ART. VIII.—1. A Memoir of Jane Austen. By her Nephew, J. E. Austen-Leigh, Vicar of Bray, Berks. London, 1870. 2. The Life of Mary Russell Mitford, Authoress of Our Village,' &c. related in a selection from her letters to her friends. Edited by the Rev. A. G. L'Estrange. 3 vols. London, 1870.

HESE memorials of two women, both of whom displayed

tion of all students of English fiction. Of Miss Austen it has been well said that it may be taken as a new test of ability whether a person can or cannot appreciate her novels. On their first appearance they were regarded by the multitude as poor and commonplace. But the ablest judges formed a very different opinion of their merits. Lord Macaulay, as we learn from her present biographer, on the authority of his sister, Lady Trevelyan, had intended to write a memoir of Miss Austen, with criticisms on her works, to prefix it to a new edition of her novels, and from the proceeds of the sale to erect a monument to her memory in Winchester Cathedral. I have the picture still before me,' writes Sir Henry Holland, in his printed but unpublished recollections of his past life, of Lord Holland lying on his bed, when attacked with gout, his admirable sister, Miss Fox, beside him reading aloud, as she always did on these occasions, some one of Miss Austen's novels, of which he was never wearied.' 'You mention,' says Southey, in a letter to Sir Egerton Brydges, 'Miss Austen. Her novels are more true to nature, and have, for my sympathies, passages of finer feeling than others of this age.' Sir Walter Scott and Archbishop Whately, in the earlier numbers of the 'Quarterly Review,' called the attention of the public to their surpassing excellence; and Scott, at a later period, wrote as follows in his Diary (March 14th, 1826):

any

*

'Read again, for the third time at least, Miss Austen's finely written novel of "Pride and Prejudice." That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The big Bow-Wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so early!'

But it is not our present intention to enter into any criticism of these novels, but simply to draw from the interesting Memoir before

* See vol. xiv. p. 188 foll., and vol. xxiv. p. 352 foll..

us

us such particulars as will throw light upon their composition, and enable our readers to gratify the natural desire which every one must feel of knowing something of the life of a woman who was as complete in her quiet domestic virtue-as shy (it may have been too shy) in her home simplicity-yet, as original in her racy humour as any of the women whose names are enrolled in the Golden Book of Fiction.

Jane Austen was born in 1775, at Steventon, in Hampshire, the daughter of a clergyman, and one of many children, who made up a singularly happy and united family. Her mother, who belonged to the family of Leighs, of Warwickshire, was the niece of Dr. Theophilus Leigh, the Master of Balliol College, Oxford, who had wit enough, at the advanced age of eighty-six (he lived to be ninety) to attract a judge of wits no less expert than Mrs. Thrale:—

'We are told he was once calling on a gentleman notorious for never opening a book, who took him into a room overlooking the Bath Road, which was then a great thoroughfare for travellers of every class, saying rather pompously, "This, Doctor, I call my study." The Doctor, glancing his eye round the room in which no books were to be seen, replied, And very well named too, sir, for you know Pope tells us, 'The proper study of mankind is Man." When my father went to Oxford he was honoured with an invitation to dine with this dignified cousin. Being a raw undergraduate unaccustomed to the habits of the University, he was about to take off his gown, as if it were a great coat, when the old man, then considerably turned eighty, said, with a grim smile, "Young man, you need not strip: we are not going to fight.":

Jane Austen's father, the Rector of Steventon, known during his youth at Oxford as 'the handsome Proctor,' was a superior, accomplished, and learned man. Her mother 'united strong common sense with a lively imagination, and expressed herself, both in writing and in conversation, with epigrammatic force and point.' Her eldest brother James, Mr. Austen-Leigh's father, when a very young man at Oxford, had been the originator and chief supporter of a periodical paper called the "Loiterer," written somewhat on the plan of the "Spectator" and its successors, but nearly confined to subjects connected with the University. Another brother, Mr. Knight, who possessed a spirit of fervent liveliness, which made him especially delightful to all young people,' was early adopted by a cousin, who left him in possession of landed property in Kent and in Hampshire, and a name to bear. A third brother was a clergyman, who took to the Church late in life. Jane's two youngest brothers

rose

rose to the highest honours in our sea-service, at a time when the English navy offered noble chances, but therewith demanded high. capacities for administration and decision, such as may hardly occur in these days, or in days to come. Francis Austen, who died at the age of ninety-three, was 'a strict disciplinarian,' who enforced his discipline without ever uttering an oath, or permitting one in his presence. On one occasion,' adds the biographer, when ashore in a sea-side town, he was spoken of as "the officer who kneeled at church.' The honourable career of these two brothers accounts, as her biographer observes, for Jane Austen's partiality for the navy, as well as for the readiness and accuracy with which she wrote about it ::

'She was always very careful not to meddle with matters which she did not thoroughly understand. She never touched upon politics, law, or medicine, subjects which some novel writers have ventured on rather too boldly, and have treated with more brilliancy than accuracy. But with ships and sailors she felt herself at home, or at least could always trust to a brotherly critic to keep her right. I believe that no flaw has ever been found in her seamanship either in "Mansfield Park or in "Persuasion."

Lastly, our authoress had an elder sister, classically christened Cassandra-a graver, less gifted woman than herself, but of steady affections and composed temper, to whom Jane was inseparably attached throughout life, and who appears to have exercised no common influence over her heart and head. There is something as engaging as it is satisfying in such an English family picture as these memorials indicate, and the pleasure and interest excited by contemplating it, makes us all the more regret that there exist no materials for filling up the sketch.

Jane Austen passed the first twenty-five years of her life in her father's happy home at Steventon :

---

"There was so much that was agreeable and attractive in this family party, that its members may be excused if they were inclined to live somewhat too exclusively within it. They might see in each other much to love and esteem, and something to admire. The family talk had abundance of spirit and vivacity, and was never troubled by disagreements even in little matters, for it was not their habit to dispute or argue with each other: above all, there was strong family affection and firm union, never to be broken but by death. It cannot be doubted that all this had its influence on the author in the construction of her stories, in which a family party usually supplies the narrow stage, while the interest is made to revolve round a few

actors.

'It will be seen also that though her circle of society was small, yet she found in her neighbourhood persons of good taste and culti

vated minds. Her acquaintance, in fact, constituted the very class from which she took her imaginary characters, from the member of parliament, or large landed proprietor, to the young curate or younger midshipman of equally good family; and I think that the influence of these early associations may be traced in her writings, especially in two particulars. First, that she is entirely free from the vulgarity, which is so offensive in some novels, of dwelling on the outward appendages of wealth or rank, as if they were things to which the writer was unaccustomed; and, secondly, that she deals as little with very low as with very high stations in life. She does not go lower than the Miss Steeles, Mrs. Elton, and John Thorpe, people of bad taste and underbred manners, such as are actually found sometimes mingling with better society.'

An occasional visit to some cousins at Bath gave her that intimate knowledge of the topography and customs of that city which enabled her to write Northanger Abbey' long before she resided there herself. Another cousin, who had married a French nobleman, and who came to live at Steventon after her husband had perished by the guillotine during the French Revolution, introduced greater variety into the family circle:

'She was a clever woman, and highly accomplished, after the French rather than the English mode; and in those days when intercourse with the Continent was long interrupted by war, such an element in the society of a country parsonage must have been a rare acquisition. The sisters may have been principally indebted to this cousin for the considerable knowledge of French which they possessed. She also took the principal parts in the private theatricals in which the family several times indulged, having their summer theatre in the barn, and their winter one within the narrow limits of the diningroom, where the number of the audience must have been very limited. On these occasions, the prologues and epilogues were written by Jane's eldest brother, and some of them are very vigorous and amusing. Jane was only twelve years old at the time of the earliest of these representations, and not more than fifteen when the last took place. She was, however, an early observer, and it may be reasonably supposed that some of the incidents and feelings which are so vividly painted in the Mansfield Park theatricals are due to her recollections of these entertainments.'

Miss Austen's first attempts at composition consisted of quizzical tales, written when she was a girl, then indicating the vein of humour so delicately yet genially wrought out in the bores, and drolls, and coxcombs of her novels. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about them is the pure and idiomatic English in which they are composed, quite different from the over-ornamented style which might be expected from a very young writer.' Gradually her efforts become more sustained and serious, and she

produced

produced stories still extant, we are told, in manuscript, which the family have declined to publish, for the present at least. However tantalising be the knowledge that such treasures exists, we hold the decision to be wise. In the face of the indecorous practice too largely prevalent in the present day, of exposing to common view every scrap, and relic, and incomplete essay left by those who have become famous in literature or art, it may be recommended as a wholesome truth, that a man's thoughts are as indefeasibly his own property as his acres, and that the work which he has judged discreet to withhold from public view from a sense of its incompleteness, ought to be sacred from being pored over and printed by posthumous busy bodies.

'Pride and Prejudice,' the first of Miss Austen's half-dozen novels, which will be read so long as any one cares for English domestic fiction, was begun when its writer was twenty-one years of age, in October, 1796,-and completed in about ten months. Sense and Sensibility' was commenced immediately after the completion of 'Pride and Prejudice' (1797), and Northanger Abbey' was composed in the following year (1798). The courageous self-knowledge which could prompt and carry through such undertakings, under such circumstances, is a noticeable fact. These stories were written in the time of supernatural fiction, made popular by Walpole's 'Castle of Otranto' and by the writings of Anne Radcliffe-a time, it might have been predicated, when the appeal of so delicate a voice and so delicate a touch as Miss Austen's would entirely fail of effect. But we are proud to believe, that, in England at least, everything which is real makes a way, not to be closed up, but to be widened as years go on, and as with them the powers of comparison are developed. These quiet novels have become classics. So much can hardly be said of many of the works by the other female novelists. By the side of 'Emma' and 'Persuasion,' 'Evelina'-ushered into fame by a patron no less authoritative and powerful than Dr. Johnsonas a work of art, is coarse and farcical. The Austen novels have outlasted the tales of Mrs. Bennet and Charlotte Smith, and that kind-hearted, illicit Quakeress, Amelia Opie; though each of these as it came was the delight of novel readers, and all appealed to emotions more serious and to passions more high-flown than can be excited by the cares and concernments of every

*Four years younger than Miss Burney was when she wrote 'Evelina.' The fable of this novel being the work of a girl of seventeen has been long since exploded. Evelina' was published in 1778, when the authoress was twentyfive years old.

day