This occasion marks an important event in Miss Mitford’s life—her introduction to Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, which from that moment grew and strengthened, a fragrant friendship which lasted through life, much prized by both.
“She is so sweet and gentle,” wrote Miss Mitford to her father, “and so pretty, that one looks at her as if she were some bright flower; and she says it is like a dream that she should be talking to me, whose works she knows by heart.”
Writing next year to her friend Mrs. Martin, Miss Barrett said of her literary friend: “She stands higher as the authoress of Our Village than of Rienzi, and writes prose better than poetry, and transcends rather in Dutch minuteness and higher finishing than in Italian ideality and passion.”
Truth to tell, this visit to London was having the effect of slightly exalting our gentle village author; she found herself the very centre of attraction, every one paying her homage. Talfourd’s house was besieged by callers—not on Talfourd—but on his guest. Wordsworth was calling every day, chanting the praises of Rienzi and the abilities of its author; the Duke of Devonshire brought her “a splendid nosegay of lilies of the valley—a thousand flowers without leaves,” and begged her never to come again to London without informing him and giving him the opportunity of enjoying a similar pleasure. Mr. and Mrs. Talfourd grew indignant; they had not bargained for this when they invited their quaintly-clad, old-fashioned friend from Three Mile Cross to witness the triumph of Talfourd and Ion! Talfourd was jealous, positively jealous, and openly showed it by a marked coolness towards his old friend, a coolness which she pretended not to notice, although it hurt her very much. “They are much displeased with Miss Mitford,” wrote Macready of his friends the Talfourds. “She seems to be showing herself well up.” “William Harness says he never saw any one received with such a mixture of enthusiasm and respect as I have been—not even Madame de Staël. Wordsworth, dear old man! aids it by his warm and approving kindness”—was Miss Mitford’s report to her father.
It was arranged that she should stay in London in order to witness the second performance of Ion, fixed for June 1, but on the morning preceding this, while sitting at breakfast, Talfourd bitterly complained of some depreciating comments on his play which he had just read in one of the morning papers. To soothe him Miss Mitford suggested that he need not take such things too seriously, adding that she thought the critics had been far more favourable to his play than to her own; at which he flamed out: “Your Rienzi, indeed; I dare say not—you forget the difference!” and behaved with such scorn and anger that his guest was shocked, packed up her boxes and fled to William Harness. “We have had no quarrel”—was the report home—“no coolness on my part. I behaved at first with the warmest and truest sympathy until it was chilled by his bitter scorn; and since, thank Heaven! I have never lost my self-command—never ceased to behave to him with the most perfect politeness. He must change very much indeed before the old feeling will come back to me.”
Mary Russell Mitford.
(From a painting by John Lucas, in the National Portrait Gallery.)
It was through Miss Mitford that William Harness was first introduced to Talfourd, although, judging by certain circumstances which arose from time to time, we hold the opinion that William Harness, who demanded more from his friends than did Miss Mitford, never really appreciated the acquaintance. Harness was for ever questioning the other’s motives, and more than once hinted his suspicions to Miss Mitford who at once defended the other—as was her wont. Talfourd’s jealousy was, let us say, pardonable, but when it turned to venom, as it did, we dare not condone. Meeting Macready one evening of the following November, the conversation turned on Miss Mitford and a new play she was projecting and which Mr. Forrest,[27] a rival to Macready, was to produce. “I have no faith in her power of writing a play, and to that opinion Talfourd subscribed to-night—concurring in all I thought of her falsehood and baseness!” These are Macready’s own words, but fortunately Miss Mitford died without knowledge of them, otherwise her faith in her old idol would have been rudely shattered. Talfourd, of whom she had ever spoken kindly; whose career she had watched, glorying in his successes; who had himself praised her talent for the Drama and urged her to forsake all else for it, and now concurred in another’s disparaging references to that same talent—“concurring in all I thought of her falsehood and baseness!”
This London visit closed with a dinner-party at Lord and Lady Dacre’s—Lady Dacre was a relative of the Ogles and therefore distantly connected with the Mitfords. “It is a small house, with a round table that only holds eight,” wrote Miss Mitford, and, as she proceeded to relate that fifty people assembled, and offers no further explanation, we wonder how they were accommodated. The company included Edwin Landseer, “who invited himself to come and paint Dash”—the favourite spaniel—“Pray tell Dash.”
Mr. Kenyon was also there—he had just brought about the introduction to Miss Barrett, and was consequently in high esteem—of whom Miss Mitford told her friend Harness that he had written a fine poem, “Upper Austria,” to be found in that year’s Keepsake, as a test of his sanity. “From feelings of giddiness, he feared his head was attacked. He composed these verses (not writing them until the poem of four hundred or five hundred lines was complete) as a test. It turned out that the stomach was deranged, and he was set to rights in no time.”