Miss Mitford’s next letter to Sir William is written from London after the first performance of _Rienzi_. It is dated Oct. 5th, 1828, 5 Great Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn, and is as follows: “Our success last night was very splendid and we have every hope (in the theatrical world there is no such word as ‘certainty’) of making a great hit. As far as things have hitherto gone nothing can be better—nothing. Our new actress is charming.... Mr. Young is also admirable; and, in short, it is a magnificent performance throughout. God grant that its prosperity may continue! and these are not words, of course, but a prayer from my inmost soul, for on that hangs the comfort of those far dearer to me than myself.” And a fortnight later she writes:— “Hitherto the triumph has been most complete and decisive—the houses crowded—and the attention such as has not been known since Mrs. Siddons. You might hear a pin drop in the house. How long this run may continue I cannot say, for London is absolutely empty; but even if the play were to stop to-night I should be extremely thankful—more thankful than I have words to tell; the impression has been so deep and so general.” Letters of congratulation from women of mark poured in from all sides, but Mary missed the sympathy of her intimate friend Lady Franklin (wife of the Arctic explorer) who had recently died. She remarks in the Introduction to her Dramatic Works:— “When _Rienzi_, after a more than common portion of adventures and misadventures, did come out with a success rare in a woman’s life ... I missed the eager congratulations from her ... whose cheering prognostics had so often spurred me on.... “No part of my success,” she adds, “was more delightful than the pleasure which it excited amongst the most eminent of my female contemporaries. Maria Edgeworth, Joanna Baillie, Felicia Hemans (and to two of them I was at that time unknown) vied in the cordiality of their praises. Kindness met me on every hand.” In a letter from Mrs. Trollope (a well-known authoress of the day), who was then staying in New York, she learns of _Rienzi_ being performed in that city. “It is here and here only,” writes Mrs. Trollope, “that I have had an opportunity of seeing _Rienzi_; it is a noble tragedy, and not even the bad acting of the Chatham Theatre could spoil it. I never witnessed such a triumph of powerful poetry over weak acting as in the magnificent scene where Rienzi refuses pardon to an Orsini.” The play continued to draw large audiences at Drury Lane, and ran for a hundred days, a most unusual event in those times. Of the printed play Miss Mitford writes: “It is selling immensely, the first very large edition having gone in three days.”