" This little work, with its modest title, contains much interesting information respecting a people of whom we have hitherto known little. The sketches, though in the form of notes, are not altogether unconnected ; and although the author claims no other merit than their fidelity, yet we may assign them, not a higher praise certainly, but an additional one that they are written in a very pleasing and familiar manner." Literary Chronicle, July 28, 1821. "The people, whose manners and customs form the subject of this modest little volume, are so imperfectly known, and what is known of them, is so well calculated to create a desire for further information, that we took up Mrs. Holderderness's work with considerable curiosity, and laid it down with no little regret, at rinding it so short and compendious.
The authoress appears to be a very intelligent person, and the means which she possessed of making herself acquainted with the subject, are such as seldom fall to the lot of travellers, either male or female. She resided four years in the Crimea, in what capacity does not appear, but obviously in a situation which must have given her access to the best information: under these circumstances, that she should have produced so small and cheap a book as this before us, is both mortifying and surprising. However, we are thankful for the boon, scanty as it is, and are willing to confess, that the quantity of facts which she has collected, are in a much greater proportion than the size or number of her pages would have warranted us in expecting/' British Critic, August, 1821.
" Some interesting information will be found in Notes relating to the Manners and Customs of the Crim Tatars, by Mary Holderness, which are written with simplicity and spirit. The author resided in the Crimea four years, and has collected in this little work the result of her observations, from which a competent idea may be formed of the habits of the people, and the state of the country. The volume forms altogether a pleasing and instructive publication." Monthly Magazine, October I, 1821.
From a much longer critique, it may be sufficient to extract the following :
*' This volume was first intended, we are told, for the amusement of a friend in England, and is now given to the public nearly in the form in which it was originally composed.
The author frankly acknowledges her deficiencies and disqualifications, but is nevertheless of opinion, that, as a resident and a female, she possessed advantages for acquiring information superior to those of a passing traveller a sort of modest assumption, or assuming modesty, which at once craves mercy and provokes criticism. For our own part, however we are disposed to wave any right to the exercise of the latter, and that not merely from gallantry, but because the lady seems to confine herself almost entirely to subjects of which she may be considered a competent witness, and because, notwithstanding such an implied consciousness of superiority, she really every where discloses what she knows, in the most unpretending and unaffected manner." New Edinburgh Review, January, 1822.