in those great pictures, and that with such success that the moment he was out of his time he was ready and able to earn his bread as a portrait painter-not only to earn his own bread, but to support (as he has done ever since) a widowed. mother. One of his early patrons was Mr. Milton, Mrs. Trollope's brother, and at his request, he thinking that any one whose name was at all known would be of service to the young artist, I sat to him for my portrait. Of course it was a failure. A plain, middle-aged woman could hardly be otherwise. We paid for it the too modest sum that he required, and never demanded it after it returned from the exhibition, where, in spite of its ugliness, it had a good place. He did not like the picture and did not send it back. We had, however, been charmed with him; had heard with delight of his rapidly increasing reputation; and had perhaps been of some little use to him in the early part of his career, by recommending him to different friends. This, however, was nothing; his own great talent, astonishing industry, and exemplary character were his best patrons. However, when we met in town, I said to him, "You used to like our poor cottage. Come and see us again; will you not ?" and he answered, "I have been hoping that you would say this, because that head of you is upon my conscience, and I want to paint it over again." I replied, of course, "No; I asked you to come and see us for recreation, not for work. I sha'n't sit to you, I assure you." "Well," said he, " if you won't let me paint you, you'll let me paint your father?" And I could not resist; and he did come; and the portrait of my father is one of the very finest ever painted, and only less precious to me than the original. Think of the difference of his prices now and then; think of his coming to my father as he would to Prince Albert, and you will feel the full value of his unostentatious and generous piece of kindness.

I love John Lucas. He is less talked of than many who have not half his real reputation; but next to Sir Thomas Lawrence, no man has painted half so many of the highest nobility. The Duke of Wellington (an excellent judge) will sit to nobody else. The Duchesse de Dino, Princess Lieven, and all the great foreigners preferred him to any portrait painter at home or abroad. I must inclose you a letter about him, from a dear friend, received to-day, and a note

to him for Miss Arabel. He has now more pictures bespoken than he can paint for two years. Oh! if I had but a head of you by him! What a head of you he would make! I should like Mr. Barrett to see his portraits, and to know him. He is modest almost to shyness; but it is such a mind, so well worth a little trouble to get at. I love John Lucas. His wife I have never seen.

The tamarind-water has been my father's best friend; it has given great relief. Love to all. Yours most faithfully,

M. R. MITFORD.

CHAPTER XIII.

LETTERS FOR 1837.

TO DR. MITFORD, 8 King Street, Cheapside.

Three-mile Cross, Feb. 1, 1837. THIS afternoon, being so fine, I went to see Mrs. Gore, and found Lady Oranmore in a great fidget because she had not been able to get any body to show her the way to me; poor Miss Swift being in bed, I suppose with influenza. Lord Arran has made a very proper will; he has left the Irish estates to Philip Gore, charged, however, with so many legacies and annuities as will make him for the present a poor earl; but then the annuities, etc., are proper: £600 a year to his mother, the same to Colonel Charles Gore, the brother of our friends, as to them, and so on. We had a very pleasant chat indeed, Lady Oranmore being a very pleasant woman. I had to-day two most affectionate notes; one from Mrs. Walter, communicating the sad news of poor Mr. Bowles's death after a very short illness.

Your telling me that you had been to the play did my heart good, it was such a proof of your being well. Ever yours, M. R. MITFORD.

TO MISS BARRETT, Gloucester Place.

Three-mile Cross, Feb. 22, 1837. MY DEAR FRIEND,-My father is, I thank Heaven, well. He is charmed with your story of the doves, being a complete bird fancier. He told me a story, when talking of your

doves, of having, when a boy of eight years old at school at Hexham, been made free of a strolling company, in consequence of lending them a tame bullfinch to act in "The Padlock," the first play he ever saw. It would be well for me if I had never seen any; and you are wise for keeping out of the atmosphere. Before I forget it, the work you see advertised is a little volume of " Country Stories." The novel will come out in the autumn-late in the autumn, I suppose -and I must complete a third work in the winter to make up for this year's loss of income in "Otto:" so that I have no chance of seeing you, or indeed any other prospect in this life than that of incessant labor, anxiety, and disappointment. God grant me strength to bear it so long as my father lives!

To be sure Amorah is the "Faithful Shepherdess.' If y you look farther into the plays, you will find that the undramatic character of that charming poem results from its pastoral and poetical qualities. Generally, Fletcher (for Beaumont had little to say in the matter) is highly dramatic, although his plots are wild and improbable and impossible, and deal in the most provoking incongruities. He is a great poet, and certainly next to Shakspeare as a dramatist, whether in tragedy or comedy.

