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Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18407, 13 June 1925, Page 13

■ Mi?s Mitford, .writes a .recent' re-1 asked to mention her favourite 1 lettiir-wnterj .singled out Horace Jlfal-1 ,;pol?.; ; f i Horace "Walpole was - beyond j donht the* beat letter-writer of his day, 1 better than. Gray, better than Cowper. 1 I do not* think- very, highly of Madame ] D'ArbJay'a books. The style is so strutting." But whether she is right: in this judgment or not, it cannot be denied that no little of the charm which invests her own letters come from an a touch of malice, which, expressed'lit;'a humorous extravagance, adds liveliness to her other epistolary grace's. "' Being- a woman' of' uncommon spnae,,flhe, cannot help:laughing,at liretension and bumptiousness—and she is by no means easily deceived. She relates with 'glee her* scorn foV a Wmplete and -exquisite " dandy," who< haddared to say of her, +< 2 "had an idea that she was blue-iflh," and revels-in ,the kind of record .which made his lot so ttnenviable. "He 1 fell into the Thames last summer on a water-party, and got wet through his.; stays, . and .this autumn, haying affronted a young lady, and beting knocked down by her brother, a lad 'notnineteen;. ho had, the misfortune to .fall flat'on bis • baek", and' was forced to lie till someone' came' to . pick - him uj>, being too ,straitlacea to help himself." Yes, the. gentle Mary Mi (ford , cotild sciatchl *" "' " '