Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/168

 pass his time between the metropolis and the country, who should be something like Beattie's Minstrel—

"Neither Goldsmith nor La Fontaine in his Tableau de Famille have, in my mind, quite delineated an English clergyman, at least of the present day, fond of and entirely engaged in literature, no man's enemy but his own. Pray, dear Madam, think of these things.

"Believe me at all times, with sincerity and respect,

Jane Austen must have received this proposal with great amazement and some amusement, but, with her usual simple-mindedness, she answered him as follows:—

",

"My Emma is now so near publication that I feel it right to assure you of my not having forgotten your kind recommendation of an early copy for Carlton House, and that I have Mr. Murray's promise of its being sent to His Royal Highness under cover to you, three days previous to the work being really out. I must make use of this opportunity to thank you, dear Sir, for the very high praise you bestow on my other novels. I am too vain to wish to convince you that you have praised them beyond their merits. My greatest anxiety at present is that this fourth work should not disgrace what was good in the others. But on this point I will do