Letter to <persName ref="#Elford_SirWm">Sir William Elford</persName>, <date when="1818-01-12"> 1818 January 12 </date>

attached -- P.S dated 29 Dec. 1817 belonging to previous letter To Sir William Elford Bertram House Jany 12th 1818.

I have first been writing two prim letters to two prim ladies for whom I do not care three fins nor they for me -- people with whom I have not an idea in common, nor an acquaintance, but who had heard as they were pleased to say that I wrote "an exceeding good letter"-- I thank them! & availing themselves of having happened to meet me last week & having known Mama twenty years ago in Hampshire wrote to enquire after her & to request, forsooth! the pleasure of my correspondence. A great pleasure truly! If ever letters were cold-givers such are mice -- Rain & snow & fogs & damp air all in one. -- For see, my dear Sir William-- that after such a job it was absolutely necessary that I should write to you -- that I should supple my fingers & thaw my ideas at your warm fire -- & yawn & stretch & pity & bemoan myself to my hearts content. You always let me come to you for comfort in all my troubles & this is one of the worst. Nobody can be so awkward as I am at those sort of letters -- I would give the world for that comfortable amplifying style which goes on so quietly "hoping" & "trusting" & "fearing" & "wishing" & proses about "sweet infants" & "dear Invalids" & "happy convalescence" -- turning & twisting about like a hare before the dogs -- with as many words as a City Orator & as few ideas as the board he bethumps. I would give the world for this sort of prosing & mine happens to be different -- I write as bad perhaps but in another way --

However I will answer for it I have got quit of these correspondences I have happily ridded myself of my reputation as that & please the fates I will so demean myself as never to run the risk of having it said that I write "an exceeding good letter" again. Pray ~~what~~ how are you doing my dear friend? And what are you doing? Quarter-sessioning it at Exeter? I intend our worthy Chairman the honourhonor of franking this epsitle of mine when it shall be finished -- What else are M.Ps good for? I may say this now, since you have cast the M.P. off & are so determined not to take it up again. -- Have you been reading much lately? -- I have been reading Miss Edgeworth's Ormond--sad falling off! Even that IrishMitford uses the word Irish here to refer to dialect. which used to be so fresh & delightful is getting old & usé -- & then she so copies herself -- to be fair there is no law against stealing one's own goods -- it can hardly be called Felony -- but it is something very like it -- & if Eunice & Vivian & the Absentee were to prosecute Ormond, I do think Ormond would be hanged -- Also then I have been reading Mr. Ellis's account of the Embassy & to China, & Mr. Macleod's-- One does not get much knowledge there either. Very little new since Sir George Staunton's & Lord Macartney's & Mr. Barrow's time -- & a good deal less than in Dr. Holden & the Jesuits! Oh live forever those delightful romancers who gave us all the delight of fiction which they believed to be truth -- No Travellers except Bruce ever approached the charms of the old missionaries. But after all beyond a certain point I do not expect we shall ever get with respect to China -- they are so hedged in with the hoop-petticoat of ceremony

that nothing is visible beyond the tiny end of the little slipper. The most satisfactory thing in both these books is the impression which was made even on these Ambassador people by Napoleon -- the greater than Ever! Even they could not resist his delightful manners -- You like him better than you did do you not? I am sure you do. Apropos to Bruce-- Have you ever finished that delightful book of his -- and are you not in love with the Ozoro Esther & the beautiful Tecla Mariam? I am sure Bruce himself was enamoured with the last mentioned lady -- he has Orlando's marks upon his whenever he mentions her. And don't you think the Ras Michael a most charming old Tyrant? -- He has all that commanding Villainy about him which carries one along so gloriously -- that intellectual power which there is no hating -- just like Milton's Satan & Shakespeare's Richard & my own beloved the Emperor. I wonder what he would think of being put in such company? But I never can read Richard without thinking of him, & a friend of mine at Paris who admires him as much as I do says she delights in "Talma's "Possibly a role that Francois Talma performed in a Paris theatre after Mitford's friend and former teacher, Frances Rowden, had moved to Paris in 1818. because it is so like Napoleon's quite a facsimile. But these are his adorer's fancies -- we should not allow you the profane to say or to think any such thing. Pray have you ever tried the name diversion -- It would not do to propogate nick names We have been obliged to give it up for fear of indiscretion -- ~~It would not do to propagate nick names & Canard-en-champ~~

~~Monday Morning~~. ~~P.S.~~ note The amusement here spoken of, is discussed in a former letter, of which my letter remains. I must tell you ~~I add a first envelope to my letter to tell you~~ who are so fond of riddles a new amusement which Penelope Valpy ~~who is a great enemy of mine~~, Miss James & I fell into quite by accident the other evening. It would only do amongst such discreet females for fear of propagating nicknames; but I can't resist telling you. -- It is then nothing more or less than translating the real sir-namessurnames of different people, sometimes quite literally sometimes with a little improvement into different languages. Did you ever try it? I will give you a sample: Mr. Duckinfield -- Monsieur Canard-en-champ -- somebody suggested that it was Mr. Dukinfield & that the right translation was Dux-in-campo -- but I stuck to Canard. -- Mr. Vane -- Mr Girouette -- Mrs. Wise Madame le Sage--Dr. Taylor il Dottore Sartore -- Mr. Bully Mr.Taureau-mensonge-- --Mr. Madison - Signor Pazzia-sono-figlio & a great many others which I can't recollect. Compound names do best. -- Of our list the first & the last were famous --for Mr. Duckinfield a clerical coxcomb of some family & much pride & gloriously awkward the midst of his coxcombry always puts me in mind of a Duck in thunder -- & poor Mr. Madison who in his own proper person is quite nobody happens to be the son of a furious virago who in one of her passions -- at Whist especially, might well pass for madness itselfHere Mitford is playing with translations of phonemes in people's names, and among her playful inventions, she applies the French translation of duck from "Duckinfield" as canard, and turns the name "Madison" into the Italian phrase meaning, "I am the son of madness." -- Don'tAt this point a red pencil or crayon crosses through Mitford's word "Don't", perhaps to signal that she neglected to delete this word, since the following leaf begins a new paragraph. This is likely the same hand that appears to cancel many pages of Mitford's letters at the Reading Central Library in red.

