CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library PR 4036.P77 Jane Austen, her contemporaries and hers 3 1924 013 208 974 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013208974 JANE AUSTEN JANE AUSTEN HER CONTEMPORARIES AND HERSELF AN ESSAY IN CRITICISM BY WALTER HERRIES POLLOCK LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON . NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1899 All rights reserved fi7 r\A^'\-\'\^ s INSCRIBED TO F. B. MONEY-COUTTS, ESQ. AS A SMALL TOKEN OF SINCERE AFFECTION AND ESTEEM INTRODUCTION I CANNOT let this little book go on its way without recording the many thanks I owe to Mr. MONTAGU G. Knight, of Chawton House, great-nephew of Miss Austen, for the invaluable help which he has kindly given me from the beginning to the end of its writing. W. H. P. Chawton Lodge : October 1899. JANE AUSTEN HER CONTEMPORARIES AND HERSELF CHAPTER I So much has been written and so much well written, concerning Miss Austen that there seems to be need for some sort of apology or explanation for putting forth any new volume, however modest, dealing with a writer of gifts and accomplishments which have made her name as famous in the literary world as it was beloved in her family life. These accomplish- ments and gifts have made for her a monument more lasting than any brass or stone tribute to her memory. Her fame has shone undimmed through all the chops and changes of taste in literature which have flourished and vanished since Sir Walter Scott recorded his generous and well-known appre- ciation of Jane Austen's powers and of her patient skill in using them. No doubt the quips and cranks and trickeries of literary fashion will go on and on so long as printing is not one of the lost arts ; but there will always be many, among whom I count Jane Austen myself one, to believe that Jane Austen's genius will assert itself triumphantly, however many these vacilla- tions and counterchanges in literary taste, and however long they may last. There is practically nothing, or but trifles, new to be told about Miss Austen's life — a life which one knows to have been the delight of many other lives, and which one likes to believe, with all good ground for the belief, was a source of pleasure to its possessor. It is the aim and intention of the writer to take advantage of such sidelights (many if not most ot them thrown by comparison of Miss Austen with other famous women authors just before and just of her own period) as may from time to time present themselves, much as a traveller passing anew over an oft-trodden path may find his attention caught by some com- bination of light and shade, some tracery thrown through the leaves on to the ground, which gives him an impression hitherto unperceived of a scene well loved and, as he thought, thoroughly well known. Although nothing could be further from such a purpose than to criticise in any carping spirit the work of former critics and biographers, yet it may be not only permissible but perhaps also not wholly useless to begin by picking up, so to speak, certain threads which have been left loose by previous writers. Thus, though it is no new pleasure to find myself in accord with that most complete critic, Mr. Austin Dobson, in his high appreciation of Professor 2 Her Contemporaries and Herself Goldwin Smith's biography — Mr. Dobson speaks of him as ' Miss Austen's most accomplished biographer ' — yet there are just one or two little threads to be picked up in Professor Goldwin Smith's most attrac- tive volume ('Jane Austen.' Walter Scott, 1890). On p. 83, for instance, writing of Jane Austen's move, in 1809, from Southampton to Chawton, he says that she 'went to live at a cottage provided by her brother, Edward Knight, close to his re- sidence of Chawton, near Winchester, and not far from Steventon, Jane's old home. Chawton House [and here is Professor Goldwin Smith's slip] has descended to Jane's grand-nephew Lord Brabourne.' This was not so. Miss Austen's second brother, Edward, who on adoption by a rich relative took the name of Knight, became lord of the manor of Chawton. This possession descended to his son, also Edward Knight, and, after, to this second Edward Knight's son, Mr. Montagu G. Knight, the present lord of the manor. Again, on p. 35 of his excellent biography Pro- fessor Goldwin Smith has this remark : Perhaps the failure to bring the authors of ' Corinne ' and ' Pride and Prejudice ' together was not to be deplored, since Madame de Stael pronounced Jane Austen's writings vulgaires, by which if she meant anything more than that their subjects were commonplace, she could not have made a less felicitous remark. Now this, by reason of its saving clause, certainly must not be called a slip. Yet it is worth while to 3 B2 Jane Austen confirm the suggestion, embodied in that saving clause. It seems pretty clear from all that is known of Madame de Stael, taken in conjunction with Littre's careful definition of the word vulgaire, that what the French author meant was precisely that Miss A usten took her subjects and characters exclusively frorn eve^ day life, and in fact that the adjective did not neces- "sanlyiinply any more dispraise than did Sir Walter Scott's remark that Miss Austgn_dealt with ' nature in ordinary__and^jiliddle life^' — a statement afterwards repeated by him in the other passage from his diary often quoted, as it is on this very page of Professor Goldwin Smith's work, in high encomium of Miss Austen. One more remark on what again is hardly a slip, if it is a slight error in perception or judgment. On p. 175 we find a propos of ' Persuasion : ' Like Mr. Woodhouse's valetudinarianism, Sir Walter Elliot's conceit is a little overdrawn. He is made to say that he had given somebody a passport to society by being seen with him once in the House of Commons and twice at Tattersall's. If he had belonged either to the House of Commons or to Tattersall's he would have had some of his conceit and insolence knocked out of him. This a woman did not know. Now, is this quite just to Miss Austen .? If it is un- just, it is certainly a rare occasion on which Professor Goldwin Smith is wanting even by a hair's breadth in appreciation, and yet one cannot but join issue with him on this point, for this following reason. Surely the ' overdrawing ' is both very slight and 4 Her Contemporaries and Herself very deliberate, and Sir Walter Elliot's '' conceit and insolence ' are intended to be just of that kind which could not be knocked out by any process or experience known to humanity. ' And that's the humour of it' While it would be odd indeed if there were any slip as to matters of fact discoverable in the work of one who had such facilities by reason of family connection for becoming acquainted with them as had the first Lord Brabourne (Mr. Knatchbull- Hugessen, grandson of the Edward Austen who became Edward Knight of Chawton House), yet there are in his two-volume book ( ' Letters of Jane Austen,' with an Introduction and Critical Remarks. Bentley) some matters that may be noticed. Two passages espe- cially, though of no great intrinsic importance, are yet worth a glance for elucidation. On p. 79 of his second volume Lord Brabourne wrote, referring to the letters No. LVI and LVII respectively : ' I cannot pretend to interpret the message sent to " Fanny " respecting tlfe first glee, which is written in a " gibberish " probably only understood by the sender and receiver of the same.' Now ' gibberish ' and similar word-tricks are not uncommon institu- tions and diversions in families of which the members are in constant communication or correspondence, a fact to which Lord Brabourne referred with gravity in his general introduction to the ' Letters ' (vol. i. p. 123). Family ' gibberish ' is generally manufactured by the transposition or insertion of vowels, conso- nants, numerals, or all three, and some such schemes 5 Jane Austen of gibberish are not only ingenious, but also at first decidedly puzzling to outsiders.