Jul 1820: Mary Russell Mitford's Notebook of 1819 to 1823

Jul 1820

Saturday 1st

At Richmond--went to see Pope's Place--nothing left of his but the grotto--& walked round Strawberry Hill--went by water--in the evening walked in the meadows to hear music on the water--delightful day--wrote to dear Granny & heard from Mr. Haydon.

Sunday 2nd

At Richmond--Mr. Haydon came & spent the day with us--read Mrs. Hofland's Tales & Chalmers's new sermons--happy day.

Monday 3rd

At Richmond--went by water to see Hampton Court--delightful place--enchanting Cartoons--beautiful portrait of Titian by himself--returned at 6 to dinner, & heard from my own dear home--charming day.

Tuesday 4th

At Richmond--went by water to Kew--called on Mrs. Nooth & went over the palace--most lovely little place with fine books & pictures--left my dear friends there, & went home to Wokingham on the top of the Coach--dear Granny & Drum met me there & brought me letters from Sir William Elford, Eliza Webb, Mrs. Jolliffe & Miss James--coming home at night after a most delightful week.

Wednesday 5th

At home--wrote to Miss James--walked with Granny & the Pets.

Thursday 6th

At home--walked with dear Drum, Granny & the Pets--wrote to Sir W. Elford.

Friday 7th

At home--went to Reading in the Cart with Drum & Granny--called on the Brookes, Newberys, Mrs. Palairet &c.--very pleasant day--came back to dinner--took a walk with Drum, & read Mrs. Hofland's Tales of the Priory, which are too dismal but very good.

Saturday 8th

At home--walked with dear Granny--read Mrs. Hofland's Tales of the Priory--dressed my flowers--my garden very pretty--wrote to Eliza Webb.

Sunday 9th

At home--went with Drum to Mrs. Dickinson's, met the Parfetts there--came home to dinner--walked with Drum & Granny--wrote to Mrs. Dickinson & Mrs. Jolliffe.

Monday 10th

At home--watered my flowers, which are very beautiful this year in my little garden--walked with dear Granny & the Pets (poor Molly was shut up for wanting a Husband)--wrote to Mrs. Raggett.

Tuesday 11th

At home--did some needlework in my bower--heard from Mrs. Dickinson--rode with Drum to Arborfield to see Maria--the Lime trees & the banks of the water delightful.

Wednesday 12th

At home--worked in the arbour--dressed my flowers--walked with dear Drum, Granny & the pets.

Thursday 13th

Went to Reading with dear Drum--called at Mr. Harris's &c.--came home to dinner--walked in the evening with the dear pets.

Friday 14th

At home--Captain & Miss Tuppen & Mr. & Mrs. Dickinson called--watered my flowers, which are very beautiful--walked with Granny.

Saturday 15th

At home--sate in my dear arbour & worked (my garden is so beautiful with flowers)--dressed my flowers--walked with Granny & the Pets in Woodcock Lane & saw a most brilliant glow-worm high in the bank opposite to Mr. Body's--the first I have seen this year.

Sunday 16th

At home--wrote to Miss James--sate in my Arbour--read the London Magazine--famous--walked with Drum, Granny & the pets--saw the glow-worm.

Monday 17th

At home--worked at my stomacher--walked with Drum & the pets.

Tuesday 18th

At home--worked all day.

Wednesday 19th

At home--worked--heard from Miss James--read Hazlitt's Lectures on the age of Elizabeth--Mr. Body called & brought us some fruit--walked with Granny & the Pets.

Thursday 20th

At home--Miss Webb & Miss Wheeler came to spend the morning--Molly & nasty little Trim ran away & was married to Aleen's great ugly dog--read Hazlitt's Age of Elizabeth--famous.

Friday 21st

At home--did a great deal of work--heard from Mrs. Dickinson with a proof, & from Mrs. A. Valpy--read the New Monthly Magazine--two excellent articles by Mr. Talfourd--walked with Drum & Granny.

Saturday 22nd

At home--wrote to Mr. & Mrs. Dickinson & Miss Emily James--did a great deal of work--Mr. Dickinson called--walked with Granny & the Pets--Mosy very amiable.

Sunday 23rd

At home--wrote to Miss Webb, Miss Eliza Webb & Miss James--heard from Miss Webb & Eliza--dressed my flowers--walked with dear Drum & the pets.

