Trollope, Miss Landon, Miss
Edgeworth, Miss Porden, Mrs. Hofland, Mrs. Opie, who all appear with
their congratulations.

Miss Mitford says that Haydon, above all, sympathised with her love for
a large canvas. The Classics, Spain, Italy, Mediaeval Rome, these are
her favourite scenes and periods. Dukes and tribunes were her heroes;
daggers, dungeons, and executioners her means of effects.

She moralises very sensibly upon Dramatic success. 'It is not,' she
says, 'so delicious, so glorious, so complete a gratification as, in our
secret longings, we all expect. It does not fill the heart,--it is an
intoxication followed by a dismal reaction.' She tells a friend that
never in all her life was she so depressed and out of spirits as after
'Rienzi,' her first really successful venture. But there is also
a passing allusion to her father's state of mind, to his mingled
irritation and sulkiness, which partly explains things. Could it be
that the Doctor added petty jealousy and envy to his other inconvenient
qualities? His intolerance for any author or actor, in short, for any
one not belonging to a county family, his violent annoyance at any
acquaintances such as those which she now necessarily made, would
naturally account for some want of spirits on the daughter's part;
overwrought, over-taxed, for ever on the strain, her work was exhausting
indeed. The small pension she afterwards obtained from the Civil List
must have been an unspeakable boon to the poor harassed woman.

Tragedy seems to have resulted in a substantial pony and a basket
carriage for Miss Mitford, and in various invitations (from the
Talfourds, among the rest) during which she is lionised right and left.
It must have been on this occasion that Serjeant Talfourd complained so
bitterly of a review of 'Ion' which appeared about that time. His guest,
to soothe him, unwarily said, 'she should not have minded such a review
of HER Tragedy.'

'YOUR "Rienzi," indeed! I should think not,' says the serjeant. '"Ion"
is very different.' The Talfourd household, as it is described by Mr.
Lestrange, is a droll mixture of poetry and prose, of hospitality, of
untidiness, of petulance, of most genuine kindness and most genuine
human nature.

There are also many mentions of Miss Mitford in the 'Life of Macready'
by Sir F. Pollock. The great tragedian seems not to have liked her
with any cordiality; but he gives a pleasant account of a certain
supper-party in honour of 'Ion'