^ There is, however, little of puzzledom in the messages which Lord Brabourne did not care to unravel. 'The music,' Miss Austen wrote in the first of the two passages, ' was extremely good. It opened (tell Fanny) with Poike de parp pirs praise pof Prapela.' Here it is evident p is constantly added, and substituted for other consonants, though, as in the word praise, it has no substitute for itself. Leaving alone the puzzle which may be due to misprint or misreading of the manuscript in the words de and/zVj, we arrive, changing to r in the first word, at nothing more mysterious than this : ' Strike the harp in praise of Stradella.' (There is one / too little in the name.) So again in the subsequent letter — where the gibberish is yet simpler, depending only on the addition or substitu- tion of the consonant /, aided by one little mis- spelling — we have : ' Really, I was never much more put to it than in continuing an answer to Fanny's former message. What is then to be said on the ' I remember one such scheme of ' gibberish ' used in a family well- known to me, and discovered in a fashion which argued either that the scheme had been hit upon by others, or that the discoverer was a per- son of keen and trained observation. It happened thus. The scheme was to insert an emphasised g before all vowels. Following this scheme, one of two sisters travelling in a railway carriage observed a beautifully carved walking-stick in the hands of an old gentleman sitting opposite, and drew the other sister's attention to it by saying, ' Legook agat hegis stegick ' — look at his stick. On which the old gentleman, saying 'Would you like to see ittnearer?' courteously proffered it for inspection. — W. H. P. 6 Her Contemporaries and Herself subject ? Pery pell, or pare pey ? or po ; or at the most, Pi, pope, pey, pike, pit.' Now what is this but plainly ' Very well, or dare say, or so (no ? ) ; or at the most, I hope they like it ' ? This deciphering of family gibberish is but a trivial, even puerile, matter in itself, and yet the true students and lovers — the words are synonymous — of Miss Austen's work and life will not, I think, hold it absolutely beneath notice. Another, and in a way more remarkable, instance of Lord Brabourne's unwillingness to look closely into what is but a very simple matter is found on p. 204 of vol. ii. Miss Austen wrote : ' They [certain pat- terns of cloth for pelisses] may go from Charing Cross almost any day in the week, but if it is a ready-money house it will not do, for the bru oifeu the Archbishop says she cannot pay for it immediately.' On this passage the editor of the Letters has this curious note : ' This expression completely puzzles me. It is clearly written " bru of feu " or " face," and may have been a joke in connection with the fact that " Harriot " was the daughter-in-law of Archbishop Moore, but, if so, the joke is lost.' Well, here Lord Brabourne certainly resembled Homer in that he nodded; for, so far from the joke being lost, there never was any joke to be found or lost. It is simply a question of literally translating Miss Austen's little scrap of French (the habit of French phrases perhaps came, as did the knowledge of private theatricals, from constant companionship, in the Austen home at Steventon, with the young widowed Countess de 7 Jane Austen Feuillade, daughter of Mrs. Hancock, Jane Austen's aunt). What Miss Austen wrote — using two French words, bru and feu, for the English words daughter- in-law and the late—v^zs, 'The daughter-in-law [Harriot] of the late Archbishop says she cannot pay for it immediately.' This ' Harriot ' ^ was Harriet May Bridges, sister to Elizabeth Bridges. Elizabeth Bridges married Edward Austen, who became Edward Knight of Chawton House after her death. Harriet Bridges married George Moore, Rector of Wrotham, and son of 'feu the Archbishop.' Of Elizabeth Austen there is a miniature by Cosway at Chawton House. It is a fine specimen of Cosway's fine art. There are some points in Lord Brabourne's volumes which may be conveniently touched on here not for criticism or for clearing up, but merely for remark. Thus, in Letter XI. (Steventon, Nov. 25, 1798) we find mentioned the wearing by a lady of ' what Mrs. Birch would call 2l pot hat' — a piece of slang or cant phrase applied to a woman's hat, curiously ante- dating the far later identical phrase bestowed on a man's hat. And this reminds one of the like fact that In ' Sense and Sensibility ' (chapter Ix.) a dance is spoken of as a ' little hop.' But concerning this nomenclature Mr. Austin Dobson points out that ' Lord Brabourne apologises for the spelling Harriot, with the words ' My beloved great-aimt was a careless speller.' In fact, Harriot was then quite as correct as Harriet. Cf. Harriot Freke in Miss Edgeworth's Belinda. 8 Her Contemporaries and Herself ' nothing is new — even in a novel — and " hop " in this sense is at least as old as " Joseph Andrews." ' Then again (p. 125, vol. ii.) in Letter LXIIL, written from her brother Henry's house in Henrietta Street, London, on the evening of September 16 1813, we have this passage : 'We then went to Wedgwood's, where my brother and Fanny chose a dinner set I believe the pattern is a small lozenge in purple, between lines of narrow gold, and it is to have the crest.' This very dinner service is now carefully preserved at Chawton House. On p. 233 of Lord Brabourne's first volume, in a letter dated Steventon, Saturday evening, Oct. 25 [ 1 800], is a passage which is worth noting on account of one name which occurs in it : ' We have had no letter since you left us, except one from Mr. Serle of Bishopstoke to inquire the character of James Elton,' which at once recalls the inimitable Mr. and Mrs. Elton in ' Emma.' But riioughJ/[jgs. Austen, like any other novelist, took names from actual people for her characters, yet it is a thoroughly well-attested fact that in no single instance did she ever draw one of the figures in her novels straight from life. Traits of ^ course from this or that real personage might be recognised, but they were always carefully subdued to and blended with other characteristics, so as to make up a whole personage that could not, possibly witli any fairness be identified with any one member of the family ot society in^wh^ich she moved. Indeed, as it was not in her style to fall to caricature (pace 9 Jane Austen Professor Goldwin Smith on Sir Walter Elliot), so it was certainly in her character to be scrupulous in avoiding the merest chance of inflicting pain or fostering personal ridicule. And this despite the great probability that she never at all foresaw with what intense curiosity originals for her character- pictures might one day be sought. Turning to a work by an American ' Austenite ' (' The Story of Jane Austen's Life,' by Oscar Fay Adams. Chicago: McClury, 1 891), one finds mention of another instance of nomenclature — this time how- ever it is a house, not a person, that is concerned — taken from actual life. On page 161 of a little book of much interest and containing much careful study, Mr. Adams writes, truly enough, that ' it is not at all improbable that the vicinity of Chaw- ton, as an appreciative writer has pointed out, was in the author's mind in several of the descrip- tions in " Mansfield Park " and " Emma." ' Mr. Adams, however, goes on to adopt a curious little slip made by