Monday 24th

At home--did a great deal of work--walked with Granny & the Pets.

Tuesday 25th

At home--finished the work for my gown--poor Luce made up my white bonnet again--walked with Drum & the pets--found four glow-worms, three of them in my old lane, Kibes Lane--heard from Mr. Dickinson with a proof & wrote him an answer.

Wednesday 26th

At home--dined at Mr. Newbery's & met the Westbrooks & Mrs. & Miss Comyn

Comyn is given in the typescript, but the manuscript could read Comyse or something else?

--came home at night.

Thursday 27th

At home--read the 2nd Volume of the Sketch Book--good--heard from Mr. Haydon--walked with Drum & the Pets.

Friday 28th

At home--worked at my new gown--drank tea at Mr. Richard Body's--a pleasant evening--saw two glow-worms as we came home--read the Sketch Book.

Saturday 29th

At home--heard from Miss Brooke--wrote to Miss Nooth--dressed my flowers--worked--walked with Drum--Mr. May came with the indemnity to Mr. Newbery for Mama & me to sign in consequence of the infamous conduct of Dr. Harness.

Sunday 30th

At home--Mr. Dickinson drank tea here--walked with Drum.

Monday 31st

At home--worked all day--the new maid came--shan't like anybody after poor Lucy--walked with Drum & Granny.

Gloss of Names Mentioned

Nature

flower

Flowering plants, whether domesticated or wild.

lime tree

genus: Tilia
family: Tiliaceæ

Group of large, deciduous trees called the lime tree in the UK, this family of trees and shrubs is also known as a linden in continental Europe and basswood in the US. Not closely related to the citrus fruit tree. Produces a soft, fine-grained, light wood popular for carving and for the building of models, puppets, and some musical instruments. Mentioned in the Coleridge poem, This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison.

glow-worm

species: Lampyris noctiluca
genus: Lampyris
family: Lampyridae

A nocturnal beetle found throughout Europe and Asia, a member of the bioluminescent family of insects commonly called lightning bugs or fireflies. The female forms are wingless, and thus became known as worms. Found in old-growth meadows, verges, hedgerows, and heaths, peaking in June and July. A favorite subject for poets from at least the early-modern period; in Mitford's time, a common subject, particularly for sonnets, by authors who include Charlotte Smith, Anna Maria Porter, William Wordsworth, and John Clare.

Places

Publications

The London Magazine

Author: No author listed.
Date: 1820 to 1829 1732 to 1785 1820 1829 27 February 1821 April 1821

An 18th-century periodical of this title (The London Magazine, or Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer) ran from 1732 to 1785 . In 1820, John Scott launched a new series of The London Magazine emulating the style of Blackwood’s Magazine, though the two magazines soon came into heated contention. This series ran until 1829, and this is the series to which Mitford and her correspondents frequently refer in their letters. Scott’s editorship lasted until his death by duel on 27 February 1821 resulting form bitter personal conflict with the editors of Blackwood’s Magazine connected with their insulting characterization of a London Cockney School. After Scott’s death, William Hazlitt took up editing the magazine with the April 1821 issue.

New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal

Author: No author listed.
Date: 1821 to 1830

Periodical edited by Thomas Campbell and Cyrus Redding from 1821 to 1830, after it was restyled with a more literary and less political focus than it had had at its founding in 1814 as a Tory competitor to the Whig Monthly Magazine. Talfourd and Mitford were contributors.

Persons, Personas, and Characters

Mitford Russell Mary

Mrs. Mitford
Ashe, Hampshire, England
Three Mile Cross, parish of Shinfield, Berkshire, England

Mary Russell was the youngest child of the Rev. Dr. Richard Russell and his second wife, Mary Dicker; she was born about 1750 in Ashe, Hampshire. (Her birth date is as yet unverified; period sources indicate that she was ten years older than her husband George, born in 1760.) Through the Russells, she was a distant relation of the Dukes of Bedford (sixth creation, 1694). She had two siblings, Charles William and Frances; both predeceased her and their parents, which resulted in Mary Russell inheriting her family’s entire estate upon her mother’s death in 1785. Her father’s rectory in Ashe was only a short distance from Steventon, and so she was acquainted with the young Jane Austen. She married George Mitford or Midford on October 17, 1785 at New Alresford, Hampshire. On the marriage allegation papers, both gave their addresses as Old Alresford. Their only daughter, Mary Russell Mitford, was born two years later on December 16, 1787 at New Alresford, Hampshire. Mary Russell died on January 2, 1830 at Three Mile Cross in the parish of Shinfield, Berkshire. Her obituary in the 1830 New Monthly Magazine gives New Year’s day as the date of her death.

