Born, at Alresford, Hampshire, 16 Dec. 1787. At school in London, 1798–1802. Precocious literary ability. Lived with her parents at Reading, 1802–1820. They removed to Three Mile Cross, near Reading, April 1820; she lived there till 1851. Contrib. “Our Village” to “Lady’s Mag.” from 1819. Play “Julian” produced at Covent Garden, 15 March 1823; “Foscari,” Covent Garden, 4 Nov. 1826; “Rienzi,” Drury Lane, 9 Oct. 1828; “Charles I.,” Victoria Theatre, July 1834; libretto of opera “Sadak and Kalascade,” Lyceum Theatre, 20 April 1835. Contributed to various periodicals. Friendship with Mrs. Browning begun, 1836. Civil List Pension, 1837. Edited “Finden’s Tableaux,” 1838–41. Removed to Swallowfield, near Reading, 1851. Died there, 10 Jan. 1855. Buried in village churchyard. Works: “Miscellaneous Poems,” 1810; “Christina,” 1811; “Watlington Hill,” 1812; “Blanche of Castile,” 1812; “Narrative Poems on the Female Character,” 1813; “Julian,” 1823 (3rd edn. same year); “Our Village,” vol. i., 1824; vol. ii., 1826; vol. iii., 1828; vol. iv., 1830; vol. v., 1832 (complete, 1843); “Foscari,” 1826; “Dramatic Scenes, Sonnets and other Poems,” 1827; “Rienzi,” 1828 (4th edn. same year); “Stories of American Life,” 1830; “The Sister’s Budget” (anon.), 1831; “American Stories for Children,” 1832; “Charles the First,” 1834; “Belford Regis,” 1835; “Sadak and Kalascade” [1835]; “Country Stories,” 1837; “Works” (Philadelphia), 1841; “Recollections of a Literary Life” (3 vols.), 1852; “Atherton,” 1854; “Dramatic Works” (2 vols.), 1854. Posthumous: “Life … in a selection from her Letters,” ed. by A. G. L’Estrange (3 vols.), 1870 [1869]; “Letters … Second series,” ed. by H. Chorley (2 vols.), 1872. She edited: “Stories of American Life,” 1830; “Lights and Shadows of American Life,” 1832; “Tales for Young People … Selected from American Writers,” 1835; “Fragments des Œuvres d’A. Dumas,” 1846.
Personal
Our residence is a cottage—no, not a cottage—it does not deserve the name—messuage or tenement, such as a little farmer who had made twelve or fourteen hundred pounds might retire to when he left off business to live on his means. It consists of a series of closets, the largest of which may be about eight feet square, which they call parlors, and kitchens, and pantries; some of them minus a corner, which has been unnaturally filched for a chimney; others deficient in half a side, which has been truncated by the shelving roof. Behind is a garden about the size of a good drawing-room, with an arbor which is a complete sentry-box of privet. On one side a public-house, on the other a village shop, and right opposite a cobbler’s stall. Notwithstanding all this, “the cabin,” as Bobadil says, “is convenient.” It is within reach of my dear old walks; the banks where I find my violets; the meadows full of cowslips; and the woods where the wood-sorrel blows.
You must know I have a great horror about hearing about Miss M., for she once wrote me a letter in which she called me a delightful poet, and no less delightful proser; which I did not know whether to take for a panegyric, or a satire; so I never answered the letter, which was horribly unpolite; and I have ever since, when I hear her name mentioned, not known whether to feel remorse or satisfaction.
We found Miss Mitford living literally in a cottage, neither ornée nor poetical,—except inasmuch as it had a small garden crowded with the richest and most beautiful profusion of flowers,—where she lives with her father, a fresh, stout old man who is in his seventy-fifth year. She herself seemed about fifty, short and fat, with very gray hair perfectly visible under her cap, and nicely arranged in front. She had the simplest and kindest manners, and entertained us for two hours with the most animated conversation and a great variety of anecdote, without any of the pretensions of an author by profession, and without any of the stiffness that generally belongs to single ladies of her age and reputation.
It is long since I have been so pleased with any one, whether for sweetness of voice, kindness and cheerfulness of countenance (with one look which reminds me of a look, I shall meet no more), or high-bred plainness of manner. I was fascinated.
