Mr. Clarke, however, was not to be discouraged from proposing another subject.  He had recently been appointed chaplain and private English secretary to Prince Leopold, who was then about to be united to the Princess Charlotte; and when he again wrote to express the gracious thanks of the Prince Regent for the copy of ‘Emma’ which had been presented, he suggests that ’an historical romance illustrative of the august House of Cobourg would just now be very interesting,’ and might very properly be dedicated to Prince Leopold.  This was much as if Sir William Ross had been set to paint a great battle-piece; and it is amusing to see with what grave civility she declined a proposal which must have struck her as ludicrous, in the following letter:—­

’MY DEAR SIR,—­I am honoured by the Prince’s thanks and very much obliged to yourself for the kind manner in which you mention the work.  I have also to acknowledge a former letter forwarded to me from Hans Place.  I assure you I felt very grateful for the friendly tenor of it, and hope my silence will have been considered, as it was truly meant, to proceed only from an unwillingness to tax your time with idle thanks.  Under every interesting circumstance which your own talents and literary labours have placed you in, or the favour of the Regent bestowed, you have my best wishes.  Your recent appointments I hope are a step to something still better.  In my opinion, the service of a court can hardly be too well paid, for immense must be the sacrifice of time and feeling required by it.

’You are very kind in your hints as to the sort of composition which might recommend me at present, and I am fully sensible that an historical romance, founded on the House of Saxe Cobourg, might be much more to the purpose of profit or popularity than such pictures of domestic life in country villages as I deal in.  But I could no more write a romance than an epic poem.  I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or at other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter.  No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.

   ’I remain, my dear Sir,

   ’Your very much obliged, and sincere friend,
   ’J.  AUSTEN.

   ‘Chawton, near Alton, April 1, 1816.’

Mr. Clarke should have recollected the warning of the wise man, ’Force not the course of the river.’  If you divert it from the channel in which nature taught it to flow, and force it into one arbitrarily cut by yourself, you will lose its grace and beauty.

   But when his free course is not hindered,
   He makes sweet music with the enamelled stones,
   Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
   He overtaketh in his pilgrimage: 
   And so by many winding nooks he strays
   With willing sport.