'As to Miss Pickering, if there shd be anybody in the world who makes a Miss Austen of her, or a Scott of her, that body cannot be famous for his or her literary judgement. Miss Pickering was a good & pure novelist of the circulating libraries - & could tell a story to an end without letting it fall. But her very appreciators would not think of anticipating the continuance of her reputation much beyond the burning of the candle they read her by. Did she ever dream of such a claim herself?'