The anecdote of Queen Elizabeth’s hair to which Miss Mitford alludes in the preceding letter, was one of which Sir William wrote in the previous April. It was to the effect that two ladies of his acquaintance had just paid a visit to Lord Pembroke’s family at Wilton, and whilst there one of them desired to see the Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadie when, in perusing it, she discovered, between two of the leaves, a long lock of yellow hair, folded in an envelope in which was written, in Sir Philip Sidney’s handwriting, a declaration that the lock was “The faire Queen Elizabeth’s hair,” given him by her Majesty. In recounting this anecdote to Mrs. Hofland, Miss Mitford remarked that “the miraculous part of the story is, that at Wilton, amongst her own descendants, the Arcadia should be so completely a dead letter. I suppose it was snugly ensconced between some of Sir Philip’s Sapphics or Dactylics, which are, to be sure, most unreadable things.”
But, apart from this “idleness of reading,” Miss Mitford was busily gathering material for her articles in the Lady’s Magazine, roaming the countryside for colour. “I have already been cowslipping” she wrote. “Are you fond of field flowers? They are my passion—even more, I think, than greyhounds or books. This country is eminently flowery. Besides all the variously-tinted primroses and violets in singular profusion, we have all sorts of orchises and arums; the delicate wood anemone; the still more delicate wood-sorrel, with its lovely purple veins meandering over the white drooping flower; the field-tulip, with its rich chequer-work of lilac and crimson, and the sun shining through the leaves as through old painted glass; the ghostly field star of Bethlehem—that rare and ghost-like flower; wild lilies of the valley; and the other day I found a field completely surrounded by wild periwinkles. They ran along the hedge for nearly a quarter of a mile; to say nothing of the sculptural beauty of the white water-lily and the golden clusters of the golden ranunculus. Yes, this is really a country of flowers, and so beautiful just now that there is no making up one’s mind to leave it.”
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.”