there was danger in renewing the chill, which has now passed away. I mean the shiverings. So that I am greatly better, my beloved friend, and when I get into the air again shall do well. Still, I am alone; that is the thought that clings to me, though when I think of you, sister of my heart, it presses less heavily. I read Tennyson. "Locksley Hall" is very fine; but should it not have finished at "I myself must mix with action, Lest I wither by despair?" It seems to me that all after that weakens the impression of the story, which has its appropriate finish with that line. What do we not owe to such a poet? One, who can be thought of at such a time! I must limit my correspondence. I have written above a hundred letters; and now feel that some, who had real claims, have been forgotten. Heaven bless you, my beloved friend! Ever faithfully yours, M. R. M. [Dr. Mitford died considerably in debt, and Miss Mitford, writing at this time, observes: "Every body shall be paid, if I sell the gown off my back or pledge my little pension." At the suggestion of friends a subscription was raised to meet these liabilities.] CHAPTER XVIII. LETTERS FOR 1843 AND 1844. To MISS JEPHSON, Castle Martyr, Ireland. Three-mile Cross, March 16, 1843. I TAKE my chance, dearest Emily, of not having written to tell you how favorably the subscription goes on (for such is the number of letters that I have to answer every day that I really can not tell), being sure that you would rather receive two letters on this subject than none. I have not been at the bank since last Saturday, but then the money received had been near a thousand pounds, and I knew of some hundreds more, and the very next post brought news of seventyfive pounds additional. Among the subscribers are the queen, who desires her name not to be mentioned, as she gives from her private income, and fears being subjected to solicitation (this adds to the compliment, as it proves it is not a matter of form); the queen dowager, the Archbishop of Dublin, his brother Mr. Whately (is he a clergyman ?), the Bishop of Durham, the Dukes of Bedford and Devonshire, the Duchess of Norfolk, the Marquises of Lansdowne and Northampton, Earls Fitzwilliam, Spencer, and Radnor, Viscount Sidmouth, Lord Redesdale, Lady Byron, Lady Dacre, Joanna Baillie, Maria Edgeworth, Mrs. Trollope, Mrs. Opie, Mr. Moore, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Horace Smith, Mr. Morier, and many other persons of station, talent, and character. Nothing can exceed their cordiality and delicacy, so that their benefactions are given as a compliment. I half think that I have written all this to you, my dear love. If so, forgive it. I have been very poorly, but am now better, except that having walked with a view of walking the sickness off, I have rendered myself quite lame. I hope to get well soon in order to go to Bath next month, and return home via Devonshire. Heaven bless you, my dear friend! Ever yours, M. R. M. To the REV. WILLIAM HARNESS, London. Three-mile Cross, April 4, 1843. MY DEAR FRIEND,-How troublesome I am to you, and how kind you are to me! We shall have time enough to think over the question of residence when we see to what my little income may amount. But it does not seem to me as if I could ever live in any town; and I doubt whether a small cottage in the country be not cheaper than lodgings. A friend of mine has such a cottage adjoining his own house at Caversham, two miles north of Reading. He built it for his wife's father, who is now dead, and has since let every year for three months. He offers it to me on the same condition, that is to say, to let it for three months in the summer, which will clear every expense; so that I shall live there for nine months in the year rent free, with the additional comfort of most kind, good, agreeable people close by, and the privilege of having letters, etc., brought by their servants, and a general feeling of protection from living almost under the same roof with a man of honor and of intelligence. You won't think VOL. II.-M the worse of him for being in business in Reading. "You will be glad to hear that my subscription proceeds well: a thousand pounds, or very nearly so, have been received at the different banks, and I know of some hundreds more; so that the debts are, I bless God, paid in full. But still my health is so bad, and my poverty so great, that my friends hope there may be sufficient for the purchase of a small annuityand this is what they are now trying for. I never before had an idea of my own popularity; and I have on two or three occasions shed tears of pure thankfulness at reading the letters which have been written to, or about, me-from Archbishop Whately and men of his class. I only pray to God that I may deserve half that has been said of me. So far as the truest and humblest thankfulness may merit such kindness, I am perhaps, not wholly undeserving, for praise always makes me humble. I always feel that I am overvalued; and such is, I suppose, its effect on every mind not exceedingly vain-glorious. Yours most sincerely, M. R. M. TO MISS JEPHSON, Castle Martyr, Ireland. Three-mile Cross, April, 1843. This has been a very fortunate day to my heart. First came your sweet letter, with its promise to come and see me; then came a dear letter from Miss Barrett, more cheerful and healthy than any I have received for a very long time; then a packet sent by order