Memoir of Jane Austen Part 2

SIR,--I humbly solicit your patronage to the following Comedy, which, though an unfinished one, is, I flatter myself, as complete a _Mystery_ as any of its kind.

I am, Sir, your most humble Servant, THE AUTHOR.

THE MYSTERY, A COMEDY.

_DRAMATIS PERSONAE_.

_Men_. _Women_.

Col. ELLIOTT. f.a.n.n.y ELLIOTT.

OLD HUMBUG. Mrs. HUMBUG YOUNG HUMBUG. _and_ Sir Edward Spangle Daphne.

and Corydon.

ACT I.

SCENE I.--_A Garden_.

_Enter_ CORYDON.

_Corydon_. But hush: I am interrupted. [_Exit_ CORYDON.

_Enter_ OLD HUMBUG _and his_ SON, _talking_.

_Old Hum_. It is for that reason that I wish you to follow my advice.

Are you convinced of its propriety?

_Young Hum_. I am, sir, and will certainly act in the manner you have pointed out to me.

_Old Hum_. Then let us return to the house. [_Exeunt_.

SCENE II.--_A parlour in_ HUMBUG'S _house_. MRS. HUMBUG _and_ f.a.n.n.y _discovered at work_.

_Mrs. Hum_. You understand me, my love?

_f.a.n.n.y_. Perfectly, ma'am: pray continue your narration.

_Mrs. Hum_. Alas! it is nearly concluded; for I have nothing more to say on the subject.

_f.a.n.n.y_. Ah! here is Daphne.

_Enter_ DAPHNE.

_Daphne_. My dear Mrs. Humbug, how d'ye do? Oh! f.a.n.n.y, it is all over.

_f.a.n.n.y_. Is it indeed!

_Mrs. Hum_. I'm very sorry to hear it.

_f.a.n.n.y_. Then 'twas to no purpose that I--

_Daphne_. None upon earth.

_Mrs. Hum_. And what is to become of--?

_Daphne_. Oh! 'tis all settled. (_Whispers_ MRS. HUMBUG.)

_f.a.n.n.y_. And how is it determined?

_Daphne_. I'll tell you. (_Whispers_ f.a.n.n.y.)

_Mrs. Hum_. And is he to--?

_Daphne_. I'll tell you all I know of the matter. (_Whispers_ MRS.

HUMBUG _and_ f.a.n.n.y.)

_f.a.n.n.y_. Well, now I know everything about it, I'll go away.

_Mrs. Hum_. and _Daphne_. And so will I. [_Exeunt_.

SCENE III.--_The curtain rises, and discovers_ SIR EDWARD SPANGLE _reclined in an elegant att.i.tude on a sofa fast asleep_.

_Enter_ COL. ELLIOTT.

_Col. E_. My daughter is not here, I see. There lies Sir Edward. Shall I tell him the secret? No, he'll certainly blab it. But he's asleep, and won't hear me;--so I'll e'en venture. (_Goes up to_ SIR EDWARD, _whispers him, and exit_.)

END OF THE FIRST ACT.

FINIS.

Her own mature opinion of the desirableness of such an early habit of composition is given in the following words of a niece:--

'As I grew older, my aunt would talk to me more seriously of my reading and my amus.e.m.e.nts. I had taken early to writing verses and stories, and I am sorry to think how I troubled her with reading them. She was very kind about it, and always had some praise to bestow, but at last she warned me against spending too much time upon them. She said--how well I recollect it!--that she knew writing stories was a great amus.e.m.e.nt, and _she_ thought a harmless one, though many people, she was aware, thought otherwise; but that at my age it would be bad for me to be much taken up with my own compositions. Later still--it was after she had gone to Winchester--she sent me a message to this effect, that if I would take her advice I should cease writing till I was sixteen; that she had herself often wished she had read more, and written less in the corresponding years of her own life.' As this niece was only twelve years old at the time of her aunt's death, these words seem to imply that the juvenile tales to which I have referred had, some of them at least, been written in her childhood.

