Read it through once

“What have you been doing, my dear friend, this beautiful autumn?” wrote Miss Mitford to Sir William Elford, towards the end of 1817. “Farming? Shooting? Painting? I have been hearing and seeing a good deal of pictures lately, for we have had down at Reading Mr. Hofland, an artist whom I admire very much (am I right?), and his wife, whom, as a woman and an authoress, I equally love and admire. It was that notable fool, His Grace of Marlborough, who imported these delightful people into our Bœotian town. He—the possessor of Blenheim—is employing Mr. Hofland to take views at Whiteknights—where there are no views; and Mrs. Hofland to write a description of Whiteknights—where there is nothing to describe.[18] I have been a great deal with them and have helped Mrs. Hofland to one page of her imperial quarto volume; and to make amends for flattering the scenery in verse, I comfort myself by abusing it in prose to whoever will listen.” The Hoflands were an interesting couple, and Mrs. Hofland, in particular, became one of Miss Mitford’s dearest friends and most regular correspondents. She was already an author of some repute and an extremely prolific writer. In the year 1812 she wrote and published some five works, including _The Son of a Genius_, which had a considerable vogue. Previous to her marriage with Hofland she had been married to a Mr. Hoole, a merchant of Sheffield, who died two years after their marriage, leaving her with an infant four months old and a goodly provision in funds invested. Owing to the failure of the firm which was handling her money, she was left on the verge of poverty and had a bitter struggle to secure enough to live upon. A volume of poems which she published in 1805 brought her a little capital, with which she was enabled to open a boarding-school at Harrogate; but in this venture she failed, and then took to writing for a living. In 1808 she married Mr. Hofland, an event which crowned her troubles for, although outwardly there was no sign of it, there is every certainty that the overbearing selfishness of Hofland and his lack of consideration for any but himself, made their home-life almost unendurable. It will, therefore, be understood why so much sympathy came to exist between Miss Mitford and her friend, seeing that they were both suffering from an almost similar trouble, although the matter was seldom mentioned between them.