Scared at each breeze that waves the grove;
Still may that trembling verse have power
To cheer the solitary hour,
Of Spring’s life-giving beauties tell,
Or wake at friendship’s call the spell.
Enough to bless my simple lays,
That music-loved Herbert deigned to praise.”
In a letter to her father she confesses that although Mr. Herbert did her great honour in thinking her adequate to deal with the Copenhagen subject, she had no faith in her powers to do so, adding, “And to tell you the truth (which I beg you will not tell him), I do not think I would write upon it even if I could. Cobbett would never forgive me for such an atrocious offence; and I would not offend him to please all the poets in the world.”
The little volume was greeted very cordially by the reviewers and secured its author a good deal of compliment from her father’s political friends when she occasionally ran up to town at this time to give her father the chance of showing her off. But while grateful to the reviewers, she took exception to some of the conclusions they drew from the political verses in the book. “How totally reviewers have mistaken matters,” she wrote to her father, “in attributing my political fancies to you! They would have been more correct if they had asserted a directly contrary opinion; for Cobbett is your favourite because he is mine,”—a doubtful compliment to the father but quite characteristic of the daughter.
It was well that Miss Mitford had so much that was congenial and engrossing wherewith to occupy her at this time, for the shadow was again hovering over the home at Bertram House, and creditors were beginning to be unpleasant in their demands and threats. Hints of the existing state of things were conveyed to the Doctor from time to time and must have caused great anxiety to Mrs. Mitford, who did not share her husband’s and her daughter’s optimism.