Letter to Benjamin Robert Haydon, 18 April 1821.

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            <title>Letter to <persName ref="#Haydon">Benjamin Robert Haydon</persName>, 18 April 1821.</title>
            <author ref="#MRM">Mary Russell Mitford</author>

            <editor ref="#scw">Samantha Webb</editor>

            <sponsor><orgName>Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford
               Project</orgName></sponsor>
            <sponsor>University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg</sponsor>
            <principal>Elisa Beshero-Bondar</principal>

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               <persName ref="#scw">Samantha Webb</persName>

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               <resp> Date last checked: <date when="2014-07-04">2014-07-04</date>. Proofing and
                  corrections by: </resp>
               <persName ref="#ad">Alexandra Drayton</persName>
               <persName ref="#ebb">Elisa Beshero-Bondar</persName>
               <!--4 July 2014: ebb: I have now proofread this letter against the manuscript.-->
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            <edition> First digital edition in TEI, date: <date when="2014-07-04">4 July 2014.</date> P5.</edition>
            <respStmt><resp>Edition made with help from photos taken by</resp><orgName>Digital Mitford editors</orgName></respStmt>
            <respStmt><resp>Photo files: <idno>18April1821BRHaydon1b.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon1c.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon2a.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon2b.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon3a.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon3b.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon4a.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon4b.jpg</idno></resp></respStmt>
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            <date>2013</date>
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               <licence>Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
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                  <idno>qB/TU/MIT Vol. 4 ff.435</idno>
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               <head>Letter from Mary Russell Mitford to B. R. Haydon, <date when="1821-04-18">18 April
                  1821</date>.</head>
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                         <p>Circular non-circumscribed mileage stamp in faint black ink: <stamp>READING<lb/>AP20<lb/>1821</stamp></p>
                         <p>Circular double-circumscribed sepia-inked duty stamp: <stamp>B<lb/><date>21 AP21</date><lb/><date>1821</date></stamp></p>
                         
