LITERARY FRIENDS AND LAST DAYS AT BERTRAM HOUSE
“What have you been doing, my dear friend, this beautiful autumn?”
wrote Miss Mitford to Sir William Elford, towards the end of 1817.
“Farming? Shooting? Painting? I have been hearing and seeing a
good deal of pictures lately, for we have had down at Reading Mr.
Hofland, an artist whom I admire very much (am I right?), and his
wife, whom, as a woman and an authoress, I equally love and admire.
It was that notable fool, His Grace of Marlborough, who imported
these delightful people into our Bœotian town. He—the possessor of
Blenheim—is employing Mr. Hofland to take views at Whiteknights—where
there are no views; and Mrs. Hofland to write a description of
Whiteknights—where there is nothing to describe.[18] I have been a
great deal with them and have helped Mrs. Hofland to one page of her
imperial quarto volume; and to make amends for flattering the scenery
in verse, I comfort myself by abusing it in prose to whoever will
listen.” The Hoflands were an interesting couple, and Mrs. Hofland,
in particular, became one of Miss Mitford’s dearest friends and most
regular correspondents. She was already an author of some repute
and an extremely prolific writer. In the year 1812 she wrote and
published some five works, including _The Son of a Genius_, which had
a considerable vogue. Previous to her marriage with Hofland she had
been married to a Mr. Hoole, a merchant of Sheffield, who died two
years after their marriage, leaving her with an infant four months
old and a goodly provision in funds invested. Owing to the failure
of the firm which was handling her money, she was left on the verge
of poverty and had a bitter struggle to secure enough to live upon.
A volume of poems which she published in 1805 brought her a little
capital, with which she was enabled to open a boarding-school at
Harrogate; but in this venture she failed, and then took to writing
for a living. In 1808 she married Mr. Hofland, an event which crowned
her troubles for, although outwardly there was no sign of it, there
is every certainty that the overbearing selfishness of Hofland and
his lack of consideration for any but himself, made their home-life
almost unendurable. It will, therefore, be understood why so much
sympathy came to exist between Miss Mitford and her friend, seeing
that they were both suffering from an almost similar trouble,
although the matter was seldom mentioned between them.
Mrs. Hofland was an extremely pious woman, and she was also something
of a busybody, though possibly one whose interest in the affairs
of others was never unpleasant enough to cause trouble. Hearing of
the Elford correspondence, she twitted Miss Mitford with having
matrimonial designs in that quarter, which drew from the latter the
clever retort: “The man is too wise; he has an outrageous fancy for
my letters (no great proof of wisdom that, you’ll say), and marrying
a favourite correspondent would be something like killing the goose
with the golden eggs.”
Another of the notables who came prominently into Miss Mitford’s life
at this period was young Thomas Noon Talfourd, the son of a Reading
brewer. He had been educated at the Reading Grammar School under
Dr. Valpy, and “began to display his genius by publishing a volume
of most stupid poems before he was sixteen.” The description is, of
course, Miss Mitford’s. Nevertheless, he who wrote such detestable
poetry, “wrote and talked the most exquisite prose.” Upon leaving
school he was sent “to Mr. Chitty a-special-pleading; and now he has
left Mr. Chitty and is special pleading for himself—working under
the Bar, as the lawyers call it, for a year or two, when he will be
called; and I hope, for the credit of my judgment, shine forth like
the sun from behind a cloud. You should know that he has the very
great advantage of having nothing to depend on but his own talents
and industry; and those talents are, I assure you, of the very
highest order. I know nothing so eloquent as his conversation, so
powerful, so full; passing with equal ease from the plainest detail
to the loftiest and most sustained flights of imagination; heaping
with unrivalled fluency of words and of ideas, image upon image and
illustration upon illustration. Never was conversation so dazzling,
so glittering. Listening to Mr. Talfourd is like looking at the sun;
it makes one’s mind ache with excessive brilliancy.”
Miss Mitford’s prophecy as to Talfourd’s future was more than
fulfilled, and he came, at length, not only to illumine the legal
profession but to shed a considerable lustre on literature and the
drama.
