Publisher's Synopsis
From Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle, for the Year 1828
IT would be enough to say of this volume, that it is worthy of the writer, and that it is an appropriate supplement to those which have preceded it. The same nice discrimination of character and fine tact in the developeinent of feelings which beat in humbler bosoms - the same lone of lively exaggeration which takes every day occurrences out of the common place, and gives an interest to subjects in themselves insignificant, - all that in fact distinguishes Miss Mitford as the female Teniers of English village life, we have in this volume fresh and unimpaired. Nor has 'custom staled her infinite variety.' We know the British artist as we know the Flemish painter. There is a sameness, perhaps, in the features and in the costume, but the groupings are new and dissimilar, and the minuteness of the detail is a strong evidence that the subject is from life.
We have often had occasion to remark, that the most lively spirits are generally those that are the soonest and the deepest saddened; and there are scenes in this volume which convince us that the who has the nicest perception of the humorous, has also a quicker sense of the pathetic, that true pathos which consists not in sorrow, elaborated to the highest point of suffering, but in those quiet and natural touches, of which every feeling heart recognizes the beauty and the truth. It is in such scenes that Miss Mitford is exquisitely skilled, while in descriptive and humorous sketching she is unrivalled.
