Digital Mitford: Letter View

Letter to T.N. TalfourdThomas Noon Talfourd | Born: 1795-05-26 in Reading, Berkshire, England. Died: 1854-03-13 in Stafford, Staffordshire, England.
Close friend, literary mentor, and frequent correspondent of Mary Russell Mitford. A native of Reading, Talfourd was educated at the Reading’s newly-established Mill Hill school, a dissenting academy, from 1808 to 1810. He attended Dr. Richard Valpy’s Reading School from 1810 to 1812. His career in law began with a legal apprenticeship with Joseph Christy, special pleader, in 1817. He was called to the bar in London in 1821 and ultimately earned a D.C.L. (Doctor of Civil Laws) from Oxford on June 20, 1844. While establishing his practice as a barrister and special pleader, he worked as legal correspondent for The Times, reporting on the Oxford Circuit, and also continued his literary interests. After 1833, he was appointed Serjeant at Law, as well as a King’s and Queen’s Counsel. He was elected and served as Member of Parliament for Reading from 1835 to 1841 and from 1847 to 1849 ; he served with Charles Fyshe Palmer, Charles Russell, and Francis Piggott. Highlights of his political and legal career included introducing the first copyright bill into Parliament in 1837 (for which action Charles Dickens dedicated Pickwick Papers to him) and defending Edward Moxon’s publication of Percy Shelley’s Queen Mab in 1841 . He was appointed Queen’s Serjeant in 1846 and Judge of Common Pleas in 1849 , at which post he served until his death in 1854. He was knighted in 1850 .
Talfourd’s literary works include his plays Ion (1835), The Athenian Captive (1837) and Glencoe, or the Fate of the MacDonalds(1839).
—lmw, cmm, ebb
, [16 November] 1821

Edited by Lisa M. WilsonLisa M. Wilson, Managing Editor, Bibliography and Correspondence, Founding Editor, State University of New York at Potsdam
Lisa M. Wilson is Professor in the Department of English and Communication at SUNY Potsdam, where she has taught since 2005. Her areas of interest include transatlantic Romantic and Victorian era literature, particularly women’s writing and popular forms such as the Gothic novel and the literary ballad. She is also interested in book history and bibliographical studies, particularly in the study of authorship in the long nineteenth century (1780-1900). She has published in European Romantic Review, Romanticism on the Net (now RaVon), Romantic Circles, Romantic Textualities, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a monograph on Romantic-period authorship and literary celebrity. Her work on Digital Mitford thus far includes editing and coding Mitford’s Introduction to her collected Dramatic Works (1854), a critical memoir that recounts the author’s influences and experiences at Covent Garden and Drury Lane in the 1820s and 30s. It also includes researching Mitford’s publication history for the site’s working bibliography, particularly tracking the migration of Mitford’s stories from their first publication to their later reappearances in collections and periodicals. A Founding Editor of Digital Mitford, she and her teams of student research assistants have been at work since 2013 on transcribing, coding, and researching Mitford’s letters from 1819 to the early 1820s and on Mitford’s early poems, including her 22 sonnets and her long poem, Weston Grove. She is currently teaching a course on digital textual editing for junior and senior undergraduates and directing undergraduate students internships for Digital Mitford. .

Sponsored by:

Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford Project

Penn State Erie, The Behrend College

Digital Mitford Letters: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive

Repository: The John Rylands University Library. Shelf mark: JRL English MS 665 no. 8 Coles no. 21

Hands other than Mitford's noted on this manuscript:

Someone cataloging the letters, apparently other than Mitford, numbered each on page 1. This letter numbered 8.

Our default is the Diplomatic view.
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Maintained by: Elisa E. Beshero-Bondar (eeb4 at psu.edu)

