WHO WAS MRS. GRUNDY?

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18153, 27 July 1922, Page 10

WHO WAS MRS. GRUNDY?

CHARACTER IN OLD PLAY.

NEIGHBOURS JEALOUSY.

Ail amusing explanation of the origin-of " Mrs. Grundy" has been contributed to the London Spectator by a correspondent who uses the lady's 'own name as a pseudonym'. - The letter proceeds: — " For years I have had to put up with ignorant stories about mo and my opinions. Whenever a man wants to do or to say or to write something that he doubts is not respectable, he sets up a scarecrow whicli he calls Mr.'). Grundy and says that sho will find fault; then the rest of the folk take hi:> side for fear of being old-fashioned and ridiculous. Now comes something beyond bearing. .Mr. Nelson, in his encyclopaedia, calls me a 'fictitious personage,' and Master Stephen Paget, in a book called ' I Have Reason to Believe,' contradicts him because, forsooth, i am an 'eminent Victorian * whom he knew quite well in the later years of her life, and he has the impudence to write that I was the widow of a naval officer and had no children. " Sir, this is too much. I have the greatest respect for Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and I revere her at a distance from the comfortable corner in Elysium where I sit with Mrs. Harris and a few other so-called 'fictitious personages ; but I am uot a Victorian. I lived in the reign of good King George HI., and was married to a substantial Hampshire farmer, and we brought up two as fiue. gii-ls as anv in the parish, all which the playwright "Master George Colman has set down in 'Speed the Plough,' but never a word of ill-will, to my neighbours does he put into mv mouth. It is all that woman Mrs. Ashfield. Farmer Ashheld, decent man. knew what her tongue was. "She told him herself that Dame Grumdv's butter was quite the crack of the market,' and wanted to tell him what I said at church on Sunday. Then says he, 'Canst thou tell what parson zauir ,Noa: then I'll tell thee: A' sa t d thai nnvy were as foul a weed as grows, and cankers all wholesome plants that be near it That's what a* zaid.' So says the dame, "And do you think I envy Mrs. Grundy, indeed?' 'Why don't thee letten her aloane, then?' says he. Ido verily think when thee goest to t other world, tho vurst question thee axil bo it Mrs. Grundy's here.' " .„,, In spite of tins rebuke, Dame Ashheld could 'not conceal her envy of her neighbour or refrain from wondering what she would Bay of ovcry event. Is it my fault tli at sho set so much store by my words?" the spirit of Mrs. Grundy asks, and concludes with a suggestion that "Speed the Plomih" should be reproduced for the entertainment of the present generation and in justice to "your respectful and injured Mrs. Grundy."