(vide "Villette") in Brussels was literally her own. She also speaks to me of coming to London without necessity, as a thing hardly warrantable; and seems to me exceedingly unaffected and unspoiled. I like both "Shirley" and "Villette."

Remember me to your dear Robert and Mrs. Trollope. Ever most affectionately yours, M. R. MITFORD.

CHAPTER XXIII.

LETTERS For 1854-5.

To the REV. WILLIAM HARNESS, Kensington Gore.

Swallowfield, March 26, 1854. MY DEAR FRIEND,-I do indeed rejoice to hear that that sweet child is recovering. Poor Mr. and Mrs. Hope! What a winter of anxiety this must have been to them!

Heartily glad shall I be to see you. For half an hour, or perhaps a whole one, you will find the old good spirits; but strength is quite gone; and any fatigue brings a tenfold accession of the terrible neuralgic pain over the chest and under the arms. Between three and four, previous to the dreadful operation of getting up, is my best time. Kand Sam will tell you all about me. By-the-by, be so good as to bring the will. I wish to leave that five hundred pounds to them, feeling sure, that, even were K——— to die, Sam might be trusted implicitly. They have been every thing to me this winter.

Poor Talfourd! He came to see me the Sunday he was in Reading, and we talked with the old friendship, and parted with the old cordiality. Both felt that it was a last parting, although neither dreamed which strand of the cord was so soon to give way. I am very glad to have seen him, and that our last interview should have been so affectionate. He spoke with a glowing thankfulness of your kindness, in promising his son a title, and of the advantage of his being your curate. Lady Talfourd is just the woman to bear this trial well; there is a great deal of stern stuff in her character.

"Atherton" has twice nearly killed me-once in writing -now, very lately, in correcting the proofs. The original

printer having failed, they sent the whole volume in four consecutive days. Don't read the shorter stories, only "Atherton," and tell me how you like it.

Poor Lady Russell is very anxious about Sir Charles, who forms one of the expedition now at Malta. She is as faithful Love to dear Mary. Ever, my dear friend, M. R. MITFORD.

to me as ever.
most affectionately yours,

To MRS. BROWNING, Rome.

Swallowfield, March 29, 1854. Weaker and weaker, dearest friend, and worse and worse; and writing brings on such agony that you would not ask for it if you knew the consequences. It seems that in that overturn the spine was seriously injured. There was hope that it might have got better; but last summer destroyed all chance. This accounts for the loss of power in the limbs, and the anguish in the nerves of the back, and more especially in those over the chest and under the arms. Visitors bring on such exhaustion, and such increase of pain, that Mr. May forbids all but Lady Russell. Perhaps by the time you arrive in England I may be a little better. If so, it would be a great happiness to see you, if only for half an hour. May God bless you, my beloved friend, and all whom you love! M. R. MITFORD.

TO JOHN LUCAS, Esq.

Swallowfield, April 11, 1854.

Thank you, dearest Mr. Lucas, for liking "Atherton,” and, above all, for telling me so. Other people are so good as to like it also. William Harness, John Ruskin, Henry Hope, and persons of that class; so if you mistake, you err in good company. Every body detests the portrait; William Harness says that it represents "a fierce, dark, strong-minded woman." Mr. Hope says that "not only is it utterly unlike the author of 'Atherton,' and 'Our Village,' but that it was morally impossible that it should have been like her, although it might very possibly be a striking likeness of the author of Uncle Tom.'' This is killing two birds with one stone, after the fashion of that thrice-charming person.

I am almost confined to my bed, and so weak as to be exhausted by half an hour's conversation; but there is a chance

that, if I and my bed can be transplanted into my little sitting-room (say six weeks or two months hence), I may have a charming garden-chair which has just been given to me, wheeled to my bedside, and through the window. This is, at all events, a delightful hope. God bless you all! Ever yours, M. R. MITFORD.

To MRS. JENNINGS, Portland Place.

Swallowfield, Monday [in May, 1854].

Ah! dearest friend! how glad I should have been if you could have come to see me before leaving London, and how sad it seems that another year should pass away without my meeting you and dear Mr. Jennings.

An avalanche of kindness has come from America, where, as in Paris, my book has been reprinted. Letters to me, or for me, addressed through my friend Mr. Fields, have arrived, I think from almost every man of note in the States: Hawthorne, Longfellow, Holmes, etc., etc. And one lady, Mrs. Sparks, wife of Jared Sparks, President of Harvard University, Cambridge, gravely invites me, with man-servant and maid-servant, pony and Fanchon, to go and take up my abode with them for two or three years; an unlimited hospitality, which, as she could not know with how much impunity invitations may be sent to me, seems to English ears astounding. Cambridge is close to Boston, where most of the literary men of America live; and, if I were not such a miserable, helpless creature, really one would be tempted to go and thank all these warm-hearted people for their extraordinary kindness.

