ble) rear one for you. By "if possible" I mean, if I can rear three-one for Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, one for Mr. Foster, and the third for your dear self.

Did I tell you, when talking of the Gores, that they are friends of Colonel Wildman, who lent them Newstead Abbey for their honeymoon abode, and that there they spent the first four or five months after marriage about a dozen years ago? They confirm the legend of the White Lady, and all the facts both of Washington Irving's book and the still more interesting accounts both of Newstead and of Annesley, published last year in the "Athenæum," and written by my friend William Howitt. My father, thank Heaven! is well. So is Dash. Is it not strange-just before the coursing season began, he began to dream of going out and quested in his sleep? So he did last year. Is not this very remarkable? By what indications could he know that the time of was coming? He knows Saturday, when he accompanies his master to the Bench, as well as I do, and, on that day only, refrains from coming up to my room the moment I am awake, lest he should be left behind. When my father did go out two days ago, he was so enchanted with the strong boots and the gaiters that he kissed them both. He only kisses me when he has been ill and I have nursed him; or ́ when I am very ill or very low-spirited; then he looks at me with such a look! and licks my hand, and lays his head against me. Can any body wonder that one loves that dog? Have you a pet dog now? They are a great source of happiness, in my mind. Yours ever affectionately, M. R. M.

TO MISS JEPHSON, Castle Martyr, Ireland.

year

Three-mile Cross, Dec. 14, 1831. Your account of Miss Edgeworth is charming. High animal spirits are amongst the best of God's gifts. I had them once; but anxiety and loneliness have tamed them down. The highest I have ever known are Lady Croft's. They have borne her through all sorts of calamities-her husband's sad death-the death of her favorite son-comparative poverty-the marriage of her only daughter to a Frenchman living in France-every sort of trial; and still she is the gayest and most charming old lady in the world—as active in mind and body at nearly eighty as most girls of eighteen.

It is always bad criticism to say there is no more to be done. Beside Sir Walter's novels, the American are a new class (I mean Cooper's and Bird's-especially the Mexican stories of Dr. Bird), and so are the naval novels, for "Roderick Random" can hardly be said to have done more than opened the vein. Oh! it is false philosophy to limit the faculties and the productions of man! As well prophesy that there should be no new flowers! If T -'s money were coming to me, I should have avaricious views of accumulating geraniums, although I have already more than I can keep; and piling chrysanthemum upon chrysanthemum, although as it is I have beaten the whole county. Don't you love that delicious flower which prolongs the season of bloom until the Roman narcissus blows, and keeps the world blossoming all the year round? My salvias have been superb this year. I planted them in the ground about the middle or toward the end of July, and took them up in October-so that we got all the growth of common ground and open air, and brought them full of bud to blow in the greenhouse. Two of them nearly reached the top of the house.

I am

At present I am altogether immersed in music. writing an opera for and with Charles Parker; and you would really be diverted to find how learned I am become on the subject of choruses and double choruses and trios and septets. Very fine music carries me away more than any thing-but then it must be very fine. Our opera will be most splendid-a real opera-all singing and recitative— blank verse of course, and rhyme for the airs, with plenty of magic-an Eastern fairy tale.

God bless you, my dearest love! My father joins in most affectionate remembrances, and I am ever most faithfully yours, M. R. MITFORD.

CHAPTER VIII.

LETTERS FOR 1832.

To MISS JEPHSON, Castle Martyr.

Three-mile Cross, Feb. 22, 1832.

I THINK you like Mr. Bennett's things that I have sent you; and in that case you will be glad to hear that an American visitor of mine is reprinting them in Boston. It is quite wonderful how, when our brethren across the water like an English writer, they buy editions of his works by the score. You will pardon the apparent vanity of my telling you, according to the information of the same friend, that my poor doings, prose and tragedies, have been printed and reprinted in almost every town in the Union. He sent me himself a very beautiful edition printed last year at Philadelphia; but it is the cheaper and commoner ones which are the real compliment. I am going to-morrow to hear Elihu Burritt, the American blacksmith. He is to give a lecture on Peace and Progress at our news-rooms. One of his plans is to establish a penny postage between England and America. I have a fifth and last series of "Our Village" in the press, and having sent up too little copy, as it is technically called, I am now literally running a race with the printer. You can not conceive the miserable drudgery it is, to pass one's day in writing gay prose whilst in such bad spirits! You must therefore pardon this wretched scrawl. As to public affairs, they seem to me in a most deplorable way. But I never read newspapers and know little about them. Ever most affectionately yours, M. R. MITFORD.

