every nerve to keep him so.
She is engaged (in strict confidence) on a grand historical subject,
Charles and Cromwell, the finest episode in English history, she says.
Here, too, fresh obstacles arise. This time it is the theatrical censor
who interferes. It would be dangerous for the country to touch upon such
topics; Mr. George Colman dwells upon this theme, although he gives the
lady full credit for no evil intentions; but for the present all her
work is again thrown away. While Miss Mitford is struggling on as best
she can against this confusion of worries and difficulty (she eventually
received 200 pounds for 'Julian' from a Surrey theatre), a new firm
'Whittaker' undertakes to republish the 'village sketches' which had
been written for the absconding editor. The book is to be published
under the title of 'Our Village.'

IV.

'Are your characters and descriptions true?' somebody once asked our
authoress. 'Yes, yes, yes, as true, as true as is well possible,' she
answers. 'You, as a great landscape painter, know that in painting a
favourite scene you do a little embellish and can't help it; you avail
yourself of happy accidents of atmosphere; if anything be ugly you
strike it out, or if anything be wanting, you put it in. But still the
picture is a likeness.'

So wrote Miss Mitford, but with all due respect for her and for Sir
William Elford, the great landscape painter, I cannot help thinking
that what is admirable in her book, are not her actual descriptions
and pictures of intelligent villagers and greyhounds, but the more
imaginative things; the sense of space and nature and progress which she
knows how to convey; the sweet and emotional chord she strikes with so
true a touch. Take at hazard her description of the sunset. How simple
and yet how finely felt it is. Her genuine delight reaches us and
carries us along; it is not any embellishing of effects, or exaggeration
of facts, but the reality of a true and very present feeling... 'The
narrow line of clouds which a few minutes ago lay like long vapouring
streaks along the horizon, now lighted with a golden splendour, that the
eye can scarcely endure; those still softer clouds which floated above,
wreathing and curling into a thousand fantastic forms as thin and
changeful as summer smoke, defined and deepened into grandeur, and
hedged with ineffable, insufferable light. Another minute and the
brilliant orb totally disappears and the sky above grows, every