MISS MITFORD, AUTHORESS OF " OUR VILLAGE," &c. MARY RUSSELL MITFORD is the only child of Dr. Mitford, a gentleman who in early life received a diploma as physician, and who, for several years, resided at Bertram House, near Reading. He is related to Lord Redesdale, and is descended from the Mitfords of Mitford Castle, Northumberland, a very ancient family, the original name of which was Bertram. Miss Mitford's mother, who died early in the year 1831, was a lady of ancient family, and of singularly amiable manners. Miss Mitford was educated at Miss Rowden's Establishment, at Hans Place, Chelsea. In childhood, she was found to possess fine powers of observation and reflection; and when scarcely on the verge of womanhood, she was persuaded to print, in 1810, a small volume of poems, of which an enlarged edition appeared in the following year. These poems are pleasing productions, yet they contain little to predict any peculiar richness or vigour of style. They are dedicated to the Hon. William Herbert, in these lines: Herbert! my simple wreathe I twine The first poem in the volume "was written at the request," says Miss Mitford, "of a near relation, who wished me to compose a tale adapted to the picturesque and enchanting scenery of the ancient domains of our family, now in the possession of Bertram Mitford, Esq.' In the same page, her ancestor is stated to have been the Lord de Bertram, (one of the followers of William the Conqueror,) who married Sybille, the heiress of Sir Johannes de Mitford. ور 66 In 1811, appeared Miss Mitford's second work, Christina, the Maid of the South Seas," a tale in the octosyllabic verse, after the poetic manner of Sir Walter Scott. It was founded on the discovery of the English colony established by some of the mutineers of the Bounty, in Pitcairn's Island, in the South Seas; since rendered more familiar to the lover of poetry by Lord Byron's Christian and his Comrades. Miss Mitford's tale was engagingly conceived and neatly versified, but manifested nothing beyond an elegance of mind and graceful facility of expression. A recent writer, in alluding to her imitation of Scott, asks, was it that fear and niceness, the handmaids of woman,' restrained her from striking at once into an untried path, and induced her modesty to take refuge in the imitation of a style to which fashion and a great name had given currency? Or, was it that her genius was lulled 66 6 into an enchanted slumber by the same antique witcheries which had bound up that free spirit who used then to fascinate others, and was awakened like his from its golden dreams to seek for the forms of beauty in the realities of the material world, and for the symbols of passion in the authentic history of the human heart?" Miss Mitford's next works were Wallington Hill, a poem, 1812; and, in the same year, Narrative Poems on the Female Character in the various relations of Life. Many of Miss Mitford's minor compositions are contained in the Poetical Register. For several years, however, from the last mentioned date, she appeared to have relinquished the lyre, and to have struck out a new career. Meanwhile, Dr. Mitford had retired from practice, and he has since devoted much of his time to the discharge of his duties as a magistrate for Berkshire, to which those of a magistrate for Wiltshire have since been added. As chairman of the most important and populous division of Berkshire, that which includes Reading, he has distinguished himself not only by his activity, but by those rarer qualities, a cordial sympathy with the pleasures and sufferings of the labourers, and a disposition to make just allowance for their frailties. The Doctor has also removed to Three Mile Cross, a village named from its being just three miles from Reading. It straggles prettily up a gentle hill, on the road from Reading to Southampton, and is often pointed out to the traveller, as the scene of those pictures of rural life which have so often multiplied the enjoyments of country people, and given the feeling of the fresh air to citizens.