n hardly bear up
against.' Her difficulties were unending. The new publisher now stopped
payment, so that even 'Our Village' brought in no return for the moment;
Charles Kemble was unable to make any offer for 'Foscari.' She went up
to town in the greatest hurry to try and collect some of the money owing
to her from her various publishers, but, as Mr. Harness says, received
little from her debtors beyond invitations and compliments. She
meditates a novel, she plans an opera, 'Cupid and Psyche.'

At last, better times began to dawn, and she receives 150 pounds down
for a new novel and ten guineas from Blackwood as a retaining fee. Then
comes a letter from Charles Kemble giving her new hope, for her tragedy,
which was soon afterwards produced at Covent Garden.

The tragedies are in tragic English, of course that language of the
boards, but not without a simplicity and music of their own. In the
introduction to them, in some volumes published by Hurst and Blacket in
1854, Miss Mitford describes 'the scene of indescribable chaos preceding
the performance, the vague sense of obscurity and confusion; tragedians,
hatted and coated, skipping about, chatting and joking; the only very
grave person being Liston himself. Ballet-girls walking through their
quadrilles to the sound of a solitary fiddle, striking up as if of its
own accord, from amid the tall stools and music-desks of the orchestra,
and piercing, one hardly knew how, through the din that was going on
incessantly. Oh, that din! Voices from every part; above, below, around,
and in every key. Heavy weights rolling here and falling there.
Bells ringing, one could not tell why, and the ubiquitous call-boy
everywhere.'

She describes her astonishment when the play succeeds. 'Not that I had
nerve enough to attend the first representation of my tragedies. I
sat still and trembling in some quiet apartment near, and thither some
friend flew to set my heart at ease. Generally the messenger of good
tidings was poor Haydon, whose quick and ardent spirit lent him wings on
such an occasion.'

We have the letter to her mother about 'Foscari,' from which I have
quoted; and on the occasion of the production of 'Rienzi' at Drury Lane
(two years later in October 1828), the letter to Sir William Elford
when the poor old mother was no longer here to rejoice in her daughter's
success.

Miss Mitford gratefully records the sympathy of her friends, the
warm-hearted muses of the day. Mrs.