this appreciative writer, Mr. Kebbel, who suggested that ' Chawton House and Chawton Cottage were the models from which Jane drew the stately abode of Sir Thomas Bertram and " The White House," which was the house of the never-to-be-for- gotten Mrs. Norris. There is nothing,' says Mr. Adams, ' to offer which very strongly militates against this suggestion.' Well, as far as regards ' The White House ' there is, since it stands with name unchanged, plain for all folk to see, on the Selborne Road, and 10 Her Contemporaries and Herself was probably not an infrequent object for a walk when Miss Austen was at Chawton. Again, Mr. Adams quotes Mr. Kebbel's idea that ' Highbury,' where the scene of ' Emma ' is laid, ' may have been meant for either Holybourne or Froyle villages, a few miles distant from Alton.' Mr. Adams observes that a likeness may be as easily traced between Highbury and certain Kentish or Somerset villages, and adds that, ' except where existing places were actually named in her books, it is probable that no recognisable description of localities was attempted.' On this it may be remarked that Highbury could not properly be called merely a village. Miss Austen described it as 'a large and populous village, almost amounting to a town.' And it might fairly have claimed the title of a town, since it possessed an inn, the Crown, which contained a ball-room with a card- room adjoining it. Nor can the suggestion about ' recognisable description ' be fully accepted, since, from some very palpable hints in ' Emma,' it is obvious enough that Highbury was certainly not drawn from the neighbourhood of Alton, which does not lie between ' Mickleham on one side and Dorking on the other ' (' Emma,' chapter xlii.), is not in Surrey ('Emma,' chapter xxxii.), nor within Mrs. Elton's ' exploring ' distance of Box Hill (' Emma,' chapter xlii.). There is however a place which, though the author has slightly varied the actual geography, cor- responds closely enough to the indications just quoted, and is within a mile or so of the distance from London, II Jane Austen sixteen miles, which Mr. Frank Churchill covered when he rode to London for the alleged purpose of getting his hair cut, but with the real object of pro- curing a piano for Jane Fairfax, a lady for whom I personally have found it impossible ever to entertain any strong liking. Highbury, the actual name Of which may probably have been taken from the London district of that name, is not exactly like Esher in its situation, nor perhaps exactly like the Esher of those days in characteristics. But it is certainly more like Esher than any other place according to its descrip- tion, and Esher certainly was not unfamiliar to Miss Austen, whose uncle by marriage, Mr. Cooper, lived at Bookham, hard by, a place of which there is more than one mention in the letters. Mr. Adams has shown the most laudable pains- taking, and has been clear and concise in both his little books (the one not yet mentioned is ' Chapters from Jane Austen.' Boston : Lee & Shepard, 1889). And one must not lightly cavil at an American author who has so deep a veneration for Miss Austen's work and memory. Yet it is not to be denied that this very veneration has led Mr, Adams to strangely underrate the work of some other women novelists, and as strangely to underestimate the repute in which that work is still held. 12 Her Contemporaries and Herself CHAPTER II I ENDED my introductory chapter with a reference to the fact that, as it seems to me, Mr. Adams's affectionate enthusiasm for Miss Austen's work led him to underrate the work of certain other women novelists of a past time. Mr. Adams is by no means the only admirer of Miss Austen whose zeal on her behalf has led him to exalt her as the one woman novelist who shines like a star of the first magnitude among such luminaries as Miss Burney, Miss Edge- worth, and Miss Ferrier, to say nothing of lesser lights. Miss Austenjias also been extolled by other admirers as the one woman, novelist {English under- stood as previously) who is appreciated ,alike by men and women, I think it well to go into this matter at once. I must ask leave to begin by stating distinctly that I yield to no one in the deepest and most complete admiration of Miss Austen's work. That very admiration is part reason for my objection not to any exaltation, however far carried, of her very distinct genius, but to the belittling of other writers who had their own touch of genius, in the oddly mis- taken idea that such belittling is a kind of tribute to her great qualities. If when several candles are Jane Austen burning in a room you put out all but one, you do not really increase the light given by that one. It is true that for certain stage effects and magic-lantern effects it is necessary to lower all the lights save that which is turned on the object of special interest; but then this is a purely extraneous artificial business, and no one either at work or play was ever less artificial in that sense of the word than Miss Austen. [Certainly from all we know of her winning and beautiTul nature, of her humility, of her generosity, and of her sense of humour. Miss Austen herself would have been the very first person to resent any attempt at exalting her own merits as a novelist b)^he process of diminishing the merits of other people. |Yet this has constantly been done both in the direCtmanner of Mr. Adams and in an indirect fashion to be noticed. Mr. Adams certainly does not, as Polonius did, go ' round to work ; ' there is no beating about the bush with him ; no nonsense. Boldly coupling together Mrs. Radcliffe and Miss Burney (what a conjunction !), he as boldly declares that ' curiosity only leads us now to turn to the pages of their books.' As to Mrs. Radcliffe this may be admitted as true, though it is certainly ungrateful, since without Mrs. Radcliffe we should have had no ' Northanger Abbey.' But who save Mr. Adams would venture to assert so roundly that ' we ' are impelled only by curiosity to turn to the pages of ' Evelina ' and ' Cecilia ' ? I do not include ' Camilla,' in spite of Miss Austen's own great fondness for it (a matter which might have given pause to Mr. Adams), 14 Her Contemporaries and Herself because, despite its merits, one must not deny that it is long-winded, in some characters grossly overdrawn, and that it certainly misses the astonishing spirit found in ' Evelina ' and in the best parts of ' Cecilia.' Not the less is Mr. Adams's ' an honest method ' of disposing of Miss Burney's claims to consideration as a novelist, and if not ' as wholesome as sweet ' it is most undoubtedly direct. The indirect method referred to above of hiding other people's lights under bushels lest they should interfere with Miss Austen's is a method of indifference and omission. Thus few people who have written concerning Miss Austen have neglected to dwell on Sir Walter Scott's characteristically sincere and kindly praise, which, often quoted as it has been, may be here re-quoted : Read again, for the third time at least. Miss Austen's A very finely written novel of ' ' Pride and Prejudice.' That \ ' young lady has a talent for describing the involvements of 1 feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the 1 most wonderful I ever met with. The big bow-wow strain V I can do myself, like any one now going ; but the exquisite / \ touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and / Vharacters interesting, from the truth of the description and/ the sentiment, is denied to me. Nothing could well be more interesting to students of literature and especially to lovers of Miss Austen's work than such an expression from such a man. But, as has been said, there are other passages of interest ' These words for some unaccountable reason are generally omitted in quotation. 