of the Archbishop of Dublin, containing a charming story, called "Reverses," for young people, his father's essay on Shakspeare (I take it for granted it is his father's), and an edition, revised and partly re-written, of the "Tales of the Genii." I am delighted at this sort of intercourse. Of all the Church of England I know none whom I so much admire as Archbishop Whately, and this present from him has enchanted me. What will become of me just now I can't tell. Mr. Blandy wants to get this cottage put into the best possible order and lowered in rent, and then that I should remain here. But this will be settled soon at all events I shall, I hope, and believe, continue in my own dear village. The other house would take me from much that is interesting in association and beautiful in home scenery: the bay-tree, for instance, and the honeysuckles, and rose-trees, and lilies of the valley of this garden, as well as the pretty garden-room. On the whole, taking into consideration the expense and trouble of moving, I might really lose by it; and though Ben sometimes says that I may live six or eight years, yet I feel very strongly the uncertainty of my life. I have suffered much this spring from headache and sickness: all existence partakes that form, whether painful or pleasurable. You seem, my beloved friend, to think of throwing your visit backward in the summer: that I should like. The time that I should prefer would be the season of geraniums and strawberries, when half the county used to assemble to parties of strawberries and cream in the greenhouse. Perhaps we may still be able to manage that: you would like the scene and some of the people here. Have I told you that Wordsworth wrote an interesting letter to Mr. Crabb Robinson on the death of Southey? He said that, in spite of the curtain that had dropped between him and the world, he had felt most acutely the death of the friend of his youth. This for Wordsworth, so cold in manner, is much. For men so united in pursuits and tastes, and only twenty or thirty miles apart, they saw little of each other; and that may perhaps be a reason for Wordsworth's feeling the total separation the more. Southey died of typhus fever, having had some weeks ago an apoplectic fit, so that he suffered many forms of death before the great change. It is the extinction of a great light, perhaps―prose and poetry considered, and the extent and variety of his learning-the greatest since Scott. You are right, dearest, about not meeting me at Bath. I shall only stay a week, and nothing can be so uncertain as the time when I may go. I have not heard any particulars of the subscription lately, but it certainly exceeds fifteen hundred pounds. I am most thankful for the amount, and still more so for the kindness. Heaven bless you! Ever most faithfully and affectionately yours, M. R. MITFORD. To MISS JEPHSON, Castle Martyr, Ireland. - 1843. The accompanying note, my beloved friend, has been waiting till I could send you a definitive sketch of my plans. Now, a complete change has taken place. Mr. Blandy has persuaded me to stay, and the agent (receiver) of the Court of Chancery to lower the rent and assist in repairing, painting, and papering this cottage, so that here is to be my homehere in my old abode. But as Mr. May declares that paint would be to me just as fatal as prussic acid, I am going to Bath to-morrow, from thence to Devonshire, North and South, not to return till all smell is gone. Mr. May says that the journey is necessary—that I should otherwise fall into hopeless ill health; but that, with the journey and care, I should do well. At present I am very poorly, and look upon moving with such dread that, but for being driven out by the paint, I don't think I could muster courage for to-morrow's journey. Ever yours most affectionately, M. R. M.. To MISS JEPHSON, Ireland. Bath, May, 1843. First, dearest Emily, let me thank you, and beg you to thank Mrs. and Miss Edgeworth repeatedly for their great kindness. I have been at Bath for a fortnight, but have never been able to see the pictures you were so good as to offer me the sight of never able to get to them—and but for Mr. Reade and Mr. Musgrove, should actually leave the neighborhood without seeing Mr. Beckford's house and tower. The greatest pleasure that I have enjoyed has been last Sunday and this, both of which have been spent at Prior Park. I do not know when I have been so thoroughly interested as by Bishop Baines and his secretary, Mr. Bonomi, the old priest and the young. The bishop is the very incarnation of taste, combined with an intelligence, a liberality, a gracious indulgence most rare among Protestant clergymen, who, frequently excellent, are seldom charming; while the younger one is full of sweetness and purity. My maid K- is much afraid of my turning Catholic, and I have been really amused to-night at her fears. But one may love the good of every faith, and put the Catholic bishop by the side of the Protestant archbishop with no injury to any person, least of all to one's self. On Thursday I went to Clifton, and prefer Bristol to Bath for its color and its variety of street architecture, which, I suppose, is a great heresy. But this place, besides that it has rained more or less every day since my arrival, is too cold to please me, and seems like a city of the dead-from the absence of horsemen and horsewomen, and the little open carriages |