Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/272

 her brothers a few years later, not knowing, till the bargain was complete, that the writer was also the author of four popular novels. 'Sense and Sensibility' appeared in 1811; 'Pride and Prejudice ' in 1813; 'Mansfield Park' in 1814; 'Emma' in 1816; 'Northanger Abbey' and 'Persuasion' in 1818 (posthumously). She received 150l. from the sale of 'Sense and Sensibility;' and under 700l. up to the time of her death from the four then published. Egerton was the publisher of the first, and Murray of the last three. They were published anonymously, though the authorship was an open secret to her friends. It was first made public in a short biographical notice prefixed to the two posthumous novels in 1818. Miss Austen's genius received little recognition during her life. In 1815 she was nursing her brother in London, when the Prince Regent, hearing of her visit through one of his physicians, sent his chaplain, Mr. Clarke, to wait upon her, to show her Carlton House, and to give her permission, of which she took advantage, to dedicate her next novel ('Emma') to him. Mr. Clarke recommended her to describe an accomplished clergyman, who should resemble Beattie's minstrel and the vicar of Wakefield; and, upon Miss Austen's declaring her incompetence for such a task, suggested that a 'romance illustrative of the august house of Cobourg would just now be very interesting.' Miss Austen politely ridiculed this brilliant suggestion. No writer ever understood better the precise limits of her own powers. She speaks of the 'little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush as produces little effect after much labour.' All critics agree to the unequalled fineness of her literary tact; no author ever lived, as G. H. Lewes told Miss Bronte ( Life of Charlotte Bronte, ch. xvi.), with a nicer sense of proportioning means to ends. Given the end, the lifelike portraiture of the social aspects with which alone she was familiar, the execution is flawless. The unconscious charm of the domestic atmosphere of the stories, and the delicate subsatirical humour which pervades them, have won her the admiration, even to fanaticism, of innumerable readers. Miss Bronte acknowledged the statement quoted from Lewes, but would not admit his further assertion that Miss Austen was also amongst the greatest artists or portrayers of human character. She was. Miss Bronte admitted, shrewd and observant, but devoid of poetry or sentiment. Such criticism applies to the limits of her sphere, not to her perfection within it. Miss Austen was first reviewed in the 'Quarterly' for October 1815, and afterwards (by Whately) in the same review for July 1821. Amongst her admirers were Warren Hastings, Southey, Coleridge, Sir Jas. Mackintosh, Lord Holland, Sydney Smith, and Sir Henry Holland. G. H. Lewes says that he would rather have written 'Pride and Prejudice,' or 'Tom Jones,' than any of the Waverley novels. Lord Macaulay declares (art. on Mme, d'Arblay) that she approaches Shakespeare nearer than any of our writers in drawing character; and he once proposed to edit her works with a memoir to raise funds for a monument. Sir Walter Scott declared (diary for 14 March 1826) Miss Austen's talent to be 'the most wonderful he had ever met with:' 'The big bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch which renders ordinaiy common-place things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so young!' Her first biographer in 1818 had only ventured to say that some readers ventured to place her books beside those of Miss Burney and Miss Edgeworth.



AUSTEN, RALPH (d. 1676), writer on gardening, was, according to Anthony à Wood, a native of Staffordshire, and became a student of Magdalen College, Oxford. On 7 April 1630 he was chosen a university proctor, and he spent the remainder of his life in Oxford, devoting most of his time to gardening and the raising of fruit-trees. In 1647 he became deputy-registrary to the visitors, and subsequently registrary in his own right. According to Wood he was, in 1652, admitted into the public library to find materials for a book he was then meditating. In the following year he published 'A Treatise on Fruit-trees, showing the manner of grafting, setting, pruning, and ordering of them in all respects,' and along with it a voluminous pamphlet on the 'Spiritual Use of an Orchard.' It was in all probability to find materials for the latter book that he desired admission to the university; for in his preface to the 'Treatise on Fruit-trees' he states that he 'had set himself to the practice of this work about twenty years, endeavouring to find out things of use and profit by practice and experience