15 Jane Austen / referring to Miss Austen and to others in Sir Walter Scott's diary which might well have been compared with this. For instance, in a letter to Miss Joanna Baillie dated Edinburgh, Feb. lo, 1822, Sir Walter Scott wrote : I am delighted with the prospect of seeing Miss Edge- worth, and making her personal acquaintance. I ex- pect her to be just what you describe — a being totally devoid of affectation and who, like one other lady of my acquaintance, carries her literary reputation as freely and easily as the milk- maid in my country does the leglen, which she carries on her head, and walks as gracefully with it as a duchess. ... By the way, did you know Miss Austen, authoress of some novels which have a great deal of nature in them ? — nature in ordinary and middle life, to be sure, but valuable from its strong resemblance and correct draw- ing. I wonder which way she carried her pail. Well, we know with what grace and dignity and modesty Miss Austen ' carried her pail,' but that by the way. On March 29, 1 826, Sir Walter Scott made this entry in his diary : It [a novel called ' Granby '] is well written, but over- laboured — too much attempt to put the reader exactly up to the thoughts and sientiments of the parties. The women do this better : Edgetworth, Ferrier, Austen, have all given portraits of real society, far superior to anything man, vain man, has produced of the like nature. Again, Lockhart records a conversation with Sir Walter Scott, then in failing health, at Malta in December 1831 : 16 Her Contemporaries and Herself Among other talk, in returning, he spoke with praise of Miss Ferrier as a novelist, and then with still higher praise of Miss Austen. Of the latter he said, ' I find myself every now and then with one of her books in my hand. There's a finishing-off in some of her scenes that is really quite above everybody else. And there's that Irish lady, too — but I forget everybody's name now ' — ' Miss Edgeworth,' I said — ' Ay, Miss Edgeworth — she's very clever, and best in the little touches too. I'm sure in that children's story ' — (he meant ' Simple Susan ') — ' where the little girl parts with her lamb, and the little boy brings it back to her again, there's nothing for it but just to put down the book and cry.' But Sir Walter Scott paid a higher tribute to Miss Edgeworth than can be found in his Diary or recorded talk, in the General Preface to the Waverley Novels : Two circumstances in particular recalled my recollection of thfe mislaid manuscript. The first was the extended and well-merited fame of Miss Edgeworth, whose Irish characters have gone so far to make the English familiar with the character of their gay and kind-hearted neighbours of Ireland, that she may be truly said to have done more towards completing the Union than perhaps all the legis- lative enactments by which it has been followed up. Without being so presumptuous as to hope to emulate the rich humour, pathetic tenderness, and admirable tact, which pervade the works of my accomplished friend, L felt that something might be attempted for my own country of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth so for- tunately achieved for Ireland — something which might introduce her natives to those of the sister kingdom in a more favourable light than they had been placed hitherto, 17 C Jane Austen and tend to procure sympathy for their virtues and indul- gence for their foibles.' The only passage in the Diary (November, 1826) concerning Madame D'Arblay (Miss Burney) is written with the obvious assumption that the genius of ' Evelina' is too completely recognised to need any comment : Was introduced by Rogers to Mad. D'Arblay, the celebrated authoress of Evelina and Cecilia — an elderly lady, with no remains of personal beauty, but with a simple and gentle manner, a pleasing expression of countenance, and apparently quick feelings. She told me she had wished to see two persons — myself, of course, being one, the other George Canning. This was really a compliment to be pleased with — a nice little handsome pat of butter made up by a ' neat-handed Phillis ' of a dairy-maid, instead of the grease, fit only for cart-wheels, with which one is dosed by the pound. The diarist went on to note how Madame D'Arblay told the story of Dr. Johnson saying, in Dr. Barney's presence, to Mrs. Thrale, ' You should read this new work, madam — you should read Evelina ; every one says it is excellent, and they are right.' He continued : Mad. D'Arblay said she was wild with joy at this de- cisive evidence of her literary success, and that she could ' Cf. the statement made by an author of a later time — the great Russian novelist Turgenief — that he was an unconscious disciple of Miss Edgeworth in setting out on his literary career. ' It is possible, nay probable, that if Maria Edgeworth had not written about the poor Irish of County Longford and the squires and squireens it would not have occurred to me to give a literary form to my impressions about the classes parallel to them in Russia, j 18 Her Contemporaries and Herself only give vent to her rapture by dancing and skipping round a mulberry-tree in the garden. She was very young at this time.' I trust I shall see this lady again. Johnson's admiration ,of ' Evelina ' and ' Cecilia ' (' Sir, if you talk of Cecilia, talk on ') is w^ell known, and in Miss Annie Raine Ellis's Introduction to ' Evelina ' we are reminded of the great Burke's ' noble excess ' in the enthusiastic ' One book of hers is equal to a thousand of others.' It would not be difficult to find more instances of evidence that the women-authors referred to (Miss Burney at the head of them, but to be sure she came first) were assigned places in the very first rank of novelists by the very finest critics of their times. Enough has been presented, some may think more than enough, for the special purpose which has led to the foregoing quotations. Readers may already have asked themselves ' Why all this pother about Miss Burney, Miss Edgeworth, Miss Ferrier, in a book devoted to Miss Austen ? ' Well, the answer Is simple enough, or rather I should say the answers. The first reply is contained in what has been said before — that Miss Austen herself would have been the very first to deplore any indifference to, any neglect of, her compeers exhibited, by a foolish blunder, as a means of giving added brilliancy to her own genius, which assuredly needs no artificial ' The exact age of Miss Burney when she wrote Evelina cannot be ascertained. Croker's decidedly malevolent remarks on the matter, and Macaulay's cutting retort will be remembered. 19 C2 Jane Austen setting-off. The second reason is more complex and it may be more practical. There are enthusiasts for Miss Austen, and Heaven forbid one should dis- courage such enthusiasm in itself, who, like Mr. Adams, ignore, wilfully or not, the fact that Miss Burney is still read and admired for motives far different from curiosity. The same class of enthu- siast would doubtless ignore Miss Edgeworth and Miss Ferrier, who maybe, ' taking it by and large,' are now a good deal less read than Miss Burney and certainly a great deal less read than Miss Austen. There are real lovers of literature who are content with their reminiscences, refreshed perhaps by an occasional dip into the/ volumes they once knew well, of the three authors mentioned, while they turn again and again not only to the pages but actually to the books of Miss Austen. And it is not my concern to deny that one can read, say, ' Emma ' with perfect satisfaction right through several times, while one might be content with re-reading ' Evelina ' once, with accustomed 'skippings.' And again there are lovers and students of literature who, fully recognis- ing the genius of the other writers, feel something of the same greater attraction in Miss Austen's work which leads to an easy and oft-repeated recurrence to it for pure delight in reading. Now as these things are so, and I do not think it will be denied that they are so, may it not be worth while to go a little deeper into the question ? To try to ascertain why it is that 20 Her Contemporaries and Herself Miss Austen's star outshines the others ? It is a voyage of discovery, but one that seems worth under- taking. It was necessary to show how bright were the other stars before embarking on such an enter- prise. Having shown this, I propose, with, I trust, becoming humility, to attempt that adventure. 