                      <p>Delivery stamp in red ink in the shape of a circumscribed oval: <stamp><time>10'o'Clock</time><lb/><date>AP*21<lb/>1821</date>F. N<hi rend="superscript">II</hi></stamp></p>
                      <p>A large 7 denoting the fee is scrawled in black ink across the address lines.</p>
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            <handNote xml:id="rc" medium="red_crayon"> Red crayon or thick red pencil. A different
               from Mitford's, that marks many of her letters, sometimes drawing diagonal lines
               across pages, and sometimes writing words overtop and perpendicularly across
               Mitford's writing. This hand has drawn a diagonal line in red pencil down page 3 of
               the manuscript of this letter. </handNote>
            <handNote xml:id="black_ink" medium="black_ink"> Someone, apparently other than Mitford,
               perhaps cataloging letters and describing them. Page 2 of this letter manuscript
               bears horizontal cross-outs at lines 1 and 24 of paragraph 2, and a vertical line
               running down the center of the page, covering the anecdote and quote from Miss James's letter about Barbara Hofland. The hand has cross-written above the vertical
               line: <quote>"Omit all this it is told in the next letter."</quote> Page 3 of the
               manuscript bears horiontal cross-outs at lines 10 and 26, and a vertical line runs
               down the center of the page. The hand has again cross-written above the vertical
                  line:<quote>"Omit all this it is in the next
               letter."</quote>
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         <div type="letter">
            <opener>
               <dateline>
                  <date when="1821-04-18">April 18<hi rend="superscript" rendition="superscript"/>
                     1821.</date>
                  <name type="place">Three Mile Cross</name>
               </dateline>
               <salute>My dear Sir</salute>
            </opener>
            <p>I have been waiting till <date>Easter</date> should bring some Parliament men into
               the Country to thank you for your delightful account of
               your <placeName ref="#Glasgow">Glasgow</placeName> excursion<note resp="#scw"><persName ref="#Haydon">Haydon</persName> had recently returned from <placeName>Scotland</placeName>, where he had exhibited his painting, <title ref="#ChrstEJrslm_Haydon">Christ's Entry Into Jerusalem</title>.</note>--Oh what an honour &amp; a pleasure it
               is to be selected as a friend to whom you like <q>“to unburthen your
                  thoughts”</q>--&amp; how heartily I sympathised with all your feelings whether
               stern or relenting--I had been waiting for a frank to tell you this--but I suppose
               indignation is a stonger impulse than pleasure for since I received the
                  <title ref="#Examiner">Examiner</title> this morning I can no longer refrain from writing. I had read the Article in <title ref="#LondonMag">the Magazine</title> wondering who could be meant--thinking
               how likely it was to be misrepresented but never for an instant dreaming that it
               could be aimed at you--of all impossible slanders that seemed the most
               impossible--&amp; I am even now lost in astonishment at such a malicious <del rend="squiggles" quantity="1" unit="word"><gap reason="illegible"/></del><add
                  place="above">falsehood's</add> finding a place
               in so respectable a publication.<note resp="#ebb">Mitford has just read <bibl><persName ref="#Haydon">Haydon</persName>'s short retort, <title level="a">"Alleged Inhumanity of a Living Artist"</title> published in the <title level="s" ref="#Examiner">Examiner</title>'s <biblScope unit="issue" number="693">current issue</biblScope> of <date when="1821-04-15">15 April 1821</date></bibl>, in which he identifies himself as the unspecified "living artist" recently targeted in <bibl>the <date when="1821-04">April 1821</date> issue of <title level="s" ref="#LondonMag">The London Magazine</title>, in <title level="a">"The British Institution"</title>. The London Magazine piece was an anonymous review of an art exhibition in which Haydon did not participate, but in which <persName>Edwin Landseer</persName>'s <title>Seizure of a Boar</title> reminds the writer of an anecdote about <quote>"a living artist who, when a child was run over by a cart, before its own loved home, and the bankrupt mother stood rigid as stone, staring with maniac agony on her crushed darling, calmly and deliberately gazed on her 'to study the expression,' as he called it!! I care not to know his name. . . but let me take this opportunity to assure him, that, as a man, I hold him in the most sovereign contempt, not to say detestation!"</quote> (<biblScope unit="page" number="438">page 438</biblScope>)</bibl>. In his prompt rejoinder, Haydon identified himself as the "living artist," and described the circumstances of the encounter: <quote>"About eight years ago, while the living Artist alluded to was accidentally approaching <placeName ref="#Temple">Temple Bar</placeName>, he saw suddenly a great crowd, and heard the screams of some poor woman in great agony! He ran on with many other gentlemen and squeezing near enough to give her aid, found a poor creature turning her head from one side ot the other, beating away the people who offered to calm her, and screaming on 'her dear boy' with a dry, parched, agitated hoarseness!--The people at last forced her into a house, and upon his inquiring what had happened, he found that she had permitted her boy to hold a horse and to mount it, and that the poor little fellow had been thrown and trampled on. Now, Sir, <emph>this</emph> is the truth and nothing but the truth, whereas in <title ref="#LondonMag">the London Magazine</title>, the living Artist  is made to witness <emph>unmoved</emph> a dear little child <emph>crushed by a cart wheel!</emph> and indifferent to its horrid condition, <emph>deliberately</emph> to walk up to the mother without feeling, sympathy, or pain; <emph>quietly</emph> to look in her face, and <emph>enraptured</emph> to study her expression!"</quote> Haydon continues that the child did not die of the accident, that the  mother's face did not stare rigidly but was luridly animated, and that <quote>"The living Artist has often related this affecting incident to his friends, and has added, that his coming in contact with such a dreadful expression in Nature, at the very moment he was painting the real mother in the <title ref="#JudgmntSolomon_Haydon">Judgment of Solomon</title>, enabled him to give that look of 'agonized faintness' which it has been thought by every mother he has succeeded in giving."</quote></note> I suppose that as there is now no regular Editor the venom slid in undetected.<note resp="#ebb"><bibl>The <date when="1821-04">April 1821</date> issue of <title ref="#LondonMag">The London Magazine</title></bibl> announced the death of its founding editor, John Scott, who had on <date when="1821-02-16">16 February</date> fallen in <rs type="event" ref="#ScottChristie_Duel">a duel</rs> with <persName ref="#Christie_JH">Jonathan Christie</persName>, <persName ref="#Lockhart_JG">John Gibson Lockhart</persName>'s literary agent. Scott challenged Christie to the duel over what Scott took to be a personal insult, rooted in an escalating conflict between his London Magazine and what he took to be Lockhart's writings in <title ref="#Blackwoods">Blackwood's Magazine</title> caricaturing a <orgName ref="#CockneyS">Cockney School</orgName> of <placeName ref="#London_city">London</placeName> writers and artists. <persName ref="#Hazlitt_Wm">William Hazlitt</persName> had taken over as editor of <bibl><title ref="#LondonMag">The London Magazine</title> for the <date when="1821-04">April 1821</date> issue</bibl>. <persName ref="#MRM">Mitford</persName>'s surprise that <title ref="#LondonMag">The London Magazine</title> would print an implicit insult to <persName ref="#Haydon">Haydon</persName> is certainly warranted, since Haydon had long been a friend of <persName ref="#Scott_John">John Scott</persName> (Source: ODNB]).</note> I am almost glad that it did since it has afforded you an opportunity of making a defence &amp; dignified &amp; so spirited--What a
               necessary thing it is that a great painter should be a good writer! And really in
               these days when the appetite for anecdote as it is called (that is for scandal) is so
                     <unclear><supplied>craving</supplied></unclear> &amp; the gossip of a set of
                     unidea'd women over a country tea table
               yields in malice to the slander of literary chit chat, every man should be brought to
               wield the pen as a weapon of defence against his enemies his rivals &amp; his
               friends. Do you know to which class the present writer belongs?--I will not talk of
               him any more for it really gives me unwomanly feelings--to use a womanly
               phrase <q>it puts me in a passion.</q>----<note resp="#ebb">Here Mitford's long dash signals a change of topic, effectively a paragraph break.</note></p><p>What became of your poor
                  <placeName ref="#Glasgow">Glasgow</placeName> culprit? Did he 
               come back to London according to your behest? And is he likely to<pb n="2"/> turn honest &amp;
               make his way in the world?<note resp="#ebb">We have not yet identified this "Glasgow culprit" from our review of <persName ref="#Haydon">Haydon</persName>'s published correspondence.</note> I think if any thing <del rend="squiggles"/> could reform
               a man your severity of words &amp; kindness of action would do so.</p>
                 
