VIII.

To Jane Austen.

Madame,—­If to the enjoyments of your present state be lacking a view of the minor infirmities or foibles of men, I cannot but think (were the thought permitted) that your pleasures are yet incomplete.  Moreover, it is certain that a woman of parts who has once meddled with literature will never wholly lose her love for the discussion of that delicious topic, nor cease to relish what (in the cant of our new age) is styled ‘literary shop.’  For these reasons I attempt to convey to you some inkling of the present state of that agreeable art which you, madam, raised to its highest pitch of perfection.

As to your own works (immortal, as I believe), I have but little that is wholly cheering to tell one who, among women of letters, was almost alone in her freedom from a lettered vanity.  You are not a very popular author:  your volumes are not found in gaudy covers on every bookstall; or, if found, are not perused with avidity by the Emmas and Catherines of our generation.  ’Tis not long since a blow was dealt (in the estimation of the unreasoning) at your character as an author by the publication of your familiar letters.  The editor of these epistles, unfortunately, did not always take your witticisms, and he added others which were too unmistakably his own.  While the injudicious were disappointed by the absence of your exquisite style and humour, the wiser sort were the more convinced of your wisdom.  In your letters (knowing your correspondents) you gave but the small personal talk of the hour, for them sufficient; for your books you reserved matter and expression which are imperishable.  Your admirers, if not very numerous, include all persons of taste, who, in your favour, are apt somewhat to abate the rule, or shake off the habit, which commonly confines them to but temperate laudation.

’T is the fault of all art to seem antiquated and faded in the eyes of the succeeding generation.  The manners of your age were not the manners of to-day, and young gentlemen and ladies who think Scott ‘slow,’ think Miss Austen ‘prim’ and ‘dreary.’  Yet, even could you return among us, I scarcely believe that, speaking the language of the hour, as you might, and versed in its habits, you would win the general admiration.  For how tame, madam, are your characters, especially your favourite heroines! how limited the life which you knew and described! how narrow the range of your incidents! how correct your grammar!

As heroines, for example, you chose ladies like Emma, and Elizabeth, and Catherine:  women remarkable neither for the brilliance nor for the degradation of their birth; women wrapped up in their own and the parish’s concerns, ignorant of evil, as it seems, and unacquainted with vain yearnings and interesting doubts.  Who can engage his fancy with their match-makings and the conduct of their affections, when so many daring and dazzling heroines approach and solicit his regard?