TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=.
Handwriting on frontispiece and images on pages 62, 260, 300, and 386
appears to be original to the images, and has been retained in captions.
Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been
placed at the end of the chapter.
Original cover has the title “The Life and Friendships of Mary Russell
Mitford”, which did not reflect the title on the titlepage.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD
[Illustration: MY COTTAGE in “OUR VILLAGE”.
_M R Mitford_
MISS MITFORD’S COTTAGE AT THREE MILE CROSS.
(_From a lithograph published by_ MR. LOVEJOY,
_of Reading, while Miss Mitford was in residence_.)
]
MARY RUSSELL
MITFORD
The Tragedy of a Blue Stocking
By
W. J. ROBERTS
(Author of “_The Love Story of Empress Josephine_,”
“_Literary Landmarks of Torquay_,” _etc._).
ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR AND FROM
CONTEMPORARY PICTURES.
LONDON: ANDREW MELROSE
3 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
1913
Dedication.
_To_
CONSTANCE, LADY RUSSELL,
_of Swallowfield Park,
I Dedicate this Book as a slight token of Gratitude
For the Help and Encouragement she
has so graciously afforded me
in its Compilation_.
_W. J. ROBERTS_
LONDON,
_March, 1913_.
PREFACE
No figure in the gallery of Early Victorian writers presents a
character so charming or so tenderly pathetic as that of Mary Russell
Mitford. Added to these characteristics is the fact that her life
was, in reality, a tragedy brought about by her blind devotion
and self-sacrifice to an object which we are forced to regard as
altogether unworthy.
Miss Mitford’s name is not a familiar one to this generation and it
is with the desire to alter this that the following pages have been
written. It would be impossible, within the compass of a book of this
size, to show forth Miss Mitford’s life in its entirety: what we have
done has been to select from the records of her life and work such
incidents and such friendships as seemed to us to portray her most
faithfully. Whether we have succeeded must be left to the reader to
judge.
In the compilation of the book many sources of information have been
drawn upon and the author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to
all who have so kindly helped him in his labours. Chief among these
has been Lady Russell of Swallowfield, who, in addition to supplying
much material, has made the author still further indebted by her
acceptance of the dedication of the book. Miss Rose G. Kingsley has
also to be thanked for copies of letters written by Miss Mitford to
her father, Charles Kingsley, who lies buried at Eversley, in the
neighbourhood with which the book deals largely.
To Miss Josephine M. H. Fairless, Messrs. G. A. Poynder, W. Smith,
T. Rowland Kent, H. T. Pugh, J. J. Cooper, J.P., and Alderman J.
W. Martin (all of Reading) the author’s best thanks are tendered,
as also to the Rev. J. Henry Taylor, of Canterbury (Miss Mitford’s
“Little Henry”), the Rev. Alexander A. Headley, Rector of New
Alresford, Mr. Bertram Dobell, the well-known bibliophile of London,
Mr. W. H. Greenhough, Chief Librarian to the Borough of Reading,
and W. H. Hudson, Esq.—the last named for his very kind loan of the
pencil sketch of Miss Mitford which figures in this book.
W. J. ROBERTS.
_London, 1913._
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I EARLY DAYS IN ALRESFORD 11
II LYME REGIS AND TRAGEDY’S SHADOW 23
III READING AND SCHOOL DAYS AT CHELSEA 35
IV SCHOOLDAYS AND MISS ROWDEN’S INFLUENCE 48
V READING 66
VI BERTRAM HOUSE 80
VII THE TRIP TO NORTHUMBERLAND 92
VIII LITERATURE AS A SERIOUS AND PURPOSEFUL OCCUPATION 112
IX THE FIRST BOOK 124
X A YEAR OF ANXIETY 140
XI LITERARY CRITICISM AND AN UNPRECEDENTED COMPLIMENT 157
XII DWINDLING FORTUNES AND A GLEAM OF SUCCESS 172
XIII LITERARY FRIENDS AND LAST DAYS AT BERTRAM HOUSE 184
XIV THE COTTAGE AT THREE MILE CROSS 198
XV A BUSY WOMAN 209
XVI “GOD GRANT ME TO DESERVE SUCCESS” 221
XVII _Our Village_ IS PUBLISHED 234
XVIII MACREADY AND _Rienzi_ 246
XIX A SLAVE OF THE LAMP 259
XX MACREADY’S RESERVATION AND LORD LYTTON’S PRAISE 274
XXI A GREAT SORROW 287
XXII “THE WORKHOUSE—A FAR PREFERABLE DESTINY” 299
XXIII MY OLDEST AND KINDEST FRIEND 313
XXIV VARIOUS FRIENDSHIPS 327
XXV THE STATE PENSION 339
XXVI DEATH OF DR. MITFORD 353
XXVII LOVE FOR CHILDREN AND LAST DAYS AT THREE MILE CROSS 367
XXVIII SWALLOWFIELD AND THE END 379
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE
PAGE
My Cottage in “Our Village” _Frontispiece_
Mary Russell Mitford at the age of three 20
“Kendrick View,” Reading 40
Doctor Mitford (from a painting by Lucas) 62