Last modified: 2024-04-26T12:23:43.418546Z

Here is another Catastrophe, my dear Sir, for William Charles Macready | Born: 1793-03-03 in London, England. Died: 1873-04-27 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England.
English actor, one of the most prominent tragedians of his era. He appeared at Covent Garden and Drury Lane Theatres in London and also toured the United States. He appeared in Sheridan Knowles's William Tell, Byron's Sardanapolus, and Bulwer-Lytton's Money (1840), as well as in many Shakespearean roles. He also managed both Covent Garden and Drury Lane Theatres. In his role as actor-manager, Macready was a correspondent and collaborator with Mary Russell Mitford. The first play on which they worked was Mitford's Julian. Mitford dedicated to Macready the print edition of Julian: To William Charles Macready, Esq., with high esteem for those endowments which have cast new lustre on his art; with warm admiration for those powers which have inspired, and that taste which has fostered the tragic dramatists of his age; with heartfelt gratitude for the zeal with which he befriended the production of a stranger, for the judicious alterations which he suggested, and for the energy, the pathos, and the skill with which he more than emhodied its principal character; this tragedy is most respectfully dedicated by the author. Macready retired from the stage in 1851. —lmw
Mr. Macready's consideration—I only wait hearing from you to finish the poisoning Scene, which I shall send up as soon as I possibly can consistently with my natural slowness. If you like none of them I shall be quite ready to try another—or to alter any of these—Of course they are submitted to you with the most full & perfect liberty to cut & alter & add wherever you think is proper—the last would be the greatest favor that could be done. Was it necessary to say this?—Not having the copy to which these two sheets may perhaps be appended I [gap: 2 words, reason: torn.][do not] exactly know where the page began—but I believe [gap: 2 words, reason: torn.][I am] not—far from the mark & the cutting striking out a few [gap: 1 word, reason: torn.][words] would not I suppose spoil the copy for presentation—I am quite sorry to give you this sort of petty trouble—but whilst I am talking of these details I must tell you two or three very trifling things Mr. MilmanHenry Hart Milman, Very Reverend, or: Very Reverend | Born: 1791-02-10 in London, England. Died: 1868-09-24 in London, England.
After a brilliant career at Brasenose College, Oxford, Milman was ordained into the Church of England in 1816 and became parish priest of St Mary's, Reading, in 1818, where he became acquainted with Mary Russell Mitford. Mitford mentions Milman's literary, critical, and editing work in her correspondence and indicates that he made written suggestions on the manuscript of Foscari in 1821. Milman was elected professor of poetry at Oxford in 1821; Sir Robert Peel made him Rector of St Margaret's, Westminster, and Canon of Westminster in 1835, and in 1849 he became Dean of St Paul's. He published poetry, several tragedies, and hymns, as well as translations of Euripides, and an edition of Horace. He also wrote several important histories, including History of the Jews (1829), History of Christianity to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire (1840), and History of Latin Christianity (1855); he also edited Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and published a Life of Gibbon (1838, 1839). Milman was buried in St Paul's Cathedral.—lmw
suggested—or rather marked as faults—In the first scene that part of Erizzo'sErizzo
Count Erizzo, character in Mitford’s play Foscari —ebb speech on Donato's return, "And such a boon as he would grant his Page to pay the song that lulls him off to sleep"[1] —lmw—I rather think that may be like somebody else—I think he must mean that—at all events be so good as to strike it up out. Early in the Senate scene I had made a very stupid mistake in accenting a name—In Erizzo'sErizzo
Count Erizzo, character in Mitford’s play Foscari —ebb Speech to his faction will you write "PisaniCount Pisani Count Pisani
Character of Count Pisani in Foscari.—lmw, or Donato's Donato Senator
character in Foscari —lmw
See also historical counterpart: Senator Donato.—ebb riper years" instead of "Donato Donato Senator
character in Foscari —lmw
See also historical counterpart: Senator Donato.—ebb or Count PisaniCount Pisani Count Pisani
Character of Count Pisani in Foscari.—lmw on thine" [2] Printed text has: On vigorous manhood's clustering curls? On thine,
Donato? Or, Pisani, upon thine?
Or any man of us? Lords, have ye changed
This appears to be the only mention by name of Count Pisani in the play.—lmw—In the third Act he objects to the getting off of Laura
Senator Donato’s niece in Foscari, as mentioned in Cast List—lmwLaura—but that the Manager must manage—& to Ida'sMount IdaSacred mountain of classical Greek antiquity.—lmwtopin the Doge'sDoge Foscari
character in Mitford’s play Foscari See also historical counterpart: Doge Foscari.—ebb compliment to Olivia.Olivia
One of the Ladies in Foscari—lmw—he says myrtles won't blow there—which I believe is time enough—Will Ida'sMount IdaSacred mountain of classical Greek antiquity.—lmwside do? And will you be so good as to write it so—He has likewise marked "guiltless of brains" [3] —lmw[del: .] in the Doge'sDoge Foscari
character in Mitford’s play Foscari See also historical counterpart: Doge Foscari.—ebb account of the prophecy—but I don't know why—Should I alter it do page 2
[4] —lmwyou think? He has likewise made himself two or three verbal alterations of no great consequence one way or the other which I have retained in the copy for printing but which would never be noticed on the stage.—One thing I wish myself to submit to you. In the Trial scene ErizzoErizzo
Count Erizzo, character in Mitford’s play Foscari —ebb in his last question to CamillaCamilla Donato
daughter of Senator Donato in Mitford’s play Foscari —ebb says—Did'st thou not hear Donato Donato Senator
character in Foscari —lmw
See also historical counterpart: Senator Donato.—ebb call onFoscariDoge Foscari
character in Mitford’s play Foscari See also historical counterpart: Doge Foscari.—ebb?" Now does not this approach too nearly to the real truth & not to the inference which he intended to draw from it? Would Didst thou not hear Donato's Donato Senator
character in Foscari —lmw
See also historical counterpart: Senator Donato.—ebb voice cry FoscariFrancesco Foscari
character in Foscari —ebb
See also historical counterpart: son of Doge Foscari.—ebb? be better?—And may the Audience be trusted to make out that [5] —lmwDonato Donato Senator
character in Foscari —lmw
See also historical counterpart: Senator Donato.—ebb knew he was with CamillaCamilla Donato
daughter of Senator Donato in Mitford’s play Foscari —ebb or should some such intimation be introduced? This will probably appear better at the rehearsal. Oh if it should ever come to that! Do you really think it will?—Mr. MilmanHenry Hart Milman, Very Reverend, or: Very Reverend | Born: 1791-02-10 in London, England. Died: 1868-09-24 in London, England.
After a brilliant career at Brasenose College, Oxford, Milman was ordained into the Church of England in 1816 and became parish priest of St Mary's, Reading, in 1818, where he became acquainted with Mary Russell Mitford. Mitford mentions Milman's literary, critical, and editing work in her correspondence and indicates that he made written suggestions on the manuscript of Foscari in 1821. Milman was elected professor of poetry at Oxford in 1821; Sir Robert Peel made him Rector of St Margaret's, Westminster, and Canon of Westminster in 1835, and in 1849 he became Dean of St Paul's. He published poetry, several tragedies, and hymns, as well as translations of Euripides, and an edition of Horace. He also wrote several important histories, including History of the Jews (1829), History of Christianity to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire (1840), and History of Latin Christianity (1855); he also edited Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and published a Life of Gibbon (1838, 1839). Milman was buried in St Paul's Cathedral.—lmw
speaks very civilly of the PlayFoscari: A Tragedy. Mary Russell Mitford. London : G. B. Whittaker . 1826. as pretty & affecting—increasing very much in interest as it proceeeds & exceedingly likely to tell well in representation. This is more than I expected a great deal—& full as much as it deserves. If you see Mr. QualeMr. Quayle Quayle Mr. Mr. Quale
Mentioned in Mitford’s letters of November 6 and 16 1821 as a friend willing to help in Mitford’s theatrical aspirations. Surname spelled in the letter of November 16 as Quale. Forename unknown. Not identified in Coles. Needs further research. —lmw & tell him the state of our affair will you assure him of my sincere gratitude for his kindness—I am sure he was [6] —lmwsincere in his offers of service —How very very good my friends are to me [gap: 1 word, reason: torn.][—you ] Shall certainly get the new act by the midd [gap: 2 words, reason: torn.][le of]next week—

