TO MISS JEPHSON, Bath.

Three-mile Cross, Friday, Dec. 19, 1830.

Never imagine for an instant that I shall put your purse or my own in jeopardy by our book. The letters transscribed by your dear father and the later ones of Horace Walpole, combined with those of Mr. Jephson about the statue, form a most entertaining portrait of his frank, wayward, imprudent, but most delightful character. Horace Walpole also is excellently shown in his own last letter, with his gout, and his self-importance, and his courtly way of showing his anger. But I fear we still want more material.

I have the sweet-scented cyclamen and the Italian narcissus (the double Italian narcissus, sweeter far than the double jonquil) blooming in pots and glasses in the parlor window, whilst my autumn flowers, chrysanthemums, roses, Michaelmas daisies (the large new late one), and salvias, blue and red, are still in full bloom. I like this junction of the seasons, this forestalling of spring and prolonging of autumn -don't you? The parlor window would be the best place. for the white evening primrose. Warmth will do it no harm, so that it has light and plenty of water, and a little air on mild days.

Did I tell you that I have six volumes of American children's books in the press? three for under, and three for over, ten years of age. The little ones are plain, practical, religious, and moral-I like them; the others varied and amusing. "A Journey through the United States to Canada" forms the chief part of one volume-children, of course, being the principal travelers; "A Sea Voyage to England" of the second; and "Evenings in a Merchant's Family at Boston," the third. This is new, at all events, and to me seems likely to take. The booksellers (Messrs. Whittaker & Co.) think so also, I imagine, for they are printing 3500 copies.

My play is, I find, coming out with the following cast, the best, I think, that they can make in that theatre :— Pedro, C. Kemble; Alphonso, Warde; Manuel, Bennett; Inez, Miss Fanny; and Constance, either Miss Ellen Tree* or Mrs. Chatterley. Mr. Talfourd, who brought me this news, and has

*Afterward Mrs. Kean.

been spending the day here, says that Fanny Kemble's Callista (odious as the part is) displays far higher talent than any thing she has hitherto done, and that, at a distance from the stage, he could almost have imagined her a smaller and younger Mrs. Siddons. This is very comfortable. He told Mr. Kemble how much he was pleased with her in that part; and Kemble said that he liked her in it best himself, and had put her into it to accustom the town to seeing her in a high-. er range of characters, wishing her to occupy the place of Mrs. Siddons. I have never seen Fanny Kemble act; but I am well acquainted with her off the stage, and know her to be a girl of great ability. The difference of age makes it singular that she in Paris and I in London, should have been educated by the same lady. What I hear of her acting pleases me, and I hope that my play and she will do well together. Of course I always know that no play is absolutely safe, and hope fearingly; but the female character is splendid, and the tragedy itself, though less powerful, far more interesting than "Rienzi."* God bless you! Ever affectionately yours, M. R. MITFORD.

To MISS JEPHSON, Bath.

Three-mile Cross, Thursday night, Dec., 1830. • Oh, that you could see my chrysanthemums! I have one out now unlike any I ever saw. It is the shape and size of a large honeysuckle, and the inside filled up with tubes. Each of the petals or florets (which are they?) is, on the outside, of a deep violet color, getting, however, paler as it approaches the end, and the inside shows itself much like the inside of a honeysuckle tube, of a shining silver white, just, in some particular lights, tinged with purple. I never saw so elegant a flower of any sort; and my jar of four kinds, golden, lemon, yellow, purple, lilac, crimson, and pink, exceeds in brilliancy any display that I ever witnessed. The brightest pot of dahlias is nothing to it. My father, who has been twice in London lately (about my American "Children's

*Which, after its success at Drury Lane, was acted for several weeks in succession at the Pavilion Theatre, at this time, under the name of “The Last of the Romans," to evade prosecution by the great theatres.

†This, by the way, is the shape and size of the tassel white, only that that flower is still more curved and curled, and all of one color.

Books" and your friend "Inez ") says that they have nothing approaching it in splendor in the new conservatories at Covent Garden. I am prodigiously vain of my chrysanthemums, and so is Clarke.

Mr. Macready once told me that he sat up all night in a room opposite the Old Bailey (I think) to witness the execution of Thistlewood, etc., by way, I suppose, of taking hints from their deaths. He said that there he was disappointed; that even the masked headman and the holding of the head of a traitor, was, in theatrical phrase, ineffective; but that the most tremendous thing he ever saw was the congregation of human faces, especially of human eyes, in that dense and extensive crowd, all pointed to the same object with an intensity so fixed and so absorbing. He never before, he said, knew the power of that mighty thing, the gaze of a multitude.