Adieu, my dear Miss Barrett, and believe me, ever most faithfully yours, M. R. MITFORD.

Henry Chorley wishes me to go to town to sit for the "Portrait Annual;" Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Hemans, Lady Blessington, and myself being the ladies chosen for this first volume.

To the Rev. WILLIAM HARNESS, London.

Three-mile Cross, April 4, 1837. MY DEAR WILLIAM,-I have only one moment, in which to proffer a petition to you. I have a little trumpery volume called "Country Stories," about to be published by Saunders & Otley. Will you permit me to give these tales some little value in my own eyes by inscribing them (of course in a few true and simple words) to you, my very old and most kind friend? I would not dedicate a play to you, for fear of causing you injury in your profession; but I do not think that this slight testimony of a very sincere affection could

do you harm in that way, for even those who do not allow novels in their house sanction my little books. Love to both the Maries. Ever affectionately yours, M. R. MITFORD.

How sad was poor Mr. Bowles's death!

TO MISS BARRETT, Gloucester Place.

Three-mile Cross, May 4, 1837.

A thousand thanks, my dear friend, for your kind inquiries after Dash. He is quite well again, better and younger than he has been for months, or even years. Yesterday he ran at least twenty miles, having accompanied my father and myself in a flowering expedition to Penge Wood for the delicate wood-sorrel and other wood flowers, and to the Kennett Meadows for the white and speckled fritillary and other meadow blossoms. By the way, is it not an extraordinary thing that the blackthorn (sloe blossom) is just coming into bloom in the hedges and the fritillary is in bloom in the meadows; the one being a blossom (as you well know) of March, early March; the other seldom out until the middle of May, along with its cousins the tulips? Well, we went on this expedition in a pony phaeton, leaving it at the wood and the meadows, and walking about there and gathering flowers, so that of some ten miles we contrived to make a four hours' ride, and Dash ran away four several times, beguiled by hares and so forth, and had a démélé, which I should like you to have seen and heard, with a huge hedgehog, whose passive resistance was too much for my poor pet, but which we brought home in a basket, and put into the kitchen garden, where there is a hedge and water, and from which if he should choose to run away he can. I think he won't, for he was very sociable in coming home, and as we put milk in his way, and shall continue to do so, I expect him to remain in that state of semi-tameness, which, in the country, is what I like best to see in birds or wild animals, protected but not confined. My love to your doves. How I wish the eggs would be good! It would be such a delight to you to help the parent birds to bring up their young. I told the story of the bird's nest-making to my young artist Edmund Havell, and he said, "What a picture!" If he painted faces as well as he paints animals, I am sure that he would try.

So far as I can find, the people who call themselves scien

tific never chance upon useful inventions, and the objects that they pursue are as devoid of use as they are of beauty. Moreover, they are themselves, for the most part, so scornful and conceited, that we are at perfect liberty to " scorn the scorner." Only think, for instance, of botanists, who know no more of the cultivation of a plant than the desk I am writing on, despising florists and horticulturists, who bring the lovely flowers and the goodly thing, fruit, to such perfection! And they can't even agree about their own jargon! We had the other day a pitched battle in my garden between a set of Linnæans and a set of Jussieuans. Oh! if you had heard the clatter! I was fain to bring forth my own list of new annuals (I have sixty, most of which have never blown in England), and had the glory of out-longwording both parties, to the shame of floriculture, who ought to speak plain. I wish you had been present; it was a curious scene. The best stroke at science which I have met with for a long time is in the last "Pickwick." I hope you love humor; I, for my part, delight in it, and hold Mr. Dickens to be the next great benefactor of the age to Sir Walter Scott. There is about him, too, an anti-cant and anti-humbug spirit which is worth any thing.

My book is called "Country Stories." It is passing slowly through the press, and will not, I suppose, be advertised till nearly ready. I speak the real truth in saying that I do not like it. If ever I did like any of my prose works it was "Belford Regis," and this is more in the way of " Our Village." Mr. Browning seems studiously to have thrown poetry aside in his tragedy, as Shelley did; though I doubt if his subject can be so dramatic as the horribly powerful story of the "Cenci."

And now, my ever-dear love, Heaven bless you! We are going flowering again, to a copse full of primroses and ground ivy, and wood anemones. I wish you were with us!

yours,

Ever M. R. M.

To the Rev. WILLIAM HARNESS, Heathcote Street. Three-mile Cross, Sunday, May 15, 1837. MY DEAR FRIEND,—I have taken your advice and have written at once to Lord Melbourne. I have not the honor of knowing him, but my letter is brief and plain, saying that VOL. II.-I