Chapter 24

"Haydon was, at that period, a remarkable person to look at and listen to. Perhaps your American word _bright_ expresses better than any other his appearance and manner. His figure, short, slight, elastic, and vigorous, looked still more light and youthful from the little sailor's-jacket and snowy trousers which formed his painting costume. His complexion was clear and healthful. His forehead, broad and high, out of all proportion to the lower part of his face, gave an unmistakable character of intellect to the finely placed head. Indeed, he liked to observe that the gods of the Greek sculptors owed much of their elevation to being similarly out of drawing! The lower features were terse, succinct, and powerful,--from the bold, decided jaw, to the large, firm, ugly, good-humored mouth. His very spectacles aided the general expression; they had a look of the man. But how shall I attempt to tell you of his brilliant conversation, of his rapid, energetic manner, of his quick turns of thought, as he flew on from topic to topic, dashing his brush here and there upon the canvas? Slow and quiet persons were a good deal startled by this suddenness and mobility. He left such people far behind, mentally and bodily. But his talk was so rich and varied, so earnest and glowing, his anecdotes so racy, his perception of character so shrewd, and the whole tone so spontaneous and natural, that the want of repose was rather recalled afterwards than felt at the time. The alloy to this charm was a slight coarseness of voice and accent, which contrasted somewhat strangely with his constant courtesy and high breeding. Perhaps this was characteristic. A defect of some sort pervades his pictures. Their great want is equality and congruity,--that perfect union of qualities which we call _taste_. His apartment, especially at that period when he lived in his painting-room, was in itself a study of the most picturesque kind. Besides the great picture itself, for which there seemed hardly space between the walls, it was crowded with casts, lay figures, arms, tripods, vases, draperies, and costumes of all ages, weapons of all nations, books in all tongues. These cumbered the floor; whilst around hung smaller pictures, sketches, and drawings, replete with originality and force. With chalk he could do what he chose. I remember he once drew for me a head of hair with nine of his sweeping, vigorous strokes! Among the studies I remarked that day in his apartment was one of a mother who had just lost her only child,--a most masterly rendering of an unspeakable grief. A sonnet, which I could not help writing on this sketch, gave rise to our long correspondence, and to a friendship which never flagged. Everybody feels that his life, as told by Mr. Taylor, with its terrible catastrophe, is a stern lesson to young artists, an awful warning that cannot be set aside. Let us not forget that amongst his many faults are qualities which hold out a bright example. His devotion to his noble art, his conscientious pursuit of every study connected with it, his unwearied industry, his love of beauty and of excellence, his warm family affection, his patriotism, his courage, and his piety, will not easily be surpassed. Thinking of them, let us speak tenderly of the ardent spirit whose violence would have been softened by better fortune, and who, if more successful, would have been more gentle and more humble."

And so with her vigilant and appreciative eye she saw, and thus in her own charming way she talked of, the man whose name, says Taylor, as a popularizer of art, stands without a rival among his brethren.

She loathed mere dandies, and there were no epithets too hot for her contempts in that direction. Old beaux she heartily despised, and, speaking of one whom she had known, I remember she quoted with a fine scorn this appropriate passage from Dickens: "Ancient, dandified men, those crippled _invalides_ from the campaign of vanity, where the only powder was hair-powder, and the only bullets fancy balls."

There was no half-way with her, and she never could have said with M---- S----, when a certain visitor left the room one day after a call, "If we did not _love_ our dear friend Mr. ---- so much, shouldn't we hate him tremendously!" Her neighbor, John Ruskin, she thought as eloquent a prose-writer as Jeremy Taylor, and I have heard her go on in her fine way, giving preferences to certain modern poems far above the works of the great masters of song. Pascal says that "the heart has reasons that reason does not know"; and Miss Mitford was a charming exemplification of this wise saying.

Her dogs and her geraniums were her great glories. She used to write me long letters about Fanchon, a dog whose personal acquaintance I had made some time before, while on a visit to her cottage. Every virtue under heaven she attributed to that canine individual; and I was obliged to allow in my return letters, that, since our planet began to spin, nothing comparable to Fanchon had ever run on four legs. I had also known Flush, the ancestor of Fanchon, intimately, and had been accustomed to hear wonderful things of that dog; but Fanchon had graces and genius unique. Miss Mitford would have joined with Hamerton in his gratitude for canine companionship, when he says, "I humbly thank Divine Providence for having invented dogs, and I regard that man with wondering pity who can lead a dogless life."

Her fondness for rural life, one may well imagine, was almost unparalleled. I have often been with her among the wooded lanes of her pretty country, listening for the nightingales, and on such occasions she would discourse so eloquently of the sights and sounds about us, that her talk seemed to me "far above singing." She had fallen in love with nature when a little child, and had studied the landscape till she knew familiarly every flower and leaf which grows on English soil. She delighted in rural vagabonds of every sort, especially in gypsies; and as they flourished in her part of the country, she knew all their ways, and had charming stories to tell of their pranks and thievings. She called them "the commoners of nature"; and once I remember she pointed out to me on the road a villanous-looking youth on whom she smiled as we passed, as if he had been Virtue itself in footpad disguise. She knew all the literature of rural life, and her memory was stored with delightful eulogies of forests and meadows. When she repeated or read aloud the poetry she loved, her accents were

"Like flowers' voices, if they could but speak."