But between these childish effusions, and the composition of her living works, there intervened another stage of her progress, during which she produced some stories, not without merit, but which she never considered worthy of publication. During this preparatory period her mind seems to have been working in a very different direction from that into which it ultimately settled. Instead of presenting faithful copies of nature, these tales were generally burlesques, ridiculing the improbable events and exaggerated sentiments which she had met with in sundry silly romances. Something of this fancy is to be found in 'Northanger Abbey,'

but she soon left it far behind in her subsequent course. It would seem as if she were first taking note of all the faults to be avoided, and curiously considering how she ought _not_ to write before she attempted to put forth her strength in the right direction. The family have, rightly, I think, declined to let these early works be published. Mr.

Shortreed observed very pithily of Walter Scott's early rambles on the borders, 'He was makin' himsell a' the time; but he didna ken, may be, what he was about till years had pa.s.sed. At first he thought of little, I dare say, but the queerness and the fun.' And so, in a humbler way, Jane Austen was 'makin' hersell,' little thinking of future fame, but caring only for 'the queerness and the fun;' and it would be as unfair to expose this preliminary process to the world, as it would be to display all that goes on behind the curtain of the theatre before it is drawn up.

It was, however, at Steventon that the real foundations of her fame were laid. There some of her most successful writing was composed at such an early age as to make it surprising that so young a woman could have acquired the insight into character, and the nice observation of manners which they display. 'Pride and Prejudice,' which some consider the most brilliant of her novels, was the first finished, if not the first begun.

She began it in October 1796, before she was twenty-one years old, and completed it in about ten months, in August 1797. The t.i.tle then intended for it was 'First Impressions.' 'Sense and Sensibility' was begun, in its present form, immediately after the completion of the former, in November 1797 but something similar in story and character had been written earlier under the t.i.tle of 'Elinor and Marianne;' and if, as is probable, a good deal of this earlier production was retained, it must form the earliest specimen of her writing that has been given to the world. 'Northanger Abbey,' though not prepared for the press till 1803, was certainly first composed in 1798.

Amongst the most valuable neighbours of the Austens were Mr. and Mrs.

Lefroy and their family. He was rector of the adjoining parish of Ashe; she was sister to Sir Egerton Brydges, to whom we are indebted for the earliest notice of Jane Austen that exists. In his autobiography, speaking of his visits at Ashe, he writes thus: 'The nearest neighbours of the Lefroys were the Austens of Steventon. I remember Jane Austen, the novelist, as a little child. She was very intimate with Mrs. Lefroy, and much encouraged by her. Her mother was a Miss Leigh, whose paternal grandmother was sister to the first Duke of Chandos. Mr. Austen was of a Kentish family, of which several branches have been settled in the Weald of Kent, and some are still remaining there. When I knew Jane Austen, I never suspected that she was an auth.o.r.ess; but my eyes told me that she was fair and handsome, slight and elegant, but with cheeks a little too full.' One may wish that Sir Egerton had dwelt rather longer on the subject of these memoirs, instead of being drawn away by his extreme love for genealogies to her great-grandmother and ancestors. That great-grandmother however lives in the family records as Mary Brydges, a daughter of Lord Chandos, married in Westminster Abbey to Theophilus Leigh of Addlestrop in 1698. When a girl she had received a curious letter of advice and reproof, written by her mother from Constantinople.

Mary, or 'Poll,' was remaining in England with her grandmother, Lady Bernard, who seems to have been wealthy and inclined to be too indulgent to her granddaughter. This letter is given. Any such authentic doc.u.ment, two hundred years old, dealing with domestic details, must possess some interest. This is remarkable, not only as a specimen of the homely language in which ladies of rank then expressed themselves, but from the sound sense which it contains. Forms of expression vary, but good sense and right principles are the same in the nineteenth that they were in the seventeenth century.

'MY DEARES POLL,