Pray[7] —lmw excuse the wafer as I am afraid of weight—My FatherGeorge Mitford, Esq., or: George Midford | Born: . Died: .
Father of Mary Rusell Mitford, George Mitford was the son of Francis Midford, surgeon, and Jane Graham. The family name is sometimes recorded as Midford. Immediate family called him by nicknames including Drum, Tod, and Dodo. He was a member of a minor branch of the Mitfords of Mitford Castle in Northumberland. Although later sources would suggest that he was a graduate of the University of Edinburgh medical school, there is no evidence that he obtained a medical degree and he did not generally refer to himself as Dr. Mitford, preferring to style himself Esq.. In 1784, he is listed in a Hampshire directory as surgeon (medicine) of Alresford. His father and grandfather worked as apothecary-surgeons and it seems likely that he served a medical apprenticeship with family members.
He married Mary Russell on October 17, 1785 at New Alresford, Hampshire. On the marriage allegation papers, both gave their addresses as Old Alresford; they later came to live at Broad Street in New Alresford. Their only child to live to adulthood, Mary Russell Mitford, was born two years later on December 16, 1787 at New Alresford, Hampshire. He assisted Mitford's literary career by representing her interests in London and elsewhere with theater owners and publishers. He was active in Whig politics and later served as a local magistrate. He coursed greyhounds with his friend James Webb.
—lmw & Mother join in a thousand thanks & good wishes &