Mary Russell Mitford was born at Alresford, Hampshire, on the 16th of December, 1787. She was the daughter of George Mitford, a physician of good family, and Mary Russell, whose father had been rector of Ashe and Tadley, and vicar of Overton. The little Mary Russell Mitford was but four or five years old when the family removed from Alresford to Lyme Regis, Dorsetshire; thence they went to London. Here occurred, on Mary’s eleventh birthday, the famous incident of the lottery-ticket. Dr. Mitford, reinforced in fortune by his daughter’s childish persistence, next went to reside in Reading. “Mezza,” as her parents called her, remained at school in Hans Place until 1802. About this time Bertram House, a country residence at Grasely, near Reading, in the improvement of which Dr. Mitford had freely expended the fairy gold of the lottery, was at last ready for occupation. This was the home of the Mitford family until 1820, when pecuniary embarrassments, caused by the doctor’s extravagance and love of play, drove them to the now famous cottage at Three Mile Cross. She had already published several books of verse, which have been long forgotten: _Miscellaneous Poems_, _Christina_, _Blanch of Castile_, _Narrative Poems on Female Character_, and others. She speaks disparagingly of one of these volumes in a letter to B. R. Haydon in 1819. “It was written when extreme youth and haste might apologize for the incorrectness, the silliness, and the commonplace with which it abounds, but I am afraid it has deficiencies which are worse than any fault.” “You are aware, I hope,” she says in another letter, “that all clever people begin by publishing bad poems.” She was now forced, at thirty-three, to take up her pen in earnest. She worked steadily both at plays and at the sketches collected in 1824 under the title, OUR VILLAGE. In 1823 her first tragedy, _Julian_, was successfully performed at Covent Garden, with Macready as the principal character. _The Foscari_ appeared in 1826, and _Dramatic Scenes, Sonnets and Other Poems_, in 1827. Towards the end of 1828, _Rienzi_ was produced at Drury Lane, Charles Young enacting the hero. Miss Mitford is said to have received £400 from the theatre, and to have sold eight thousand copies of the play. Other works in this field were _Otto_, _Inez de Castro_, and _Charles I_. In 1835 was published BELFORD REGIS, a sequel to OUR VILLAGE, and in 1852, RECOLLECTIONS OF A LITERARY LIFE. In 1854 a novel, _Atherton_, appeared, and in the same year her dramatic works were collected. Mrs. Mitford had died in 1830, Dr. Mitford in 1842. In 1851 Miss Mitford removed from Three Mile Cross to Swallowfield, where, on the 10th of January, 1855, she died. She had been ill for some time, never having recovered from the shock of an accident that had occurred in 1853 while she was driving in a pony-chaise.