Our coachman (who, after telling him that we were Americans, had complimented us on our speaking English, and “very good English too,”) professed an acquaintance of some twenty years’ standing with Miss M., and assured us that she was one of the “cleverest women in England,” and “the doctor” (her father) an “’earty old boy.” And when he reined his horses up at her door, and she appeared to receive us, he said, “Now you would not take that little body there for a great author, would you?” And certainly we should have taken her for nothing but a kindly gentlewoman, who had never gone beyond the narrow sphere of the most refined social life…. Miss M., is truly “a little body,” and dressed a little quaintly, and as unlike as possible to the faces we have seen of her in the magazines which all have a broad humour bordering on coarseness. She has a pale-gray, soul-lit eye, and hair as white as snow; a wintry sign that has come prematurely upon her, as like signs come upon us, while the year is yet fresh and undecayed. Her voice has a sweet, low tone, and her manner a naturalness, frankness, and affectionateness that we have been so long familiar with in their other modes of manifestation, that it would have been indeed a disappointment not to have found them. She led us directly through her house into her garden, a perfect bouquet of flowers. “I must show you my geraniums while it is light,” she said, “for I love them next to my father.”
| None hath told | |
| More pleasant tales to young and old. | |
| Fondest was she of Father Thames, | |
| But rambled to Hellenic streams; | |
| Nor even there could any tell | |
| The country’s purer charms so well | |
| As Mary Mitford. | |
| Verse! go forth | |
| And breathe o’er gentle breasts her worth. | |
| Needless the task…. but, should she see | |
| One hearty wish from you and me, | |
| A moment’s pain it may assuage,— | |
| A rose-leaf on the couch of Age. |
I must say that personally I did not like her so well as I liked her works. The charming bonhommie of her writings appeared at first in her conversation and manners; but there were other things which sadly impaired its charm. It is no part of my business to pass judgment on her views and mode of life. What concerned me was her habit of flattery, and the twin habit of disparagement of others. I never knew her respond to any act or course of conduct which was morally lofty. She could not believe in it, nor, of course, enjoy it: and she seldom failed to “see through” it, and delight in her superiority to admiration. She was a devoted daughter, where the duty was none of the easiest; and the servants and neighbors were sincerely attached to her. The little intercourse I had with her was spoiled by her habit of flattery.
It was a great, warm, outflowing heart, and the head was worthy of the heart. People have observed that she resembled Coleridge in her granite forehead—something, too, in the lower part of the face—however unlike Coleridge in mental characteristics, in his tendency to abstract speculation, or indeed his ideality. There might have been as you suggest, a somewhat different development elsewhere in Berkshire—not very different, though—souls don’t grow out of the ground. I agree quite with you that she was stronger and wider in her conversation and letters than in her books. Oh, I have said so a hundred times. The heat of human sympathy seemed to bring out her powerful vitality, rustling all over with laces and flowers. She seemed to think and speak stronger holding a hand—not that she required help or borrowed a word, but that the human magnetism acted on her nature, as it does upon men born to speak…. If she loved a person, it was enough. She made mistakes one couldn’t help smiling at, till one grew serious to adore her for it. And yet when she read a book, provided it wasn’t written by a friend, edited by a friend, lent by a friend, or associated with a friend, her judgment could be fine and discriminating on most subjects, especially upon subjects connected with life and society and manners.
It surprised me to hear allusions indicating that Miss Mitford was not the invariably amiable person that her writings would suggest; but the whole drift of what they said tended, nevertheless, towards the idea that she was an excellent and generous person, loved most by those who knew her best.
I think I should have recognized her anywhere. The short, plump body, the round, cheerful old face, with cheeks still as rosy as a girl’s, the kindly blue eye, the broad, placid brow, and bands of silver hair peeping from beneath the quaint frilled cap, seemed to be all the features of the picture which I had previously drawn in my mind. But for a gay touch in the ribbons, and the absence of the book-muslin handkerchief over the bosom, she might have been taken for one of those dear old Quaker ladies, whose presence, in its cheerful serenity, is an atmosphere of contentment and peace. Her voice was sweet, round, and racy, with a delicious archness at times. Sitting in deep arm-chairs, on opposite sides of the warm grate, while the rain lashed the panes and the autumn leaves drifted outside, we passed the afternoon in genial talk.
