I only say, ‘How unlucky this man has been in a compositor! I can’t possibly read him until he changes his printer.’” Nevertheless, and although there might be an occasional author glad to shelter himself behind such an excuse, the fact remains that the work which emanated from Valpy’s press is entitled to the highest encomiums—despite his three Oxonians who, choosing the better part, preferred to compose type rather than sermons.

There is no record that Miss Mitford published anything from the year 1812—when Watlington Hill appeared—until 1819, the interval being occupied with various short trips to London, most of which were, however, only undertaken at the urgent request of friends who were keen on offering hospitality and entertainment. But for this hospitality and the assurance that the visits would entail little or no expense, it is evident that they could not have been indulged in. The Chancery suit still dragged its weary length along and the Doctor continued his lengthy jaunts to town, each trip being followed by the infliction of fresh privation on his wife and daughter. The large retinue of servants which had been installed when the family took possession of Bertram House, had dwindled gradually, until at last it was represented by one, or, at most, two. There was no lady’s maid, and the footman had been replaced by a village lad who, when not waiting at table, had to make himself useful in the garden or stable—the jobs he was really only fitted for. The carriage-horses had gone and were replaced by animals which could be commandeered for farm-work; the result being that, as they were oftenest on the farm, they were rarely available for use in the carriage, thus curtailing the pleasure of the ladies, both of whom greatly enjoyed this form of exercise. Finally, when the carriage required to be repaired and painted, it was found that there was no money in hand, so it was sold and never replaced.

Mrs. Mitford had the greatest difficulty in getting sufficient housekeeping money wherewith to meet their quite modest expenses, until at last the tradesmen refused to supply goods unless previous accounts were settled and ready money paid for the goods then ordered. They were really in the most desperate straits for money—the daughter actually contemplated the opening of a shop—and in one letter we are told that Mrs. Mitford begged her husband to send her a one-pound note, as they were in need of bread! This represented actual want, and yet, through it all, there was scarcely any diminution in the kennel, the occupants of which were a source of the greatest anxiety to Mrs. Mitford, who frequently did not know whither to turn in order to obtain food for them.

In perusing the letters which were written to the various friends of the family during this period, it is astonishing to find little or no evidence of the distress under which the writer suffered. Miss Mitford’s optimism was remarkable, whilst her belief in her father was so strong that even when she found that their miserable condition was due to his losses at the gaming-tables, she only commiserated him and blamed others for cheating and wronging so admirable a man, an attitude of mind which her mother shared!

It was towards the end of the year 1818 that she seriously thought of turning her attention to prose, encouraged by Sir William Elford, who had been struck by her descriptions of the neighbourhood in which she lived. She conceived the idea of writing short sketches illustrative of country scenes and manners, and when she had executed a few of these to her own and mamma’s satisfaction, they were submitted to Thomas Campbell as possible contributions to the New Monthly Magazine, of which he was then the Editor. He would have nothing to do with them, nor did he encourage the writer to try them elsewhere. Nothing daunted, she offered them to one or two other Editors, but still met with refusal until she tried the Lady’s Magazine, the editor of which had the good sense not only to accept them but asked for more. The result to the magazine was that its circulation went up by leaps and bounds, and the name of Mary Russell Mitford, hitherto known only to a limited circle, became almost a household word.

CHAPTER XIII
LITERARY FRIENDS AND LAST DAYS AT BERTRAM HOUSE

“What have you been doing, my dear friend, this beautiful autumn?” wrote Miss Mitford to Sir William Elford, towards the end of 1817. “Farming? Shooting? Painting? I have been hearing and seeing a good deal of pictures lately, for we have had down at Reading Mr. Hofland, an artist whom I admire very much (am I right?), and his wife, whom, as a woman and an authoress, I equally love and admire. It was that notable fool, His Grace of Marlborough, who imported these delightful people into our Bœotian town. He—the possessor of Blenheim—is employing Mr. Hofland to take views at Whiteknights—where there are no views; and Mrs. Hofland to write a description of Whiteknights—where there is nothing to describe.[18] I have been a great deal with them and have helped Mrs. Hofland to one page of her imperial quarto volume; and to make amends for flattering the scenery in verse, I comfort myself by abusing it in prose to whoever will listen.” The Hoflands were an interesting couple, and Mrs. Hofland, in particular, became one of Miss Mitford’s dearest friends and most regular correspondents. She was already an author of some repute and an extremely prolific writer. In the year 1812 she wrote and published some five works, including The Son of a Genius, which had a considerable vogue. Previous to her marriage with Hofland she had been married to a Mr. Hoole, a merchant of Sheffield, who died two years after their marriage, leaving her with an infant four months old and a goodly provision in funds invested. Owing to the failure of the firm which was handling her money, she was left on the verge of poverty and had a bitter struggle to secure enough to live upon. A volume of poems which she published in 1805 brought her a little capital, with which she was enabled to open a boarding-school at Harrogate; but in this venture she failed, and then took to writing for a living. In 1808 she married Mr. Hofland, an event which crowned her troubles for, although outwardly there was no sign of it, there is every certainty that the overbearing selfishness of Hofland and his lack of consideration for any but himself, made their home-life almost unendurable. It will, therefore, be understood why so much sympathy came to exist between Miss Mitford and her friend, seeing that they were both suffering from an almost similar trouble, although the matter was seldom mentioned between them.

Mrs. Hofland was an extremely pious woman, and she was also something of a busybody, though possibly one whose interest in the affairs of others was never unpleasant enough to cause trouble. Hearing of the Elford correspondence, she twitted Miss Mitford with having matrimonial designs in that quarter, which drew from the latter the clever retort: “The man is too wise; he has an outrageous fancy for my letters (no great proof of wisdom that, you’ll say), and marrying a favourite correspondent would be something like killing the goose with the golden eggs.”

Another of the notables who came prominently into Miss Mitford’s life at this period was young Thomas Noon Talfourd, the son of a Reading brewer. He had been educated at the Reading Grammar School under Dr. Valpy, and “began to display his genius by publishing a volume of most stupid poems before he was sixteen.” The description is, of course, Miss Mitford’s. Nevertheless, he who wrote such detestable poetry, “wrote and talked the most exquisite prose.” Upon leaving school he was sent “to Mr. Chitty a-special-pleading; and now he has left Mr. Chitty and is special pleading for himself—working under the Bar, as the lawyers call it, for a year or two, when he will be called; and I hope, for the credit of my judgment, shine forth like the sun from behind a cloud. You should know that he has the very great advantage of having nothing to depend on but his own talents and industry; and those talents are, I assure you, of the very highest order. I know nothing so eloquent as his conversation, so powerful, so full; passing with equal ease from the plainest detail to the loftiest and most sustained flights of imagination; heaping with unrivalled fluency of words and of ideas, image upon image and illustration upon illustration. Never was conversation so dazzling, so glittering. Listening to Mr. Talfourd is like looking at the sun; it makes one’s mind ache with excessive brilliancy.”

Miss Mitford’s prophecy as to Talfourd’s future was more than fulfilled, and he came, at length, not only to illumine the legal profession but to shed a considerable lustre on literature and the drama.