Memoir of Jane Austen

by Austen-Leigh, James Edward; Sutherland, Kathryn;

  On the 23d. Mr. Knight & Captn. Austen came late at night. On the 24th. ‘Edward came early in the morning. Jane was buried in Winchester Cathedral. We all returned home.’ On the 25th. you and my Father went to Chawton for one night. The attendants at the Funeral, you see, are not named—but I am sure they were only the Brothers, and that you went in your Father’s place—he himself & others, feeling that in the sad state of his own health and nerves, the trial would be too much for him. He therefore stayed at home. Capt. Charles Austen is not named amongst those who came to Winchester & I make sure he must then have been at sea—or he would certainly have been amongst the mourners.

  I am very glad you are getting on so fast with your task for this proves I hope, that you find it no very great trouble—

  My own wish would be, that not any allusion should be made to the Manydown story°—or at least that the reference should be so vague, as to give no clue to the place or the person. Mr. Wither’s children are still living & in the neighbourhood—probably they never yet heard the tale—but some of then [sic] are readers, & they would be sure to fall in with the Memoir. A few people remain thereabouts who know the tradition—The Knights certainly, and perhaps the Portals; it lies very harmless now, as good as dead, but the enquiry of who the gentleman might have been would probably bring it to life again, & so the story would go the round of the neighbourhood. Now I should not like the Withers to think that the Austen’s had been so proud of her suitor, as to have handed down his name to all succeeding generations—I should not mind telling any body, at this distance of time—but printing and publishing seem to me very different from talking about the past—

  During the few years my Grandfather lived at Bath, he went in the summer with his wife and daughters to some sea-side. They were in Devonshire, & in Wales—& in Devonshire an acquaintance was made with some very charming man—I never heard Aunt Cass. speak of anyone else with such admiration—she had no doubt that a mutual attachment was in progress between him and her sister. They parted—but he made it plain that he should seek them out again—& shortly afterwards he died!—My Aunt told me this in the late years of her own life—& it was quite new to me then—but all this, being nameless and dateless, cannot I know serve any purpose of your’s—and it brings no contradiction to your theory that she ∧Aunt Jane∧ never had any attachment that overclouded her happiness, for long. This had not gone far enough, to leave misery behind.

  Mr. Wither’s offer was made after the family had left Steventon—tho’ I suppose his love had grown in previous years of intimacy. My Aunts were on a visit to Steventon at the time. Aunt Jane I suppose was then about seven & twenty—If the circumstance is alluded to could you not make the matter less traceable by intimating that they had then left the neighbourhood?

  5. Letters to Anna Lefroy, 1819–69 and undated (HRO, MS 23M93°/84/1). From a letter of 8 July 1869 from JEAL then on a research trip to Steventon, in preparation for the Memoir.

  July 8

  1869

  Dear Anna

  I accomplished my visit to Steventon, where I was kindly received, & found much to interest me. There is certainly no entry of the burial of young Hastings° either at Deane or Steventon; & the beautiful accuracy with which our Grandfather kept his register prevents the possibility of his having omitted to make an entry of such interest to him. I can only suppose that the child died else where (possibly having been sent some where for his health) or that by the desire of his family he was buried else-where.

  The chief discovery that I made is that we were all mistaken in supposing that our Grandfather was not Rector of Steventon, as well as of Deane, from 1764, the year of his marriage. The Steventon Register proves conclusively that he was. He signs himself ‘Geo: Austen, Rector,’ at the bottom of every page from 1764 to 1800. The entries for 1801 and 1802 are signed by ‘James Austen Curate.’ After that date the entries are made in my father’s hand, but no farther signature occurs.

  All traces of former things are even more obliterated than I had expected. Even the terrace has been levelled, & its site is to be distinguished only by the finer turf on that place.

  They have discovered & opened an old well, which must have been in our Grandfathers old garden, between the house & the terrace. Did you know of any such? One Lime planted by our father° near that part has become a magnificent tree. The Lime on the top of the other Hill looks healthy, but from its position must always be a one sided affair. Several of the trees in the East plantation are become good timber. The view from the parsonage windows is as pretty as good falls of ground & abundance of trees can make it; all that is seen is grass. W Knight° is very careful of the trees, though time gradually thins them. The great Elm close to his house is gone. Part of it nearly fell on the building, & it was necessary to remove the rest for fear of worse mischief. He has an abundance of well kept walks through hedgerows, all about his fields.