She _understood_ how to enjoy rural occupations and rural existence, and she had no patience with her friend Charles Lamb, who preferred the town. Walter Savage Landor addressed these lines to her a few months before she died, and they seem to me very perfect and lovely in their application:--

"The hay is carried; and the hours Snatch, as they pass, the linden flow'rs; And children leap to pluck a spray Bent earthward, and then run away. Park-keeper! catch me those grave thieves About whose frocks the fragrant leaves, Sticking and fluttering here and there, No false nor faltering witness bear.

"I never view such scenes as these In grassy meadow girt with trees, But comes a thought of her who now Sits with serenely patient brow Amid deep sufferings: 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."

And Harriet Martineau pays her respects to my friend in this wise: "Miss Mitford's descriptions of scenery, brutes, and human beings have such singular merit, that she may be regarded as the founder of a new style; and if the freshness wore off with time, there was much more than a compensation in the fine spirit of resignation and cheerfulness which breathed through everything she wrote, and endeared her as a suffering friend to thousands who formerly regarded her only as a most entertaining stranger."

What lovely drives about England I have enjoyed with Miss Mitford as my companion and guide! We used to arrange with her trusty Sam for a day now and then in the open air. He would have everything in readiness at the appointed hour, and be at his post with that careful, kind-hearted little maid, the "hemmer of flounces," all prepared to give the old lady a fair start on her day's expedition. Both those excellent servants delighted to make their mistress happy, and she greatly rejoiced in their devotion and care. Perhaps we had made our plans to visit Upton Court, a charming old house where Pope's Arabella Fermor had passed many years of her married life. On the way thither we would talk over "The Rape of the Lock" and the heroine, Belinda, who was no other than Arabella herself. Arriving on the lawn in front of the decaying mansion, we would stop in the shade of a gigantic oak, and gossip about the times of Queen Elizabeth, for it was then the old house was built, no doubt.

Once I remember Miss Mitford carried me on a pilgrimage to a grand old village church with a tower half covered with ivy. We came to it through laurel hedges, and passed on the way a magnificent cedar of Lebanon. It was a superb pile, rich in painted glass windows and carved oak ornaments. Here Miss Mitford ordered the man to stop, and, turning to me with great enthusiasm, said, "This is Shiplake Church, where Alfred Tennyson was married!" Then we rode on a little farther, and she called my attention to some of the finest wych-elms I had ever seen.

Another day we drove along the valley of the Loddon, and she pointed out the Duke of Wellington's seat of Strathfieldsaye. As our pony trotted leisurely over the charming road, she told many amusing stories of the Duke's economical habits, and she rated him soundly for his money-saving propensities. The furniture in the house she said was a disgrace to the great man, and she described a certain old carpet that had done service so many years in the establishment that no one could tell what the original colors were.

But the mansion most dear to her in that neighborhood was the residence of her kind friends the Russells of Swallowfield Park. It is indeed a beautiful old place, full of historical and literary associations, for there Lord Clarendon wrote his story of the Great Rebellion. Miss Mitford never ceased to be thankful that her declining years were passing in the society of such neighbors as the Russells. If she were unusually ill, they were the first to know of it and come at once to her aid. Little attentions, so grateful to old age, they were always on the alert to offer; and she frequently told me that their affectionate kindness had helped her over the dark places of life more than once, where without their succor she must have dropped by the way.

As a letter-writer, Miss Mitford has rarely been surpassed. Her "Life, as told by herself in Letters to her Friends," is admirably done in every particular. Few letters in the English language are superior to hers, and I think they, will come to be regarded as among the choicest specimens of epistolary literature. When her friend, the Rev. William Harness, was about to collect from Miss Mitford's correspondents, for publication, the letters she had written to them, he applied to me among others. I was obliged to withhold the correspondence for a reason that existed then; but I am no longer restrained from printing it now. Miss Mitford's first letter to me was written in 1847, and her last one came only a few weeks before she died, in 1855. 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. In reading some of them here collected one will see that she overrated my little services as she did those of many of her personal friends. I shall have hard work to place the dates properly, for the good lady rarely took the trouble to put either month or year at the head of her paper.

She began her correspondence with me before I left England after making her acquaintance, and, true to the instincts of her kind heart, the object of her first letter was to press upon my notice the poems of a young friend of hers, and she was constantly saying good words for unfledged authors who were struggling forward to gain recognition. No one ever lent such a helping hand as she did to the young writers of her country.

The recognition which America, very early in the career of Miss Mitford, awarded her, she never forgot, and she used to say, "It takes ten years to make a literary reputation in England, but America is wiser and bolder, and dares say at once, 'This is fine.'"

Sweetness of temper and brightness of mind, her never-failing characteristics, accompanied her to the last; and she passed on in her usual cheerful and affectionate mood, her sympathies uncontracted by age, narrow fortune, and pain.