Mary Russell Mitford (from a drawing by Slater) 102
“Our Village” in 1913 198
Woodcock Lane, Three Mile Cross 210
Mary Russell Mitford (from a painting by Miss Drummond) 226
The old Wheelwright’s Shop at “Our Village” 236
Miss Mitford’s Cottage at Three Mile Cross in 1913 242
Mary Russell Mitford (from a painting by Haydon) 260
Mary Russell Mitford (from a painting by Lucas) 290
Miss Mitford (from a sketch in _Fraser’s Magazine_) 300
Mary Russell Mitford (from a drawing by F. R. Say) 322
Miss Mitford in 1837 (from Chorley’s _Authors of England_) 328
Mary Russell Mitford (from a painting by Lucas) 334
A View in Swallowfield Park 340
Mr. George Lovejoy, Bookseller, of Reading 364
The “House of Seven Gables,” on the road to Swallowfield 370
Miss Mitford’s Cottage at Swallowfield (from a contemporary
engraving) 374
Miss Mitford’s Cottage at Swallowfield in 1913 380
Mary Russell Mitford (from a painting by Lucas) 384
Mary Russell Mitford (from a pencil sketch) 386
Swallowfield Churchyard 388
CHAPTER I
EARLY DAYS IN ALRESFORD
Within the stained but, happily, well-preserved registers of the
Church of St. John the Baptist, New Alresford, Hampshire, is an entry
which runs thus:—
No. 211.
George Midford of this parish, Batchelor, and Mary Russell of the
same, Spinster. Married in this Church by Licence this Seventeenth
day of October in the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred and
Eighty-five by me, Will Buller,[1] Rector.
This Marriage was {George Midford,
solemnized between us {Mary Russell.
In the presence of {Jno. Harness,
{Elizabeth Anderson.
It is a prosaic enough entry and yet, as we shall endeavour to prove,
it marked the beginning of a tragedy composed of the profligacy and
wicked extravagance of one of its signatories, of the foolish,
docile acquiescence of the other, and of the equally foolish and
docile, but incomprehensible, infatuation for the profligate one
which Mary Russell Mitford, the child of this union, made the guiding
principle of her life.
George Midford—or Mitford, as he subsequently spelt his name—was the
son of Francis Midford, Esq., of Hexham (descended from the ancient
house of Midford,[2] of Midford Castle, near Morpeth), and of his
wife Jane, formerly Miss Jane Graham, of Old Wall in Westmoreland,
related to the Grahams of Netherby.
He was born at Hexham, November 15, 1760, received his early
education at Newcastle School, studied for the profession of medicine
at the University of Edinburgh, and was for three years a house pupil
of the celebrated John Hunter, in London.
At the conclusion of his studies young Midford, or Mitford as we
shall henceforth speak of him, went on a visit to a relative—Dr.
Ogle, then Dean of Winchester—through whom he obtained an
introduction to Miss Mary Russell, then living alone in the adjacent
town of Alresford.
Mary Russell was an heiress—ten years the senior of George Mitford,
being then in her thirty-sixth year—and just recovering from a recent
bereavement in the death of her mother.
She was the daughter of Dr. Richard Russell, a lineal descendant
of the ducal family of Bedford, Vicar of Overton and Rector of
Ash—parishes adjoining each other and near to Whitchurch in
Hampshire—who, as a widower, married Miss Dickers, the daughter of a
Hampshire gentleman of considerable property, in the year 1745.
Childless by his first wife, the offspring of this second marriage
was a son and two daughters.
Of these the son and elder daughter died in childhood, leaving Mary,
who was born June 7, 1750, the sole heiress to the property of her
parents.
Dr. Russell eventually resigned the Vicarage of Overton, but
continued both his ministrations and residence at Ash, where he died
in 1783, aged eighty-eight years.
At his death his widow and daughter—the latter then thirty-three
years of age—removed to a pleasant and commodious house in the
Broad Street of that old-world and peaceful township of Alresford,
a town the houses of which, save the inns, bear no distinguishing
name and number, the staid and sober life of whose inhabitants was
only relieved by the mild excitements of market-day or by the noisy
passage of the mail-coach as, with clatter of hoof-beats and blast
of horn, it rattled gaily through, on its passage from London to
Winchester or vice versa.
Mrs. Russell only survived her husband for a little more than two
years and died on March 8, 1785, leaving her daughter with a fortune
of £28,000 in cash, in addition to house and land property. In the
admirable introduction to _The Life and Letters of Mary Russell
Mitford_ (published 1870, and contributed by the Editor, the Rev. A.