            <p>I think you know my friend <persName ref="#Hofland_B">Mrs Hofland</persName> I have
               just had a letter from <persName ref="#James_Miss">Miss James</persName> containing so
               remarkable an anecdote respecting her that I am tempted to transcribe it--To
               understand it I must tell you that <persName ref="#Hofland_B">Mrs Hofland</persName>
               has been for several years involved in a <orgName ref="#Chancery">Chancery</orgName> suit on the success of which they
               had placed great reliance.<note resp="#ebb">The National Archives documents multiple Chancery suits, with records dating <date when="1813">1813</date>, <date when="1814">1814</date>, and <date when="1818">1818</date> involving <persName ref="#Hofland_TC">Thomas</persName> and <persName ref="#Hofland_B">Barbara Hofland</persName> as plaintiffs against <persName>Francis Hoole</persName>, <persName>Joseph Wreaks</persName>, <persName>Job Baseby Rolls</persName> and <persName>Frederick Parkin Hoole</persName>. The surnames Wreaks and Hoole suggest connections on Barbara Hofland's side, as Hoole was the name of her first husband and Wreaks was her maiden name.</note> (Ah I could have told them what a miserable thing is a
               successful Chancery suit!) Now for <rs type="letter"><persName ref="#James_Miss">Miss James's</persName> letter</rs>. <quote cit="#James_Miss">"The Hofland suit is decided in their favour--but all the costs being to be paid out of the property not a sixpence <persName ref="#Hofland_B">Mrs. Hof.</persName> says will come to them. Their lawyer had
                  neglected to write &amp; the news of the decision was brought by a neighbour who
                  told her only that it was decided in their favour--she went to Town to enquire
                     <choice><sic>was</sic><reg><supplied resp="#ebb">and</supplied> was</reg></choice><!--this is noted as sic because the word "and" appears to have been skipped in the ms-->
                  quite overcome by the information she received--&amp; was about to mount the outside of the <orgName ref="#Twickenham_Coach"><placeName>Twickenham</placeName> Coach</orgName> to
                  return all amort as you may
                  suppose when recollecting she should save sixpence in going by the
                  <orgName ref="#Richmond_Coach"><placeName>Richmond</placeName> Stage</orgName> &amp; such an one being on hand,--she
                  withdrew her foot although a
                  most respectable woman with her husband at her side affected to make room for
                  her--Home she came by <orgName ref="#Richmond_Coach">the Richmond Coach</orgName> &amp; saved her sixpence &amp; her life.
                  The <orgName ref="#Twickenham_Coach">Twickenham Coach</orgName> was overturned an hour after &amp;
                  that decent woman in whose place she would have sat killed on the spot. The
                  husband had his collar bone &amp; a rib broken. This most striking event gave a
                  new &amp; just turn to her thoughts--I am
                  sure you will feel as thankful as I did at the detail which she gave in her most pathetic
                  manner."</quote> _____</p>
            <p>Having
               begun storytelling I must tell
               you <del rend="strikethrough">another</del> <add place="above">a story</add> which comes from <placeName ref="#Germany">Germany</placeName>.
               <persName>The King of <placeName>Naples</placeName></persName><note resp="#ebb">Possibly this a story about <persName ref="#Ferdinand_I">King Ferdinand I of the <placeName>Two Sicilies</placeName>, also Ferdinand IV of <placeName>Naples</placeName> (<date from="1751" to="1825">1751 - 1825</date>)</persName>, though it is hard to tell if the anecdote is current.</note> having arrived at
                        <placeName>Laybach</placeName> before the other sovereigns <del rend="squiggles"><unclear><supplied>of</supplied></unclear></del>was
               desirous to have the amusement of bear hunting which of course was to be provided for
               him but there being <pb n="3"/> no bears resident in the neighbourhood one
               was purchased of a Savoyard &amp; placed a few
               miles out of Town in a thicket. The King attended as the story went by a train of cars &amp; courtiers arrived near the place &amp; the Bear
               finding himself in the neighbourhood of so much good company
               fancied he was to perform as usual came out on his hind legs in a most graceful
               attitude--which alas! had an effect on the hard heart of his Neopolitan Majesty who
               discharged his piece &amp; shot him dead. This story is none of my radical
               inventions--it came from <persName ref="#Ashburton_Lord">Lord Ashburton</persName> to <persName ref="#Elford_SirWm">Sir W. Elford</persName> &amp; from him to
               me. ____</p>
             