A plain substantial cross marks the spot in the old churchyard at Swallowfield, where, according to her own wish, Mary Mitford lies sleeping. It is proposed to erect a memorial in the old parish church to her memory, and her admirers in England have determined, if a sufficient sum can be raised, to build what shall be known as "The Mitford Aisle," to afford accommodation for the poor people who are not able to pay for seats. Several of Miss Mitford's American friends will join in this beautiful object, and a tablet will be put up in the old church commemorating the fact that England and America united in the tribute.

LETTERS, 1848-1849.

Three-mile Cross, December 4, 1848.

Dear Mr. Fields: My silence has been caused by severe illness. For more than a twelvemonth my health has been so impaired as to leave me a very poor creature, almost incapable of any exertion at all times, and frequently suffering severe pain besides. So that I have to entreat the friends who are good enough to care for me never to be displeased if a long time elapses between my letters. My correspondents being so numerous, and I myself so utterly alone, without any one even to fold or seal a letter, that the very physical part of the task sometimes becomes more fatiguing than I can bear. I am not, generally speaking, confined to my room, or even to the house; but the loss of power is so great that after the short drive or shorter walk which my very skilful medical adviser orders, I am too often compelled to retire immediately to bed, and I have not once been well enough to go out of an evening during the year 1848. Before its expiration I shall have completed my sixty-first year; but it is not age that has so prostrated me, but the hard work and increasing anxiety of thirty years of authorship, during which my poor labors were all that my dear father and mother had to look to, besides which for the greater part of that time I was constantly called upon to attend to the sick-bed, first of one aged parent and then of another. Few women could stand this, and I have only to be intensely thankful that the power of exertion did not fail until the necessity of such exertion was removed. Now my poor life is (beyond mere friendly feeling) of value to no one. I have, too, many alleviations,--in the general kindness of the neighborhood, the particular goodness of many admirable friends, the affectionate attention of a most attached and intelligent old servant, and above all in my continued interest in books and delight in reading. 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. Among the books which I have been reading with the greatest interest is the Life of Dr. Channing, and I can hardly tell you the glow of gratification with which I found my own name mentioned, as one of the writers in whose works that great man had taken pleasure. The approbation of Dr. Channing is something worth toiling for. I know no individual suffrage that could have given me more delight. Besides this selfish pleasure and the intense interest with which I followed that admirable thinker through the whole course of his pure and blameless life, I have derived another and a different satisfaction from that work,--I mean from its reception in England. I know nothing that shows a greater improvement in liberality in the least liberal part of the English public, a greater sweeping away of prejudice whether national or sectarian, than the manner in which even the High Church and Tory party have spoken of Dr. Channing. They really seem to cast aside their usual intolerance in his case, and to look upon a Unitarian with feelings of Christian fellowship. God grant that this spirit may continue! Is American literature rich in native biography? Just have the goodness to mention to me any lives of Americans, whether illustrious or not, that are graphic, minute, and outspoken. I delight in French memoirs and English lives, especially such as are either autobiography or made out by diaries and letters; and America, a young country with manners as picturesque and unhackneyed as the scenery, ought to be full of such works. We have had two volumes lately that will interest your countrymen: Mr. Milnes's Life of John Keats, that wonderful youth whose early death was, I think, the greatest loss that English poetry ever experienced. Some of the letters are very striking as developments on character, and the richness of diction in the poetical fragments is exquisite. Mrs. Browning is still at Florence with her husband. She sees more Americans than English.

Books here are sadly depreciated. Mr. Dyce's admirable edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, brought out two years ago at £6 12_s._ is now offered at £2 17_s._

Adieu, dear Mr. Fields; forgive my seeming neglect, and believe me always most faithfully yours,

M.R. MITFORD.

(No date, 1849.)

Dear Mr. Fields: I cannot tell you how vexed I am at this mistake about letters, which must have made you think me careless of your correspondence and ungrateful for your kindness. The same thing has happened to me before, I may say often, with American letters,--with Professor Norton, Mrs. Sigourney, the Sedgwicks,--in short I always feel an insecurity in writing to America which I never experience in corresponding with friends on the Continent; France, Germany, Italy, even Poland and Russia, are comparatively certain. Whether it be the agents in London who lose letters, or some fault in the post-office, I cannot tell, but I have twenty times experienced the vexation, and it casts a certain discouragement over one's communications. However, I hope that this letter will reach you, and that you will be assured that the fault does not lie at my door.

During the last year or two my health has been declining much, and I am just now thinking of taking a journey to Paris. My friend, Henry Chorley of the Athenaeum, the first musical critic of Europe, is going thither next month to assist at the production of Meyerbeer's Prophète at the French Opera, and another friend will accompany me and my little maid to take care of us; so that I have just hopes that the excursion, erenow much facilitated by railways, may do me good. I have always been a great admirer of the great Emperor, and to see the heir of Napoleon at the Elysée seems to me a real piece of poetical justice. I know many of his friends in England, who all speak of him most highly; one of them says, "He is the very impersonation of calm and simple honesty." I hope the nation will be true to him, but, as Mirabeau says, "there are no such words as 'jamais' or 'toujours' with the French public."

10th of June, 1849.