Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/90

 on 'Horace and his Translators,' to formulate rules of quantity for the English language on Latin models. His last pamphlet was 'The Earldom of Mar: a Letter to the Lord Register of Scotland, the Earl of Glasgow,' a reply to the Earl of Crawford's criticisms on Glasgow's judgment. He died unmarried 2 May 1886, when the peerage became extinct. To the end of his days he wore the old-fashioned tail-coat and brass buttons of the previous generation.

 MITFORD, MARY RUSSELL (1787–1855), novelist and dramatist, born at Airesford, Hampshire, on 16 Dec. 1787, was the only child of George Mitford or Midford, descended from an ancient Northumberlandshire family, and of Mary Russell, an heiress, the only surviving child of Dr. Richard Russell, a richly beneficed clergyman, who held the livings of Overton and Ash, both in Hampshire, for more than sixty years. George Mitford, who was ten years his wife's junior, had been educated for the medical profession, and was a graduate of Edinburgh University. He was clever, selfish, unprincipled, and extravagant, with an unhappy love of speculation, and an equally unfortunate skill at whist. He squandered altogether in his life about 70,000l, and finally became entirely dependent on his daughter's literary earnings. William Harness, who knew the family well, and was Miss Mitford's lifelong friend, heartily disliked him, and called him 'a detestable old humbug,' but his many failings never succeeded in alienating the affections of his wife and daughter.

Mary was a very precocious child, and could read before she was three years old. In 1797 she drew a prize in a lottery worth 20,000l. The child herself insisted on choosing the number, 2224, because its digits made up the sum of her age. On the strength of it Dr. Mitford built a house at Reading. Between 1798 and 1802 the girl was at a good school at 22 Hans Place, London, kept by Mrs. St. Quintin, a French refugee, where [q. v.] had been an earlier pupil, and 'L. E. L.' was later educated. In 1802 Mary settled at home with her parents, and her literary taste began to develope [sic]. She read enormously. In 1806 she mastered fifty-five volumes in thirty-one days, and in 1810 appeared her first published work, 'Miscellaneous Poems.' The volume, dedicated to the Hon. William Herbert, is a collection of fugitive pieces, written at an earlier period. Some were in honour of her father's friends, others recorded her own tastes and pursuits, and illustrate her love of nature and the country. In the spring of the same year she made the acquaintance of Sir [q. v.], a dilettante painter, and in 1812 began a long correspondence with him. Through him she came to know Haydon, who subsequently painted her portrait. Meanwhile she continued publishing poetry. 'Christina, or the Maid of the South Seas,' appeared in 1811; 'Blanch of Castile,' which had been submitted in manuscript to Coleridge, in 1812; and 'Poems on the Female Character,' dedicated to the third Lord Holland, in 1813. Her poems were severely criticised in the 'Quarterly,' but the volume of 1810 passed into a second edition (1811), and all the volumes met with much success in America. At this period Miss Mitford paid frequent visits to London, and stayed at the house of James Perry, editor of the 'Morning Chronicle;' there she met, among others, Lord Erskine, Sir Samuel Romilly. Dr. Parr, Lord Brougham, and Moore.

By March 1820 Dr. Mitford's irregularities had reduced his family to the utmost poverty, and it was necessary for Mary to turn to literature for the means of livelihood. The household removed to Three Mile Cross, a village on the turnpike road between Reading and Basingstoke, and lived there in 'an insufficient and meanly furnished labourer's cottage' (, Autob.) The largest room was about 'eight feet square' (Our Village). Miss Mitford resided there for more than thirty years, allowing herself only one luxury—a flower garden. She wrote much for the magazines, but soon grew convinced that her talent lay in tragedy, a view in which Coleridge, on reading 'Blanch of Castile,' had encouraged her. Her earliest dramatic efforts were rejected, but Macready, to whom Talfourd gave her an introduction, accepted 'Julian,' and with the great actor in the title-role it was performed at Covent Garden, 15 March 1823. Acted eight times, it brought her 200l. Macready, in his 'Reminiscences' (i. 278), states that the performance made little impression, and was soon forgotten. Neither prologue nor epilogue was introduced into the performance, and that innovation, which soon became the rule, is ascribed to Miss Mitford's influence. A second piece by Miss Mitford, 'Foscari,' with Charles Kemble as the hero, was produced at Covent Garden, 4 Nov. 1826, and was played fifteen times. According to her own statement, it was completed and presented to Covent Garden Theatre before the publication in 1821 of Byron's drama on the same subject. The best of her plays was 'Rienzi,' a poetical tragedy of merit, which