Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/20

 where he proved himself worthy of such kindness by gaining first a scholarship at St. John's, Oxford, and, finally, becoming a Fellow of his College. He took Orders soon after. To purchase a living was at that time the obvious way of helping a poor and deserving young clergyman, and in 1764 George Austen found himself the owner of two livings in Hampshire, both presented to him by relations; Deane, where he first took up his abode, and Steventon, where, in 1775, Jane Austen was born. Of course this was pluralism, but no one then would have thought of objecting to such a thing in moderation, and few could have objected strongly to Deane and Steventon being united, inasmuch as the two parishes were within a mile and a half of each other, and there were not three hundred souls in both of them combined.

Jane's mother, Cassandra Leigh, was the daughter of a clergyman who lived near Henley-upon-Thames, and she was married to George Austen before he went to Deane. The mothers of clever men are proverbially highly gifted; whether the mothers of clever women are equally so may be more doubtful, but Jane Austen's mother was unquestionably a woman of superior intellect, and to that much of her daughter's ability might be traced. All readers of Mrs. Thrale must remember stories of Dr. Theophilus Leigh, who held the Mastership of Balliol College for more than fifty years, and was a noted wit and humorist of his day. Mrs. George Austen was his niece, and would seem to have had all his brilliant powers and epigrammatic play of wit, both in conversation and in letters; in addition to which she had a still greater blessing for a woman, in a temper of imperturbable sweetness, and this several of her family inherited