* In an amiable notice of Miss Mitford's latest work, we have been gratified with some long cherished recollections of the modest little cottage at Three Mile Cross, where," many years ago," says the writer, "when we were young to the world, and inexperienced in all its ways, we were benefited by that warm hearted, generous being's advice, and cheered by her encouragement; and where we used to hear her talk in precisely the same mild, amiable, natural strain in which she has since then written her prose works. At the time we allude to she had produced nothing but poetry, and thought she should never be able to write any thing in prose. An heroine, and bearing and struggling with misfortunes, under which most women, and men too, would have sunk-the most excellent of daughters, the most affectionate of friends, the kindest to all mankind, and to all living creatures, she struck us as being in thought, word, and deed, the perfect model of an English gentlewoman-a character than which there is none more truly admirable, to which there is none superior. Like Washington Irving's, her writings are brimful of her real character."t 66 It was a fortunate hour for Miss Mitford's own fame and for us, when she ventured, in good, plain prose, to set down what she saw every day about her. "The success," says another critic, was such as to leave no doubt of her graphic power; pictures succeeded sketches, volume followed volume in rapid succession; and the result is a series of works, under the unassuming title of OUR VILLAGE, which resemble nothing that preceded them in literature, and yet are as true likenesses of the most familiar objects in the world, as an imagination of reasonable honesty can be desired to mirror."‡ With this cabinet collection of "Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery," our readers must be familiar. The majority of them first appeared in the magazines, and other periodical publications, in which their simplicity and single-heartedness were charmingly contrasted with the leaven of dullness and favouritism; and through many a long month did they lighten and garnish graver matter: the number of these Sketches is very considerable, so as to have filled five volumes. How modestly the first of these was introduced to the public:-"The following pages contain an attempt to delineate country scenery and country manners, as they exist in a small village in the The unostentatious residence of Dr. and Miss Mitford is engraved in the Mirror, vol. xxiii. p. + Printing Machine, No. 50. New Monthly Magazine, 1831. Part ii., p. 367. south of England. The writer may, at least, claim the merit of a hearty love of her subject, and that of local and personal familiarity, which only a long residence in one neighbourhood could have enabled her to attain. Her descriptions have always been written on the spot, and at the moment, and, in nearly every instance, with the closest and most resolute fidelity to the place and the people. If she be accused of having given a brighter aspect to her villagers than is usually met with in books, she cannot help it, and would not if she could. She has painted, as they appeared to her, their little frailties and their many virtues, under an intense and thankful conviction, that in every condition of life, goodness and happiness may be found, and never more surely than in the fresh air, the shade and the sunshine of nature." There is a purity of heart and purpose in these expressions, which is perfectly beautiful. Success, signal as it was, did not exalt Miss Mitford's opinion of her own works; for, these passages, from her fifth and last volume, have none of the tinsel of conceit, but the modesty of merit here shines as brightly as in her first preface: hear it, and you must admire it : "For ten long years, for five tedious volumes, has that most multifarious, and most kind personage, the public, endured to hear the history, half real, and half imaginary, of a half imaginary and half real little spot on the sunny side of Berkshire; but all mortal things have an end, and so must my country stories. The longest tragedy has only five acts; and since the days of Clarissa Harlowe, no author has dreamt of spinning out one single subject through ten weary years. I blush to think how much I have encroached on an indulgence, so patient and so kind. Sorry as I am to part from a locality, which has become almost identified with myself, this volume must and shall be the last. "Farewell, then, my beloved village! the long, straggling street, gay and bright on this sunny, windy April morning, full of all implements of dirt and noise, men, women, children, cows, horses, wagons, carts, pigs, dogs, geese, and chickens, busy, merry, stirring, little world, farewell! Farewell to the winding, uphill road, with its clouds of dust, as horsemen and carriages ascend the gentle eminence, its borders of turf, and its primrosy hedgerows! -Farewell to the breezy common, with its islands of cottages and cottagegardens; its oaken avenues, populous with rooks; its clear waters fringed with gorse, where lambs are straying; its cricket ground where children already linger, anticipating their summer revelry; its pretty boundary of field and woodland, and distant farms: and latest and best of its ornaments, the dear and pleasant mansion where dwell the neighbours of neighbours, the friends of friends; farewell to ye all! Ye will easily dispense with me, but what I shall do without