Haydon Benjamin Robert

Plymouth, England
London

Benjamin Robert Haydon was a painter educated at the Royal Academy, who was famous for contemporary, historical, classical, biblical, and mythological scenes, though tormented by financial difficulties and incarceration. He painted William Wordsworth's portrait in 1842 and painted a cameo of Keats in his epic canvas Christ's Entry into Jerusalem(1814-20). MRM was introduced to him at his London studio in the spring of 1817, and Sir William Elford was a mutual friend, and Haydon’s own acquaintances included several prominent British Romantic literary figures. He completed The Raising of Lazarus in 1823 . He wrote a diary and an autobiography, both of which were published only posthumously, and he committed suicide in 1846. George Paston's Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century (1893) contends that Mitford was asked to edit Haydon's memoir, but declined.

Barbara Wreaks Hofland

Hofland Wreaks Barbara
Yorkshire, England
Richmond-on-Thames

Novelist and writer of children’s books popular in England and America, Barbara Hofland was a native of Sheffield, Yorkshire, where she published poems from July 1794 in the local newspaper, The Sheffield Iris. Her first marriage to Thomas Bradshawe Hoole left her widowed and in poverty, raising a son, Frederic, on her own, and she supported herself by publishing poems and children’s books, and by running a girl’s school in Harrogate. second marriage was to the artist Thomas Christopher Hofland. (Source: ODNB)

Titian

Tiziano Vecelli
Pieve di Cadore, Italy
Venice, Italy

16th-century Italian painter, based in Venice, with an international clientele. Painted frescoes, portraits, and public religious paintings. Worked in styles ranging from mannerism to magic impressionism.

Charlotte Nooth

Nooth Charlotte
Ireland

A friend of Dr. Richard Valpy, who resided at Kew, Surrey, but often visited Paris. She wrote a poem to Dr. Valpy and published volumes of poetry in 1815 & 1816, including a verse tragedy, as well as a novel, Eglantine, published by A.J. Valpy

George Mitford

George Mitford Esq.
George Midford
Hexham, Northumberland, England
Three Mile Cross, Shinfield, Berkshire, England

Father of Mary Rusell Mitford, George Mitford was the son of Francis Midford, surgeon, and Jane Graham. The family name is sometimes recorded as Midford. Immediate family called him by nicknames including Drum, Tod, and Dodo. He was a member of a minor branch of the Mitfords of Mitford Castle in Northumberland. Although later sources would suggest that he was a graduate of the University of Edinburgh medical school, there is no evidence that he obtained a medical degree and he did not generally refer to himself as Dr. Mitford, preferring to style himself Esq.. In 1784, he is listed in a Hampshire directory as surgeon (medicine) of Alresford. His father and grandfather worked as apothecary-surgeons and it seems likely that he served a medical apprenticeship with family members.

He married Mary Russell on October 17, 1785 at New Alresford, Hampshire. On the marriage allegation papers, both gave their addresses as Old Alresford; they later came to live at Broad Street in New Alresford. Their only child to live to adulthood, Mary Russell Mitford, was born two years later on December 16, 1787 at New Alresford, Hampshire. He assisted Mitford's literary career by representing her interests in London and elsewhere with theater owners and publishers. He was active in Whig politics and later served as a local magistrate. He coursed greyhounds with his friend James Webb.

Sir William Elford

Elford William Sir baronet Recorder for Plymouth Recorder for Totnes Member of Parliament
Kingsbridge, Devon, England
Totnes, Devon, England

According to L’Estrange, Sir William was first a friend of Mitford’s father, and Mitford met him for the first time in the spring of 1810 when he was a widower nearing the age of 64. They carried on a lively correspondence until his death in 1837.

