of Miss Mitford's Life very properly observes in a note how different
this description is from 'every other account of Jane Austen from
whatever quarter.' Certainly it is so totally at variance with the
modest simplicity of character which I have attributed to my aunt, that
if it could be supposed to have a semblance of truth, it must be equally
injurious to her memory and to my trustworthiness as her biographer.
Fortunately I am not driven to put my authority in competition with that
of Miss Mitford, nor to ask which ought to be considered the better
witness in this case; because I am able to prove by a reference to dates
that Miss Mitford must have been under a mistake, and that her mother
could not possibly have known what she was supposed to have reported;
inasmuch as Jane Austen, at the time referred to, was a little girl.

Mrs. Mitford was the daughter of Dr. Russell, Rector of Ashe, a parish
adjoining Steventon, so that the families of Austen and Russell must at
that time have been known to each other. But the date assigned by Miss
Mitford for the termination of the acquaintance is the time of her
mother's marriage. This took place in October 1785, when Jane, who had
been born in December 1775, was not quite ten years old. In point of
fact, however, Miss Russell's opportunities of observing Jane Austen must
have come to an end still earlier: for upon Dr. Russell's death, in
January 1783, his widow and daughter removed from the neighbourhood, so
that all intercourse between the families ceased when Jane was little
more than seven years old.

All persons who undertake to narrate from hearsay things which are
supposed to have taken place before they were born are liable to error,
and are apt to call in imagination to the aid of memory: and hence it
arises that many a fancy piece has been substituted for genuine history.