            
            <p>I have a great grievance just now which I have nothing <damage rend="smudge" unit="word" quantity="3"/><unclear><supplied>all to</supplied></unclear>         
               <!--a cross-out line is drawn on the foregoing lines of text likely in a different hand-->
               do with--but which I cannot help thinking a grievance nevertheless. <persName
                  ref="#Wellington_Duke">The Duke of Wellington</persName>'s sons are at home for the
               <orgName ref="#Eton">Eton</orgName> holidays &amp; they come every day to a little alehouse next
               door to learn French of a Jew who is lodging there for the purpose of teaching them.
                  <said>"The poor little lads <persName ref="#MRM">Ma'am</persName>"</said>, said my friend
               the Landlord, <said>"are kept very strict. They never look up but their tutor
               corrects them, &amp; there they sit in my parlour from eleven to half past
                  four &amp; never have a glass of any thing."</said> Without sympathising very
               deeply in the misfortune which my friend the <!-- link to <person xml:id="RoseInnLandlord"> who was the fictional landlord in Our Village --> <roleName>Alehouse keeper</roleName> with a true
                  tap-room feeling considers as
                     worst of all, I am quite indignant at
               the poor little boys being cheated of their holidays. Is it not abominable?--A worse
               iniquity than <del rend="squiggle" unit="word" quantity="1"><unclear><supplied resp="#ebb">cheating</supplied></unclear></del> beating <persName ref="#Napoleon"
               >Napoleon</persName>.<note resp="#ad">A reference to <persName ref="#Wellington_Duke">Wellington</persName>'s famous defeat of <persName ref="#Napoleon">Napoleon</persName> at <rs type="event" ref="#Waterloo">the Battle of Waterloo</rs>.</note> When they ought to be playing
               cricket or stealing bird's nests or doing mischief or doing nothing.--<name type="event" ref="#Waterloo">The Battle of Waterloo</name> was 
               <del rend="squiggles"/><add place="above"> a <unclear><supplied resp="#ebb">joke</supplied></unclear> to this wickedness.</add> The only
               thing that even looks like the holidays is
               their mode of conveyance which is generally five in a gig rain or shine.
               <!--the cross-out line in another hand falls over "in a gig rain or shine."--></p>
            <p>Pray did you get a little letter which I sent to you at
                  <placeName>Glasgow</placeName>--It is not worth asking for.--My
                  <persName ref="#Mitford_Geo">Father</persName> &amp; <persName ref="#Russell_M">Mother</persName> join in kindest remembrances &amp; I am ever</p> 
               <closer>My dear <persName ref="#Haydon">Mr. Haydon</persName><lb/>
               <lb/>Most sincerely and affectionately yours<lb/>
                  <signed><persName ref="#MRM"/>M. R. Mitford.</signed></closer>
               <pb n="4"/>
               <postScript><p>Were you not very affected at the death of poor <persName ref="#Keats">John
                        <unclear reason="fold"><supplied>Keats?</supplied></unclear></persName><note resp="#ebb"><bibl>The <date when="1821-04"> April 1821</date> issue of <title level="s" ref="#LondonMag">The London Magazine</title> to which <persName ref="#MRM">Mitford</persName> refers earlier in this letter also contained an article on the <title level="a">"Death of Mr. John Keats"</title> on <biblScope unit="page" from="426" to="427">pages 426-427</biblScope></bibl>.</note> There is another
               proof of the terrible personality of the age. If he had lived I think his name would
               have been second only to <persName ref="#Wordsworth_Wm">Wordsworth</persName>
               amongst the Poets of the day--Indeed even now there are parts of
                  <title ref="#Endymion">Endymion</title> which surely no other man could have
               written.</p></postScript>
           <postScript> <p>I am happy to tell you that after a great deal of enquiry &amp; some threats we
               have succeeded in regaining your greyhound puppy &amp; have
               placed him in very good <del rend="blot" quantity="1" unit="char"/> summer quarters. He is the largest young dog I ever saw in my
               life &amp; gives promise of great strength--Once more Farewell.</p></postScript>
           
            
            <address>
               <addrLine>B.R. Haydon, Esq<hi rend="superscript">re</hi></addrLine> 
               <addrLine><placeName ref="#StJohns_Place">St. John's Place</placeName></addrLine>
               <addrLine><placeName ref="#Lisson_Grove">Lisson Grove</placeName> North</addrLine> 
               <addrLine><placeName ref="#Regents_Park">Regent's Park</placeName></addrLine> 
              <addrLine><hi rend="underline"><placeName ref="#London_city">London</placeName></hi><lb/></addrLine>
            </address>
         
            

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Letter to Benjamin Robert Haydon, 18 April 1821. Mary Russell Mitford Samantha Webb Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford Project University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Elisa Beshero-Bondar Transcription and coding by Samantha Webb Date last checked: 2014-07-04. Proofing and corrections by: Alexandra Drayton Elisa Beshero-Bondar First digital edition in TEI, date: 4 July 2014. P5. Edition made with help from photos taken by Digital Mitford editors Photo files: 18April1821BRHaydon1b.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon1c.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon2a.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon2b.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon3a.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon3b.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon4a.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon4b.jpg Digital Mitford: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive Greensburg, PA, USA 2013

Reproduced by courtesy of the Reading Central Library.

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Digital Mitford Letters: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive Reading Central Library qB/TU/MIT Vol. 4 ff.435 Letter from Mary Russell Mitford to B. R. Haydon, 18 April 1821.

One large sheet of folio paper folded in half and then in nines to expose the address leaf.

Circular non-circumscribed mileage stamp in faint black ink: READINGAP201821

Circular double-circumscribed sepia-inked duty stamp: B 21 AP21 1821

Delivery stamp in red ink in the shape of a circumscribed oval: AP*211821F. NII

A large 7 denoting the fee is scrawled in black ink across the address lines.

Fragments of a red wax seal are evident on either side of the address leaf.

