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.”