Mary Russell Mitford’s letters written to intimate friends were at all times a true reflection of her mind and nature, and it is interesting to learn from a passage in her _Recollections of a Literary Life_ what her opinion was of the value of letters, “provided they are truthful and spontaneous.” “Such is the reality and identity belonging to letters written at the moment,” she writes, “and intended only for the eye of a favourite friend, that it is probable that any genuine series of epistles, were the writer ever so little distinguished, would possess the invaluable quality of individuality, a quality which so often causes us to linger before an old portrait of which we know no more than it is a Burgomaster by Rembrandt or a Venetian Senator by Titian. The least skilful pen when flowing from the fullness of the heart, and untroubled by any misgivings of after publication, shall often paint with as faithful and life-like a touch as either of these great masters.” Writing to Miss Barrett of her country rambles in the autumn of 1836 she says: “I was this afternoon for an hour on Heckfield Heath, a common dotted with cottages and a large piece of water backed by woody hills; the nearer portion of the ground a forest of oak and birch and hawthorn and holly and fern, intersected by grassy glades.... On an open space just large enough for the purpose a cricket match was going on,—the older people sitting on benches, the younger ones lying about under the trees; and a party of boys just seen glancing backward and forward in a sunny glade, where they were engaged in an equally merry and far more noisy game. Well, there we stood, Ben and I and Dash, watching and enjoying the enjoyments we witnessed. And I thought if I had no pecuniary anxiety, if my dear father were stronger and our dear friend well[18] I should be the happiest creature in the world, so strong was the influence of that happy scene.” [Footnote 18: Miss Barrett’s health was causing much anxiety to her friends.] The pecuniary anxiety here referred to had been growing greater and greater. The literary earnings of the devoted daughter seem to have melted away in the father’s speculations. At last she was urged by her valued friend William Harness to apply to Government for a pension—an application which was strongly supported by influential friends. Her petition, dated May, 1837, to Lord Melbourne concludes with these words: “I am emboldened to take this step by the sight of my father’s white hairs and the certainty that such another winter as the last would take from me all power of literary exertion and send those white hairs with sorrow to the grave.” On the 31st May Miss Mitford writes to her friend Miss Jephson:—