10
Bertram House
May 30th 1819.
To Sir William Elford-->
Papa having made Mr. Dundas promise and repromise not to transmogrify you into a lady (or as once before happened you know my dear friend) & I avail myself of his obliging offer to transmit to you "these presents"--indeed I am impatient to thank you again & again for the delightful kindness of your visit, to tell you how deeply we all regarded its shortness, & with how much pleasure we anticipate a visit into Devonshire--this year. I do hope we shall not be disappointed--only I must try not to set my heart too much on it, for I am unlucky & if I do our plans will be sure to be overturned--I got your kindest of all kind letters Tuesday morning--Mrs. Dickinson was still with us having kept prisoner by the loss of her carriage horses which Papa & I by the way, who were obliged to go in our elegant machine ten miles through the rain to a birthday dinner in the good town of Wokingham
as we were coming home Monday night--so I showed her what you said of her, & she laughed & exclaimed & was very much pleased. She is a most excellent person. I assure you I never yet know any human being so perfectly fine & single minded--of so pure & generous & lofty a spirit. She is compared to the common run of accomplished women what sculpture is to paintings--something real & solid & unadorned. I don't say this because I love her very dearly & because she is unutterably good to me but that is my genuine & impartial opinion as to her literary taste I think as badly as you do--this to say my opinion like your Worship's happens to be quite different. I wish you had heard her sing! That is her forte. Such a voice! Such compass! Such power! And as never can happen without power such expression! She will sing the finest highest music of Handel, Haydn or Mozart with an enunciation of the words as just & as perfect, as true to the letter & of meaning as you or I would give in reading them. Nothing but the perfect ease which results from the certainty of power could enable her to do this--Her voice dances on a rope just as securely as one walks on the ground.--though by the way had she sung in your sublime presence this said voice might have got a tumble--but she is more nervous at times than can be conceived & I have seen her obliged to sit down when singing only two or three intimate friends first & not able even to talk all the rest of the evening. Perhaps my dear Sir William, I have said all this before. You talk sometimes of your repetitions whilst the only one you ever make is that fear of repeating yourself--Now to me nothing is more probable than that I should write over & over again the same thing--living constantly at home--seeing so few people--with so little variety of pursuit of & a happy facility of forgetting any nonsense I may write the moment I have sent it off--with all these elements of "tautology of sense" as I once absurdly called it--the probability is that I am as great a repeater as Richardson & nothing but my having the most indulgent Correspondent in the world & administering my tediousness in distant doses prevents my being turned off like Clarissa or Sir Charles Grandison. Having thus apologized for talking of my Mrs. Dickinson & telling you what I had probably told you before I must now talk a little of that very clever very odd man her husband--You would gather from one conversation that Mr. Dickinson not only translate but is
the story of the Translations (in which affair you deserted me very treacherously for you must know that I was right, & must I think have admired a little at the modesty which was proved by a desire to publish these poems with a puffing preface a la Mr. Dickinson is besides an original Poet (in that capacity rather baddish) having written an unreadable quarto styled
the Travels of Cyllenius--a sort of didactic Epic--a great patriot--quite an Ultra--one of
Major Cartwright's disciples (N.B I don't go so far by ten degrees--I am a very moderate person--very moderate indeed--neither
Whig nor
Tory nor
Reformer--Nothing but a Buonapartiste--a simple Buonapartiste!)--a very accomplished & eloquent man (though sometimes when one wants him to talk especially in a party he won't say a word--I have seen him sit at the bottom of his own table looking just like a whipt schoolboy) & without any "but" or "though" or any parenthesis or compunction whatever the finest reader of Poetry English French or Italian that I ever heard in my life. To hear him read or recite the finest parts of
Hamlet Lear or
Othello is a thousand times better than to see
Kean in them--It realizes the idea one has of
Garrick--the passion is quite aweful. For the rest he is in manner a perfect Gentleman & in mind singularly benevolent & provokingly just, for he will dispute an odd