G. L’Estrange) we have a pen-portrait of Mary Russell at this period
of her life which, in the absence of any other form of portraiture,
we cannot do better than quote.
“In addition to these attractions [her inheritance] she had
been carefully educated by her father; and to the ordinary
accomplishments of gentlewomen in those days had united no
slight acquaintance with the authors of Greece and Rome. She was
kind-hearted, of mild and lady-like manners, of imperturbable
temper, home-loving, and abounding in conversation, which flowed
easily, in a soft and pleasant voice, from the sources of a full
mind. Her figure was good, slight, active, and about the middle
height; but the plainness of the face—the prominent eyes and
teeth—the very bad complexion—was scarcely redeemed by the kind and
cheerful expression which animated her countenance.”
To this excessively plain but undoubtedly charming and accomplished
woman was the young surgeon introduced, “being easily persuaded by
friends more worldly wise than he to address himself to a lady who,
although ten years his senior, had every recommendation that heart
could desire—except beauty.”
She certainly had every recommendation that the heart of George
Mitford could desire, for “though a very brief career of dissipation
had reduced his pecuniary resources to the lowest ebb, he was not
only recklessly extravagant, but addicted to high play.”
A few months later they were married.
“She, full of confiding love, refused every settlement beyond two
hundred a year pin-money, out of his own property, on which he
insisted”—words written by Mary Russell Mitford, many years after,
and which would contradict our statement of her father’s pecuniary
embarrassment, were they not discounted by the words of the Rev.
William Harness, who, writing on the matter to a friend, says: “I
hear that when Mitford was engaged to his wife she had a set of
shirts made for him, lest it should be said that ‘she had married a
man without a shirt to his back!’ Of course the story is not true;
but it expressed what folk thought of his deplorable poverty and
the impossibility of his making that settlement on her, for which
my father was trustee, out of funds of his own, as Miss Mitford
suggests.”
And so they were married, the bride being given away by her trustee,
Dr. John Harness, then living at Wickham, some few miles south of
Alresford.
Had the confiding wife misgivings, we wonder? Or was it the
excitement natural to such a momentous event in her life that
caused the little hand to be so tremulous as it signed the nervous
characters, Mary Russell, beneath the bold hand of her lord and
master, on that eventful October 17, 1785?
Henceforth, had she but known, she would have need of all the comfort
she might wring from those fatalistic words, “Che Sarà, Sarà,” the
motto of the Bedfords, whose ancestry she took such pride in claiming.
It had already been decided that Alresford should witness the
commencement at least of the surgeon’s professional career, and
seeing that the house in Broad Street was commodious and, what was
more to the point, well-furnished, there was no need to make a fresh
home, and it was there they set up housekeeping together.
That the young man had good intentions is fairly evident, for he
continued his studies and, in the course of a year or so, took his
degree in medicine which permitted him to practise as a physician.
Thirteen months later a son was born to them, but did not survive. In
the Baptismal Register of New Alresford Church is the entry:—
“Francis Russell, son of George and Mary Midford, was privately
baptized on the 12th, but died on the 23rd of November, 1786.”
It is important that this entry should be placed on record, for
while, in after years, Miss Mitford speaks of herself as the only
survivor of three children, _two sons having died in infancy_, it
has been stated in print that “Mary Russell Mitford was their only
child.” On the other hand, although careful search has been made, no
record of the baptism or burial of a third child has been discovered
in the Alresford registers, and we can only assume, therefore, that
this child must have died at birth and on a date subsequent to that
of his sister.
Sufficient for us, however, is the entry in these same registers:—
“Mary Russell, daughter of George and Mary Midford, baptized
February 29, 1788”—
the child having been born on December 16, 1787.
Of these early days we have, fortunately, a picture left by the child
herself. “A pleasant home, in truth, it was,” she writes. “A large
house in a little town of the north of Hampshire—a town, so small,
that but for an ancient market, very slenderly attended, nobody would
have dreamt of calling it anything but a village.[3] The breakfast
room, where I first possessed myself of my beloved ballads, was a
lofty and spacious apartment, literally lined with books, which, with
its Turkey carpet, its glowing fire, its sofas, and its easy chairs,
seemed, what indeed it was, a very nest of English comfort. The
windows opened on a large old-fashioned garden, full of old-fashioned
flowers, stocks, roses, honeysuckles and pinks; and that again led
into a grassy orchard, abounding with fruit-trees. What a playground
was that orchard! and what playfellows were mine! Nancy [her maid],
with her trim prettiness, my own dear father, handsomest and
cheerfullest of men, and the great Newfoundland dog, Coe, who used
to lie down at my feet, as if to invite me to mount him, and then to
prance off with his burthen, as if he enjoyed the fun as much as we
did. Most undoubtedly I was a spoilt child. When I recollect certain
passages of my thrice-happy early life, I cannot have the slightest
doubt about the matter, although it contradicts all foregone
conclusions, all nursery and schoolroom morality, to say so. But
facts are stubborn things. Spoilt I was. Everybody spoilt me—most of
all the person whose power in that way was greatest: the dear papa
himself. Not content with spoiling me indoors, he spoilt me out. How
well I remember his carrying me round the orchard on his shoulder,
holding fast my little three-year-old feet, whilst the little hands
hung on to his pig-tail, which I called my bridle (those were days
of pig-tails), hung so fast, and tugged so heartily, that sometimes
the ribbon would come off between my fingers, and send his hair
floating and the powder flying down his back. That climax of mischief
was the crowning joy of all. I can hear our shouts of laughter now.”