Elford worked as a banker at Plymouth Bank (Elford, Tingcombe and Purchase) in Plymouth, Devon, from its founding in 1782. He was elected a member of Parliament for Plymouth as a supporter of the government and Tory William Pitt, and served from 1796 to 1806. After his election defeat in Plymouth in 1806, he was elected member of Parliament for Rye and served from July 1807 until his resignation in July 1808. For his service in Parliament as a supporter of Pitt, he was made a baronet in 1800. After his son Jonathan came of age, he tried to secure a stable government post for him but never succeeded. Mayor of Plymouth in 1796 and Recorder for Plymouth from 1797 to 1833, he was also Recorder for Totnes from 1832 to 1834. Sir William served as an officer in the South Devon militia from 1788, eventually attaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel; the unit saw active service in Ireland during the Peninsular Wars. Sir William was a talented amateur painter in oils and watercolors who exhibited at the Royal Society from 1774 to 1837; he exhibited still lifes and portraits but preferred landscapes. He was elected to the Royal Society Academy in 1790. He was also a talented amateur naturalist and was elected to the Royal Linnaean Society in 1790; late in life, he published his findings on an alternative to yeast.

He married his first wife, Mary Davies of Plympton, on January 20, 1776 and they had one son, Jonathan, and two daughters, Grace Chard and Elizabeth. After the death of his first wife, he married Elizabeth Hall Walrond, widow of Lieutenant-Colonel Maine Swete Walrond of the Coldstream Guards. His only son Jonathan died in 1823, leaving him without an heir.

Eliza Webb

Webb Elizabeth Eliza
Wokingham, Berkshire, England
Sandgate, Kent, England

Elizabeth Webb, called Eliza, was a neighbor and friend of Mary Russell Mitford. Eliza Webb was the youngest daughter of James Webb and Jane Elizabeth Ogbourn. She was baptized privately on March 3, 1797, and publicly on June 8, 1797 in Wokingham, Berkshire. She is the sister of Mary Elizabeth and Jane Eleanor Webb. In 1837 she married Henry Walters, Esq., in Wokingham, Berkshire. In Needham’s papers, he notes from the Berkshire Directorythat she lived on Broad street, presumably in Wokingham. Source: See Needham’s letter to Roberts on November 27, 1953 .

Mrs. Jolliffe

Jolliffe Mrs.

Likely the spouse of Mr. JolliffeForename unknown. Dates unknown.

Elizabeth James

Elizabeth Mary James
Miss James
Bath, Somerset, England
3 Pembroke Villas, Richmond, Surrey, England

Close friend and correspondent of Mary Russell Mitford. She was the eldest daughter of Thomas Webb and Susanna Haycock. Her father died in 1818 and her mother in 1835. After her parents’ deaths, she lived with her two younger sisters, Emily and Susan, in Green Park Buildings, Bath, Walcot, Somerset; High Street, Mortlake, Surrey; and 3 Pembroke Villas, Richmond, Surrey. According to Coles, referring to Mitford’s diary, letters were also addressed to her at Bellevue, Lower Road, Richmond (Coles 26). She was buried at St. Mary Magdalene, Richmond, Surrey. In the 1841 census, she is listed as living on independent means; in the 1851 census, as landholder; in the 1861 census, she as railway shareholder.

Mrs. Dickinson

Catherine Allingham Dickinson
Middlesex, England
St. Marylebone, Middlesex, England

Catherine Allingham was the daughter of Thomas Allingham. She married Charles Dickinson on August 2, 1807 at St. Giles, South Mimms, Middlesex. They lived in Swallowfield, where their daughter Frances was born, and where they were visited by the Mitford family. According to Mitford, Catherine Dickinson was fond of match-making among her friends and acquaintances. (See Mitford's February 8th, 1821 letter to Elford . Her husband Charles died in 1827, when her daughter was seven. Source: L'Estrange).

Molly

Mitford's dog, whom she describes in a letter of 1820-11-27 as a pretty little Spaniel with long curling hair--so white & delicate & ladylike.

Mrs. Raggett

Raggett Mrs.

Spouse of Mrs. Raggett. In Mitford's Journal in 1819, she indicates that Mrs. Raggett is her cousin, who offers her the position of companion, but she refuses to leave her father George. Forename unknown. Dates unknown.