A year or two after the writing of the eulogy just quoted, Talfourd
was in Reading in a professional capacity and caused a mild sensation
by his masterly and eloquent pleading. Miss Mitford went, with her
father, to hear him, and was so moved that she wrote the following
sonnet:—
“ON HEARING MR. TALFOURD PLEAD IN THE ASSIZE-HALL
AT READING, ON HIS FIRST CIRCUIT,
_March, 1821._
Wherefore the stir? ’Tis but a common cause
Of cottage plunder: yet in every eye
Sits expectation;—murmuring whispers fly
Along the crowded court;—and then a pause;—
And then a clear, crisp voice invokes the laws,
With such a full and rapid mastery
Of sound and sense, such nice propriety,
Such pure and perfect taste, that scarce the applause
Can be to low triumphant words chained down
Or more triumphant smiles. Yes, this is he,
The young and eloquent spirit, whose renown
Makes proud his birth place! a high destiny
Is his; to climb to honour’s palmy crown
By the strait path of truth and honesty.”
During the year 1817, Sir William Elford lost his wife. She was a
most estimable woman, and although her husband had, occasionally,
called on the Mitfords—turning aside, for that purpose, from the
main road which ran through Reading—in his journeys from the west to
London, she had never made their acquaintance and only knew of them
by repute and what she gathered from the voluminous correspondence
which passed between her husband and his literary friend. News
of this lady’s death drew from Miss Mitford a charming letter of
condolence which must have proved to Sir William how large a place
he held in her thoughts: “Your very touching letter, my dear friend,
brought me the first intelligence of the dreadful loss you have
experienced. I had not even any idea of danger, or surely, most
surely, I should never have intruded on you those letters whose
apparently heartless levity I am now shocked to remember. I write
now, partly in pursuance of your own excellent system, to avoid,
as much as may be, prolonging and renewing your sorrow, and partly
to assure you of our sincere and unaffected sympathy. We had not,
indeed, the happiness of a personal acquaintance with Lady Elford,
but the virtues of the departed are best known in the grief of the
survivors. To be so lamented is to have been most excellent. And the
recollected virtue, which is now agony, will soon be consolation. God
bless and comfort you all!
“I hope soon to hear a better account both of yourself and your
daughters; but do not think of writing out of form or etiquette.
Write when you will, and what you will, certain that few, very few,
can be more interested in your health or happiness than your poor
little friend.”
From this date the correspondence between the two underwent a
considerable change in tone and feeling. It became less stilted,
suggesting to the unbiassed reader the idea that the existence of
Lady Elford had, hitherto, forced the young person at Bertram House
to mind her P’s and Q’s, “which I detest having to do.” She may,
possibly, have adopted this freer style of writing in the hope of
diverting Sir William from thinking of his bereavement. In any case
the happier style of writing thus begun was never abandoned, and the
consequence was that, thereafter, they contained more of that life
and spirit which her friend Harness thought so characteristic of her
writings when she let her words drop without any premeditation, at
the prompting of her emotions.
“I have lately heard a curious anecdote of Mr. Coleridge,” she
writes, “which, at the risk—at the certainty—of spoiling it in
the telling, I cannot forbear sending you. He had for some time
relinquished his English mode of intoxication by brandy and water
for the Turkish fashion of intoxication by opium; but at length the
earnest remonstrance of his friends, aided by his own sense of right,
prevailed on him to attempt to conquer this destructive habit. He put
himself under watch and ward; went to lodge at an apothecary’s at
Highgate, whom he cautioned to lock up his opiates; gave his money
to a friend to keep; and desired his druggist not to trust him. For
some days all went on well. Our poet was ready to hang himself; could
not write, could not eat, could not—incredible as it may seem—could
not talk. The stimulus was wanting, and the apothecary contented.
Suddenly, however, he began to mend; he wrote, he read, he talked,
he harangued; Coleridge was himself again! And the apothecary began
to watch within doors and without. The next day the culprit was
detected; for the next day came a second supply of laudanum from
Murray’s, well wrapped up in proof sheets of the _Quarterly Review_.”
