Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/85

Mitford started in January 1834, when Mitford became editor. For seventeen years Mitford's contributions never failed for a single month, and he edited the magazine 'assiduously and successfully' until the close of 1850. During these years, the palmy years of that periodical, he varied this drudgery with the composition of numerous poems signed J. M. His communications after 1850 were few. One of the last of his articles was a letter respecting Samuel Rogers, in the volume for 1856, pt. i. pp. 147-8.

After a long life spent in his favourite pursuits Mitford was afflicted by a slight attack of paralysis, fell down in a London street, and never recovered from the shock. For some time he was imprisoned in his rooms in Sloane Street, but at last he was removed to his living, and died at Benhall vicarage on 27 April 1859, being buried at Stratford St. Andrew. He married at St. George's, Hanover Square, London, on 21 Oct. 1814, Augusta, second daughter of Edward Boodle, of Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, London, who died at her son's house, Weston Lodge, Hampstead, on 25 Dec. 1886, aged 92, and was buried at Hampstead cemetery on 29 Dec. The marriage was not attended with happiness. Their only child, Robert Henry Mitford, was born on 24 July 1815, and married at Wellow, Somerset, on 12 Aug. 1847, Anne, youngest daughter of Lieutenant-colonel William Henry Wilby, their eldest son being Robert Sidney Mitford of the home office.

Mitford is praised by Mrs. Houstoun for his 'brilliant conversation, totally unmarred by any desire to shine.' He was an indefatigable student of the Greek and Roman classics, and was well acquainted with the principal French, German, and Italian authors. In English literature he was deeply read, and he was an ardent lover of painting, especially of the works of the Italian school. Country life had many charms for him, and his knowledge of the ways of birds and the shapes of trees is evidenced in many of his writings.

As early in his life as 1811 Mitford contemplated an edition of Gray's ' Works ' (cf., Letters, ed. Warter, ii. 244). In 1814 he edited the first accurate edition of ' The Poems of Thomas Gray, with Critical Notes, a Life of the Author, and an Essay on his Poetry,' and in 1816 he embodied this matter in two quarto volumes of 'The Works of Thomas Gray,' which contained very large additions to the published letters of the poet, and for which the publisher paid him the sum of 500l. Much of his work reappeared in the Aldine edition of Gray's ' Works,' in 5 vols. (2 vols. in 1835, 2 vols. in 1836, 1 vol. in 1843). The last volume, however, consisted mainly of the poet's correspondence with the Rev. Norton Nicholls, and this was also issued in a separate volume, with a distinct title-page. The first volume of this edition, comprising the poems, was reprinted in 1853, and reissued at Boston in 1857, and in the reprint of the Aldine Poets in 1866. The Eton edition in 1847 of the poems contained 'An Original Life of Gray' by Mitford, which was inserted in the subsequent impressions of 1852 and 1863. In 1853 he edited the 'Correspondence of Gray and Mason, with some Letters addressed by Gray to the Rev. James Brown, D.D.,' and some pages of 'Additional Notes thereto' were printed in 1855. Many of Mitford's comments are reproduced in Mr. Gosse's edition of Gray, while from his manuscripts at the British Museum, which were intended 'to supplement his long labours' on his favourite writer, is drawn much of the information in Tovey's 'Gray and his Friends.'

When Pickering set on foot the Aldine edition of the British poets he enlisted the services of Mitford. For it he edited, with memoirs, in addition to the poems of Gray, those of Cowper, 1830, 3 vols. (memoir written by John Bruce in 1865 edit.); Goldsmith, 1831; Milton, 1832, 3 vols., with sonnet to Charles Sumner, bishop of Winchester; Dryden, 1832-3, 5 vols. (life rewritten by the Rev. Richard Hooper in the 1865 and 1866 editions); Parnell, 1833 and 1866 (with epistle in verse to Alexander Dyce) ; Swift, 1833-4, 3 vols., and 1866; Young, 1834, 2 vols. (with sonnet), 1858 and 1866; Prior, 1835, 2 vols., 1866; Butler, 1835, 2 vols. (with verses to W. L. Bowles), 1866 ; Falconer, 1836, 1866 (with sonnet); Spenser, 1839, 5 vols. (with four sonnets, re-edited by J. P. Collier in 1866). The text and lives by Mitford in the original Aldine edition were reprinted at Boston, United States, in 1854-6, and his notes to 'Milton's Poems' were reprinted, after considerable correction, in an edition of the 'Poetical Works of Milton and Marvell,' Boston, in 1878. In 1851 he edited 'The Works of Milton in Verse and Prose,' 8 vols., and wrote for it a memoir, expanded from that in the 1832 edition of the 'Poems.'

Among Mitford's other works were: 1. 'Agnes, the Indian Captive,' a poem, in four cantos. With other poems, 1811. 2. 'A Letter to Richard Heber on Mr. Weber's late edition of Ford's Dramatic Works,' 1812, a severe criticism. The letter to J. P. Kemble (1811) on the same subject, which is said by Halkett and Laing (ii. 1382) to have been