Hers was the history of a credulous woman sacrificing herself to an utterly worthless idol—told over again; but with some difference from its usual formula. The heroine, who stakes her all on a love attachment—who braves ill-repute, ill-usage, want, even—for some worthless, showy creature who has first won her heart, then drained her purse, lastly, left her in the mire of disgrace,—is, and ought to be, an object of generous charity; but the woman who perils her delicacy of nature to screen a vicious parent, not being interesting, is confounded in his shame, and meets with less pity than is awarded to a Marion Lescaut, or an Esmeralda. There is no survivor who can be pained by a plain statement of matters as they really stood in the present case.
I can never forget the little figure rolled up in two chairs in the little Swallowfield room, packed around with books up to the ceiling, on to the floor—the little figure with clothes on, of course, but of no recognized or recognizable pattern; and somewhere out of the upper end of the heap, gleaming under a great, deep, globular brow, two such eyes as I never, perhaps, saw in any other Englishwoman—though I believe she must have French blood in her veins to breed such eyes, and such a tongue; for the beautiful speech which came out of that ugly (it was that) face, and the glitter and depth too of the eyes, like live coals—perfectly honest the while, both lips and eyes—these seemed to me attributes of the highest French, or rather Gallic, not of the highest English woman. In any case, she was a triumph of mind over matter, of spirit over flesh.
Women have generally represented Dr. Mitford as amiable and pleasant; there was something cheering and hearty in his familiarity. The character is not uncommon; he was one of those good-looking, profligate spendthrifts, who, reckless of consequences, bring misery upon their families and remain dear to their mothers and daughters…. Dr. Mitford often did kind actions, which it is unfair to ignore; he seems even to have had some sort of generosity, and the ease with which he parted with his money was one of his most unfortunate weaknesses. But Miss Mitford’s appreciation of her father was mostly due to filial devotion. Never was affection more severely tried. She had to see thousands, seventy thousand pounds, passing out of his careless hands until he became dependent upon the small pittance she could earn by arduous literary labor.
In her character, she was a matchless specimen of a well-educated Englishwoman, correct in taste and feeling, clever and self-reliant. As a describer of rural life and scenery in their happiest and most genial aspects, she is allowed to have been unrivalled. Although considerably advanced in life, she had the liveliness and winning manners of a child. Some women never seem to grow old, and she was one of them. Her tongue ran on so incessantly concerning the details of village life, that each of my visits might have afforded the material of a popular article. Short in stature, with a tall, gold-headed cane in hand, she invited me to walk with her through the green lanes in the neighbourhood; the trees, wild flowers, and birds, offering objects of garrulous remark at every step.
On her tenth birthday Dr. Mitford took the child to a lottery-office, and bade her select a ticket. She determined—guided, to all appearance, by one of the unaccountable whims of childhood—that she would have none other than the number 2,224. Some difficulty attended the purchase of the coveted number, but the little lottery patroness had her way at last, and on the day of drawing there fell to the lot of the happy holder of ticket No. 2,224 a prize of £20,000. Alas! the holder of the fortunate ticket was happy only in name. By the time his daughter was a woman, there remained to Dr. Mitford, of all his lottery adventure had brought him, a Wedgwood dinner-service with the family crest!
There are intelligent persons who make a living out of their fellow-creatures by pretending to read character in hand-writing. What would they make, I wonder, out of this delicate, microscopic writing, looking as if it were done with a stylus, and without blot nor flaw? The paper is all odds and ends, but not a scrap of it but is covered and crossed, the very flaps of the envelopes, and even the outside of them, having their message. The reason of this is that the writer, a lady, had lived in a time when postage was very dear; like Southey, she used to boast that she could send more for her money by post than any one else; and when the necessity no longer existed, the custom remained. How, at her age, her eyes could read what she herself had written used to puzzle me.
In the case of Miss Mitford, indeed, it seems quite hopeless to search for even the ghost of a love-story, and, although she certainly did devote her life with touching unselfishness to the comfort and support of a very exacting father, it cannot for a moment be urged that, in so doing, she relinquished any distinct desire or prospect of matrimony. Perhaps the exacting qualities of her parent inclined her unconsciously to remain single; for, with all her unsparing devotion, she must, in the course of sorely-tried years, have grown to regard men very much as Dolly Winthrop regarded them,—“in the light of animals whom it had pleased Heaven to make naturally troublesome.”