TO DR. MITFORD, Sussex Hotel, Bouverie Street, Fleet Street. Three-mile Cross, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 1832. I am rather in a taking about this notice of objection to your vote, not on account of the vote, but for fear it should bring on that abominable question of the qualification for the magistracy. Ask our dear Mr. Talfourd whether the two fields, forty shilling freehold, will be enough, without

bringing out the other affair. In short, it worries me exceedingly; and if there were any danger in it one way or other it would be best to keep out of the way and lose the vote, rather than do any thing that could implicate the other and far more important matter.

I send up to-day the rest of the "Tambourine" article, the best I ever wrote in my life. Pray call there and get the money-I mean in Lancaster Place. Shall we be able to go on, if the opera is delayed till February? This makes eighteen guineas there; and I have two more articles on the stocks, which will be ready by Friday, making twelve guineas more; and ten from Alaric Watts-and ten from Elder and Smith-and five from Ackermann: that will be all, except the money, which I fear you will not get, from Westley (try for it, though). Will this and the dividend last us past Christmas, if the opera do not come out? If not, you had better get an advance from George Robins.

To-day is so beautiful, that, as the boys have had the strawberry mare up for the hay, I shall get Ben to put her into the chaise and drive up to the Merrys and round by the Fieldes. My mare is pretty well; but I shall not take her out to-day. Poor Dash is stiff, but better than I expected, and the jay quite well.

God bless you, my own dear darling! I long to see you. Ever your own, M. R. MITFORD.

To the REV. WILLIAM HARNESS, Heathcote Street.

Three-mile Cross, Oct. 17, 1832. MY DEAR FRIEND,-This last volume,* only published a month ago, is now at press for the third time-the first edition was sold the second day.

At present I am exceedingly unwell. My complaint is one which is brought on by anxiety, or fatigue, or worry, or any thing. Mr. Brodie has cured a friend of mine of the same disorder, and perhaps (though I doubt it) may cure

me.

But as I have promised Mr. Laporte a tragedy in January I must finish it; and as I well know that the first prescription of Mr. Brodie would be not to write, it is of no use putting myself under his care till I can follow his orders implicitly.

*The fifth of "Our Village."

I must complete the work if I can; and then try and obtain some relief for this very painful and harassing complaint, the depressing effect of which upon the spirits no one that has not experienced it can imagine. It has been coming on for some years. I should be better if I were less worried by invitations of which, at my gayest, I never accepted one in twenty, and which I now decline altogether-and by visitors. Every idle person who comes within twenty miles gets a letter of introduction, or an introduction in the shape of an acquaintance, and comes to see my geraniums or myself-Heaven knows which! I have had seven carriages at once at the door of our little cottage; and this sort of levée —bad enough in health—is terrible when one is not well. Mr. Milman, who has established for himself a character for inaccessibility, is a wise person. I wish I could do the same: and I would have done so had I ever thought it possible that the mere fact of being a writer of books would have brought such a torment in its train.

This country is thickly inhabited, with few established rides or show-houses or lounges of any sort; and the local connection of the place and myself must, I suppose, be the cause of this kind of popularity - if popularity it be. I should certainly go to London to be quiet; if it were not that we have many valuable friends in the neighborhood, and that my father would lose much of happiness in relinquishing his country habits; and he must always be my first object. And, if I can but get well again, so as to be able to write with less effort, we shall get on very comfortably. I have much to be thankful for-above all, for friends.

God bless you, my dear friend! I began this letter in such bad spirits that I may perhaps have unintentionally conveyed to you a notion of my health being worse than it is. The attacks are only occasional, and my father says not dangerous. Kindest love to dear Mary. Ever yours, M. R. MITFORD.

To the REV. WILLIAM HARNESS, Heathcote Street.

Three-mile Cross, Monday, Oct. 21, 1832. MY DEAR FRIEND,-I write by the earliest post to prevent Mr. Dyce's taking any more trouble about the book which you were so kind as to mention to him, having been so lucky