shilling for twelve good years & make twenty quarrels for twenty pence whilst he would think nothing of giving away a hundred pounds of supporting a dozen poor families--From this
clear character you may
gather that he is respected & beloved by the poor & a little shunned by the Gentry--indeed if it were not for his splendid hospitability & his Wife I don't think one of them would go near him. I like him very much & think him the best reader & the best Translator in the world--only I wish he would publish his Translations quietly without wanting me to intermeddle.--Mem: I shan't.--
Mrs. Dickinson was delighted with your promise to read
Camilla--I don't much think you will find
Mr. Edgar Mandlebert (the very name is as stiff as poker) improve on acquaintance--the only persons in that book who much delighted me, were
Camilla herself
Mr. Dubster, &
Sir Hugh--that delightful
Sir Hugh! And they are precisely I believe the three whom
Mrs. Dickinson would if she could leave out--at least she skips them--just as she does
Mr. Dexter &
Lady Singleton in
ODonnel. But I always thought poor
Camilla's fate so terrible in being joined to that man, that I had hardly patience to read the rest of the book--And to confess to you a truth (which may I believe be more safely said now than it might have been twenty years ago) I do not think very highly of any of
Madame D'Arblay's books. The style is so strutting--she does so stalk about on
Dr. Johnson's old stilts. What she says wants so much translating into common English & when translated would seem so commonplace, that I have always felt strongly tempted to read all the serious parts with my finger's ends. Comedy is her strong side or rather farce--her
Mr. Smith &
Miss Branghton,
Mr. Dubster &
Mr. Briggs are as good as any characters can be which appear
always to exemplify one unmixed quality--they are personifications of coxcombry vulgarity & avarice
& are compared to the mixed characters the human beings of Miss Austen
--something like the comedy of humours introduced by
Ben Jonson in opposition to the Comedy of nature which
Shakespeare wrote probably unconsciously--or as a picture would be composed of unmixed colours, by the side
of one where the tints were properly blended.--Pray forgive this critique--written with even more than usual puzzleheadedness--thought upon paper isntead of being considered in the addled brains of
theyour poor little correspondent--& sent to you with the confident carelessness which your too great goodness has encouraged.
Lady Pitt's death has added a thousand a year to the Duke of Wellington's new estateGeorge Pitt, 2nd Baron Rivers sold this portion of his estates (Stratfield Saye) in 1818 to the crown, in order that the crown could award them to the Duke of Wellington.. This great Captain of ours is a prodigiously lucky man. Besides the property he gets a very pretty place, finely situated--If he should build he will probably live in that house till his palace is completed. You did not leave me the four landmarks you promised--You must send them to me in your next.
I am going this week (unless it should be good enough to rain which seems likely) To a great Christening twenty mi
les
off in Oxfordshire--a very shocking prospect--Christen
ings
& weddings & such like things are always bad enough e
spe
cially where there are dozens of Uncles & Aunts, & Grandfathers &Grandmothers & Brothers & Sisters
& Nephews & Nieces to all eternity--but in addition to this tremendous family congregation there is a quarrel to be made up metamark rend="caret" place="below"/>a quarrel about nothing between two old Dons & there will be crying & all the of a Scene--always a shocking thing to me who can't cry & am sometimes apt to laugh. Papa is Godfather & will take me because they are civil enough to make a fuss--but I intend to get out of it if I can--I should take up more room than they can spare, unless the young ladies lay in Strata as Tom Crib says--& moreover I am quite sure that with one horse & the tackle & Oxfordshire hills & Oxfordshire roads we never should arrive there altogether--Of a certainty some at least of the heavy baggage--I perhaps & my old Chum Papa's box Coat should be left midway. But I think it will rain--& so make sure we have begun mowing--Adieu, my dear Friend--Papa & Mama send their kindest regards & Mossy his duty--poor Mossy he missed you very much at breakfast next morning--your mode of education was quite to his taste--& to mine--I love to see Mossy fed--Adieu--God bless you--
Ever most affectionately
your's
yours
M.R. Mitford.
Newbury First June 1819
C Dundas
Sir Wm Elford Bart
Bickham
Plymouth