Our Village, 1824–32
We have no passion for “breaking a butterfly upon the wheel,” and should not notice this little volume, if we were not on the whole pleased with its contents. The sketches of country scenery, in which it abounds, have such a convincing air of locality; the human figures, interspersed among them, are touched in such a laughter-loving, good-humoured spirit of caricature, innocent, and yet often pungent withal, that we scarcely know a more agreeable portfolio of trifles for the amusement of an idle hour. Abundant matter for small criticism, indeed, might be found in the details of the work…. We have taken the trouble of making these observations, because Miss Mitford is really capable of better things; and we have no doubt that our hints will not be thrown away on her.
After dinner I read one of Miss Mitford’s hawthorny sketches out of “Our Village,” which was lying on the table; they always carry one into fresh air and green fields, for which I am grateful to them.
During my convalescence, I read a considerable part of Miss Mitford’s “Village,” perhaps for the third time. Her short sketches, overflowing with life and beauty, refresh me when I am too weak for long stories, and she has often been a cheering friend in my sick room.
It would be a great injustice were we not to devote a few words of admiration to the charming sketches of Miss Mitford, a lady who has described the village life and scenery of England with the grace and delicacy of Goldsmith himself. “Our Village” is one of the most delightful books in the language: it is full of those home scenes which form the most exquisite peculiarity, not only of the external nature, but also of the social life of the country…. Whether it is the pet greyhound Lily, or the sunburnt, curly, ragged village child, the object glows before us with something of that daylight sunshine which we find in its highest perfection in the rural and familiar images of Shakespeare.
It is a book that Washington Irving might have been justly proud to claim as his own; nay, it is doubtful whether any work of his exhibits a finer insight into character, more exquisite appreciation of humor, more touching pathos, or a more delicate perception of the beautiful in nature.
Nearly half a century ago the present writer was taken, at a very early age, to a little tea-party at Chelsea, where all were elderly except herself; and while the seniors, chiefly tired men of letters and their wives, were recreating themselves with a game of whist, there was no happier person than the youngest, who in a sofa corner first made acquaintance with “Our Village.” As long as I read, I was enthralled. I knew little, then, of real country life, but I can truly say of Miss Mitford that then and thereafter
| She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; |
The charming country sketches of “Our Village” rank not far below White’s “Selborne” in accuracy, and surpass them in variety and ornament.
One of the most delightful and natural and genially humorous writers in the language. Her sketches of life in “Our Village,” of the “Talking Lady,” the “Talking Gentlemen,” of poachers, seamstresses, domestic servants, young men and old men of local note, remain, after half a century of imitations, as fresh as if they had been written yesterday. No human being ever had a cheerier or more sympathetic outlook on the world. Her sympathies, with a certain waywardness, turned rather toward characters that the respectable world frowns upon, with lawless, good-hearted characters and coquettish beauties. She liked to show the good side of such beings to the world.
When Miss Mitford wrote “Our Village,” the reading world recognized a new note, a fresh sympathy, the beginning of a literary epoch. The modern short story was perhaps born to the world straight from Miss Mitford’s heart. There never was a kinder or a larger one, and although the largest room of her cottage, as she says, was only eight feet square, it proved to be more than most palaces in its ability to harbor and to nourish human sympathies.
Dramas
She says that her play will be quite opposed, in its execution, to “Ion,” as unlike it “as a ruined castle overhanging the Rhine, to a Grecian temple.” And I do not doubt that it will be full of ability; although my own opinion is that 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.
Miss Mitford’s early poems prove the absence of an ear for rhythm; and her sense of natural beauty, so eloquent in prose, struggles in vain for expression through the difficulties of rhythm. She succeeds better in dramatic verse, and some of her scenes have much tragic power. Her study of the Greek dramatists, especially Euripides, is often distinctly traceable; and in the address of Claudia to Rienzi, as also in that of Annabel to Julian, we find the very thoughts of Iphigenia pleading with Agamemnon.
In no other act or attempt of her life did Miss Mitford manifest any of those qualities of mind which are essential to success in this the highest walk of literature. It does not appear that she had any insight into passion, any conception of the depths of human character, or the scope of human experience. Ability of a certain sort there is in her plays, but no depth, and no compass.
Poetry
In our cursory examination of this little volume, we have noticed several unpoetical and ungraceful, and not a few ungrammatical lines. It must be apparent, we think, to every one, that Miss Mitford’s taste and judgment are not yet matured; that her poems ought to have been kept back much longer, and revised much oftener, before they were submitted to the public; and, above all, that she wanted some friend who, without wounding her feelings, or damping the fire of her genius, would have led her to correcter models of taste, and taught her more cautious habits of composition. That such instruction would not have been thrown away, we judge from many pleasing passages scattered through her little volume, which do no discredit to the amiableness of her mind and the cultivation of her talents. When she attempts to describe the higher passions, as in “Sybille,” she fails from want of strength for the flight. But in the description of natural scenery, or the delineation of humbler and calmer feelings she is more successful.
