A Memoir of Jane Austen

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Opinions of Eminent Persons 111
credit of the “Edinburgh Review” that it had left her unnoticed. 1
. . . The “Quarterly” had done her more justice . . . It was impossible
for a foreigner to understand fully the merit of her works.
Madame de Staël,° to whom he had recommended one of her
novels, found no interest in it; and in her note to him in reply said
it was “vulgaire”: and yet, he said, nothing could be more true
than what he wrote in answer: “There is no book which that word
would so little suit.” . . . Every village could furnish matter for a
novel to Miss Austen. She did not need the common materials for
a novel, strong emotions, or strong incidents.’ 2
It was not, however, quite impossible for a foreigner to appreciate
these works; for Mons. Guizot° writes thus: ‘I am a great novel
reader, but I seldom read German or French novels. The characters
are too artificial. My delight is to read English novels,
particularly those written by women. “C’est toute une école de
morale.” Miss Austen, Miss Ferrier, &c., form a school which in
the excellence and profusion of its productions resembles the
cloud of dramatic poets of the great Athenian age.’
In the ‘Keepsake’ of 1825° the following lines appeared, written
by Lord Morpeth, afterwards seventh Earl of Carlisle, and Lord-
Lieutenant of Ireland, accompanying an illustration of a lady
reading a novel.
Beats thy quick pulse o’er Inchbald’s thrilling leaf,
Brunton’s high moral, Opie’s deep wrought grief?
Has the mild chaperon claimed thy yielding heart,
Carroll’s dark page, Trevelyan’s gentle art?
Or is it thou, all perfect Austen? Here
Let one poor wreath adorn thy early bier,
That scarce allowed thy modest youth to claim
Its living portion of thy certain fame!
Oh! Mrs. Bennet! Mrs. Norris too!
While memory survives we’ll dream of you.
And Mr. Woodhouse, whose abstemious lip
Must thin, but not too thin, his gruel sip.
1 Incidentally she had received high praise in Lord Macaulay’s Review of Madame
D’Arblay’s Works in the ‘Edinburgh.’ [Edinburgh Review, 76 (Jan. 1843), 561–2.]
2 Life of Sir J. Mackintosh, vol. ii, p. 472. [R. J. Mackintosh, Memoirs of the Life of the
Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh (2 vols., 1835).]