  6. Letters to James Edward Austen-Leigh (HRO, MS 23M93/86/3). Caroline Austen to JEAL, undated apart from ‘Saturday’, but annotated in a different hand at the end ‘July 1871’ (23M93/86/3b item 73°).

  Saturday

  My dear Edward

  I received yesterday from Anna, yr. despatch to her, & I dare say you wish to have the copies returned of Ld. Stanhope’s letter, & your’s to him—I am rather sorry that Ld. S. should be raising a hue & cry after those ‘lines, replete with vigour & fancy’—to which unluckily Uncle Henry alluded more than half a Century ago°—Nobody felt any curiosity about them then—but see what it is to have a growing posthumous reputation! we cannot keep any thing to ourselves now, it seems.—I quite approve of yr. letter to Lord S.—I suppose it will bring a rejoinder—Tho’ there are no reasons ethical or orthodox against the publication of these stanzas, there are reasons of taste—I never thought there was much point in them—they were good enough for a passing thought, but if she had lived she would probably soon have torn them up—however there is a much stronger objection to their being inserted in any memoir, than a want of literary merit—If put in at all they must have been introduced as the latest working of her mind—They are dated July 15th—her death followed on the 18th [‘8’ written over ‘7’]—Till a few hours before she died, she had been feeling much better, & there was hope of amendment at least, if not of recovery—she amused herself by following a harmless fancy suggested by what was passing near her—but the joke about the dead Saint, & Winchester races, all jumbled up together, would read badly as amongst the few details given, of the closing scene—If I were to meet with it in any other biography, it would jar at once on my feelings, & I should think the insertion then & there of such light words, a sad incongruity—& so I doubt not would Ld. Stanhope if he had found them in the volume—I am pleased that Lady Susan should have his valuable approbation—& perhaps the more pleased because I have never felt quite sure how it would be taken by the public—I feared it might be thought too much of a monotone—but there must certainly be an interest in its complete contrast to those tales by which she became famous—I think the admission of these letters, with the slow travelling to London & her stay at her Brother’s house, a very great gain°—as they give for a short period, that which is so much wanted—her proceedings—narrated by herself—I am glad that Charlotte Craven° gets her little meed of praise—I think that all persons who can be naturally named, contribute towards making a book of general interest—that is, after the lapse of 50 years—& if there is nothing stated to their disadvantage—

  I suppose I may take the liberty of copying your letter that to Mr. Bentley from Lord Stanhope

  7. Copy of part of a letter from Catherine Hubback° to JEAL (NPG, RWC/HH, fos. 11–12).

  March 1st. 1870.

  My dear Edward

  … I gathered from the letters that it was in a momentary fit of self-delusion that she ∧Aunt Jane∧ accepted Mr. Withers proposal,° and that when it was all settled eventually, and the negative decisively given she was much relieved—I think the affai
r vexed her a good deal—but I am sure she had no attachment to him. If ever she was in love, it was with Dr. Blackall° (I think that was the name) whom they met at some watering place, shortly before they settled at Chawton—There is no doubt she admired him extremely, and perhaps regretted parting, but she always said her books were her children, and supplied her sufficient interest for happiness; and some of her letters, triumphing over the married women of her acquaintance, & rejoicing in her own freedom from care were most amusing.

  March 14th. 1870.

  … I do not think Dr. Blackall died until long afterwards. If I do not mistake there were two brothers, one of whom was called Mr. Edwd. B—& I never heard what became of him—The other, the Dr.—Aunt Cassandra met with again long afterwards when she made an excursion to the Wye in company with Uncle Charles, two of his daughters & my sister Cassandra—My cousin Cassie Austen the only survivor of that party could I have no doubt tell where and how they met him—I only remember that my Aunt found him stout, red-faced and middle-aged—very different from their youthful hero—It must have been in ‘32’—or thereabouts, and I believe he died soon afterwards…

  8. Copy of a letter, undated, from Caroline Austen to JEAL, written after the publication of the first edition of the Memoir on 16 December 1869 (NPG, RWC/HH, fos. 16–17).

