"I am now going to my novel, if it please God to grant me health. For the last two months I have only once crossed the outer threshold, and, indeed, I have never been a day well since the united effects of the tragedy and the influenza ... [word destroyed by the seal]. What will become of that poor play is in the womb of time. But its being by universal admission a far more striking drama than _Rienzi_, and by very far the best thing I ever wrote, it follows almost of course, that it will share the fate of its predecessor, and be tossed about the theatres for three or four years to come. Of course I should be only too happy that it should be brought out at Covent Garden under the united auspices of Mr. Macready and Mr. Bartley.[1] But I am in constitution and in feeling a much older person than you, my dear friend, as well as in look, however the acknowledgment of age (I am 48) may stand between us; and belonging to a most sanguine and confiding person, I am of course as prone to anticipate all probable evil as he is to forestall impossible good. He, my dear father, is, I thank Heaven, splendidly well. He speaks of you always with much delight, is charmed with your writings, and I do hope that you will come to Reading and give him as well as me the great pleasure of seeing you at our poor cottage by the roadside. You would like my flower-garden. It is really a flower-garden becoming a duchess. People are so good in ministering to this, my only amusement. And the effect is heightened by passing through a labourer's cottage to get at it, for such our poor hut literally is. [Footnote 1: This gentleman was an old and highly valued friend of my mother.] "You have heard, I suppose, that Mr. Wordsworth's eldest son, who married a daughter of Mr. Curwen, has lost nearly, if not quite, all of his wife's portion by the sea flowing in upon the mine, and has now nothing left but a living of 200_l._ given him by his father-in-law. So are we all touched in turn. "I have written to the Sedgwicks for the scarlet lilies mentioned by Miss Martineau in her American book. Did you happen to see them in their glory? of course they would flourish here; and having sent them primroses, cowslips, ivy, and many other English wild flowers, which took Theodore Sedgwick's fancy, I have a right to the return. How glad I am to hear the good you tell me of my friend Tom. His fortune seems now assured. My father's kindest regards. "Ever my dear friend, "Very faithfully yours, "M.R. MITFORD. "P.S.--Mr. Carey, the translator of Dante, has just been here. He says that he visited Cowper's residence at Olney lately, and that his garden room, which suggested mine, is incredibly small, and not near so pretty. Come and see. You know, of course, that the 'Modern Antiques' in _Our Village_ were Theodosia and Frances Hill, sisters of Joseph Hill, cousins and friends of poor Cowper." * * * * *