As my memoir has now reached the period when I saw a great deal of my aunt, and was old enough to understand something of her value, I will here attempt a description of her person, mind, and habits.  In person she was very attractive; her figure was rather tall and slender, her step light and firm, and her whole appearance expressive of health and animation.  In complexion she was a clear brunette with a rich colour; she had full round cheeks, with mouth and nose small and well formed, bright hazel eyes, and brown hair forming natural curls close round her face.  If not so regularly handsome as her sister, yet her countenance had a peculiar charm of its own to the eyes of most beholders.  At the time of which I am now writing, she never was seen, either morning or evening, without a cap; I believe that she and her sister were generally thought to have taken to the garb of middle age earlier than their years or their looks required; and that, though remarkably neat in their dress as in all their ways, they were scarcely sufficiently regardful of the fashionable, or the becoming.

She was not highly accomplished according to the present standard.  Her sister drew well, and it is from a drawing of hers that the likeness prefixed to this volume has been taken.  Jane herself was fond of music, and had a sweet voice, both in singing and in conversation; in her youth she had received some instruction on the pianoforte; and at Chawton she practised daily, chiefly before breakfast.  I believe she did so partly that she might not disturb the rest of the party who were less fond of music.  In the evening she would sometimes sing, to her own accompaniment, some simple old songs, the words and airs of which, now never heard, still linger in my memory.

She read French with facility, and knew something of Italian.  In those days German was no more thought of than Hindostanee, as part of a lady’s education.  In history she followed the old guides—­Goldsmith, Hume, and Robertson.  Critical enquiry into the usually received statements of the old historians was scarcely begun.  The history of the early kings of Rome had not yet been dissolved into legend.  Historic characters lay before the reader’s eyes in broad light or shade, not much broken up by details.  The virtues of King Henry VIII. were yet undiscovered, nor had much light been thrown on the inconsistencies of Queen Elizabeth; the one was held to be an unmitigated tyrant, and an embodied Blue Beard; the other a perfect model of wisdom and policy.  Jane, when a girl, had strong political opinions, especially about the affairs of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  She was a vehement defender of Charles I. and his grandmother Mary; but I think it was rather from an impulse of feeling than from any enquiry into the evidences by which they must be condemned or acquitted.  As she grew up, the politics of the day occupied very little of her attention, but she probably shared the feeling of moderate Toryism