The Works Of Mary Russell Mitford PDF Download

Excerpt from The Works of Mary Russell Mitford, Prose and Verse, Viz Our Village, Belford Regis, Country Stories, Finden's Tableaux, Foscari, Julian, Rienzi, Charles the First There are few names which fall with a pleasanter sound upon the ears of those who adopt authors as friends, in recognition of the moral purity and geniality of feeling as much as of the original talent displayed in their works, than the name of Mary Russell Mitford. Happy thoughts and fresh images rise up when it is smoken; and yet we arc a trifle too apt to think it only as connected with all that is lovely in he rural scenery, and characteristic in the rural society of Southern England, and to forget that c also appertains to a dramatist of no common sower, who has wrought in a period, when - if he theatres be deserted, and the popular acted drama have degenerated into melo-drama, burlettu, and farce - the plays published exhibit far more signs of strength and promise, than were shown by those produced in the palmy days of Garrick, or the yet more glorious after-summer of the Kembles. It was at Christmas time, in the year 1789, that Miss Mitford was born, her birth-place being the little town of Alresford, Hampshire. She is descended on the father's side, from an ancient family in Northumberland, not remotely connected with nobility; and there is a quaint rhyme current in the north country, which promises the name a long duration: "Midford was Midford when Morpeth was nano, Midford shall be Midford when Morpeth is game; So long as the son sets or the moon runs her round, A Midford in Midford shall always be found." Her mother was the only daughter of Dr. Russell, of Ashe, in Hampshire; this lady was a singularly good classical scholar, and it would have been strange if under such auspices, the education of her daughter had not been liberally planned and carefully completed. How delightfully Miss Mitford has chronicled her school pleasures and school feelings, during the years between the ages of ten and fifteen, passed by her at a London boarding-school of high repute, no one who has read "Our Village" can have forgotten. By her own showing she was as shy as she was clever, after a somewhat original fashion - a keen lover of poetry and plays. And shortly after she left school, she showed the next evidence of talent, the possession of a creative as well as appreciative power, by publishing a volume of miscellaneous poems, which were favourably received; for in those days poetry was read. These, and other juvenile effusions, now all but forgotten, were, at the time of their appearing, successful; but their young writer was herself dissatisfied with them; conscious, perhaps, that they were little more than imitations, and forgetting that it wasby imitation that genius has almost always in the first instance manifested itself. She withdrew herself from composition - read much, though without any decided aim or object, and would never (she thinks) have attempted authorship again, had not those vicissitudes of fortune, which try the metal of the sufferer no less searchingly than the sincerity of his friends, compelled her to come forth from her retreat, and honourably to exercise the talents with which she had been so largely gifted. It would be raising the veil too high to dwell upon the sequel; upon the rich reward of love, and respect, and consideration, which have repaid so zealous and unselfish a devotion of time and talent as Miss Mitford's life has shown. We have but to speak of the good which has come out of evil, in the shape of her writings; and we do this briefly and rapidly, because of the limited space within which we are restricted. Miss Mitford's principal efforts have been a series of tragedies. "The Two Foscari," - "Julian," - "Rienzi," - "Charles the First," - have been all represented, and all well received - the third with signal success. Besides these may be mentioned two other tragedies, stil.