you, I cannot imagine. Mine own dear village, farewell! MARY RUSSELL MITFORD." Three Mile Cross, April 9, 1832. Criticism has thus summed up Our Village to be essentially and idiomatically English, and to contain the best characteristics of English scenery habits, and virtues, since the days of Fielding-in vivid touches to be second only to Cobbett; but, be it remembered, without any of the leaven of their writings. Her indoor scenes of higher life have the same verisimilitude and ease, resembling, in no small degree, those of Miss Austin. In short, all her sketches seem alike written to make the reader happy. Among the incidents, there are few that are not agreeable; her characters are always redeemed by some virtue or genial frailty; and with what zest she dwells on the bright passages of humble life, from the joy shed into the modest bosom by the unhoped-for avowal, down to the gratification of blameless vanity at a village Maying." 66 It is a rare lot for the same author, whether man or woman, to found such a village class of composition, and also to bear off the tragic honours of the stage: for, to pass from a style which depends on the minuteness and vivacity of its details, to one of which the essence is condensation, is to be versatile indeed. In the drama, however, Miss Mitford's course has been parallel to that which she has holden in the narrative and descriptive. Yet the writer in the New Monthly Magazine, already quoted, thinks that fondness for the writings of Beaumont and Fletcher enfeebled the earlier creations of Miss Mitford's dramatic genius. The first play which she produced, bore marks of the beauty and weakness of those great writers,—the latter a certain glossiness-" but, for mere beauty, such as Fletcher would delight in, it surpasses all else that Miss Mitford has ever written:" the whole play, as Mr. Hazlitt said when he saw it, "bowls on like a chariot," and the fault of the last act is redeemed by passages not unworthy of Fletcher. To Foscari, Miss Mitford's next play, the critic objects less; the Doge is admirably conceived and sustained throughout, and his conduct at the trial of his son and at his death is more affecting than we ever dare think of. 66 "But it was in the composition of Rienzi that Miss Mitford attained the entire command of her tragic powers, that she comprised a history in five acts without confusion-that she exhibited the short-lived triumphs of glorious enthusiasm, nurtured in the love of freedom, clutching the phantoms of royalty, and fading by its own essential weakness-that she brought together, in deathly grapple, the representatives of popular tyranny and of power consecrated by time, in persons nearly and desperately connected, and intertwined the whole with a thread of dramatic interest, binding it together in one, and beating throughout as a pulse."-These plays have been performed with extraordinary success in the late neglected state of the dramatic art. ; Besides the above plays, Miss Mitford has written two tragedies, one on the catastrophe of Charles I., and the other on the story of Inez de Castro each of which is said to be worthy of her fame. The first has been represented at the Victoria Theatre; the other has been twice in rehearsal, but not produced. To this class of Miss Mitford's works must be added a volume of Dramatic Scenes. Miss Mitford's minor prose pieces are numerous contributions to the Annuals; though it is scarcely sufficient praise to add that the interest of her papers entitles them to the rank of the best of their class. To these may be added the editorship of two sets of American Tales, one for children, and the other for readers of all ages. Miss Mitford's last published work is Belford Regis, (or Reading, in Berkshire,) so that our author has but left village for country town. This work is generally esteemed as of somewhat higher finish than the Village Sketches. Of its beauties we gave several specimens in our 25th volume. We are not in possession of the precise period of the birth of Miss Mitford, and it would be ungallant to question a lady's age. Our kind-hearted authoress has, however, let out the secret, (if it be one,) with her wonted ingenuousness, in a page of Belford Regis; and here it is: "It is now about forty years ago, since I, a damsel scarcely so high as the table on which I am writing, and somewhere about four years old," &c. That Miss Mitford may long enjoy the pure delights of Our Village, its happy home and social endearments, and still find leisure to improve thousands of admiring readers, is the sincere hope of the writer of this brief sketch of the life and writings of one whose name and fame are an honour to the female talent of England. New Monthly Magazine, 1831. Part ii., p. 369. |