The truth is that Lady Madelina Palmer—wife of the Reading Member, Fyshe Palmer—had taken a leading part in the arrangement for this portrait and, determined that the author of Rienzi should make a brave show, had dressed up the homely figure in some of her own society garments. The effect was worse than that of a parlour-maid masquerading as the mistress, for Miss Mitford had neither the figure nor the artificiality which could set off the bedizenments of a duke’s daughter. Poor Lucas—“the sweet young boy,” Miss Mitford afterwards called him—fumed inwardly when he saw what he had to portray, daring not to criticize lest he offend the owner of the clothes, who was near by. He stuck manfully to his task, fretting at the bad taste of the whole thing, only to cancel the picture in the end. Fortunately an engraving of the picture has been preserved, of which we are able to present a copy in these pages. As a picture it is undoubtedly graceful and admirably proportioned, but as regards the tout ensemble it must be regarded as a failure.
Mary Russell Mitford.
(From a painting by John Lucas, 1829.)
During the sitting Miss Mitford composed some graceful lines to the painter, which are worthy of quotation here, because apart from their intrinsic value as a poetical tribute, they also contain a piece of self-portraiture most deftly interwoven:—
“To Mr. Lucas
(Written whilst sitting to him for my Portrait, December, 1828).
“Oh, young and richly gifted! born to claim
No vulgar place amidst the sons of fame;
With shapes of beauty haunting thee like dreams,
And skill to realize Art’s loftiest themes: