a faithful representation of real life:  they exhibit to us mere folly in the abstract, forgetting that to the eye of a skilful naturalist the insects on a leaf present as wide differences as exist between the elephant and the lion.  Slender, and Shallow, and Aguecheek, as Shakespeare has painted them, though equally fools, resemble one another no more than “Richard,” and “Macbeth,” and “Julius Caesar”; and Miss Austin’s “Mrs. Bennet,” “Mr. Rushworth,” and “Miss Bates,” are no more alike than her “Darcy,” “Knightley,” and “Edmund Bertram.”  Some have complained, indeed, of finding her fools too much like nature, and consequently tiresome; there is no disputing about tastes; all we can say is, that such critics must (whatever deference they may outwardly pay to received opinions) find the “Merry Wives of Windsor” and “Twelfth Night” very tiresome; and that those who look with pleasure at Wilkie’s pictures, or those of the Dutch school, must admit that excellence of imitation may confer attraction on that which would be insipid or disagreeable in the reality.

[1] [Greek:  ouden anthes] Arist.  Poet.

Her minuteness of detail has also been found fault with; but even where it produces, at the time, a degree of tediousness, we know not whether that can justly be reckoned a blemish, which is absolutely essential to a very high excellence.  Now, it is absolutely impossible, without this, to produce that thorough acquaintance with the characters, which is necessary to make the reader heartily interested in them.  Let any one cut out from the Iliad or from Shakespeare’s plays every thing (we are far from saying that either might not lose some parts with advantage, but let him reject every thing) which is absolutely devoid of importance and of interest in itself; and he will find that what is left will have lost more than half its charms.  We are convinced that some writers have diminished the effect of their works by being scrupulous to admit nothing into them which had not some absolute, intrinsic, and independent merit.  They have acted like those who strip off the leaves of a fruit tree, as being of themselves good for nothing, with the view of securing more nourishment to the fruit, which in fact cannot attain its full maturity and flavour without them.

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To say the truth, we suspect one of Miss Austin’s great merits in our eyes to be, the insight she gives us into the peculiarities of female character.  Authoresses can scarcely ever forget the esprit de corps—­ can scarcely ever forget that they are authoresses.  They seem to feel a sympathetic shudder at exposing naked a female mind. Elles se peignent en buste, and leave the mysteries of womanhood to be described by some interloping male, like Richardson or Marivaux, who is turned out before he has seen half the rites, and is forced to spin from his own conjectures the rest.  Now from this fault Miss Austin is free.  Her