21 Jane Austen CHAPTER III It is not a matter of very great difficulty to find merely general explanation of the facts that Miss Austen's place is unique among women novelists and that her work is read more constantly and with completer pleasure by natural and by trained critics than that of the other authors who have been named, while it is known and loved by many readers of taste who may know little or really nothing of such work and who certainly do not greatly affect it. For one thing, Miss Austen — an artist, consciously or not, to the tips of her fingers — knew exactly, it would seem, the limitations of her own powers and never made an excursion into realms beyond those in which the usual occurrences of a life where there is no room for hairbreadth 'scapes have their place. And on that hangs another reason for particular popularity — if a contradiction in terms may be allowed. This reason will be found in the following extract from Sir Walter Scott's article in No. xxvii. of the ' Quarterly Review.' It is worth noting by the way that his favourites among her novels were, according to Lockhart, ' Emma ' and ' Northanger Abbey.' We bestow no mean compliment upon the author of ' Emma ' when we say that keeping close to common inci- 22 Her Contemporaries and Herself dents, and fs such characters as occupy the ordinary walks of hfe, she has produced sketches of such spirit and origi- nality, that we never miss the excitation which depends upon a narrative of uncommon events, arising from the considera- tion of minds, manners, and sentiments, greatly above our own. In this class she stands almost alone ; for the scenes of Miss Edgeworth are laid in higher life, varied by more romantic incident, and by her remarkable power of em- bodying and illustrating national character. But the author of ' Emma ' confines herself chiefly to the middling classes of society ; her most distinguished characters do not rise greatly above well-bred country gentlemen and ladies ; and those which are sketched with most originality and precision, belong to a class below rather than above that standard. The narrative of all her novels is composed of such common occurrences as may have fallen under the observation of most folks ; and her dramatis personae conduct themselves upon the motives and principles which the readers may recognise as ruling their own, and that of most of their own acquaintances. I may perhaps be allowed to supplement this by an extract from an article cited by Mr. Adams in his ' Chapters from Jane Austen ' — an unexceptionable little book, save that in the Introduction he repeats his singular assertion that ' Evelina ' is read now, if at all, from curiosity, and that ' Belinda ' and ' Castle Rackrent ' are read not at all. The article on British Novelists appeared in 'Eraser's Magazine ' for January i860 and was written by my father over his full initials ' W. F. P.,' which he frequently used in signing articles and letters. Miss Austen is, of all his successors, the one who most n Jane Austen nearly resembles Richardson in the power ot impressing reality upon her characters. There is a perfection in the exhibition of Miss Austen's characters which no one else has approached ; and truth is never for an instant sacrificed in that delicate atmosphere of satire which pervades her works. . . . . . . Miss Austen never attempts to describe a scene or a class of society with which she was not herself thoroughly acquainted. The conversations of ladies and gentlemen together are given, but no instance occurs of a scene in which men only are present' [This is surely a noteworthy fact.] The uniform quality of her work is one most remarkable point to be observed in it. Let a volume be opened at any place ; there is the same good English, the same refined style, the same simplicity and truth. . . . She has been accused of writing dull stories about ordinary people. But her supposed ordinary people are really not such very ordinary people. Let any one who is inclined to criticise on this score endeavour to constmct from among the ordinary people of his own acquaintance one character that shall be capable of interesting any reader for ten minutes. It will then be found how great has been the discrimination of Miss Austen in the selection of her \ characters and how skilful is her treatment of them. In both of these judgments is found one reason for the advantage in popularity of Miss Austen's, work over that of her predecessors and contempo- raries. It is, to put it baldly, this. It is in human ' There are two instances in the fragment, The Watsons, of very brief talk between two men alone. Also a ' peer of the realm ' figures in The Watsons, which was not published in the days of the articles to which reference has been made. 24 Her Contemporaries and Herself nature that we like to see our own reflection, or what , we fondly imagine to be our own reflection, to say ' nothing of that of our friends and neighbours. It is at once a gratification of harmless vanity and a/' satisfaction of a supposed or real sense of humourl to be able to say, on reading a given passage, ' Just in this way should I (or would my friend So-and-so) have felt, spoken, and acted in the circumstances here depicted.' The feeling may be called the face of that medal of which the obverse is still to be seen, though the trick is by this time old enough, in the delight felt by many ' creatures sitting at a play ' at the sight of a real hansom cab, a real man riding a real horse, or, to take it in its simplest form, Mr. Vincent Crummles's real pump and real tubs on the stage. Here is something that every spectator can apprehend at a glance, the while he congratulates himself on an apprehension just a little superior to that of his fellow-spectators. Each spectator, that is, thinks to himself ' Surely no one can take in the absolute truth of this quite so quickly as I do, since I well remember ' — and then follows a crowd of trivial recollections. The process of thought is no doubt instantaneous and unconscious, but the appro- bation springs from an unrecognised sense of self- esteem. So in reading, the reader who is, or imagines that he is, ' above the average ' takes a delight, which he would be sorry to explain to himself, in thinking that he sees just a little further and deeper than the first comer into fictitious motives, words, and actions, 25 Jane Austen which he immediately recognises as being true to that part of human nature which is not unknown to himself. Herein lies the key to the puzzle of great temporary, or even permanent, success won by work which is but mediocre. Various instances of such successful work will surely arise to the recollection of readers, and it is therefore needless, as it would be discourteous, to cite any special