Mr. Harris

Harris Mr.

Dates unknown. Local doctor, not the same person as Henry Harris, the Covent Garden Theatre manager. Forename unknown.

William Tuppen

William Tuppen Captain
Captain Tuppen

In Mitford's time, a captain retired from the Royal West regiment of the London militia. Later became a magistrate and served as mayor of Reading.

Charles Dickinson

Dickinson Charles
Mr. Dickinson
Pickwick Lodge, Corsham, Wiltshire, England
Farley Hill, near Swallowfield, Berkshire, England

Friend of the Mitford family. He was the son of Vikris Dickinson and Elizabeth Marchant. The Dickinson family were Quakers who lived in the vicinity of Bristol, Gloucestershire. On August 3, 1807, he married Catherine Allingham at St Giles, South Mimms, Middlesex. They lived at Farley Hill, near Swallowfield, Berkshire, where their daughter Frances was born, and where the Mitfords visited them. Charles Dickinson owned a private press he employed to print literary works by his friends (See letters to Elford from March 13, 1819 and June 21, 1820). He wrote and published an epic poem in sixty-six cantos, The Travels of Cyllenius, in 1795. Upon his uncle's death, Charles Dickinson inherited the considerable wealth his extended family had amassed in the West Indies.

William Hazlitt

Hazlitt William
Maidstone, Kent, England
Soho, London, England

Essayist and critic, acquaintance of Mary Russell Mitford. Author of Table Talk (1821) and The Spirit of the Age (1825). Also authored collections of critical essays such as Characters of Shakespeare (1817), A View of the English Stage (1818), and English Comic Writers (1819). In a letter of 2 October 1820 , Mary Russell Mitford writes of Hazlitt to their mutual friend Haydon, He is the most delightful critic in the [world]-- puts all his taste, his wit, his deep thinking, his matchless acuteness into his subject, but he does not put his whole heart & soul into it [. . . ] What charms me most in Mr. Haslitt is the beautiful candour which he bursts forth sometimes from his own prejudices [ . . . ] I admire him so ardently that when I begin to talk of him I never know how to stop. I could talk on for an hour in a see saw of praise and blame as he himself does of Beaumont & Fletcher & some of his old [favourites].

Richard Body

Body Richard
Arborfield, Berkshire, England
Wokingham, Berkshire, England

Needham tentatively identifies him as Mitford's landlord. Listed in 1841 census as a farmer residing in Wokingham, Shinfield parish; also listed as gentleman in Reading directories. Buried 12 March 1842. Source: ancestry.com.

Kate Wheeler

Miss Wheeler

Friend of Miss James. Mitford refers to her as providing home remedies and advice. See 29 January 1821 letter to Mary Webb. More research needed.

Thomas Noon Talfourd

Talfourd Thomas Noon
Reading, Berkshire, England
Stafford, Staffordshire, England

Close friend, literary mentor, and frequent correspondent of Mary Russell Mitford. A native of Reading, Talfourd was educated at the Reading’s newly-established Mill Hill school, a dissenting academy, from 1808 to 1810. He attended Dr. Richard Valpy’s Reading School from 1810 to 1812. His career in law began with a legal apprenticeship with Joseph Christy, special pleader, in 1817. He was called to the bar in London in 1821 and ultimately earned a D.C.L. (Doctor of Civil Laws) from Oxford on June 20, 1844. While establishing his practice as a barrister and special pleader, he worked as legal correspondent for The Times, reporting on the Oxford Circuit, and also continued his literary interests. After 1833, he was appointed Serjeant at Law, as well as a King’s and Queen’s Counsel. He was elected and served as Member of Parliament for Reading from 1835 to 1841 and from 1847 to 1849 ; he served with Charles Fyshe Palmer, Charles Russell, and Francis Piggott. Highlights of his political and legal career included introducing the first copyright bill into Parliament in 1837 (for which action Charles Dickens dedicated Pickwick Papers to him) and defending Edward Moxon’s publication of Percy Shelley’s Queen Mab in 1841 . He was appointed Queen’s Serjeant in 1846 and Judge of Common Pleas in 1849 , at which post he served until his death in 1854. He was knighted in 1850 .

Talfourd’s literary works include his plays Ion (1835), The Athenian Captive (1837) and Glencoe, or the Fate of the MacDonalds(1839).

