[‘I never knew so frantic a friend’: Hugh Pearson, Vicar of Sonning and a Canon at Windsor on Miss Mitford.] Two Autograph Letters Signed to ‘Miss Seton’

A biography of Pearson (‘a notable figure within the church’) is appended to that of his father in the Oxford DNB. Each of these letters is 2pp, 12mo (the second with cross writing at the head of a further two pages), and both are on bifoliums. In fair condition, lightly aged. The two have been extracted from an autograph album, and are lightly attached along the inner edge, with further light traces of the brown paper mount on the reverse of the last leaf of the second letter. Both are addressed to ‘Dear Miss Seton’ and signed ‘Hugh Pearson.’ ONE (23 October 1877): He explains why he ‘cannot undertake to write such a memoir of Miss Mitford as you propose, much as I should like to do so, for my residence here occupies me entirely, and, on my return to Sonning, I shall find an accumulation of work there.’ In addition, he does not believe he ‘could add much to the accounts of Miss Mitford already published’. He explains that he ‘contributed largely to the memorials edited by Mr. L’Estrange for Mr. Harness, and to those by Mr. Chorley’. He offers to add ‘any thing that occurs to me as likely to prove of general interest’ from his ‘personal recollections’, should she wish to ‘draw up a biography of Miss Mitford’. TWO (21 November [1877]): Her letter and ‘the Proofs’ have reached him. ‘I like the notice of Miss Mitford extremely.’ He discusses ‘One or two things’ which occur to him. The first is a paragraph concerning Swallowfield (‘a more comfortable house than the ruinous cottage at Three Mile Cross’); the second with regards to her view of her ‘Tragedies’; the third, ‘her love for French History’; fourth, ‘her absolute devotion to her friends [...] I never knew so frantic a friend’. He considered her ‘a noble-hearted creature, & absolutely free from jealousy. How rare, especially in a literary person! I never knew her detract from the merit of authors, or give faint praise.’