An article on “Recent Novels,” in “Fraser’s Magazine” for December, 1847, written by Mr. G.H.  Lewes, contains the following paragraphs:—­“What we most heartily enjoy and applaud is truth in the delineations of life and character....  To make our meaning precise, we would say that Fielding and Miss Austen are the greatest novelists in our language....  We would rather have written ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ or ‘Tom Jones,’ than any of the ’Waverley Novels’....  Miss Austen has been called a prose Shakspeare,—­and among others, by Macaulay.  In spite of the sense of incongruity which besets us in the words prose Shakspeare, we confess the greatness of Miss Austen, her marvellous dramatic power, seems, more than anything in Scott, akin to Shakspeare.”

The conclusion of this article is devoted to a review of ‘Jane Eyre,’ and led to the correspondence between Miss Bronte and Mr. Lewes which will be found in the memoir of her life.  In these letters it is apparent that Mr. Lewes wishes Miss Bronte to read and to enjoy Miss Austen’s works, as he does himself.  Mr. Lewes is disappointed, and felt, doubtless, what all true lovers of Jane Austen have experienced, a surprise to find how obtuse otherwise clever people sometimes are.  In this instance, however, we think Mr. Lewes expected what was impossible.  Charlotte Bronte could not harmonize with Jane Austen.  The luminous and familiar star which comes forth into the quiet evening sky when the sun sets amid the amber light of an autumn evening, and the comet which started into sight, unheralded and unnamed, and flamed across the midnight sky, have no affinity, except in the Divine Mind, whence both originate.

The notice of Miss Austen, by Macaulay, to which Mr. Lewes alludes, must be, we presume, the passage which occurs in Macaulay’s article on Madame D’Arblay, in the “Edinburgh Review,” for January, 1843.  We do not find the phrase, “prose Shakspeare,” but the meaning is the same; we give the passage as it stands before us:—­

“Shakspeare has neither equal nor second; but among writers who, in the point we have noticed, have approached nearest the manner of the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen, as a woman of whom England is justly proud.  She has given us a multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such as we meet every day.  Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings.  There are, for example, four clergymen, none of whom we should be surprised to find in any parsonage in the kingdom,—­Mr. Edward Ferrars, Mr. Henry Tilney, Mr. Edward Bertram, and Mr. Elton.  They are all specimens of the upper part of the middle class.  They have been all liberally educated.  They all lie under the restraints of the same sacred profession.  They are all young.  They are all in love.  Not any one of them has any hobby-horse, to use the phrase of Sterne.  Not one has any