very soon extremely pleased with it ––– & I beleive, did notthink it at all inferior. –––

Alethea Bigg. — "I have read MP. & heard it very much talked of, very much praised, I like it myself & think it very good indeed, but as I never say what I do not think, I will add that although it is superiorin a great many points in my opinion to the other two Works, Ithink it has not theSpirit of P. & P., except perhaps the Pricefamily at Portsmouth, & they are delightful in their way." –––

Charles — did not like it near so well as P. & P. — thought it wantedIncident. —

M^rs . Maling — (Lady Mulgrave's mother) delighted with it; read it throughin a day & a half. —

M^rs . Dickson. "I have bought MP. – but it is not equal to P. & P. —.¹

M^rs . Lefroy — liked it, & but thought it a mere Novel. —

M^rs . Portal — admired it very much — objected cheifly to Edmund'snot being brought more forward. —

Lady Gordon wrote "In most novels you are amused for the timewith a set of IdealPeople whom you never think of afterwards or whom you the least expect to meet in common life, whereasin Miſs A —s works, & especially in MP. you actually live with them, you fancy yourself one of the family; & the scenesare so exactly descriptive, so perfectly natural, that there is scarcely an Incidentora conversation, or a person that you are not incl^ined² to imagine youhave at one time or other in your Life been a witneſs to, born apart in, & been acquainted with."

M^rs . Pole wrote, "There is a particular satisfaction in reading all Miſs A –sworks – they are so evidently written by a Gentlewoman — most Novellists fail & betray themselves in attempting to describe familiar scenes in highLife, some little vulgarism escapes & shews that they are not experimentallyacquainted with what they describe, but here it is quite different[.]³ Everything is natural, & the situations & incidents are told in amanner which clearly evinces the Writer to belong to the Societywhose Manners she so ably delineates." M^rs . Pole also said thatno Books had ever occasioned so much canvaſsing & doubt, & that everybody was desirous to attribute them to some of their ownfriends, or to some person of whom they thought highly. —