Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters by Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh (romantic novels in english TXT) 📖
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[120] Probably Jane wrote 'Axford Buildings,' which were a continuation of Paragon towards Walcot Church.
[121] Eliza Fowle.
[122] Memoir, p. 64.
[123] The Duke of Sussex, who married, without the King's consent, Lady Augusta Murray.
[124] Probably, when they were on a visit to the Fowles at Elkstone, between Cheltenham and Cirencester. See p. 373.
[125] Family MS. One short paragraph, Memoir, p. 65; the remainder unpublished.
[126] Afterwards Sir William Heathcote, M.P.
[127] We remember that in Mansfield Park William Price had been able to afford only the amber cross as a present to Fanny, and not the chain. See Sailor Brothers, p. 92.
[128] Terrace seems to be a slip; at least, its present name is Sydney Place. We have, unfortunately, no letters dated from this house.
[129] There is an inscription to his memory on the wall of the south aisle in the Abbey.
[130] See p. 92.
[131] In an article called 'Is it Just?' p. 282.
[132] Memoir, p. 24.
[133] Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 40.
[134] See end of Chapter XIII.
[135] The watermarks of 1803 and 1804 on the paper are the sole authority for this date.
[136] P. 296.
[137] Miss Hill seems to have identified also the cottage, 'Mrs. Dean's house,' in which the Austens themselves lodged in 1804. No doubt decanters, and everything else, have long been perfectly immaculate.
[138] Nearly all Memoir, p. 68; the remainder unpublished.
[139] Chap. V.
[140] Sailor Brothers, p. 127.
[141] Mr. Oscar Fay Adams, a most careful investigator, failed to discover the inscription in Walcot Church to the memory of George Austen. It is in the crypt below the church, and runs as follows: 'Under this stone rest the remains of the Rev. George Austen, Rector of Steventon and Dean in Hampshire, who departed this life the 21st of January 1805, aged 73 years.'
[142] Sailor Brothers, p. 125.
[143] A gentleman and lady lately engaged to be married.
[144] Memoir, p. 74.
[145] It seems that Charles Austen, then first lieutenant of the Endymion, had had an opportunity of showing attention and kindness to some of Lord Leven's family.
[146] George (Hatton) was afterwards Earl of Winchilsea; Daniel was Rector of Great Weldon and Chaplain to Queen Victoria.
[147] Henry's banking premises were then in Albany, Piccadilly.
[148] At Ushant, after the chase of Villeneuve.
[149] The cricket dinner seems to have come at the end of the play, as it did in the celebrated match played at a somewhat later date in the same county between All-Muggleton and Dingley Dell (Pickwick Papers, chapter vii.).
[150] A letter from Mrs. Austen is extant, dated 'April 1806, Trim Street still.' Most writers state that the Austens went to Southampton towards the end of 1805—a year too early.
[151] Jane afterwards asked Frank's leave to introduce the names of some of his ships (one of which was the Canopus) into Mansfield Park.
[152] This order is said to have been given to each squadron in succession; and it is evident that the ships of Admiral Louis's squadron were especially likely to be in need of supplies, as they had taken their part in Nelson's chase of Villeneuve.
[153] Sailor Brothers, chaps. ix, x, and xi.
[154] See p. 208.
[155] See p. 70.
[156] Probably Joseph Hill—the frequent correspondent of the poet Cowper.
[157] Miss Mary Leigh left her property—in so far as she had any right to do so—in trust for (a) the Rev. Thomas Leigh; (b) James Leigh Perrot; (c) William Henry Leigh.
[158] Not to be confused with his uncle, Thomas Leigh, Rector of Harpsden and father of Mrs. Austen.
[159] See p. 201.
[160] This letter is quoted by Miss Hill, pp. 163-7.
[161] Unfortunately, Jane appears to date her letters merely 'Southampton,' until she moved to Castle Square.
[162] Alphonsine, by Madame de Genlis; The Female Quixote, published 1752, by Mrs. Charlotte Lennox, author of the phrase: 'A thought strikes me: let us swear an eternal friendship.'
[163] Miss Hill supplies us with the line from The Task, 'The Winter Walk at Noon,' ll. 149-50:—
[164] The Austens were about to become Lord Lansdowne's tenants in Castle Square.
[165] Johnson to Boswell, July 4, 1774.—Birkbeck Hill's Boswell, ii. 279.
[166] Mr. John Austen of Broadford, under whose will the property at Horsmonden came into the possession of the family of 'Uncle Frank' on the failure of his own direct heirs. See Chapter I.