Emily James

James Emily
Bath, Somerset, England
3 Pembroke Villas, Richmond, Surrey

Friend of Mary Russell Mitford, and sister to Elizabeth James and Susan James and cared for pupils with her. She was born about 1782 in Bath, Somerset, the daughter of Thomas Webb and Susanna Haycock. Her father died in 1818 and her mother in 1835. After her parents’ deaths, she lived with her two sisters in Green Park Buildings, Bath, Walcot, Somerset; High Street, Mortlake, Surrey; and 3 Pembroke Villas, Richmond, Surrey. She died on August 29, 1863, at 3 Pembroke Villas, Richmond, Surrey and was buried at St. Mary Magdalene, Richmond, Surrey.

Lucy Sweetser Hill

Hill Sweatser Lucy
Stratfield Saye, Berkshire, England

Beloved servant for twelve years in the Mitford household who, on 7 August 1820 married Charles Hill. She is the basis for the title character in the Our Village story. Source: Needham Papers, Reading Central Library.

Miss Brooke

Brooke Miss

A correspondent of Mitford's, to whom she writes at 11 East Cliff, Brighton. William Colessuggests that this could be a summer address, and that she was a resident of Reading. She was courted by Dr. Valpy in October 1823. Forename unknown. Possibly the daughter of Mrs. Brooke and Mr. Brooke. Source: Letter from William Coles to Needham, 10 November 1957 , Needham Papers, .

Rev. William Harness

William Harness
Wickham, Hampshire, England
Battle, Sussex, England

A lifelong friend of Mary Russell Mitford who knew her from their childhood in the 1790s, Harness launched the first major effort to collect and edit Mitford’s letters into a series of volumes, which was completed by his assistant, Alfred Guy Kingan L’Estrange a year after Harness’s death, and published as The Life of Mary Russell Mitford, Related in a Selection from her Letters to her Friends. This collection was originally intended to be six volumes, but was cut back to three by the publishers, to Harness’s distress. Harness and Byron were also friends from their schooling at Harrow, as Byron sympathized with Harness’s experience of a disabled foot, crushed in an accident in early childhood. Byron considered dedicating the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage to Harness, but refrained so as not to taint Harness’s reputation as he was taking orders as an Anglican curate. Harness admired and encouraged Mitford’s playwrighting in particular, and she commented that he was one of the few of her friends who thought she should prioritize the drama over prose. When William Macready was attacked in an anonymous Blackwood’s Magazine piece in 1825 for his demands and rudeness to Mitford over revisions to Rienzi, Macready assumed that Harness was the author of the anonymous piece, though in 1839 after many years of distance, Harness assured Macready in person that he was not the writer, though he may have shared word of the poor treatment his friend had endured. William Harness was the son of John Harness, M.D. and Sarah Dredge; he was baptized at Whitchurch, Hampshire on April 13, 1790. He received his B.A. in 1812 and his M.A. in 1816 from Christ’s College, Cambridge. He served as curate at Kelmeston, Hampshire (1812) and Dorking (1814-1816). He was preacher at Trinity Chapel, Conduit Street, London and minister and lecturer at St. Anne’s in Soho. He was Boyle lecturer in London (1822) and was curate at Hampstead from 1828 to 1844. In 1825, he published an eight-volume edition of Shakespeare, including a biography; his friends would later endow a prize in his name at Cambridge for the study of Shakespearean literature. He also authored numerous essays and reviews, some for the Quarterly Review. From 1844 to 1847 he was minister of Brompton Chapel in London. He undertook to raise the funds to build the church of All Saints, Knightsbridge, in the parish of St. Margaret’s Westminster, which opened in 1849, and he then became perpetual curate of that congregation. At the 1851 and 1861 censuses, he lived at 3 Hyde Park Terrace, Westminster St. Margaret, Middlesex, with his sister Mary Harness and his first cousin Jemima Harness, daughter of his uncle William. He died while on a visit to one of his former curates in Battle, Sussex. At the time of his death he living at the same address at 3 Hyde Park Terrace; he is buried in Bath.Sources: Duncan-Jones, Miss Mitford and Mr. Harness (1955); Lord Byron and His Times:

1819

1820

1821