_North._ Miss Mitford has not in my opinion either the pathos or humour
of Washington Irving; but she excels him in vigorous conception of
character, and in the truth of her pictures of English life and manners.
Her writings breathe a sound, pure, and healthy morality, and are
pervaded by a genuine rural spirit--the spirit of merry England. Every
line bespeaks the lady.
_Shepherd._ I admire Miss Mitford just excessively. I dinna wunner at
her being able to write sae weel as she does about drawing-rooms wi'
sofas and settees, and about the fine folk in them seeing themsels in
lookin-glasses frae tap to tae; but what puzzles the like o' me, is her
pictures o' poachers, and tinklers, and pottery-trampers, and ither
neerdoweels, and o' huts and hovels without riggin' by the wayside, and
the cottages o' honest puir men, and byres, and barns, and stackyards,
and merry-makins at winter ingles, and courtship aneath trees, and at
the gable-end of farm houses, 'tween lads and lasses as laigh in life as
the servants in her father's ha'. That's the puzzle, and that's the
praise. But ae word explains a'--Genius--Genius, wull a' the
metafhizzians in the warld ever expound that mysterious monosyllable.--
_Nov, 1826._