So my companions, in mischief--> I have taken to the very discreet & ~~my companions in mischief this~~ Solitary diversion of choosing characters out of Shakespeare for all my acquaintence -- Miss James is a charming mixture of Viola Beatrice & Isabella -- Made up of every creature's best " -- Eliza Webb is Miranda to the life -- & Penelope Valpy with her brusquerie -- her sound dark prettiness -- her blundering artlessness & that inconceivable naivete with which she really thinks aloud is & can be nothing but Nerissa the lawyers clerk. What would you call her? -- Guess what I call you -- Then we abound in the laughable -- we have two or three Dogberrys & more than one Justice I hallow to say nothing of Polonius's Bardolph's & Nym's by the dozen. I wish we could find a Falstaff -- but there is nothing like him left in the world. What a pretty taste I have for all that is naughty! ~~Don't you think me a tad mad-cap?~~ But it's only when I have a pen in my hand -- you have no notion what a pretty-spoken well-behaved demure damsel I pass for in these parts. Do you see what honours honors Mr. Haydon has gained? I hope he will get a little solid pudding as well as empty praise & that these Russian Compliments will terminate in Alexander's giving him a proper price for his beautiful picture & yet England ought not to lose it-- But unless he can find two other such friends as you & Mr. Trigcombe (oh my dear Friend how inexpressibly I admire that liberality of yours!) unless he can find such another what can he do? There is no great chance that Government will be munificent on the occasion -- & it is really too large for any private house ~~Restart your good custom of writing to me speedily~~ & do not forget the riddles. -- Pray do you come to Town this year? And when? Have the nightingales any chance of your coming to listen to them? Do not say no! or you will break their hearts to say nothing of another heart that is not a nightingale's --Once more -- Adieu!

I understand that the same beautiful boy who sat for

Solomon is the model from whence he has taken the head of Christ. Is not this odd? I believe this principle of self-will & hating to paint furniture pictures is one of the component parts of an artist. My friend Mrs. (not Miss) Hofland's husband has just the same fancy. He will cover yards of canvas whether people buy them or not. -- After all I cannot help admiring with all my heart & soul the manly noble independent spirit of Mr. Haydon. Don't you? He is quite one of the old heroes come to life again -- one of Shakespeare's men. Full of spirit & endurance & moral courage. Did you read his account of the cartoons in The Examiner?Mitford may be referring to a series of essays in The Examiner through the summer and fall of 1817 about the Raphael cartoons, paintings by Raphael created as full-scale designs for tapestries on biblical subjects for the Sistine Chapel, and part of the British Royal Collection since the seventeenth century. They were housed at Hampton Court, but in 1817 they were put on display at the British Institute Gallery where Haydon set his students to work on studying and copying them. In articles to The Examiner of June 1 and July 13, 1817, Haydon praises the Royal Academy's decision to display the cartoons as a great service to the art of England, but in articles of August 24 and November 16, 1817, Haydon writes in protest of the Academy's decision to remove the cartoons from the gallery, prematurely stopping his students from working with them. Pray have you the great fine edition of Lavater? And do you remember somewhere in the second or third volume the fine plate of Raphael's work? Don't you think it like the Emperor with that fine thinking brow & that sweet mouth? The Reading Ladies all say its the image of Girouette -- but thats a fib -- It's much too handsome -- too handsome for any bodyanybody but Napoleon. I do love to praise him to you because it gets you scolding or laughing at your little Friend & that is what she likes. -- Nota bene -- You fear you should "think something" (and Lucy says upon such occasions) I have never spoken to Mr. Girouette in my life nor he to me -- never seen him any where but at Church -- but a friend of mine has. -- Adieu my dear Friend! Best from Papa & Mama --Ever very sincerely & affectionately yours Mary Russell Mitford Write soon, soon, very soon indeed!

P.S. Upon looking again at Ormond I retract some part of my censure in favourfavor of King Corny (why did she kill him?) Mrs. McRule -- & Miss O'Faley -- particularly the last.The hand in red pencil or crayon here strikes through all of "Mrs. McRule -- & Miss O'Faley -- particularly the last" through the end of the sentence. The good people are as usual desperately dull -- mere puppets -- I don't at all wonder at her admiring Sir Charles Grandison Lady Annaly & Miss Annaly & all the & indeed all her heroines are Sir Charles Grandisons in caps & petticoats

Reading January Fifteen 1818 Sir William Elford Bart. Bickham Plymouth

She admires Tom Jones too & so do you, much more that I do -- You all talk of Fielding's art & his plot & its being a complete comic epic & so forth -- but is not the art most in artificially visible -- did he not want the crown of all art, that of conceling it? -- In short is not Peregrine Pickle a much more accomplished & likeable person? Does not Smollett make us laugh much more heartily & naturally? --And is not -- I give up his heroine -- but is not the pretty womanly delicate sketch of the cousin Sophy much preferable to Sophia Western? -- Adieu

Reading December Twenty Nine 1817 Sir William Elford Bart. Bickham Plymouth

Reading January Fifteen 1818 Sir William Elford Bart. Bickham in Salisbury Plymouth