example. Herein lies also part, but by no means all, of the secret of Miss Austen's continuing dominion. The reader who is 'above the average' does recognise in her charac- terisation and dialogue certain ideas which, as it seems to him, he himself might have embodied. had circumstances favoured such an undertaking. ' Why, this is just what would happen — just what would be thought — ^just what would be said — I can see it all, understand it all myself. And since it is so easy to read, surely it would be easy enough to write if one had but the time and opportunity ! ' It is a not unpleasing self-delusion, and one that is not likely ever to be rooted out, since it com- bines two satisfactory attitudes of mind — a feeling of slight, not arrogant, superiority in appreciation to the general herd, and a virtuous joy and sincere admi- ration of a person just a little more capable than the admirer, and certainly more fortunate, in that chance gave her the time and occasion for so excel- lently expressing ideas and observations which are within that admirer's comprehension. To be content with this as aught but the most 26 Her Contemporaries and Herself unimportant cause of what may be fairly called Miss Austen's supremacy would be to fulfil Dog- berry's desire in one's own person and to write down Miss Austen as a novelist who had wit and talent enough to string together sensible and plausible commonplaces of everyday scenes and characters. That method has been of inestimable value to the kind of work to which allusion has been made, but there is infinitely more of course in Miss Austen's method and, one may surely add, in Miss Austen's inspiration. The words ' inspiration ' and ' genius ' are almost synonymous, and no true admirer of Miss Austen will for a moment admit that she was possessed of nothing more than a great and unique talent. Talent and close observation will do very much, but they will not avail to turn events and people which, as Madame de Stael had it, are vulgaires — that is to say, in their essence of a usual character — into types of enduring interest and charm, which, despite the rapid changes in habits and manners, delight the present, and one hopes the rising generation, just as much as they delighted Sir Walter Scott, to whom the ways and turns of speech of Miss Austen's folk were familiar as household words. There is a passage in the article already quoted from ' Fraser ' which touches this point closely : . . . There is never any deviation into the unnatural or exaggerated ; and how worthy of all love and respect is the finely disciplined genius which rejects the forcible but transient modes of stimulating interest which can be so 27 Jane Austen easily employed when desired, and which knows how to trust to the never-failing principles of human nature ! ... It' is true that the events are for the most part those of daily life, and the feelings are those connected with the usual joys and griefs of familiar existence ; but these are the very events and feelings upon which the happiness or misery of most of us depends ; and the field which embraces them, to the exclusion of the wonderful, the sentimental and the historical, is surely large enough, as it is certainly the one which admits of the most profitable cultivation. [With this, as to ' profitable cultivation,' I cannot, if I understand it aright, fully agree.] In the end, too, the novel of daily real life is that of which we are least apt to weary ; a round of fancy balls would tire the most vigorous admirers of variety in costume, and the return to plain clothes would be hailed with greater delight than their occasional relinquish- ment ever gives. Miss Austenls—personages are always in plain clothes, but no two suits are alike : all are worn with their appropriate differences, and under all human thoughts and feelings are at work. This seems to me to indicate happily, though not specially so intended, the ' vast ' which lies between the success of clever commonplace and the triumph of the genius which endues commonplace with rarity, which makes of characters that might be met any day in the present time, with a difference only of manners, forms of thought and emotion that may be encountered at any moment, a real possession for ever. Part of the secret of that magic which converted seemingly ordinary persons and events into matters of extraordinary delight and interest is touched on in the same article : 28 Her Contemporaries and Herself It is in the dramatic power with which her characters are exhibited that Miss Austen is unapproachable. Every one says the right thing in the right place and in the right way. The conservation of character is complete. We can never exactly predict what a particular person will say ; there are no catch words or phrases perpetually recurring from the same person ; yet we recognise as soon as spoken the truthful individuality of everything that is made to fall from each speaker. In this kind of genius she is without a rival, unless we look for one in the very highest name of our literature. Words to the same effect were written by Macaulay ; and if the comparison between Miss Austen and Shakspeare may to a first glance appear excessive, it will be found on closer inspection that, expressed as it is, it is in fact strictly within the limits of accurate criticism, or it might be more correct to say accurate appreciation of Miss Austen's greater qualities. My father continued : " Sometimes in the admiration expressed for her greatest excellence, her claim to qualities exercised more in common with others has been overlooked ; yet whenever accurate description is wanted, either of places or persons, it is supplied with ease and skill. This remark was, it seems to me, well worth the making ; for it certainly does appear that in Miss Austen's work, as indeed in all fiction that comes as near perfection as human skill can compass in its own line, the seemingly lesser merits are apt to be 29 Jane Austen altogether overshadowed by the evidences of genius found in characterisation ahd in dialogue. Yet surely it is precisely these seeming lesser merits, this close attention and industry in the consideration and treatment of the smallest detail, that help to make the work so excellent as it is. There is, be it ob- served, no Balzac-like overloading of detail (which of us has not sometimes quailed before the merciless description of every button on every gaiter in the opening of a Balzac novel?), no confusing of the general effect aimed at by divagations into byways of a too minute portraiture of places and persons. All is in harmony with, and subdued to, the central design. And yet in all the novels there has been detected only one slip, to be presently mentioned, in the finest details of description. Here then we have good general reason for the fact that Miss Austen retains, and I believe will always retain, her hold as a great novelist upon all readers who care for litera- ture, while other writers whose genius was of a high order are comparatively forgotten. There are pas- sages, isolated passages, more brilliant perhaps in actual wit than anything of Miss Austen's to be found in these writers, there are scenes more daring and more dramatic, but_she^_,stands alone m that Shakspearian gift and practice of being always absolutely true to nature, to the nature of each and every personage of her creation, clever or stupid, agreeable or disagreeable. Shakspearian too is the art which makes the disagreeable people and the 30 Her Contemporaries and Herself fools very entertaining company. Add to these qualities that seemingly easy truth of detail and that perfect charm of style to which reference has