As a foil to this she tells, in the next letter, a story of Haydon
the painter—poor, embittered disappointed Haydon, who, later, killed
himself—which she had just heard from Mrs. Hofland. “He was engaged
to spend the day at Hampstead, one Sunday, with some of the cleverest
unbelievers of the age ... and being reproached with coming so late,
said with his usual simplicity, ‘I could not come sooner—I have been
to church.’ You may imagine the torrent of ridicule that was raised
upon him. When it had subsided, ‘I’ll tell ye what, gentlemen,’
said he, ‘I knew when I came amongst ye—and knowing this it is not,
perhaps, much to my credit that I came—that I was the only Christian
of the party; but I think you know that I will not bear insult, and
I now tell you all that I shall look upon it as a personal affront
if ever this subject be mentioned by you in my hearing; and now to
literature, or what you will!’”
During 1818 Miss Mitford paid another short visit to the Perrys at
Tavistock House in Tavistock Square, evidently arranged with the idea
of keeping their young friend well before the public. “The party
to-day consists of the Duke of Sussex, Lord Erskine, and some more.
I don’t want to dine with them and most sincerely hope we shall not,
for there is no one of literary note; but I am afraid we shall not
be able to get off.” They did not get off, and Miss Mitford “had the
honour of being handed into the dining-room by that royal porpoise,
the Duke of Sussex, who complained much of want of appetite, but
partook of nearly every dish on the table.” Concerning this lack of
appetite, she subsequently wrote to Sir William Elford: “Never surely
did man eat, drink, or swear so much, or talk such bad English. He
is a fine exemplification of the difference between speaking and
talking; for his speeches, except that they are mouthy and wordy and
commonplace, and entirely without ideas, are really not much amiss.”
While on this visit she must have heard from some candid friend of
Mr. Perry’s the following story of Hazlitt’s revenge and, later,
detailed it with great delight—for she dearly loved a joke, even at
the expense of her friends.
Hazlitt had been contributing a series of articles, on the English
Stage, to various newspapers, particularly to the _Morning
Chronicle_, of which, it will be remembered, Perry was the Editor.
Unfortunately Hazlitt’s “copy” came pouring in at the very height
of the advertisement season, much to Perry’s disgust, who used
“to execrate the d—d fellow’s d—d stuff.” But it was good “copy,”
although the Editor had no idea that its writer was a man of genius,
and having “hired him as you’d hire your footman, turned him off
with as little or less ceremony than you would use in discharging
the aforesaid worthy personage,” because he wrote a masterly but
damaging critique on Sir Thomas Lawrence, one of Perry’s friends.
“Last winter, when his _Characters of Shakespeare_ and his lectures
had brought him into fashion, Mr. Perry remembered him as an old
acquaintance and asked him to dinner, and a large party to meet him,
to hear him talk, and show him off as the lion of the day. The lion
came—smiled and bowed—handed Miss Bentley to the dining-room—asked
Miss Perry to take wine—said once ‘Yes’ and twice ‘No’—and never
uttered another word the whole evening. The most provoking part of
this scene was, that he was gracious and polite past all expression—a
perfect pattern of mute elegance—a silent Lord Chesterfield; and his
unlucky host had the misfortune to be very thoroughly enraged without
anything to complain of.”
Reading was a place of great excitement during the year 1818, the
resignation of the Member, Sir John Simeon, necessitating a general
election. This brought Dr. Mitford back from Town post-haste, for
he counted electioneering among his special delights, as we have
previously noted. The occasion furnishes us with one of the few
recorded instances of Mrs. Mitford shaking herself free from the
cares of the household in order to be with and carefully watch her
haphazard spouse. “Papa is going to stay in Reading the whole
election, and mamma is going to take care of him. Very good in her,
isn’t it? But papa does not seem to me at all grateful for this kind
resolution, and mutters—when she is quite out of hearing—something
about ‘petticoat government.’”
The candidate was Fyshe Palmer, who not only won the election but
continued in the representation of Reading for eighteen years. “He
is,” wrote Miss Mitford, “vastly like a mop-stick, or rather, a tall
hop-pole, or an extremely long fishing-rod, or anything that is all
length and no substance; three or four yards of brown thread would
be as like him as anything, if one could contrive to make it stand
upright. He and papa were riding through the town together, and one
of the voters cried out, ‘Fish and Flesh for ever!’ Wit is privileged
just now.”
