Chapter I: Preface

The more we study the life and character of Mary Russell Mitford the more we become attached to her, for we come under the influence of a nature that seems to radiate peace and good-will upon all who surround her.

“The pleasant compelled enjoyment of her tales,” writes Harriet Martineau, “is ascribable no doubt to the flow of good spirits and kindliness that lighted up and warmed everything that her mind produced.” And if we seek for a further reason, surely it is to be found, as another writer observes, “in their strong rural flavour. They breathe the air of the hay-fields and the scent of the hawthorn boughs. There is nothing artificial about them, nothing of the conventional pastoral. They are native and to the manner born.”

Here is an example that occurs in a letter to a friend, written long before her printed works appeared. Speaking of a walk in the Berkshire meadows on a spring morning, she says: “Oh, how beautiful they were to-day, with all their train of callow goslings, and frisking lambs, and laughing children chasing the butterflies that floated like animated flowers in the air!... How full of fragrance and of melody! It is when walking in such scenes, listening to the mingled notes of a thousand birds and inhaling the mingled perfume of a thousand flowers that I feel the real joy of existence.”

Many writers have imitated Miss Mitford’s style since the “tales” of _Our Village_ first took the reading world by surprise nearly a hundred years ago; but none of those writers, in my opinion, possess her potent charm, nor do they possess her wonderful power of making her readers see nature, as it were, through her eyes and grasp the beauty and poetry of rural life.

Mary as a child was shy and silent before strangers, but withal very observant. Writing of the impressions made upon her mind by some of the French _émigré_ coteries with which she had come in contact, she says: “In truth they formed a motley group [whose] contrasts and combinations were too ludicrous not to strike irresistibly the fancy of an acute observing girl whose perception of the ludicrous was rendered keener by the invincible shyness which confined the enjoyment entirely to her own breast.”

But is it not to the experiences gained by such quiet, shy children as herself and Charlotte Brontë that we owe much of our knowledge of life and its surroundings? It is the listeners not the talkers that can hand down this knowledge to us.

Miss Mitford’s talents were varied, and we owe to her pen some stirring dramas which were performed with much éclat on the London stage, and in which John Kemble and Macready took the leading parts. The public were astonished to learn that it was a gentle lady living in a remote Berkshire village who was thus moving the great London audiences.

A shrewd American critic of the day remarks: “In all these plays there is strong, vigorous writing—masculine in the free unhashed use of language—but wholly womanly in its purity from coarseness or licence and in the inter-mixture of those incidental touches of softest feeling and finest observation which are peculiar to the gentler sex.”

It has been said of Miss Mitford by one who knew her that “as a letter-writer she has rarely been surpassed, and that her correspondence, so full as it is of point in allusions, so full of anecdote and of recollections, will be considered among her finest writings.” Even her hasty notes, we are told, “had a relish about them quite their own.” It is interesting to find the views she herself entertained on the subject of letter-writing as given in her _Recollections of a Literary Life_. It runs as follows: “Such is the reality and identity belonging to letters written at the moment and intended only for the eye of a favourite friend, that probably any genuine series of epistles were the writer ever so little distinguished would ... possess the invaluable quality of individuality which so often causes us to linger before an old portrait of which we know no more than that it is a Burgomaster by Rembrandt or a Venetian Senator by Titian. The least skilful pen when flowing from the fulness of the heart ... shall often paint with as faithful and life-like a touch as either of those great masters.”

Mary Russell Mitford’s friends were numerous, both here in England and on the other side of the Atlantic, and her sympathies were as wide as the great ocean that lies between us. She writes in later life: “I love poetry and people as well at sixty as I did at sixteen, and can never be sufficiently grateful to God for having permitted me to retain the two joy-giving faculties of admiration and sympathy by which we are enabled to escape from the consciousness of our own infirmities into the great works of all ages and the joys and sorrows of our immediate friends.”

This sunny nature which was unembittered by severe trials speaks to us in all the stories of _Our Village_, and it spread such a halo about the scenes therein described that little Three Mile Cross—the prototype of _Our Village_—became in time a resort of pilgrims from far and near, among whom were some of the finest spirits of the age. All longed to gaze upon the cottage in which Mary Russell Mitford had dwelt, and to sit in the small parlour whose window looks down upon the village street, where she had written the stories so dear to her readers.

Happily the cottage itself, with the little general shop on one side and the village inn on the other, are still so much what they were in her day that the long space of time that has rolled by since her room was left vacant seems to vanish, and as we enter the front door we almost expect to see the small figure of the “lady of _Our Village_” coming down the narrow stairs to welcome us.

* * * * *

Before closing this Preface I would express my gratitude to Lord Treowen, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Palmer, Mr. F. Cowslade, Mr. W. May, the Misses Lovejoy, and Mr. J. J. Cooper, for permission to reproduce valuable portraits and relics, and for other kind help.