been made, and you have surely a unique combination. This much granted, it may be not uninteresting to look into certain points of contact, of difference, and of contact with a difference, between Miss Austen and the other noted writers of and before her date. 31 Jane Austen CHAPTER IV Referring back to Sir Walter Scott's article in the ' Quarterly Review,' I do not well or fully under- stand this passage : The author of ' Emma ' confines herself to the middling classes of society ; her most distinguished charac- ters do not rise greatly above well-bred country gentlemen and ladies ; and those which are sketched with most originality and precision, belong to a class below rather than above that standard. The first phrase of the sentence is undoubtedly accu- rate, and the same point is noted in the ' Fraser article : ' Hardly ever is a person of greater rank than a baronet introduced, nor [this is not in complete accordance with Sir Walter Scott's concluding phrase] does any fall below the professional and commercial classes.' I do not identify the personages whom Sir Walter Scott had in his mind when he wrote that the characters sketched with most originality and pre- cision belonged to a class rather below than above well-bred country society. To take a few instances, the immortal Miss Bates in ' Emma ' would not, to be sure, have been ranked among ' county people^' but that was an accident of means, not of manners, nor yet, it may be said, of birth, since she was the daughter 32 Her Contemporaries and Herself of a former Vicar of Highbury, who had left her widowed mother and herself in very straitened circumstances. Mr. Martin, the young farmer in the same novel, though absolutely true to life and con- sistent, like all Miss Austen's characters, is not of sufficient importance to be cited in support of Sir Walter Scott's dictum ; nor is Harriet Smith, the fooHsh nobody with whom Mr. Martin was in love ; while Mrs. Goddard the schoolmistress, and other characters below her in social position, lifelike as they are, do but pass rapidly from time to time across the scene. Again, in ' Northanger Abbey,' which shared with ' Emma ' the place of favourite with Sir Walter Scott, the Thorpes, to be sure, are the essence of vulgarity, but yet by mere position they hardly answer to the great novelist's description. And in ' Mansfield Park,' to take one other instance, Lieutenant Price and his wife, sunk with marriage by him, are the only persons of importance who could not be ' passed ' into the county society of which Sir Thomas Bertram was a prominent member. The matter would seem to lie rather thus — that while Miss Burney, Miss Edgeworth, and Miss Ferrier dealt at will, and with a perfectly equal hand as to praise and blame, like and dislike, with characters of the aristocratic, the middle, and the lower class, Miss Austen never went much above or i^ace Sir Walter Scott) much below the middle class, a term which was in her days less elastic than it now has become. Hence, no doubt to some extent, the almost absolute perfection of her work. The 33 D Jane Austen world of fashion was not to her taste, probably, and it did not naturally come in her way to mix in it Her knowledge of the lower classes was no doubt confined to villagers, of whom here and there in the novels we get glimpses, but no more than glimpses, such as the excellent glimpse of the carpenter in ' Mansfield Park.' She never went into those questions of political-fashionable life which are prominent in Miss Edgeworth's ' Patronage ' and which are more or less touched on in others of Miss Edgeworth's novels. She never attempted the tragic line taken with great success by Miss Burney when she describes Barrel's death in ' Cecilia,' nor did she ever attempt to depict the course of reckless dissipation which led to that death, or the not dissimilar courses which are shown in many of Miss Edgeworth's shorter stories, notably in ' The Lottery Ticket.' Nor did she ever adventure such a description of an ignorant gardener's domestic life as is given by Miss Edgeworth in ' Forester.' Least of all did she try, as Miss Ferrier did, t o draw a character of whi ch shecould not by any possibility have any first-han^kilQwledge. This was Miss t erner's case" in ' The Inheritance.' Perhaps never was a more hopelessly unnatural character drawn by a novelist not devoid of genius than Lewiston, the scoundrel, Americanised as he is sup- posed to be, in the npvel just named. Lewiston is like nothing that has ever been seen upon this earth. Miss Ferrier's idea was to make him coarse, vulgar, a blackmailing impostor, and American. She had 34 Her Contemporaries and Herself no knowledge on which to found her conception, and the hand which in the same novel drew so excellent a portrait of the essentially common Black family, redeemed by the really good qualities of the lifelike Adam Black, common himself only from narrowness and lack of education, presented us with a very monster of fiction in Lewiston. It is but to be sup- posed that Miss Ferrier took all Americans below the aristocratic class to be persons ferm naturcB, and pro- ceeded to draw upon her imagination for the vulgarest things that the vulgarest man in the world could conceive and act upon. Therefore, acquainted with English as well as Scots manners of fashion, and equally well acquainted with the manners of the Scots peasantry and of the then Scots ' ministers,' Miss Ferrier, drawing upon a bank of imagination where there was no account of information, made her ' American,' as she frequently calls him, deliver such a speech as this, which he makes when, thinking him- self secure in his disgraceful fraud, he has, by preying upon Mrs. St. Clair's terror, established himself as a guest to be cajoled in every way in Miss St. Clair's house. He is dissatisfied with the best efforts of the head cook in dainty dishes, and exclaims : What do you think, for instance, of a fine, jolly, juicy, thirty-pound round of well-corned beef and parsnips ? or a handsome leg of pork and pease-pudding, and a couple of fat geese well stuffed with sage and onions, swimming in apple-sauce ? Ah ! these are the dishes for me ! ' and he rubbed his hands with horrid glee. 35 D2 Jane Austen Now this is very far from being an unfair or exaggerated instance of the ludicrously and unplea- santly impossible fashion in which the character ol Lewiston is imagined and drawn throughout. And yet he occurs in the same book with the inimitable Miss Pratt and Lord Rossville, who are equal and like to some of Miss Austen's characters in that, intolerable bores in their different ways, they are yet a source of never-failing delight to readers. We may be very sure that if Miss Austen had introduced an American into any of her novels the character would have been studied from life, though not as a portrait of any one individual. She may probably never have come across any Americans : she certainly would not have played, as Miss Ferrier has done, the fabled German philosopher's camel- trick. Here is one point of superiority both to Miss Ferrier and to Miss Burney. There are absolutely no monsters of impossibility or even any characters of improbability, from Sir Thomas Bertram down to Knightley's bailiff, a person whom we know well, although we never actually meet him, in all the novels. Miss Burney errs but comparatively seldom in this regard. Yet it must be admitted that Lionel Tyrold in ' Camilla ' is fully as improbable a character, though the improbability is not so obviously extravagant as is Miss Ferrier's Lewiston. The intention clearly was to give an illustration of 'Video meliora proboque,. deteriora sequor.' But the changes from