M. R. Mitford
Mary Russell Mitford—The “Cook-Maid” portrait.
(From a painting by B. R. Haydon, 1825.)
“As for the picture,” she wrote to Mrs. Hofland, “I shall always value it most exceedingly as a high honour, and a great kindness, from such a man.” To Sir William Elford, who, above most other people, might hear the truth, she wrote:—“It seemed a strong, unflattered likeness—one that certainly would not be very calculated to feed a woman’s vanity, or to cure the public of the general belief that authoresses are and must be frights. But really I don’t think it much uglier than what I see every day in the looking-glass; and I especially forbid you from answering this observation by any flattery or anything whatsoever.
“I am sorry that the portrait is not more complimentary, because it vexes my father to hear it so much abused, as I must confess it is, by everybody but Miss J——, and the artist, who maintain that it is a capital likeness—quite a woman of genius, and so forth. Now, my dear friend, I entreat and implore you not to mention to any one what I say. I would not have Mr. Haydon know it for worlds. It was a present, in the first place, and certainly a very kind and flattering attention; and, in the second, my personal feelings for him would always make the picture gratifying to me for his sake were it as ugly as Medusa.”
Throughout the correspondence of this (1825) and succeeding years there is a constant reference to a projected novel—in a letter to William Harness, dated April, 1825, Miss Mitford actually gave a complete outline of the plot—but, sandwiched between the information that the story was progressing, there were frequent hints that the writer was finding the task a little beyond her powers and—were the truth told—her inclinations. It was to the Drama she turned, believing that there only could she win laurels and—what was more to the point, just then—a freedom from want and care for those she loved.
Her Tragedy of Charles I was constantly being worked upon, for she was hoping that Kemble would be able to produce it at Covent Garden early in the next year, but in this, as in all other literary work—it was the penalty exacted by popularity—she was much hindered by callers—“deuce take ’em,” she wrote, “for I am fairly worn off my feet and off my tongue.” Furthermore she could never resist the fascination of letter-writing and, as she could never bring herself to the inditing of a short note—the heavy postal-charges of those days would have made such a thing appear as the height of extravagance—her epistles were generally very lengthy and must have taken up much valuable time. One of her letters to Haydon, during this year, contains a most amusing defence of her own spinster condition. “I have a theory, very proper and convenient for an old maid, that the world is over-peopled, and always hear with some regret of every fresh birth. I hold old maids and bachelors—especially old maids, for an obvious reason—to be the most meritorious and patriotic class of his Majesty’s subjects; and I think the opinion seems gaining ground. Three persons in this neighbourhood especially, all friends of mine, are staunch in the creed; only, unluckily, their practice does not quite accord with their principles. The first, an old maid herself, I caught last week in the act of presiding over a dozen of country-town ladies, cutting out baby-linen for a charity—‘The Maternal Society,’ save the mark! Bounties upon babies! The second, an admiral of the last edition, called on me on Saturday with a very rueful face to announce the birth of a daughter (he has a pretty young wife and six children under eight years old).—‘Well,’ said I, ‘it must be endured.’ ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘but who would have thought of its being a girl!’ The third, a young married woman, was brought to bed this very morning of twins—a catastrophe which I have been predicting to her this month past.”
In the autumn, the play of Charles I was at last finished and despatched to Kemble for his consideration. Having read it, he wrote informing the author that it was “admirable, though somewhat dangerous,” and that he had sent it for perusal to the licenser, George Colman, junior. This official took three weeks to consider the MS. and at length wrote to say “that, in consequence of the exceedingly delicate nature of the subject and incidents of Charles the First, he had received instructions to send the manuscript to the Lord Chamberlain” (The Duke of Montrose), “that he might himself judge, on perusal, of the safety of granting a licence.” The author had already suffered so much from the jealousies of rival actors that she viewed this new obstacle—the possibility of trouble with the Licenser of Plays—with the utmost apprehension. It was one thing to have her production delayed through the incompatibilities of actors—those could be overcome, in time—but to feel that her work bore within it matter for prohibition altogether was a totally different thing. It meant that she, to whom labour and time meant so much, just now, might labour for months, valuable months, only to find her offspring condemned and killed at birth. And, as she rightly argued, if she had offended in the case of Charles, she might offend with other plays. The problem was: how she was to avoid such a contingency in future? and so she wrote off to William Harness, asking whether he would advise her to write the Licenser on the point. “I have a good mind to write to Mr. Colman and ask. I would, if I knew any way of getting at him. Certainly I mean no harm—nor did I in Charles; and the not licensing that play will do great harm to my next, by making me timid and over careful.... You cannot imagine how perplexed I am. There are points in my domestic situation too long and too painful to write about. The terrible improvidence of one dear parent—the failure of memory and decay of faculty in that other who is still dearer, cast on me a weight of care and of fear that I can hardly bear up against. Give me your advice. Heaven knows, I would write a novel, as every one tells me to do, and as, I suppose, I must do at last, if I had not the feeling of inability and of failure so strong within me that it would be scarcely possible to succeed against such a presentiment. And to fail there would be so irremediable! But it will be my lot at last.”
Harness’s advice was that Colman should be written to, and as by that time the Lord Chamberlain had definitely refused to license the Charles I play, Miss Mitford also embodied in her letter a request to be informed whether it was possible to alter that play in such a manner as would make it licensable. This letter was conveyed to Colman through the medium of a mutual friend, a Mr. Rowland Stephenson, to whom a reply was immediately forthcoming. It will be apparent from a perusal of this reply that Miss Mitford must have based her plea for information on the fact that her domestic affairs rendered the success of her work a more than pressing necessity. Dated November 28, 1825, and written from Brompton Square, Mr. Colman’s letter was as follows:—
“My dear Sir,—
“It is much to be regretted that Miss Mitford has employed her time unprofitably when so amiable a motive as that of assisting her family has induced her to exercise her literary talents; but it would be idle and ungenerous to flatter her with hopes which there is no prospect of fulfilling.