A pretty picture this, and one to which, as she wrote of it, the
tired old woman looked back as on one of the few oases in a life
which, despite certain successes, was nothing short of a desert of
weariness and of struggle with poverty.
But apart from this boisterous love of play, the little girl early
developed a passion for reading, fostered and encouraged, no doubt,
by that “grave home-loving mother,” who “never in her life read
any book but devotion,” in whose room, indeed, it was matter for
astonished comment to find the works of Spenser.
At the age of three, little Mary showed a remarkable precocity of
intellect, and even before she had reached that early age her father
was accustomed to perch her on the breakfast-table to exhibit her
one accomplishment to admiring guests, “who admired all the more,
because, a small puny child, looking far younger than I really was,
nicely dressed, as only children generally are, and gifted with an
affluence of curls, I might have passed for the twin sister of my own
great doll.”
On such occasions she would be given one or other of the Whig
newspapers of the day—the _Courier_ or _Morning Chronicle_—and, to
the delight of her father and the wonder of the guests, would prattle
forth the high-seasoned political pronouncements with which those
journals were filled.
Following this display there was, of course, reward; not with
sweetmeats, however, “too plentiful in my case to be very greatly
cared for,” but by the reading of the “Children in the Wood” by
mother from _Percy’s Reliques_, “and I looked for my favourite ballad
after every performance, just as the piping bullfinch that hung in
the window looked for his lump of sugar after going through ‘God save
the King.’ The two cases were exactly parallel.”
But one day “the dear mamma” was absent and could not administer the
customary reward, with the result that papa had to read the “Children
in the Wood,” though not before he had searched the shelves to find
the, to him, unfamiliar volumes. Following which search and labour he
was easily constrained by the petted child to hand over the book to
Nancy, that she might read extracts whenever called upon. And when
Nancy, as was inevitable, waxed weary of the “Children in the Wood,”
she gradually took to reading other of the ballads; “and as from
three years old I grew to be four or five, I learned to read them
myself, and the book became the delight of my childhood, as it is now
the solace of my age.”
[Illustration: Mary Russell Mitford at the age of three.
(From a Miniature.)]
With a child so apt it is not surprising that we find no record of
a governess or tutor during these early years—that is, so far as
general education was concerned; but there was one item of special
education which the fond papa did insist upon, an insistence which
was the cause of much grief to and some disobedience from the spoilt
girl.
“How my father, who certainly never knew the tune of ‘God save the
King’ from that of the other national air, ‘Rule, Britannia,’ came
to take into his head so strong a fancy to make me an accomplished
musician I could never rightly understand, but that such a fancy did
possess him I found to my sorrow! From the day I was five years old,
he stuck me up to the piano, and, although teacher after teacher had
discovered that I had neither ear, nor taste, nor application, he
continued, fully bent upon my learning it.”
Nevertheless, she did not learn it and, as we shall see later, this
fixed idea of her father’s gave place to another equally futile.
Chief of her playmates at this time was William Harness, the son of
her mother’s trustee. He would be brought over from Wickham in the
morning, and after a day of romps, be taken back in his father’s
carriage late in the afternoon. Although two years the junior of
Mary, William was her constant and boon companion, and remained to be
her friend and counsellor through life, although his counsels were,
at times, very wilfully disregarded.
Mutually genial of temperament, they sympathized with each other’s
tastes and pursuits, particularly as these related to Literature and
the Drama. On one point only did they disagree, and its subject was
“dear papa.” By a sort of intuition the boy must have, even in those
early days, come to regard the handsome, bluff, genial, loud-voiced
surgeon with something akin to suspicion, a suspicion which was
maintained and fully justified in the years to come.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Then also Dean of Exeter and, subsequently, Bishop of that
Diocese.
[2] Derived from the situation of the Castle keep, which lies between
the fords of the river Wansbeck, Northumberland.
[3] Many years afterwards, when appointed to the See of Winchester,
the late Bishop Thorold alluded to it as one of a number of
Town-Villages which he said he found so peculiarly distinctive a
feature of Hampshire.