virtuous resolve or repentance to the most selfish and reckless 36 Her Contemporaries and Herself wickedness are so abrupt and so coarsely handled — an unusual defect in Miss Burney — that the effect is that of a glaring daub rather than of a finished pic- ture. Miss Austen's own favourite, Mr. Dubster, in the same novel may be set against the oddly blundered Lionel as a good example of a caricature in which the colours are laid on "with a good fat brush' broadJy, but not too broadly for reasonable merriment. Again, while in ' Evelina ' there is no character that one rejects as impossible (where Miss Burney got her inspiration of the Branghtons is a marvel), yet there are things which in the old sense of the word shock the understanding. With all the odd manners of the time, one cannot but wonder how Captain Mirvan and Madame Duval were tolerated by the society in the midst of which we find them, though this, to be sure, is easily forgotten in the rattling comedy of the scenes wherein they appear. In ' Cecilia ' there is certainly one character which appears out of drawing in itself and out of harmony with the rest by reason of its extravagance. This is — to leave aside the Solomon-Eagle-like Albany — Briggs, the miser, who is, most improbably, one of Cecilia's guardians. But of the gross caricature effect of this personage there is a very simple explanation in the fact which we learn from Miss Annie Raine Ellis's excellent preface, that Miss Burney, lacking Dickens's keenness to see that the actual must be altered in novel-writing, just as the stage-focus must be humoured in play-writing, drew the character of 37 Jane Austen Briggs straight from Nollekens the sculptor, ' trait for trait,' as it is put by Miss Ellis, who adds that Briggs is no caricature of Nollekens, but to take a miser, barely English, the son of an Antwerp miser, and make him out to be 'a warm man ' in the City of London, was enough to make readers in 1782 consider Briggs a caricature, and to leave in the mind of a reader in 1882 a strong sense of unfitness which is explained if we believe Briggs to have been lifted out of one set of circumstances and pushed into another set, to suit the plan of this novel. There is another marked difference, greatly to Miss Austen's advantage, between her method and .Miss Burney's. Miss Austen's English and style were, with the exception of a few slips in grammar, such as ' those sort of things,' impeccable, but never pedantic. As Mr. Austin Dobson writes : Going over her pages, pencil in hand, the antiquarian annotator is struck by their excessive 'modernity,' and, after a prolonged examination, discovers, in this century- old record, nothing more fitted for the exercise of his ingenuity than such an obsolete game at cards as ' cassino ' [cassino is not so very obsolete] or ' quadrille.' The philo- logist is in no better case. He speedily arrives at the conclusion that he will find in Madame D'Arblay and Miss Edgeworth — to cite writers who are more or less in Miss Austen's line — a far more profitable hunting-ground for archaisms, and he probably falls back upon admiration of the finished and perspicuous style. It is precisely this finished and perspicuous style that we miss in Madame D'Arblay of the Diary and Miss Burney of the novels. In ' Cecilia,' as 38 Her Contemporaries and Herself Miss Ellis says, ' homely or odd expressions are left straggling (probably from haste) among patches of stately Johnsonese.' [It is quite certain, by the way, from the Doctor's own assurance, that Johnson had no hand in ' Cecilia.'] Stroam, a corruption of stroll, used also by Miss Edgeworth, is constantly employed, and Miss Burney frequently coined words, quoting Dr. Johnson as an excuse, but forgetting that when the Doctor made words he made them according to philological rules, of which she was ignorant. It may be confidently asserted that not an expression, not a word, to which a philologist can take exception is to be found in all Miss Austen's novels. In taking leave of ' Cecilia ' for the present it may be worth while to call attention to an odd coincidence which of course has not escaped previous notice. In the last chapter of ' Cecilia ' occurs this passage : ' " The whole of this unfortunate business," said Dr. Lyster, "has been the result of PRIDE AND PRE- JUDICE"' (in very large capitals), and the phrase is twice afterwards repeated in the same large capitals which distinguish the word HEIRESS in the last few lines of the novel. I have a kind of recollection that the question whether this passage was or was not consciously or unconsciously present to Miss Austen's mind when she gave a title to the story of Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy has been worked out by a previous writer, but I have tried in vain to verify it. Miss Ellis however, generally a most trustworthy authority, states simply, in a footnote 39 Jane Austen to her preface to ' Evelina,' that ' Miss Austen took from the last sentence of " Camilla " [it is not the last sentence] the name of her novel " Pride and Preju- dice." ' Miss Austen's enthusiasm for ' Camilla ' may- have been partly due to her having been a subscriber to the book when it came out in 1796 — her name stands between those of 'George Aust, Esq.,' and ' Mrs. Ayton ' — but chiefly of course to a generous admiration for anything that Miss Burney might write. 40 Her Contemporaries and Herself CHAPTER V In Miss Edge worth there are not such glaring defects as can be found in Miss Burney and Miss Ferrier. Some of her characters seem now ex- travagant — as, for instance, King Corny in ' Ormonde ' — and give the impression of being taken straight from life, a piece of too direct portraiture. But then these characters are never in any v/ay ' out of the picture,' as is Briggs in ' Cecilia.' Miss Edgeworth's genius, however, if it was frequently employed on both higher and lower ranks of society than those with which Miss Austen dealt, was certainly less tempered and polished ' to the very finger-nail ' than was Miss Austen's. To be sure she differed from Miss Burney in her usually remarkable accuracy of style and statement, but this accuracy sometimes came near the confines of pedantry. The love of accuracy is shown in the lists of errata appended to her first edition, while the tendency to pedantry can be traced in the footnotes passim. She certainly had a remarkable scope. It was her knowledge and treatment of Irish scenes and characters that par- ticularly commanded Sir Walter Scott's admiration and, as we have seen, spurred him on to do as he 41 Jane Austen said for Scotland what she had done for Ireland in fiction. But she was equally successful in her ob- servation and representation of English life and character, and, like a much later novelist — Charles Lever — she could reproduce some kinds of Scots character and diction as naturally and correctly as she did those Irish traits, in delineation of which nobody of the time approached her. In all she wrote a fine eye for character can be detected ; but we cannot hold it as fine as Miss Austen's, since not very infrequently we find the black and white laid on with too little care for the nice shades of tone which Miss Austen never neglected. The good people are sometimes unco guid, and are for that reason perilously like bores. Mr. Percy, for instance, in ' Patronage ' is a person of doubtless excellence, but would any one suffer his company so gladly as that of MjL-Mjoi^A^iey^ni ' Emma,' who was, from all we know of him, asexcellerit a ma n as one could wis h J:o meet? But then he was not, like Mr. Percy,_a_ kind of statue of perfection! 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