Red crayon or thick red pencil. A different from Mitford's, that marks many of her letters, sometimes drawing diagonal lines across pages, and sometimes writing words overtop and perpendicularly across Mitford's writing. This hand has drawn a diagonal line in red pencil down page 3 of the manuscript of this letter. Someone, apparently other than Mitford, perhaps cataloging letters and describing them. Page 2 of this letter manuscript bears horizontal cross-outs at lines 1 and 24 of paragraph 2, and a vertical line running down the center of the page, covering the anecdote and quote from Miss James's letter about Barbara Hofland. The hand has cross-written above the vertical line: "Omit all this it is told in the next letter." Page 3 of the manuscript bears horiontal cross-outs at lines 10 and 26, and a vertical line runs down the center of the page. The hand has again cross-written above the vertical line:"Omit all this it is in the next letter."

Mitford’s spelling and punctuation are retained, except where a word is split at the end of a line and the beginning of the next in the manuscript. Where Mitford’s spelling and hyphenation of words deviates from the standard, in order to facilitate searching we are using the TEI elements “choice," “sic," and “reg" to encode both Mitford’s spelling and the regular international standard of Oxford English spelling, following the first listed spelling in the Oxford English Dictionary. The long s and ligatured forms are not encoded.

April 18 1821. Three Mile Cross My dear Sir

I have been waiting till Easter should bring some Parliament men into the Country to thank you for your delightful account of your Glasgow excursion1 Haydon had recently returned from Scotland, where he had exhibited his painting, Christ's Entry Into Jerusalem.--Oh what an honour & a pleasure it is to be selected as a friend to whom you like “to unburthen your thoughts”--& how heartily I sympathised with all your feelings whether stern or relenting--I had been waiting for a frank to tell you this--but I suppose indignation is a stonger impulse than pleasure for since I received the Examiner this morning I can no longer refrain from writing. I had read the Article in the Magazine wondering who could be meant--thinking how likely it was to be misrepresented but never for an instant dreaming that it could be aimed at you--of all impossible slanders that seemed the most impossible--& I am even now lost in astonishment at such a malicious falsehood's finding a place in so respectable a publication.2 Mitford has just read Haydon's short retort, "Alleged Inhumanity of a Living Artist" published in the Examiner's current issue of 15 April 1821 , in which he identifies himself as the unspecified "living artist" recently targeted in the April 1821 issue of The London Magazine, in "The British Institution". The London Magazine piece was an anonymous review of an art exhibition in which Haydon did not participate, but in which Edwin Landseer's Seizure of a Boar reminds the writer of an anecdote about "a living artist who, when a child was run over by a cart, before its own loved home, and the bankrupt mother stood rigid as stone, staring with maniac agony on her crushed darling, calmly and deliberately gazed on her 'to study the expression,' as he called it!! I care not to know his name. . . but let me take this opportunity to assure him, that, as a man, I hold him in the most sovereign contempt, not to say detestation!" (page 438). In his prompt rejoinder, Haydon identified himself as the "living artist," and described the circumstances of the encounter: "About eight years ago, while the living Artist alluded to was accidentally approaching Temple Bar, he saw suddenly a great crowd, and heard the screams of some poor woman in great agony! He ran on with many other gentlemen and squeezing near enough to give her aid, found a poor creature turning her head from one side ot the other, beating away the people who offered to calm her, and screaming on 'her dear boy' with a dry, parched, agitated hoarseness!--The people at last forced her into a house, and upon his inquiring what had happened, he found that she had permitted her boy to hold a horse and to mount it, and that the poor little fellow had been thrown and trampled on. Now, Sir, this is the truth and nothing but the truth, whereas in the London Magazine, the living Artist is made to witness unmoved a dear little child crushed by a cart wheel! and indifferent to its horrid condition, deliberately to walk up to the mother without feeling, sympathy, or pain; quietly to look in her face, and enraptured to study her expression!" Haydon continues that the child did not die of the accident, that the mother's face did not stare rigidly but was luridly animated, and that "The living Artist has often related this affecting incident to his friends, and has added, that his coming in contact with such a dreadful expression in Nature, at the very moment he was painting the real mother in the Judgment of Solomon, enabled him to give that look of 'agonized faintness' which it has been thought by every mother he has succeeded in giving." I suppose that as there is now no regular Editor the venom slid in undetected.3 The April 1821 issue of The London Magazine announced the death of its founding editor, John Scott, who had on 16 February fallen in a duel with Jonathan Christie, John Gibson Lockhart's literary agent. Scott challenged Christie to the duel over what Scott took to be a personal insult, rooted in an escalating conflict between his London Magazine and what he took to be Lockhart's writings in Blackwood's Magazine caricaturing a Cockney School of London writers and artists. William Hazlitt had taken over as editor of The London Magazine for the April 1821 issue. Mitford's surprise that The London Magazine would print an implicit insult to Haydon is certainly warranted, since Haydon had long been a friend of John Scott (Source: ODNB]). I am almost glad that it did since it has afforded you an opportunity of making a defence & dignified & so spirited--What a necessary thing it is that a great painter should be a good writer! And really in these days when the appetite for anecdote as it is called (that is for scandal) is so craving & the gossip of a set of unidea'd women over a country tea table yields in malice to the slander of literary chit chat, every man should be brought to wield the pen as a weapon of defence against his enemies his rivals & his friends. Do you know to which class the present writer belongs?--I will not talk of him any more for it really gives me unwomanly feelings--to use a womanly phrase it puts me in a passion.----4 Here Mitford's long dash signals a change of topic, effectively a paragraph break.

What became of your poor Glasgow culprit? Did he come back to London according to your behest? And is he likely to turn honest & make his way in the world?5 We have not yet identified this "Glasgow culprit" from our review of Haydon's published correspondence. I think if any thing could reform a man your severity of words & kindness of action would do so.

I think you know my friend Mrs Hofland I have just had a letter from Miss James containing so remarkable an anecdote respecting her that I am tempted to transcribe it--To understand it I must tell you that Mrs Hofland has been for several years involved in a Chancery suit on the success of which they had placed great reliance.6 The National Archives documents multiple Chancery suits, with records dating 1813, 1814, and 1818 involving Thomas and Barbara Hofland as plaintiffs against Francis Hoole, Joseph Wreaks, Job Baseby Rolls and Frederick Parkin Hoole. The surnames Wreaks and Hoole suggest connections on Barbara Hofland's side, as Hoole was the name of her first husband and Wreaks was her maiden name. (Ah I could have told them what a miserable thing is a successful Chancery suit!) Now for Miss James's letter. "The Hofland suit is decided in their favour--but all the costs being to be paid out of the property not a sixpence Mrs. Hof. says will come to them. Their lawyer had neglected to write & the news of the decision was brought by a neighbour who told her only that it was decided in their favour--she went to Town to enquire was and was quite overcome by the information she received--& was about to mount the outside of the Twickenham Coach to return all amort as you may suppose when recollecting she should save sixpence in going by the Richmond Stage & such an one being on hand,--she withdrew her foot although a most respectable woman with her husband at her side affected to make room for her--Home she came by the Richmond Coach & saved her sixpence & her life. The Twickenham Coach was overturned an hour after & that decent woman in whose place she would have sat killed on the spot. The husband had his collar bone & a rib broken. This most striking event gave a new & just turn to her thoughts--I am sure you will feel as thankful as I did at the detail which she gave in her most pathetic manner." _____

Having begun storytelling I must tell you another a story which comes from Germany. The King of Naples 7 Possibly this a story about King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, also Ferdinand IV of Naples (1751 - 1825), though it is hard to tell if the anecdote is current. having arrived at Laybach before the other sovereigns of was desirous to have the amusement of bear hunting which of course was to be provided for him but there being no bears resident in the neighbourhood one was purchased of a Savoyard & placed a few miles out of Town in a thicket. The King attended as the story went by a train of cars & courtiers arrived near the place & the Bear finding himself in the neighbourhood of so much good company fancied he was to perform as usual came out on his hind legs in a most graceful attitude--which alas! had an effect on the hard heart of his Neopolitan Majesty who discharged his piece & shot him dead. This story is none of my radical inventions--it came from Lord Ashburton to Sir W. Elford & from him to me. ____

I have a great grievance just now which I have nothing all to do with--but which I cannot help thinking a grievance nevertheless. The Duke of Wellington's sons are at home for the Eton holidays & they come every day to a little alehouse next door to learn French of a Jew who is lodging there for the purpose of teaching them. "The poor little lads Ma'am", said my friend the Landlord, "are kept very strict. They never look up but their tutor corrects them, & there they sit in my parlour from eleven to half past four & never have a glass of any thing." Without sympathising very deeply in the misfortune which my friend the Alehouse keeper with a true tap-room feeling considers as worst of all, I am quite indignant at the poor little boys being cheated of their holidays. Is it not abominable?--A worse iniquity than cheating beating Napoleon.8 A reference to Wellington's famous defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. When they ought to be playing cricket or stealing bird's nests or doing mischief or doing nothing.--The Battle of Waterloo was a joke to this wickedness. The only thing that even looks like the holidays is their mode of conveyance which is generally five in a gig rain or shine.

Pray did you get a little letter which I sent to you at Glasgow--It is not worth asking for.--My Father & Mother join in kindest remembrances & I am ever

My dear Mr. Haydon Most sincerely and affectionately yours M. R. Mitford.

Were you not very affected at the death of poor John Keats? 9 The April 1821 issue of The London Magazine to which Mitford refers earlier in this letter also contained an article on the "Death of Mr. John Keats" on pages 426-427 . There is another proof of the terrible personality of the age. If he had lived I think his name would have been second only to Wordsworth amongst the Poets of the day--Indeed even now there are parts of Endymion which surely no other man could have written.

I am happy to tell you that after a great deal of enquiry & some threats we have succeeded in regaining your greyhound puppy & have placed him in very good summer quarters. He is the largest young dog I ever saw in my life & gives promise of great strength--Once more Farewell.

B.R. Haydon, Esqre St. John's Place Lisson Grove North Regent's Park London

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Letter to Benjamin Robert Haydon, 18 April 1821. Mary Russell Mitford Samantha Webb Mary Russell Mitford Society: Digital Mitford Project University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Elisa Beshero-Bondar Transcription and coding by Samantha Webb Date last checked: 2014-07-04. Proofing and corrections by: Alexandra Drayton Elisa Beshero-Bondar First digital edition in TEI, date: 4 July 2014. P5. Edition made with help from photos taken by Digital Mitford editors Photo files: 18April1821BRHaydon1b.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon1c.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon2a.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon2b.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon3a.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon3b.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon4a.jpg, 18April1821BRHaydon4b.jpg Digital Mitford: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive Greensburg, PA, USA 2013

Reproduced by courtesy of the Reading Central Library.

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Digital Mitford Letters: The Mary Russell Mitford Archive Reading Central Library qB/TU/MIT Vol. 4 ff.435 Letter from Mary Russell Mitford to B. R. Haydon, 18 April 1821.

One large sheet of folio paper folded in half and then in nines to expose the address leaf.

Circular non-circumscribed mileage stamp in faint black ink: READINGAP201821

Circular double-circumscribed sepia-inked duty stamp: B 21 AP21 1821

Delivery stamp in red ink in the shape of a circumscribed oval: AP*211821F. NII

A large 7 denoting the fee is scrawled in black ink across the address lines.

Fragments of a red wax seal are evident on either side of the address leaf.

Red crayon or thick red pencil. A different from Mitford's, that marks many of her letters, sometimes drawing diagonal lines across pages, and sometimes writing words overtop and perpendicularly across Mitford's writing. This hand has drawn a diagonal line in red pencil down page 3 of the manuscript of this letter. Someone, apparently other than Mitford, perhaps cataloging letters and describing them. Page 2 of this letter manuscript bears horizontal cross-outs at lines 1 and 24 of paragraph 2, and a vertical line running down the center of the page, covering the anecdote and quote from Miss James's letter about Barbara Hofland. The hand has cross-written above the vertical line: "Omit all this it is told in the next letter." Page 3 of the manuscript bears horiontal cross-outs at lines 10 and 26, and a vertical line runs down the center of the page. The hand has again cross-written above the vertical line:"Omit all this it is in the next letter."

Mitford’s spelling and punctuation are retained, except where a word is split at the end of a line and the beginning of the next in the manuscript. Where Mitford’s spelling and hyphenation of words deviates from the standard, in order to facilitate searching we are using the TEI elements “choice," “sic," and “reg" to encode both Mitford’s spelling and the regular international standard of Oxford English spelling, following the first listed spelling in the Oxford English Dictionary. The long s and ligatured forms are not encoded.

April 18 1821. Three Mile Cross My dear Sir

I have been waiting till Easter should bring some Parliament men into the Country to thank you for your delightful account of your Glasgow excursion Haydon had recently returned from Scotland, where he had exhibited his painting, Christ's Entry Into Jerusalem.--Oh what an honour & a pleasure it is to be selected as a friend to whom you like “to unburthen your thoughts”--& how heartily I sympathised with all your feelings whether stern or relenting--I had been waiting for a frank to tell you this--but I suppose indignation is a stonger impulse than pleasure for since I received the Examiner this morning I can no longer refrain from writing. I had read the Article in the Magazine wondering who could be meant--thinking how likely it was to be misrepresented but never for an instant dreaming that it could be aimed at you--of all impossible slanders that seemed the most impossible--& I am even now lost in astonishment at such a malicious falsehood's finding a place in so respectable a publication.Mitford has just read Haydon's short retort, "Alleged Inhumanity of a Living Artist" published in the Examiner's current issue of 15 April 1821 , in which he identifies himself as the unspecified "living artist" recently targeted in the April 1821 issue of The London Magazine, in "The British Institution". The London Magazine piece was an anonymous review of an art exhibition in which Haydon did not participate, but in which Edwin Landseer's Seizure of a Boar reminds the writer of an anecdote about "a living artist who, when a child was run over by a cart, before its own loved home, and the bankrupt mother stood rigid as stone, staring with maniac agony on her crushed darling, calmly and deliberately gazed on her 'to study the expression,' as he called it!! I care not to know his name. . . but let me take this opportunity to assure him, that, as a man, I hold him in the most sovereign contempt, not to say detestation!" (page 438). In his prompt rejoinder, Haydon identified himself as the "living artist," and described the circumstances of the encounter: "About eight years ago, while the living Artist alluded to was accidentally approaching Temple Bar, he saw suddenly a great crowd, and heard the screams of some poor woman in great agony! He ran on with many other gentlemen and squeezing near enough to give her aid, found a poor creature turning her head from one side ot the other, beating away the people who offered to calm her, and screaming on 'her dear boy' with a dry, parched, agitated hoarseness!--The people at last forced her into a house, and upon his inquiring what had happened, he found that she had permitted her boy to hold a horse and to mount it, and that the poor little fellow had been thrown and trampled on. Now, Sir, this is the truth and nothing but the truth, whereas in the London Magazine, the living Artist is made to witness unmoved a dear little child crushed by a cart wheel! and indifferent to its horrid condition, deliberately to walk up to the mother without feeling, sympathy, or pain; quietly to look in her face, and enraptured to study her expression!" Haydon continues that the child did not die of the accident, that the mother's face did not stare rigidly but was luridly animated, and that "The living Artist has often related this affecting incident to his friends, and has added, that his coming in contact with such a dreadful expression in Nature, at the very moment he was painting the real mother in the Judgment of Solomon, enabled him to give that look of 'agonized faintness' which it has been thought by every mother he has succeeded in giving." I suppose that as there is now no regular Editor the venom slid in undetected. The April 1821 issue of The London Magazine announced the death of its founding editor, John Scott, who had on 16 February fallen in a duel with Jonathan Christie, John Gibson Lockhart's literary agent. Scott challenged Christie to the duel over what Scott took to be a personal insult, rooted in an escalating conflict between his London Magazine and what he took to be Lockhart's writings in Blackwood's Magazine caricaturing a Cockney School of London writers and artists. William Hazlitt had taken over as editor of The London Magazine for the April 1821 issue. Mitford's surprise that The London Magazine would print an implicit insult to Haydon is certainly warranted, since Haydon had long been a friend of John Scott (Source: ODNB]). I am almost glad that it did since it has afforded you an opportunity of making a defence & dignified & so spirited--What a necessary thing it is that a great painter should be a good writer! And really in these days when the appetite for anecdote as it is called (that is for scandal) is so craving & the gossip of a set of unidea'd women over a country tea table yields in malice to the slander of literary chit chat, every man should be brought to wield the pen as a weapon of defence against his enemies his rivals & his friends. Do you know to which class the present writer belongs?--I will not talk of him any more for it really gives me unwomanly feelings--to use a womanly phrase it puts me in a passion.----Here Mitford's long dash signals a change of topic, effectively a paragraph break.

What became of your poor Glasgow culprit? Did he come back to London according to your behest? And is he likely to turn honest & make his way in the world?We have not yet identified this "Glasgow culprit" from our review of Haydon's published correspondence. I think if any thing could reform a man your severity of words & kindness of action would do so.

I think you know my friend Mrs Hofland I have just had a letter from Miss James containing so remarkable an anecdote respecting her that I am tempted to transcribe it--To understand it I must tell you that Mrs Hofland has been for several years involved in a Chancery suit on the success of which they had placed great reliance.The National Archives documents multiple Chancery suits, with records dating 1813, 1814, and 1818 involving Thomas and Barbara Hofland as plaintiffs against Francis Hoole, Joseph Wreaks, Job Baseby Rolls and Frederick Parkin Hoole. The surnames Wreaks and Hoole suggest connections on Barbara Hofland's side, as Hoole was the name of her first husband and Wreaks was her maiden name. (Ah I could have told them what a miserable thing is a successful Chancery suit!) Now for Miss James's letter. "The Hofland suit is decided in their favour--but all the costs being to be paid out of the property not a sixpence Mrs. Hof. says will come to them. Their lawyer had neglected to write & the news of the decision was brought by a neighbour who told her only that it was decided in their favour--she went to Town to enquire was and was quite overcome by the information she received--& was about to mount the outside of the Twickenham Coach to return all amort as you may suppose when recollecting she should save sixpence in going by the Richmond Stage & such an one being on hand,--she withdrew her foot although a most respectable woman with her husband at her side affected to make room for her--Home she came by the Richmond Coach & saved her sixpence & her life. The Twickenham Coach was overturned an hour after & that decent woman in whose place she would have sat killed on the spot. The husband had his collar bone & a rib broken. This most striking event gave a new & just turn to her thoughts--I am sure you will feel as thankful as I did at the detail which she gave in her most pathetic manner." _____

Having begun storytelling I must tell you another a story which comes from Germany. The King of Naples Possibly this a story about King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, also Ferdinand IV of Naples (1751 - 1825), though it is hard to tell if the anecdote is current. having arrived at Laybach before the other sovereigns of was desirous to have the amusement of bear hunting which of course was to be provided for him but there being no bears resident in the neighbourhood one was purchased of a Savoyard & placed a few miles out of Town in a thicket. The King attended as the story went by a train of cars & courtiers arrived near the place & the Bear finding himself in the neighbourhood of so much good company fancied he was to perform as usual came out on his hind legs in a most graceful attitude--which alas! had an effect on the hard heart of his Neopolitan Majesty who discharged his piece & shot him dead. This story is none of my radical inventions--it came from Lord Ashburton to Sir W. Elford & from him to me. ____

I have a great grievance just now which I have nothing all to do with--but which I cannot help thinking a grievance nevertheless. The Duke of Wellington's sons are at home for the Eton holidays & they come every day to a little alehouse next door to learn French of a Jew who is lodging there for the purpose of teaching them. "The poor little lads Ma'am", said my friend the Landlord, "are kept very strict. They never look up but their tutor corrects them, & there they sit in my parlour from eleven to half past four & never have a glass of any thing." Without sympathising very deeply in the misfortune which my friend the Alehouse keeper with a true tap-room feeling considers as worst of all, I am quite indignant at the poor little boys being cheated of their holidays. Is it not abominable?--A worse iniquity than cheating beating Napoleon.A reference to Wellington's famous defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. When they ought to be playing cricket or stealing bird's nests or doing mischief or doing nothing.--The Battle of Waterloo was a joke to this wickedness. The only thing that even looks like the holidays is their mode of conveyance which is generally five in a gig rain or shine.

Pray did you get a little letter which I sent to you at Glasgow--It is not worth asking for.--My Father & Mother join in kindest remembrances & I am ever

My dear Mr. Haydon Most sincerely and affectionately yours M. R. Mitford.

Were you not very affected at the death of poor John Keats? The April 1821 issue of The London Magazine to which Mitford refers earlier in this letter also contained an article on the "Death of Mr. John Keats" on pages 426-427 . There is another proof of the terrible personality of the age. If he had lived I think his name would have been second only to Wordsworth amongst the Poets of the day--Indeed even now there are parts of Endymion which surely no other man could have written.

I am happy to tell you that after a great deal of enquiry & some threats we have succeeded in regaining your greyhound puppy & have placed him in very good summer quarters. He is the largest young dog I ever saw in my life & gives promise of great strength--Once more Farewell.

B.R. Haydon, Esqre St. John's Place Lisson Grove North Regent's Park London