every key. Heavy weights rolling here and falling there. Bells
ringing, one could not tell why, and the ubiquitous call-boy
everywhere.'

She describes her astonishment when the play succeeds. 'Not that I
had nerve enough to attend the first representation of my tragedies.
I sat still and trembling in some quiet apartment near, and thither
some friend flew to set my heart at ease. Generally the messenger
of good tidings was poor Haydon, whose quick and ardent spirit lent
him wings on such an occasion.'

We have the letter to her mother about 'Foscari,' from which I have
quoted; and on the occasion of the production of 'Rienzi' at Drury
Lane (two years later in October 1828), the letter to Sir William
Elford when the poor old mother was no longer here to rejoice in her
daughter's success.

Miss Mitford gratefully records the sympathy of her friends, the
warm-hearted muses of the day. Mrs. Trollope, Miss Landon, Miss
Edgeworth, Miss Porden, Mrs. Hofland, Mrs. Opie, who all appear with
their congratulations.

Miss Mitford says that Haydon, above all, sympathised with her love
for a large canvas. The Classics, Spain, Italy, Mediaeval Rome,
these are her favourite scenes and periods. Dukes and tribunes were
her heroes; daggers, dungeons, and executioners her means of
effects.

She moralises very sensibly upon Dramatic success. 'It is not,' she
says, 'so delicious, so glorious, so complete a gratification as, in