Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 095.djvu/27

20 originality that we never miss the excitation which depends upon a narrative of uncommon events, arising from the consideration of minds, manners, and sentiments greatly above our own. She "confines herself chiefly to the middling classes of society. Her most distinguished characters do not rise greatly above well-bred country gentlemen and ladies; and those which are sketched with most originality and precision belong to a class rather below that standard. The narrative of all her novels is composed of such common occurrences as may have fallen under the observation of most folks, and her dramatis personæ conduct themselves upon the motives and principles which the readers may recognise as ruling their own and that of most of their acquaintances." So wrote the unknown novelist who had just given to the world "Waverley" and "Guy Mannering." Eleven years of personal and unparalleled triumph found Sir Walter confirmed in his admiration of Jane Austen; for, in 1826—that is, after he had composed "Rob Roy," and the "Tales of my Landlord," and "Ivanhoe," and "Quentin Durward," and while he was busy at "Woodstock"—we find the following characteristic entry in his diary, or "gurnal," as he loved to style it: "Read again, and for the third time at least. Miss Austen’s very finely- written novel of 'Pride and Prejudice.' That young lady had a talent for describing the involvments, and feelings, and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The big bow-wow strain I can do myself, like any now going; but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace 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 early!" An Edinburgh Reviewer justly remarks, that ordinary readers have been apt to judge of her as Partridge judged of Garrick’s acting. He could not see the merit of a man behaving on the stage as anybody might be expected to behave under similar circumstances in real life. He infinitely preferred the "robustious, periwig-pated fellow," who flourished his arms like a windmill, and ranted with the voice of three. Even thus is Miss Austen too natural for superficial readers. "It seems to them as if there can be very little merit in making characters talk and act so exactly like the people whom they see around them every day. They do not consider that the highest triumph of art consists in its concealment; and here the art is so little perceptible that they believe there is none." Meanwhile, readers of more refined taste and critical acumen feel something like dissatisfaction with almost every other domestic novelist, after they have once appreciated Miss Austen. After her unaffected good-sense, her shrewd insight, her felicitous irony, and the fruitful harvest of her quiet eye, they are palled by the laboured unrealities of her competitors. Certainly, the consummate ease with which this gifted lady filled up her designs and harmonised her colours is of a kind vouchsafed unto the fewest, and, we apprehend, to no one else in an equal degree. She is never at a loss—never has occasion for the "big bow-wow style" to which others have such frequent recourseShe walks without irons to keep her in shape, or stilts to exalt her. Her diction is innocent of sesquipedalia verba; her manners and deportment were learnt under no Gallic dancing-master. If she