Read it through once

During her stay in London to witness the production of _Julian_ and at one of her interviews with Macready the two had discussed another play project, various subjects for treatment being suggested—among them that of _Procida_ (subsequently abandoned because Mrs. Hemans was found to be at work on it), and _Rienzi_ which Miss Mitford very much favoured but Macready did not as he thought her outline of the plot would entail on her a greater strain than she could stand. For a time the matter was left in abeyance, as she had much, just then, wherewith to occupy her mind. Kemble was threatening her with a lawsuit if, as she much desired, she withdrew _Foscari_—she rather feared that its production after _Julian_ would do her no good—and she was so tossed about, as she said, between him and Macready, “affronting both parties and suspected by both, because I will not come to a deadly rupture with either,” that she got quite ill with worry. To add to her miseries the editor of the _Lady’s Magazine_ absconded, owing her £40. “Oh! who would be an authoress!” she wofully wrote to her old friend Sir William. “The only comfort is that the magazine can’t go on without me [its circulation had gone up from two hundred and fifty copies to two thousand since she had written for it]; and that the very fuss they make in quarrelling over me at the theatre proves my importance there; so that, if I survive these vexations, I may in time make something of my poor, poor brains. But I would rather serve in a shop—rather scour floors—rather nurse children, than undergo these tremendous and interminable disputes and this unwomanly publicity. Pray forgive this sad no-letter. Alas! the free and happy hours, when I could read and think and prattle for you, are past away. Oh! will they ever return? I am now chained to a desk, eight, ten, twelve hours a day, at mere drudgery. All my thoughts of writing are for hard money. All my correspondence is on hard business. Oh! pity me, pity me! My very mind is sinking under the fatigue and anxiety. God bless you, my dear friend! Forgive this sad letter.”