I have been waiting day after day, dear Mr. Fields, to send you two books,—one new, the other old,—one by my friend, Mr. Bennett; the other a volume [her Dramatic Poems] long out of print in England, and never, I think, known in America. I had great difficulty in procuring the shabby copy which I send you, but I think you will like it because it is mine, and comes to you from friend to friend, and because there is more of myself, that is, of my own inner feelings and fancies, than one ever ventures to put into prose. Mr. Bennett's volume, which is from himself as well as from me, I am sure you will like; most thoroughly would like each other if ever you met. He has the poet's heart and the poet's mind, large, truthful, generous, and full of true refinement, delightful as a companion, and invaluable as a man.
After eight years' absolute cessation of composition, Henry Chorley, of the Athenaeum, coaxed me last summer into writing for a Lady's Journal, which he was editing for Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, certain Readings of Poetry, old and new, which will, I suppose, form two or three separate volumes when collected, buried as they now are amongst all the trash and crochet-work and millinery. They will be quite as good as MS., and, indeed, every paper will be enlarged and above as many again added. One pleasure will be the doing what justice I can to certain American poets,—Mr. Whittier, for instance, whose "Massachusetts to Virginia" is amongst the finest things ever written. I gave one copy to a most intelligent Quaker lady, and have another in the house at this moment for Mrs. Walter, widow and mother of the two John Walters, father and son, so well known as proprietors of the Times. I shall cause my book to be immediately forwarded to you, but I don't think it will be ready for a twelvemonth. There is a good deal in it of my own prose, and it takes a wider range than usual of poetry, including much that has never appeared in any of the specimen books. Of course, dear friend, this is strictly between you and me, because it would greatly damage the work to have the few fragments that have appeared as yet brought forward without revision and completion in their present detached and crude form.
This England of ours is all alight and aflame with Protestant indignation against popery; the Church of England being likely to rekindle the fires of 1780, by way of vindicating the right of private judgment. I, who hold perfect freedom of thought and of conscience the most precious of all possessions, have of course my own hatred to these things. Cardinal Wiseman has taken advantage of the attack to put forth one of the most brilliant appeals that has appeared in my time; of course you will see it in America.
Professor Longfellow has won a station in England such as no American poet ever held before, and assuredly he deserves it. Except Beranger and Tennyson, I do not know any living man who has written things so beautiful. I think I like his Nuremburg best of all. Mr. Ticknor's great work, too, has won golden opinions, especially from those whose applause is fame; and I foresee that day by day our literature will become more mingled with rich, bright novelties from America, not reflections of European brightness, but gems all colored with your own skies and woods and waters. Lord Carlisle, the most accomplished of our ministers and the most amiable of our nobles, is giving this very week to the Leeds Mechanics' Institute a lecture on his travels in the United States, and another on the poetry of Pope.
May I ask you to transmit the accompanying letter to Mrs. H——? She has sent to me for titles and dates, and fifty things in which I can give her little help; but what I do know about my works I have sent her. Only, as, except that I believe her to live in Philadelphia, I really am as ignorant of her address as I am of the year which brought forth the first volume of "Our Village," I am compelled to go to you for help in forwarding my reply.
Ever, my dear Mr. Fields, most gratefully and faithfully yours,
M.R. MITFORD.
Is not Louis Napoleon the most graceful of our European chiefs? I have always had a weakness for the Emperor, and am delighted to find the heir of his name turning out so well.
1851.
February 10, 1851