I never saw Mr. Denman; only he has the goodness to take a very strong and partial interest in my books and plays, and to let me know that he does so. Neither did I ever see Mr. Brougham out of a court of justice; but I know a great many of his friends and a great deal about him, and admire him more than I can tell. Oh, how could he stoop to be a lord! He sleeps nine, ten, eleven hours, except, of course, on great debate nights; spends some time at table; and allows himself far more relaxation in society than most lawyers; and what enables him to do this, whilst performing the work of ten busy men, is the wonderful power which he has over his attention. He says himself (talking confidentially to a clever man; his intimate friend) that he owes all his success to the habit of concentrating his mind on the particular subject needful, whatever it be; and then, the moment that is over, directing his powers to another object and never thinking of the first again, unless the course of his business leads him to it. Concentration and instantaneous transition-these are the spells by which he works. Something of this power he owes, of course, to his legal habits; but no lawyer possesses it as he does, and very few have ever embraced such a variety of objects. The same versatility belongs in part to his character. He enters with the warmest sympathy into the feelings of those with whom he converses; but though at the moment the interest be VOL. II.-F

most unfeigned and genuine, there is great danger that it shall vanish with the object. He is a delightful companion, gay, simple, and frank, and so good-natured that the humblest barrister might ask Mr. Brougham for a cast in his carriage, and the lowest clerk in the House of Commons make sure of a frank. I suppose the old title tempted him to be lorded; an old title in a family is a temptation.

I have been reading Head's "Bruce," which pleases me much less, because I am an adorer of Bruce's own book at full length, and hate abridgments of a favorite author; besides, I don't think it well done, though it is so odd, that it makes one laugh against one's will. (Before I forget, Mr. Brougham has a remarkable trick, or rather peculiarity of countenance; when he is beginning to be in a passion his nostrils and his whole nose twitch in the most extraordinary manner. They say that in debate his antagonists while speaking know the dressing they are going to have when they finish, by observing this indication. I have seen it myself in the Court of King's Bench, when the judge was charging against him.) Ever most faithfully and affectionately yours, M. R. MITFORD.

CHAPTER VII.

LETTERS FOR 1831.

To MISS JEPHSON, Bath.

Three-mile Cross, Thursday, Jan. 14, 1831. You like to hear about Lord Brougham. Inquiring as to his daughter from an intimate friend of his the other day, I heard that she was a blue child-that children of that complexion never live past twelve or fourteen (I have heard this before)-but that he dotes upon her and educates her himself. It is singular that some years ago, when not seven years old, she prophesied that her father would be Lord Chancellor: "Papa will be Chancellor-you'll see that!" "Will he ?" was the reply; "and what will your friend, Mr. · Denman, be?" "Oh! Master of the Rolls, perhaps—I'm not sure about him—but you'll see that papa will be Lord Chancellor." He tells this with great glee; and I should not

wonder if it had influenced him in accepting the situation. It certainly shows a wonderful professional knowledge in so young a girl. What a man he is! All last summer he was up at six every morning studying chemistry; and only yesterday I received a letter from my friend Archdeacon Wrangham (a man celebrated for his scholarship at Cambridge), saying that he had just received a letter from the Chancellor, whom he calls " a miracle of a man," on the subject of the Greek metres, showing a degree of learning that would do honor to any scholar of the age. This is perhaps the most astonishing thing that I have heard, even of that astonishing person.

I have not myself seen the second volume of the "Life of Byron," but doubtless the letters are to William Harness. There are several addressed to him in the first volume; and it is an honorable distinction, that of all Lord Byron's intimate friends William seems to be the only one whom he respected to the point of never addressing to him one line that might not have been sent to a delicate woman. He intended, if you remember, to have dedicated to him his "Childe Harold," and refrained only lest it should injure him in the church. William still speaks of him with much affection. My father joins in most affectionate love, and I am ever, most faithfully yours,

M. R. M.

To the DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE, Devonshire House, London. Three-mile Cross, near Reading, March 15, 1831. MY LORD DUKE,-The spirit of liberality and justice to dramatic authors by which your Grace's exercise of the functions of Lord High Chamberlain has been distinguished, forms the only excuse for the liberty taken in sending my tragedy of "Charles the First" direct to yourself, instead of transmitting it, in the usual mode, from the theatre to Mr. Colman. To send it to that gentleman, indeed, would be worse than useless; the play having been written at the time of the Duke of Montrose, and a license having been refused to it on account of the title and the subject, which Mr. Colman declared to be inadmissible on the stage. That this is not the general opinion may be inferred from the subject's having been repeatedly pointed out by different critics as one of the most dramatic points of English history, and es