Mr. Hawthorne has just finished another tale, which an acquaintance, who has seen the MS., speaks of as even finer than the works we know. I suppose it will be printed as soon as my friend Mr. Fields (whom I am expecting here on Wednesday) returns to the United States. He is a partner in the greatest publishing house of America, and the especial patron of Hawthorne, whom he found starving, and has made almost affluent by his encouragement and liberality; for the great romancer is so nervous that he wants as much kindness of management, as much mental nursing as a sick child. I have never known a more charming person than Mr. Fields, quite a young man, who has been in France and Italy all the

winter to recover from the shock occasioned by the death of his young wife. He has brought me no end of memoirs, portraits, and busts of Louis Napoleon, for whom I have a passion. Mrs. Browning (a stanch Republican, who went to Paris with a bundle of letters of introduction from Mazzini) is quite as enthusiastic about him as I am; so is Mr. Fields, who has spent the last month there, only they are less frank, and pretend to be cool judges. Ah! I should just like to tell you a few stories about him which I know to be true!

It is not only "Faust" that Longfellow has made free with, but an old German poem, from which he has taken the story, much improving the catastrophe. The "Evangeline," if you remember, was taken from Goethe's "Herman and Dorothea." I am glad you like the “Golden Legend ;” I do heartily, especially the Sermon on the Bell; it is so racy, and so full of spirit and of life. There are three new American poets whom you would like-Bayard Taylor, Stoddart, and Reede-young men, quite. If I should live, and recover to write another book, I shall give some specimens of these writers, although a new book of mine would have perhaps few specimens, except the quite forgotten and the quite new.

All happiness to you both! Believe me ever, dearest friends, most faithfully and affectionately yours;

M. R. MITFORD.

To MRS. JENNINGS, Portland Place.

Swallowfield, May 22, 1854. DEAREST MRS. JENNINGS,-Thank you for your kindness in liking "Atherton." It has been a great comfort to me to find it so indulgently, so very warmly received. Mr. Mudie told Mr. Hurst that the demand was so great that he was obliged to have four hundred copies in circulation. I do not think the story would have been the better for being longer; and as for alterations and additions, after two editions of a ⚫ work have been sold (to say nothing of those in Paris, Leipsic, and half the cities in America), they are out of the question. Katy is too young for love; and I could not have lengthened the story without letting the secret ooze out and spoiling the effect of the last scene. In all my suffering I yet took such pains with " 'Atherton," that every page was written three

times over.

The days, or weeks, or even perhaps months (very few) that I may last, will be entirely a question of the duration of my power of receiving nourishment, and that is in His hands who knows what is best for us. I feel all your kindness, and can only send you my thanks and blessings.

I am sitting now at my open window, not high enough to see out of, but inhaling the soft summer breezes, with an exquisite jar of roses on the window-sill, and a huge sheaf of fresh-gathered meadow-sweet giving its almondy fragrance from outside; looking on blue sky and green waving trees, with a bit of road and some cottages in the distance, and K -'s little girl's merry voice calling Fanchon in the court.

Yes! the Emperor is a great and wonderful man; greater, I think, than his uncle, because he can command himself, and looks to the happiness of his people rather than to the soldier's glory. My young neighbor, Sir Charles Russell, is with his battalion (Grenadier Guards) at Aladyn. One of his letters amused me much. He said that the French soldiers passed their leisure time in catching frogs. Does not this carry us back to the days of Hogarth and Smollett? Say every thing for me to your own Robert and to Mrs. Trollope. Ever, my most beloved friend, your affectionate, M. R. MITFORD.

To the REV. HUGH PEARSON, Sonning.

Swallowfield, July 22, 1854. MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,-Will you forgive my inconsistency if I beg you to defer the administration of the sacrament till we have met again? The thought agitates me more than I can express, especially as the time approaches. I am quite sure that it would prevent my getting any rest for at least two nights, and do me more harm physically than any one not acquainted with my nervous temperament could possibly imagine. In great part this is the fault of the body; but it can hardly be the desirable state of mind for the reception of that holy ordinance.

Be sure, dearest friend, that I do not fail in meditation, such as I can give, and prayer. It is my own unworthiness and want of an entire faith that troubles me.

But I am a good deal revived by sitting at the open window, in this sweet summer air, looking at the green trees and the blue sky, and thinking of His goodness who made this