dyers are.  They begin with dipping their own souls in scarlet sin.  It is evening.  We have drank tea, and I have torn through the third vol. of the “Heroine.”  I do not think it falls off.  It is a delightful burlesque, particularly on the Radcliffe style.  Henry is going on with “Mansfield Park.”  He admires H. Crawford:  I mean properly, as a clever, pleasant man.  I tell you all the good I can, as I know how much you will enjoy it.  We hear that Mr. Kean is more admired than ever.  There are no good places to be got in Drury Lane for the next fortnight, but Henry means to secure some for Saturday fortnight, when you are reckoned upon.  Give my love to little Cass.  I hope she found my bed comfortable last night.  I have seen nobody in London yet with such a long chin as Dr. Syntax, nor anybody quite so large as Gogmagolicus.

   ’Yours affly.,
   ‘J.  AUSTEN.’

CHAPTER VII.

Seclusion from the literary world—­Notice from the Prince Regent—­Correspondence with Mr. Clarke—­Suggestions to alter her style of writing.

Jane Austen lived in entire seclusion from the literary world:  neither by correspondence, nor by personal intercourse was she known to any contemporary authors.  It is probable that she never was in company with any person whose talents or whose celebrity equalled her own; so that her powers never could have been sharpened by collision with superior intellects, nor her imagination aided by their casual suggestions.  Whatever she produced was a genuine home-made article.  Even during the last two or three years of her life, when her works were rising in the estimation of the public, they did not enlarge the circle of her acquaintance.  Few of her readers knew even her name, and none knew more of her than her name.  I doubt whether it would be possible to mention any other author of note, whose personal obscurity was so complete.  I can think of none like her, but of many to contrast with her in that respect.  Fanny Burney, afterwards Madame D’Arblay, was at an early age petted by Dr. Johnson, and introduced to the wits and scholars of the day at the tables of Mrs. Thrale and Sir Joshua Reynolds.  Anna Seward, in her self-constituted shrine at Lichfield, would have been miserable, had she not trusted that the eyes of all lovers of poetry were devoutly fixed on her.  Joanna Baillie and Maria Edgeworth were indeed far from courting publicity; they loved the privacy of their own families, one with her brother and sister in their Hampstead villa, the other in her more distant retreat in Ireland; but fame pursued them, and they were the favourite correspondents of Sir Walter Scott.  Crabbe, who was usually buried in a country parish, yet sometimes visited London, and dined at Holland House, and was received as a fellow-poet by Campbell, Moore, and Rogers; and on one memorable occasion he was Scott’s guest at Edinburgh, and gazed with wondering eyes on the incongruous