[167] Letters from the Mountains: being the real Correspondence of a Lady, between 1773 and 1807, by Mrs. Grant of Laggan.
[168] Probably An Account of the Manners and Customs of Italy, etc. London, 1768-9.
[169] Memoir, p. 77.
[170] Ibid. p. 140.
[171] Brabourne, vol. ii. p. 116.
[172] The Henry Austens were then living at 16 Michael's Place, Brompton—a row of houses on the site of the present Egerton Mansions.
[173] James having arrived by the coach before the others.
[174] Son and daughter of James.
[175] Mr. W. Fowle speaks of a visit to Steventon, when Jane read 'very sweetly' the first canto of Marmion. By that time she was no doubt a warm admirer of the poem.
[176] Brabourne, vol. ii. p. 1.
[177] Southey's Letters from England, by Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella (London, 1807); a lively account of this country, written in the guise of letters assigned to a fictitious Spanish traveller.
[178] Lord Lansdowne, who put off being cured too long: his death occurred about the time when he had proposed to go abroad.
[179] See Chapter XIX.
[180] Henry Austen and John Bridges.
[181] William Stanley Goddard, D.D., Head Master of Winchester, 1796-1809.
[182] The Rector of Godmersham.
[183] Anglicised form of French word for cup-and-ball—bilboquet.
[184] As to the move to Chawton.
[185] Richard Mant, D.D., Rector of All Saints, Southampton, and father of Bishop Mant.
[186] She probably wrote noonshine, a somewhat incorrect way of spelling nuncheon (luncheon). See Sense and Sensibility, c. xliv.
[187] See p. 225.
[188] His approaching marriage to Harriet Foote.
[189] Frank.
[190] The Rector of Chawton, who was a bachelor.
[191] Mr. and Mrs. Leigh Perrot.
[192] In 1806, the small living of Hampstead Marshall became vacant by the death of old Mr. Fowle; and Lord Craven, the patron, looking round for an 'honest man' who would hold the living for his nominee, offered it to James Austen. He, however, felt scruples, grounded on the wording of the bond of resignation, and declined the preferment.
[193] Her second marriage to General H. T. Montresor.
[194] A joking suggestion that Sir Brook Bridges was about to propose to Cassandra.
[195] Sir John Moore's heroic twelve days' retreat to Corunna was now in progress, and the battle was fought there on January 16. It is mentioned again in the next two letters. The news on this occasion seems to have come very quickly. The St. Albans (under the command of Francis Austen) was at Spithead, and there took charge of the disembarkation of the remains of Sir John Moore's forces (Sailor Brothers, p. 203).
[196] Margiana; or Widdrington Tower, anon. 5 vols. 1808. For a description of this romance see a reply by M. H. Dodds in Notes and Queries, 11 S. vii. pp. 233-4.
[197] Women, or Ida of Athens, by Sydney Owenson (afterwards Lady Morgan), published in 1809.
[198] The Wild Irish Girl, published in 1806.
[199] Mrs. Charles Austen, whose daughter Cassandra was born on December 22, 1808.
[200] Eldest daughter of Jane's brother Edward.
[201] This proved to be Hannah More's Cœlebs in Search of a Wife, published in 1808. See next letter.
[202] Messrs. Crosby & Co. of Stationers' Hall Court, London.
[203] Mr. Austin Dobson, in his introduction to Northanger Abbey (Macmillan, 1897), makes the mistake of saying that the 'advertisement' of the first edition of 1818 tells us that the MS. was disposed of to 'a Bath bookseller.'
[204] Memoir, p. 129.
[205] This implies that (if Susan and Northanger Abbey were the same) no arrangement was concluded in 1809. Indeed, it does not appear that the author contemplated a re-purchase at that time; and the publisher was unwilling to relinquish his rights on any other terms.
[206] Later writers have not even been content to accept the 'publisher in Bath,' but have found a name and habitation for him. Mr. Peach, in his Historic Houses in Bath, published in 1883 (p. 150 note), says: 'The publisher (who purchased Northanger Abbey), we believe, was Bull.' Mr. Oscar Fay Adams, writing in 1891 (Story of Jane Austen's Life, p. 93), becomes more definite in his statement that 'nothing of hers (Jane Austen's) had yet been published; for although Bull, a publisher in Old Bond Street [sc. in Bath], had purchased in 1802 [sic] the manuscript of Northanger Abbey for the sum of ten pounds, it was lying untouched—and possibly unread—among his papers, at the epoch of her leaving Bath.'
It is true that Mr. Dobson, unable to find the authority
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