Her first claims on the public were no doubt as a poetess, in her early “Sketches,” and in her “Christina, the Maid of the South Seas”—a six-canto production of the Sir Walter Scott school, of considerable merit; but she is chiefly to be remembered as the author of “Our Village,” so full of truth, and raciness and fine English life; and for her three tragedies—“Julian,” “The Vespers of Palermo,” and “Rienzi”—the last of which was, I believe, eminently successful in representation. Her latter verses are all able and elegant; but she is deficient in that nameless adaptation of expression to thought accomplished by some indescribable, some inexplicable collocation of the best words in their best places, apparently quite necessary for the success of poetical phrase. This power, on the contrary, Mary Howitt possesses in perfection, while she is somewhat wanting in the essential matter—the more solid materials—which Miss Mitford seems to have ever at command. The one is mightiest in facts, the other in fancy.
Letters
I am inclined to think that her correspondence, so full of point in allusions, so full of anecdote and recollections, will be considered among her finest writings. Her criticisms, not always the wisest, were always piquant and readable. She had such a charming humor and her style was so delightful, that her friendly notes had a relish about them quite their own.
It was an unusual combination of powers which made this shrewd delineator of rural manners also one of the few women dramatists whose works have succeeded not only in the library, but on the boards. Her plays are no longer acted, her stories no longer read, but she still lives in her letters: strongly prejudiced, excessive in praise of those she loved, but lively, observant, obviously sincere, and deriving a pathetic interest from the life of self-sacrifice and hard work, the sunny side of which they usually chronicle.
Her Letters are almost as interesting as “Our Village,” and the attractiveness of both springs from the writer’s own personality, her enthusiasm for books and friends, her devotion to animals, and her great love for flowers, so prettily recognized by the gardeners, who “were constantly calling plants after her, and sending her one of the first cuttings as presents.” That which she loved, moreover, she observed with unerring attention, and described with a light touch and graphic humour, tempered and refined by a generous loving-kindness for humanity, which long trials could not weaken.
General
North.—“Miss Mitford has not, in my opinion, either the pathos or humor of Washington Irving; but she excels him in vigorous conception of character, and in the truth of her picture of English life and manners. Her writings breathe a sound, pure, and healthy morality, and are pervaded by a genuine rural spirit—the spirit of merry England. Every line bespeaks the lady.”
Her ability was very considerable. Her power of description was unique. She had a charming humor, and her style was delightful. Yet were her stories read with a relish which exceeded even so fair a justification as this—with a relish which the judgment could hardly account for; and this pleasant, compelled enjoyment was no doubt ascribable to the glow of good spirits and kindliness which lighted up and warmed everything that her mind produced. She may be considered as the representative of household cheerfulness in the humbler range of the literature of fiction.
The letters of Miss Mitford have no pretension of character of works of art; they are mere medleys, such as one scrawls off in an odd half-hour to an uncritical friend; more, perhaps, because something must be said than because one has anything to say, and rather following one’s pen than guiding it. We cannot say, therefore, materiem superavit opus: if interesting matter is wanting, the tone will not atone for its absence. To review Miss Mitford’s other writings is beyond our present purpose. She had, we repeat, talent and facility, but no genius; she wrote for bread, chained to her desk all day long. She produced, under these adverse circumstances, dramas which had and deserved a temporary success, and one of which is even yet not dead. She produced, no doubt, a mass of contributions to periodicals, which have perished with the periodicals themselves. The best of her works, as we have said before, is “Our Village,” and the next best is “Belford Regis,” in which she photographs (for she has not imagination enough to paint anything but portraits) the life of a country town.
“Our Village” and “Belford Regis” are as fresh and sweet as the English daisies, whose praises Chaucer sings in “The Flower and the Leaf.”
Though “Atherton,” her one attempt at the novel proper, contains some charming passages, it is wanting in varied interest, and the progress of the story is too slow. She had not, in fact, enough imagination to construct a plot or create a character. Persons and scenes which were before her, whether in books or in nature, she could describe and even “compose,” but more ambitious attempts proved a failure.
