“Northanger Abbey” is written in a fine vein of irony, called forth, in some degree, by the romantic school of Mrs. Radcliffe and her imitators.  We doubt whether Miss Austen was not over-wise with regard to these romances.  Though born after the Radcliffe era, we well remember shivering through the “Mysteries of Udolpho” with as quaking a heart as beat in the bosom of Catherine Morland.  If Miss Austen was not equally impressed by the power of these romances, we rejoice that they were written, as with them we should have lost “Northanger Abbey.”  For ourselves, we spent one very rainy day in the streets of Bath, looking up every nook and corner familiar in the adventures of Catherine, and time, not faith, failed, for a visit to Northanger itself.  Bath was also sanctified by the presence of Anne Elliot.  Our inn, the “White Hart,” (made classic by the adventures of various well-remembered characters,) was hallowed by exquisite memories which connected one of the rooms (we faithfully believed it was our apartment) with the conversation of Anne Elliot and Captain Harville, as they stood by the window, while Captain Wentworth listened and wrote.  In vain did we gaze at the windows of Camden Place.  No Anne Elliot appeared.

“Sense and Sensibility” was the first novel published by Miss Austen.  It is marked by her peculiar genius, though it may be wanting in the nicer finish which experience gave to her later writings.

The Earl of Carlisle, when Lord Morpheth, wrote a poem for some now forgotten annual, entitled “The Lady and the Novel.”  The following lines occur among the verses:—­

  “Or is it thou, all-perfect Austen? here
  Let one poor wreath adorn thy early bier,
  That scarce allowed thy modest worth to claim
  The living portion of thy honest fame: 
  Oh, Mrs. Bennet, Mrs. Morris, too,
  While Memory survives, she’ll dream of you;
  And Mr. Woodhouse, with abstemious lip,
  Must thin, but not too thin, the gruel sip;
  Miss Bates, our idol, though the village bore,
  And Mrs. Elton, ardent to explore;
  While the clear style flows on without pretence,
  With unstained purity, and unmatched sense.”

If the Earl of Carlisle, in whose veins flows “the blood of all the Howards,” is willing to acknowledge so many of our friends, who are anything but aristocratic, our republican soul shrinks not from the confession that we should like to accompany good-natured Mrs. Jennings in her hospitable carriage, (so useful to our young ladies of sense and sensibility,) witness the happiness of Elinor at the parsonage, and the reward of Colonel Brandon at the manor-house of Delaford, and share with Mrs. Jennings all the charms of the mulberry-tree and the yew arbor.