Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/407

 was sent to Eton. His school career, which lasted till 1854, threw him into the company of his cousin, Algernon Swinburne, his junior in school standing by three years, and the two became fast friends. Mitford proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, in October 1855. As an undergraduate he read voluminously, but hated Greek philosophy, and left in 1858 with ‘a dismal second-class’ in moderations. He was immediately appointed to the Foreign Office, worked creditably, and secured by his breeding and good looks an entry into the most exclusive London society; he was early among the associates of the Prince of Wales. He was running the risk of becoming a brilliant but rather showy ‘young man about town’, when in 1863 he was sent to St. Petersburg as second secretary of embassy.

Mitford's great energy was now turned into a political channel, and he made a close study of the conditions of life in Russia. Late in 1864 the lure of the East drew him to Constantinople, by way of Wallachia, and thence to Ephesus. His linguistic gifts were developing, and in 1865 he volunteered for China, where he was welcomed in Peking by Mr. (afterwards Sir Thomas) Wade. Of his adventures in China Mitford has given a full account in The Attaché at Peking (1900). He was transferred to Japan in 1866, not expecting that this country, then so obscure and fabulous, was to be his home for nearly four years. When the British minister, Sir Harry Smith Parkes [q.v.], decided that it was undignified for the legation to be excluded from the capital, and forced his way to Yedo (Tokio), Mitford accompanied him, thus becoming a witness of the great struggle between the daimios and the shogun (tycoon). In May 1867 Parkes and Mitford were received at Osaka by the Shogun in circumstances of extraordinary solemnity and romance. When the civil war broke out, the British legation was in great danger. Mitford was left for five months alone at Kioto, in order to preserve the prestige of England at the Japanese court, and his life was constantly threatened by the fanatics. He occupied his leisure in thoroughly mastering the Japanese language, and he conducted difficult negotiations with the Mikado to the complete satisfaction of the Foreign Office. At Kioto Mitford began to collect and to translate the ‘Tales of Old Japan’. He returned unharmed to Yedo, but the anxieties and fatigues of a strenuous and isolated existence had told upon his health, and in 1870, on being invalided home, he returned to the Foreign Office, and to London society. In 1871 he published what is still the most popular of his writings, his Tales of Old Japan.

Mitford was now a young man of some celebrity, and he dreamed of a more interesting existence than that of secretary of legation at a humdrum European capital. Offered the embassy at St. Petersburg by Lord Granville, he refused this post and at his own desire was placed en disponibilité in 1871. He did not definitely resign the diplomatic service until 1873. Before that, he had started for the East again; he was soon in Damascus with his old friend (Sir) Richard Burton, at that time British consul there. Early in 1873 he chartered a tiny Genoese vessel in order to pay an improvised visit to Garibaldi in Caprera. He was received with much cordiality, and he has preserved a precious record of the great Italian's habits on his ‘storm-beaten island rock’. Mitford presently returned to London, only to start immediately on a long visit to the United States' where he gratified his curiosity by waiting upon Brigham Young in Salt Lake City.

On his return to London Mitford found the whole current of his life changed through his appointment by Disraeli in May 1874 to be secretary to the Board of Works. In December of the same year he married Lady Clementine Ogilvy, second daughter of the seventh Earl of Airlie. They settled in Chelsea, having as a near neighbour James Whistler, who was perpetually in and out of their house. Mitford was present on the famous occasion when the painter cut some of his own pictures to ribands in a frenzy of rage. He was also at this time in close relations with Carlyle, Leighton, Joachim, and Millais. During his twelve years at the Office of Works he was met by great difficulties. Disraeli, when Mitford was appointed, described the Office of Works as ‘an Augean stable, which must be swept clean’. Mitford carried out this labour satisfactorily, although it must be admitted that the ornamental and the antiquarian parts of the duty were most to his taste. Of the restorations which he directed at the Tower of London, he has given a fine account in A Tragedy in Stone (1882).

In May 1886 his cousin, John Thomas Freeman-Mitford, Earl of Redesdale [q.v.], died unmarried, and was found to have devised his very considerable fortune to Algernon Bertram. Both the earldom and the earlier barony became extinct, but the heir assumed the name and arms of 381