Mr. Palmer’s wife was the Lady Madelina, a daughter of the Duke of
Gordon, and she and Miss Mitford became very good friends. Miss
Mitford’s anxiety for Palmer’s success was due not so much because
of his politics as for the promise he had given her of following in
the footsteps of his predecessor and keeping her well supplied with
“franks,” if elected. His promise he, doubtless, intended to keep,
but as Miss Mitford despairingly wrote: “he has the worst fault a
franker can have: he is un-come-at-able. One never knows where to
catch him. I don’t believe he is ever two days in a place—always
jiggeting about from one great house to another. And such strides as
he takes, too! Oh! for the good days of poor Sir John Simeon! He was
the franker for me! Stationary as Southampton Buildings, solid as
the doorpost, and legible as the letters on the brass-plate! I shall
never see his fellow.”
Some time after the election, when, indeed, it was a thing forgotten,
Dr. Valpy, the head-master of the Grammar School, decided to have a
Greek play performed by the boys, and to this function the Mitfords
were invited. The play was the _Hercules Furens_ of Euripides
and, of course, Miss Mitford made fun of the whole performance,
especially of the last scene when, to slow music, the curtain dropped
on “Theseus and Hercules in the midst of a hug which assuredly no
Greek poet, painter or sculptor ever dreamt of. That hug was purely
Readingtonian—conceived, born and bred in the Forbury.” However,
the play was well received and became an annual fixture, with Miss
Mitford as the official reporter or, as she put it, the “official
puffer for the Reading paper.”
The year was also notable for the arrival in Reading of Henry Hart
Milman as Vicar of St. Mary’s, and of the Duke of Wellington, who
came in order to look over Strathfieldsaye, Lord Rivers’ estate,
some distance beyond that of the Mitfords along the Basingstoke
Road, which the Nation proposed he should accept as a tribute of
its gratitude. “His Grace comes to look at it sometimes,” wrote
Miss Mitford, “and whirls back the same day. He is a terrible
horse-killer.”
Towards the close of the year 1819 the Chancery suit came to
an end. Mr. Elliott—the Doctor’s opponent and a Bond Street
upholsterer—visited Bertram House, saw Dr. Mitford, had a straight
talk with him and, as Miss Mitford recorded, “this long affair of
eight years was settled in eight minutes.”
With the settlement an accomplished fact, the Mitfords began to look
about for an abode of humbler pretentions. London was suggested and
promptly vetoed, as was also the idea of settling in Reading. Finally
they selected a cottage at Three Mile Cross, situated by the side of
the Basingstoke Road and distant about a mile from their old home. It
was a wrench to the ladies to leave Bertram House, despite the fact
that it had been the scene of so much distress and want. “I shall
certainly break my heart when I leave these old walls and trees,”
wrote Miss Mitford, but the blow was softened by the thought that
she would still be able to wander about the fields and lanes which
were so familiar and so dear to her, and, as was her wont on such
occasions, gave vent to her feelings in a little sonnet:—
“Adieu, beloved and lovely home! Adieu,
Thou pleasant mansion, and ye waters bright,
Ye lawns, ye aged elms, ye shrubberies light
(My own cotemporary trees, that grew
Even with my growth); ye flowers of orient hue,
A long farewell to all! Ere fair to sight
In summer-shine ye bloom with beauty dight,
Your halls we leave for scenes untried and new.
Oh, shades endeared by memory’s magic power,
With strange reluctance from your paths I roam!
But home lives not in lawn, or tree, or flower,
Nor dwells tenacious in one only dome.
Where smiling friends adorn the social hour,
Where they, the dearest are, there will be home.”
Bertram House is a thing of the past, for there is little left of
the building which the Mitfords knew. Another mansion occupies the
site, and only the trees and shrubberies remain as evidence of Dr.
Mitford’s folly; while the name, which marked the Doctor’s proud
descent, has been erased in favour of the older title, Grazeley
Court.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Unfortunately they never received payment for this work, which
was left on their hands, and resulted in a heavy loss.