CONSTANCE HILL.

GROVE COTTAGE, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD, _August, 1919_.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. AN AUTHOR’S BIRTHPLACE 1

II. HAPPY MEMORIES 9

III. VILLAGE NEIGHBOURS 15

IV. EARLY LIFE IN READING 22

V. LYME REGIS 29

VI. A STORMY COAST 40

VII. A FLIGHT 52

VIII. RETURN TO READING 56

IX. THE SCHOOL IN HANS PLACE 66

X. A GLIMPSE OF OLD FRENCH SOCIETY 74

XI. THE GAY REALITIES OF MOLIÈRE 82

XII. RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD READING 92

XIII. A NORTHERN TOUR 101

XIV. A ROYAL VISIT 110

XV. PLAYS AND POETRY 119

XVI. A CHOSEN CORRESPONDENT 126

XVII. THE MARCH OF MIND 134

XVIII. VERSATILITY AND PLAYFULNESS 144

XIX. FROM MANSION TO COTTAGE 156

XX. THREE MILE CROSS 161

XXI. THE NEW HOME 179

XXII. A LOQUACIOUS VISITOR 190

XXIII. THE PUBLICATION OF “OUR VILLAGE” 203

XXIV. A COUNTRY-SIDE ROMANCE 212

XXV. A NEW PLAYWRIGHT 221

XXVI. “RIENZI” 230

XXVII. FOREIGN NEIGHBOURS 241

XXVIII. AGREEABLE JAUNTS 250

XXIX. UFTON COURT 260

XXX. A FURTHER GLANCE AT OUR VILLAGE 271

XXXI. ECCENTRIC NEIGHBOURS 283

XXXII. THE MAY-HOUSES 292

XXXIII. WALKS IN THE COUNTRY 302

XXXIV. A CENTRE OF INTEREST 315

XXXV. A LONDON WELCOME 328

XXXVI. A BRAVE HEART 339

XXXVII. FAREWELL TO THREE MILE CROSS 350

XXXVIII. SWALLOWFIELD 360

XXXIX. PEACEFUL CLOSING YEARS 372

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Portrait of Mary Russell Mitford. (_By A. Burt, taken in 1836_) _Frontispiece_

Grove Cottage, Frognal, Hampstead _Preface_ x

The Mitfords’ house in Broad Street, Alresford 3

Antique girandole 8

Mary Russell Mitford’s birthplace 11

Mary Russell Mitford at the age of four years. (_After a miniature_) _To face_ 16

The Cross-house 21

Southampton Street, Reading 24

The “Walk” by the sea, Lyme Regis 31

The Great House, Lyme Regis 35

Old ironwork 39

The panelled chamber 41

The drawing-room 47

Blackfriars Bridge in 1796 52

Dr. Mitford’s house in the London Road, Reading _To face_ 58

Antique ironwork 65

Hans Place in 1798 69

Ceiling decoration (1714) 81

A purse-bag 91

A skit on the “Pink of the mode” _To face_ 92

A quaint tea-set 100

Gosfield Hall _To face_ 110

Le Comte d’Artois (afterwards Charles X) _To face_ 112

The Dining-room in the Deanery, Bocking 115

Dr. Valpy’s school _To face_ 122

Country cottages 143

Bertram House 147

Inlaid tea-caddy 160

The Mitfords’ cottage in Three Mile Cross 163

The village shop 169

The Swan Inn 173

A country wheelbarrow 178

Miss Mitford’s writing-parlour 181

The wheelwright’s workshop 185

Fragment of the Silchester Roman wall 189

Where the curate lodged 193

The curate’s parlour 197

An old Berkshire farm 213

Frith Street, Soho Square 225

Old houses in Great Queen Street 233

A French bonbonnière 249

The West Gate, Southampton 251

Pulteney Bridge, Bath 254

Arabella Fermor as a child. (_After a picture in the possession of Frederick Cowslade, Esq._) 259

The Porch, Ufton Court 261

Arabella Fermor, the “Belinda” of the “Rape of the Lock,” afterwards Mrs. Perkins. (_From a painting by W. Sykes in the possession of Lord Treowen_) _To face_ 262

Francis Perkins. (_By W. Sykes, from a painting also in the possession of Lord Treowen_) _To face_ 262

Belinda’s parlour 265

The garden steps 267

A dandy of the period 291

An old shoeing forge 297

A bridge on the Loddon 303

In Aberleigh (Arborfield) Park 307

Dr. Mitford. (_From a painting by John Lucas in the possession of W. May, Esq._) _To face_ 330

Ironwork in the balcony of Sergeant Talfourd’s house 338

Verses by M. R. Mitford written in a friend’s album (_facsimile_) _To face_ 344

Old house near Swallowfield 355

A teapot which belonged to M. R. Mitford 359

M. R. Mitford’s last home at Swallowfield 363

Swallowfield Church 380

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD