H "How far the applause of critics has rewarded the author of Orion' I do not know; but I think the pleasure he enjoyed in its composition must have been a bounteous meed in itself. You could not, I imagine, have written that poem without at times deriving deep happiness from your work. "With sincere thanks for the pleasure it has afforded me, "I remain, dear Sir, "Yours faithfully, 64 complimentary, but very earnest terms, to of the day," which does not permit counthe Author of Jane Eyre,”—the_lady try squires and others to swear in oaths whose nom de plume was Currer Bell," with proper spelling, but only by a first and and whose real name we were not to know. last letter- and a hushing-up dash, to mark To this she had replied in a note, which the prudent author's disapproval of a proconcluded with these words: fane tongue. There were also some other startling excrescences, but only as the excess of force in the reality of the pictures, all very pardonable in the first work of a young author. Wuthering Heights" is one of the most powerful novels ever written in the English language, or any other fate. Emily Brontë died without receiving language. It did indeed deserve a better any public recognition of her genius, and although the inward fangs of a fatal disease were doing their certain work, the world might perhaps have had another creation from that so potent spirit; and in any case the feeling of some public acknowledgment that she had not lived, and felt, and thought, and laboured in vain, would have helped to smooth her death-pillow, and to have made the brief remaining period of her generous sister's own life more happy. With what earnest emotion does Charlotte Brontë strive in that preface to place her sister's fame beside, or above, her own; with what noble yet almost tearful energy she seems to keep down her reproaches of the shallow judgment, the prudery, and want of perception, which had refused to admit Emily to her rightful place among writers of fiction! The ancient Romans used to set up a statue to " Success," and worshipped it as a god. What could the figure have been like, one wonders? Such a deity could not well be set up, admissibly and substantially as such, in modern times; but, O Discretion! how often do we notice that for want of thee, the best things may fail utterly, while, with thine aid, mediocrity in all shapes may become most prosperous. On joining the ladies in the drawingroom, our host requested the writer to take a seat beside Miss Brontë. The moment be did so, she turned towards him with the most charming artlessness, exclaiming, "I was so much obliged to you, Mr. Horne, for sending me yourShe checked herself with an inward start, having thus at once exploded her Currer-Bell secret, by identifying herself with the "Author of Jane Eyre." She looked embarrassed. "Ah, Miss Brontë," whispered the innocent cause of the not very serious misfortune; "you would never do for treasons and stratagems. ." She nodded acquiesently, but with a degree of vexation and self-reproach. Shortly after this, Mr. S., overbearing some conversation between us, which showed that the secret was out," took an early opportunity of calling me aside, when he extended both hands, with an et tu Brute look, and began to complain of my breach of the general understanding. I of course explained what the lady had said, at the naïveté of which he was not a little astonished and amused. 66 A very gentle, brave, and noble-spirited woman was Charlotte Brontë. Fragile of form, and tremulous as an aspen leaf, she had an energy of mind and a heroism of character capable of real things in private life, as admirable as any of the fine delineations in her works of fiction. Noth- There used to be. and there no doubt ing she has ever done seems to me more still is, if I had but the courage to go and truthful, more magnanimous, and more look at it, a small, old-fashioned cottage at touching than the brief preface she wrote Three-mile Cross, near Reading, which to a new edition of her sister's novel of stood in a garden close to the road. A "Wuthering Heights." Emily was dead; strip of garden was on one side, a little bit her novel had not been appreciated; not of a pony-stable on the other, and the larger well spoken of by the critics; not well re- part of the garden at the back. It was a ceived by the public; and mainly in conse- comfortable-looking, but still a real village quence of frequent violations, in no instance of the reality of the characters she had so wonderfully portrayed in their time and place, but violation of the so-called "taste But let us change the scene from London squares to the green lanes of Berkshire its cottages, its gardens; and, above all, let us contemplate the abode of one who, not many years ago, was the presiding spirit of the scene. cottage, with no town or suburb look whatever about it. Small lattice windows, below and above, with roses and jasmine creeping round them all, established its rural charac ter; and there was a great buttress of a chimney rising from the ground at the garden-strip side, which was completely covered with a very ancient and very fine apricot tree. There the birds delighted to sit and sing among the leaves, and build too, in several snug nooks, and there in early autumn the wasps used to bite and bore into the rich-ripe brown cracks of the largest apricots, and would issue forth in rage when any one of the sweetest of their property was brought down to the earth by the aid of a clothes-prop, guided under the superintending instructions of a venerable little gentlewoman in a garden-bonnet and shawl, with silver hair, very bright hazel eyes, and a rose-red smiling countenance. Altogether, it was one of the brightest faces any one ever saw. "Now, my dear friend," would she say, "if you will only attend to my advice, you will get that apricot up there, which is quite in perfection. I have had my eye upon it these last three weeks, wondering nobody stole it. The boys often get over into the garden before any of us are up. There now, collect all those leaves, if you will be so good and those too - and lay them all in a heap just underneath, so that the apricot may fall upon them. If you don't do that, it will burst open with a thump. There! now push the prop up slowly, so as to break the apricot from the stalk, and when it is down, do not be in too great a hurry to take it up, as it's sure to have a good large wasp or two inside. Wasps are capital judges of ripe wall-fruit, as my dear father used to say. A little lower with the prop! more to the left-now just push the prong upwards, and gently lift- again -down it comes! Mind the wasps!three, four-mind!-perhaps that's not all-five! I told you so!" "How angry they are!" "Not more, my dear friend, than you and I would have been under similar circumstances." I had not known Miss Mitford very long at this time; but it was her habit to address all those with whom she was on intimate terms, by some affectionate expression. For several years, however, I used to pay a visit of a week or ten days to Miss Mitford's cottage during the strawberry season, and again during the middle of summer, when her show of geraniums (she resisted all new nomenclatures) was at its height, and sometimes later when the wonderful old fruit-trees just retained some half-dozen of their choicest treasures. It would be impossible for any engraving or photograph, however excellent as to features, to convey a true likeness of Mary Russell Mitford. During one of these visits, Miss Charlotte Cushman was also staying at the cottage, and exclaimed, the first time Miss Mitford left the room, "What a bright face it is!" This effect of summer brightness all over the countenance was quite remarkable. A floral flush overspread the whole face, which seemed to carry its own light with it, for it was the same indoors as out. The silver hair shone, the forehead shone, the cheeks shone, and, above all, the eyes shone. The expression was entirely genial, cognoscitive, beneficent. The outline of the face was an oblate round, of no very marked significance beyond that of an apple, or other rural "character;" in fact, it was very like a rosy apple in the sun. Always excepting the forehead and chin. The forehead was not only massive, but built in a way that sculpture only could adequately delineate. Mrs. Browning (at that time Miss Elizabeth Barret), in a note to a friend concerning Miss Mitford, described her forehead as of the ancient Greek type, and compared it to her idea of Akinetos, or the Great Unmoved, although we may doubt whether the amiable authoress of " Our Village" would have felt very much pleased or complimented by the unexpected comparison. Howbeit, this brainstructure accounted to me for the fact that Miss Mitford's conversation was often very superior to anything in her books. Having on one occasion suggested this, she said, smiling: "Well, you see, my dear friend, we must take the world as we find it, and it doesn't do to say to everybody, all that you would say to one, here and there." And presently afterwards, when alluding to several persons, without mentioning any names, for she was a very polite lady of the old school, Miss Mitford added: "One has to think twice before speaking once, in order to come down to them; like talking to children." * This build of head, and strong oblate outline of head and face, will go far to explain the strength of character displayed by Miss Mitford during the early and most trying periods of her life with her extravagant and selfish father. It may also equally account for her general composure and presence of mind, both on great occasions and others, trifling enough to talk and write about, but of a kind to test the nerves of most ladies. For instance, in driving Miss Mitford one day in her little ponychaise on a morning visit, she so riveted my attention on the special point of a story, that I allowed one wheel to run into a little languages. She was also well acquainted dry ditch at the roadside, and the pony- with all the greatest authors of France and chaise must of course have turned over, but Italy, in the original, and, ostensibly, with that we were brought up" by the hedge. the poetry of the Portuguese. But it is not "Hillo! my dear friend!" said Miss Mit- so generally known, and perhaps very little ford; "we must get out." We did so; known, that she was a most assiduous the little trap was at once put on its proper reader of English literature, and conversant course, and without one word of comment, equally with the earliest authors, and the the bright-faced old lady took up the thread best of those of our own day. Her criticisms of her story. in the Athenæum, and in her private letters, are exquisite; discriminating and applauding all the power and beauty; lenient to errors and shortcomings, and rich with imaginative illustrations. She had a subtle instinct as to character, the more remarkable considering her years of seclusion from the world. But these things can only be known to the very few who enjoyed the privilege of being in her society, or ranking among her correspondents. In the opinion of some of them, nobody ever wrote such letters and notes, not even the most celebrated of the lady letter-writers handed down for the world's admiration. general knowledge, the varied learning and reading, the fine taste, and the noble heart and mind, were only to be surpassed, if that could be, by her utter simplicity and charming colloquial carelessness. Of course no single letter would display all these qualities, but it would be difficult to produce half-a-dozen which did not. Her favourite seat in the cottage, in the garden, and in the large greenhouse where she received visitors during the "strawberry season" (her usual definition of certain months), I have not revisited, and had better never do so. What people fondly call "a melancholy pleasure," is very intelligible, very expressive, and certainly very English. Without being addicted to deep sentiment like our cousin Germans, we certainly are very fond of courting gloom and sadness, not only in the performance of funerals, but in seeking sights and associations which are anything but a pleasure. Surely it is the best philosophy to avoid them. But no doubt I shall go there some day. My first acquaintance with the authoress of Our Village" was by a note from Miss Barrett (whom I only knew by literary correspondence, and had never seen), both so much regarded in private and in public, and now so lamented. This note enclosed one from Miss Mitford, expressing a wish to have a dramatic sketch for some annual, or other ornamental thing, she found it her interest, but no particular pleasure, to edit. That occasion was my first introduction to Miss Mitford; and my first to the learned and accomplished poetess-the greatest lyric poetess the world has ever known was by a note from Mrs. O., enclosing one from the young lady, containing a short poem, with the modest request to be frankly told whether it might be ranked as poetry, or merely verses. As there could be no doubt in the recipient's mind on that point, the poem was forwarded to Colburn's New Monthly, edited at that time by Mr. Bulwer (now Lord Lytton), where it duly appeared in the current number. The next manuscript sent to me, was "The Dead Pan," and the poetess at once started on her bright and noble career. It may be generally understood that this equally gifted and accomplished lady, having been for years confined to her rooms, like an exotic plant in a green-house, being considered in constant danger of rapid decline, occupied her time, not only in the arduous study of poetry, but in acquiring a knowledge of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew VOL. XIX. 837 LIVING AGE. The Having only occasionally had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Jameson, the writer would have felt diffident in venturing to bring her upon the scene. Fortunately this can be referred to a better hand, Mrs. Jameson having visited Miss Barrett during her period of seclusion. The date of the followlowing letter appears to be December 3, 1844: "Not a sound—not a sign! . . . Tell me, for I do long to hear what is called now-a-days the real mesmeric truth.' Οτοτοτοί in English we have nothing complaining enough, though we are said, here in England, to have the spirit of grumbling. "Since I wrote last I have seen Miss Mitford again, and I have lately received her promise of an early visit. That is, she will come as she did before, for what poor L. E. L. used to call the super-felicity of talking,' and stay with me Also I from noon-tide to seven o'clock P.M. have seen Mrs. Jameson, and she overcame at last by sending a note to me from the next house St. -51, WDo you know her? She did not exactly reflect my idea of Mrs. Jameson. And yet it would be both untrue and ungrateful to tell you that she disappointed me. In fact she agreeably surprised me in one respect for I had been told that she was pedantic, and I found her as unassuming as a woman need be- both unassuming and natural. a nose "Miss Martineau is astounding the world with mesmeric statements through the medium of the Athenæum — and yet, it happens so, that I believe few converts will be made by her. The medical men have taken up her glove brutally as dogs might do-dogs, exclusive of my Flush, who is a gentleman. ... * The tone of her conversation, how-| existed, would be almost as inapplicable to ever, is rather analytical and critical than spon- Leigh Hunt as to Ben Jonson. taneous and impulsive- and for this reason she appears to me a less charming companion than "I have not heard a word from Leigh Hunt, our friend of Three-mile Cross, who wears her I am grateful enough to him as it is, havheart upon her sleeve,' and shakes out its per- ing, in addition to all former causes of gratifumes at every moment. She- Mrs Jameson tude, the present delight of reading his new is keen and calm, and reflective. She has a critical work upon poetry. The most delightvery light complexion — pale, lucid eyes- thin ful and genial of poetical critics he is assuredly. colourless lips, fit for incisive meanings – Not that I always agree with him. I have it and chin projective without breadth. She was in my head, for instance, that he knows Ben here nearly an hour, and though on a first visit, Jonson somewhat superficially, and underI could perceive that a vague thought, or ex-rates his lyrics immensely and accepts the poppression, she would not permit to pass either ular prejudice about his jealousy,' &c., even from my lips or her own. Yet nothing could be blindly. Is there a poet of England, new or greater than her kindness to me, and I already old, who has written so much praise of his conthink of her as of a friend. temporaries as Ben Jonson? I know not. Does that fact prove jealousy in him? I infer not. Then, Beaumont and Fletcher he is niggardly in selections from, and for a reason I do not admit, for he says that it is impossible to quote a passage longer than a very short one, without falling upon matter of offence. Respectfully, I abjure the reasonableness of such a reason. "Well, have you received my poems? In the Then, again, I seriously am of opinion that even 'Pan' you will observe that I accepted certain if he rejects, . . . he might, out of the broad of your suggestions, and neglected others ne- sympathy of a poet's heart, have had patience glected some, because I did not agree with you, with Milton's divinity, as another form of myand some because I could not follow my own thology. There may be sectarianism in the very wishes. In fact, or rather by fantasy, that cutting off of sectarianism. I am sorry (very) poem seemed to me to belong to Mr. Kenyon. for some things said, and some things left unsaid, In various manners, past describing, he has in the paper on Milton-for instance, the lavished so much interest and kindness on it, omission of one of the very noblest odes in the and on me through it, that he seemed to me to English language (that on the birth of the Nahave all the rights of adoption. He wanted va- tivity), because-it is not on the birth of rious things altered, which I altered for the Bacchus! Objections like these apart, the book most part. Here and there, however, I was is, however, a beautiful book, and will be a obliged to resist - though not without pain. companion to me for the rest of my life. My And when I proposed having the Greek names brother George gave it to me as the most accep(on which point I do altogether in my inward table gift in the world. Talking of books of soul agree with you), he spurned the idea of poetry, tell me the name of the poem you are turning Jove into Zeus, and I had not the cour-writing. My American friends ask about your age to stand by my arms. ... The volumes are succeeding, past any expectation or hope of mine. Blackwood's high help was much, and Tait's not unavailing. Then I continue to have letters of the kindest, from unknown readers. I had a letter yesterday from the remote region of Gutter-lane, beginning, I thank thee!' The American publisher has printed fifteen hundred copies. If I am a means of ultimate loss to him, I shall sit in sackcloth. . . .” 'Gregory,' Cosmo,' and Marlowe,' and want to naturalize them a little more. "Mr. Tennyson is quite well again, I understand. Wordsworth is in a fever about the railroad which people are going to drive through the middle of the Lake School. So excited was he, that his wife persuaded him to go from home for a time, and compose his mind. He went, like an obedient husband - but he came back with ten fevers instead of one- and the time of his absence he spent in canvassing for Members of Parliament who would not say aye' to it. Fifty have promised, he says, to protect him though Monckton Milnes, having caught corruption from the Utilitarians, dares to oppose the master-pcet front to front, and sonnet to sonnet. Mr. Browning has not returned to England yet. - al Here follows a bit of admirable criticism on Leigh Hunt (and incidentally on Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Milton), which Leigh Hunt himself, had he read it, would have been generous enough to forgive; and he would also have been wise enough to turn again to the pages of the great writers in question, in order to reconsider some of his previous objections. What is remarked, however, of the dead silence observed by modern poets concern- *The above was written before Leigh Hunt had ing each other, as though no others even published all his remarks on Ben Jonson. "And then I hear that Carlyle won't believe in Mesmerism, and calls Harriet Martineau mad. The madness showed itself first in the refusal of the pension - next, in the resolu tion that, the universe being desirous of reading" DEAR HORNE, "May God bless you, my dear friend. Take "Though your letter seems intended for Mr. Reynell, yet, as the envelope is addressed to myself, I choose to pretend I have a right to answer it, in order that I may express my thanks as quickly as possible for the frank and liberal manner in which you and your friends have met our wishes; and to say how happy we shall be, for our sakes as well as yours and theirs, to show all the sense that becomes us, of your own. "Your obliged and faithful Servant, "LEIGH HUNT." Under such auspices there surely was The foregoing with the exception of every reason to anticipate that the Monthly ⚫ some passages of literary sympathy, which Repository would be, at last, cut clean the present writer frankly expresses his re-away from all imaginary remains of sectagret at omitting - was the substance of a rianism. Leigh Hunt started it with all his single letter, sent to Germany, addressed usual vivacity and pleasure on commencing to one whom the poetess had never seen; anything of a novel kind. He quite diswho was unlikely ever to see, and whom the ported himself as in "fresh woods and paslady never did see till after her return from tures new." Excepting Mr. Fox, whose Florence as the wife of his early friend. So absence was deemed politic, most of the far as one isolated letter can serve in illus- principal contributors on the staff of the tration of the opinion expressed of the scope previous editorship joined Leigh Hunt. and style of epistolary composition (which, Landor sent him contributions, Carlyle did indeed, was no conscious composition at all, something; Robert Bell, Thomas Wade, but obviously no more than easy intellectual Egerton Webbe, and, if I reccollect rightly, impulse, natural grace, and richness of Mrs. Jameson, Robert Browning, Miss mind), the above, it is submitted, may be ac- Martineau, and others. It flourished for a cepted by the highest class of readers. season; but so absorbent and reticent is public opinion, that this always valiant, intellectual, and energetic pioneer of most of the leading ideas and principles of progression in our present day, having once been in the memory of "the oldest inhabitant" the chief organ of a dissenting sect that early fact still hovered and vapoured round it with a smothered atmosphere, and finally poor Leigh Hunt discovered that it labour in vain," and so the brave was little Repository died in his editorial arms: about as happy and honourable an end as it 66 could have had. With the delightful essayist and poetical critic, Leigh Hunt, my first acquaintance commenced when W. J. Fox, the late M. P. for Oldham, having become actively engaged in political life, wished to make over the proprietorship of his Monthly Repository to somebody of position, who would carry forward those principles of mental freedom, of reform, and of science, literature, and art, of which, with the assistance of Mr. John Mill, Miss Martineau, Dr. Southwood Smith, &c. &c., it had for years been one of the very foremost champions. More It is remarkable that so many literary especially Mr. Fox was anxious to disentangle it entirely from the Unitarian connecmen and women, more perhaps than any tion, of which it had originally been the other class, give no dates to their letters leading organ. With this view, the editor- and notes, or only imperfect dates, such as ship had been undertaken by the present the month, or the day of the week. Hunwriter, and the magazine had been carried dreds are in my possession, to which the on during six months, when it was found probable date can only be given from cirthat the odour of unsanctified sectarianism cumstances mentioned in them, because the was still supposed to cling to it, because it post-marks on the envelopes are generally bad once been the chief organ of that class illegible. Here is one from Leigh Hunt, of Dissenters. Sitting in the cecumenical which, of course, refers to the production council, so far as our friend W. J. Fox and of his beautiful and stage-neglected play of "The Legend of Florence." What a dehis four or five literary bishops could represent the world in question, it was deter-lightful state of excitement he is in !— mined to offer the magazine as a free gift to Leigh Hunt. It was eventually accepted jointly, at his wish, by Mr. Reynell, the printer of the Examiner and himself, in the following little note, dated Chelsea : "MY DEAR HORNE, Friday, October 18. "The deed is done! and the play accepted! I received your letter the evening before last, and should have written yesterday morning, but |