MITFORD, MARY RUSSELL, a well-known English authoress, was the only child of a physician, and was b. at Airesford, Hants, Dec. 16, 1780. At the age of ten she was sent to a boarding-school at Chelsea, and also placed under the guidance and tuition of a Miss Bowden, a lady of a literary turn, who had already educated lady Caroline Lamb, and was destined to be the instructress of Miss Landon and of Fanny 'Kemble. During the five years she spent here she read with avidity, studying the tragic authors of France, Shakespeare, and the early dramatists of England. At the age of 15 she returned home, and before she was 20 she published three volumes of poetry. These having been severely castigated by the Quarterly Review, she applied herself to writing tales and sketches for the magazines. The profession she had adopted from taste she was obliged to continue from necessity, for the spendthrift habits of, her father, a good-natured but careless gentleman, had exhausted a competent fortune, and left him dependent on his daughter. The first volume of Our Tillage appeared in 1824, and the series of five vol umes was completed in 1832. Of the more important of her dramatic works, Julian was
first performed in 1823; the Foscari in 1826; and Rienzi in 1828—all of them, and espe cially the last, with success. Among her other important works are Recollections of a Literary Life (3 vols. 1852); Atherton and other Tales (a novel, 3 vols. 1854); and in 1854 she also published a collected edition of her dramatic works, in two volumes. In 1888 she received a pension from government, but neither this nor the growing ill-health of her later years induced her to relax her literary industry. She died at her residence, Swallowfield cottage, near Reading, Jan. 10, 1855.
Successful both as a compiler and an author, Miss Mitford has produced many inter esting volumes; but her fame—if the admiring respect for an amiable lady and a woman of graceful literary genius may be so called—rests chiefly on the sketches of country life which compose Our Village. These sketches are chiefly memorable for their styld, which, if not witty, is vivacious, genial, and humorous; the outcome at once of a good heart, an active brain, and a fine fancy. '