  My dear Edward

  I should have sent you my thanks for your kind present by that day’s post—only I waited till I should have read the book, & so be able to assure you, as I now can, that I am very much pleased with it & I congratulate you on having succeeded so well in arranging your scanty and miscellaneous materials, and connecting them from your own resources, so as to form an interesting narrative—Such, I hope and expect it will prove to general readers, who I think will only wish that it could have been longer. I have not read steadily as yet, quite to the end, but I see you have been very merciful to Mr. Clarke° in omitting the most ridiculous parts of his letter—

  The portrait° is better than I expected—as considering its early date, and that it has lately passed through the hands of painter and engraver—I did not reckon upon finding any likeness—but there is a look which I recognise as hers—and though the general resemblance is not strong, yet as it represents a pleasant countenance it is so far a truth—& I am not dissatisfied with it.

  I remain, my dear Edward, your very affecte. sister,

  Car. Austen.

  9. Copy of a letter from Caroline Austen to JEAL, written, from its inclusion of the extract from F. W. Fowle’s letter, after the publication of the first edition of the Memoir, perhaps when JEAL was collecting materials for the second edition (NPG, RWC/HH, fos. 18–19).

  My Aunt Miss Jane Austen had nearly left off singing, by the time I can recollect much about her performances—but some songs of hers I do remember—One was—

  Her groves of green myrtle,° let foreign lands reckon,

  Where bright beaming summer exalts their [ … ]

  Far dearer to me are the Braes of [ … ]

  With the wind stealing over the long yellow broom

  ______

  My memory fails at the last word of the 3d. line—and one or two in the 4th. are a guess. The Song, as she sang it, was in M.S. I never saw it in print—

  Another, already mentioned, was entitled Oh! no my Love no! or The Wife’s [Farewell] I beleive from the Farce of Age tomorrow[.] I had a printed copy of this once, myself ages ago—But the song that I heard her sing oftenest, was a little French ditty in her M.S. book[.] The 2 first lines were

  [‘]Que j’aime à voir les Hirondelles

  Volent ma fenêtre tous les jours’—

  As a child, this was my favourite—& was what I asked for the oftenest. As M. Jacot is interested in my Aunt’s musical powers, he may like to read an extract from a letter written by our cousin, tho’ not her nephew, in answer to some enquiries of mine last year, as to his reminiscences of one whom he had known very well, after he was himself grown up—the Rev. F. W. Fowle° of Amesbury, Wilts—

  [There follows an extract from Fowle’s letter copied from the longer extract preserved in Caroline’s hand in the Austen-Leigh archive, HRO, MS 23M93/66/2, for which see below.]

  10. Letters to Caroline Austen, 1815–75 (HRO, MS 23M93/66/2). A copy in Caroline’s hand of an extract from a letter sent by the Revd F. W. Fowle, dated Jan. 9 1870, acknowledging receipt of the Memoir. It reads:

  Extract from a letter received from the Revd. F. W. Fowle of Amesbury acknowledging a Copy of The Memoir of Jane Austen

  ‘I have read it with the greatest interest—nothing has so vividly brought back to me the vision of my early days & of all the dear friends whom in the interim I have lost—I was better acquainted with Steventon Parsonage & its talented inmates, or those who had been it’s inmates, until the turmoil of life had scattered them, than probably you think for’

  Then follow his recollections of each individual of the family till he comes down to the subject of The Memoir—& he thus continues. ‘Your “dear Aunt Jane” I can testify to as being the attractive animated delightful person her biographer has represented her. I well remember her singing—& “The yellow haired Laddie” made an impression ∧up∧ on me, which more than half a century has had no power to efface—Boscho / or some such name / (Bochsa?) a celebrated Italian harpist whom I heard at Salisbury once introduced in a ∧beautiful∧ medley of English & Scotch tunes, that touching air—& Jane Austen, whom I had come to know at last as a distinguished Authoress, rose up before me!—The last time I ever saw her, was at Steventon when she was on a visit to your Mother—I think Mrs Craven was there—She was a very sweet reader—She had finished the 1st Canto of Marmion,° & I was reading the 2nd—when Mr W. Digweed was announced. It was like the interruption of some pleasing dream the illusions of which suddenly vanish—Strange to say it was the last moment of my knowing any thing of “Jane Austen” excepting from recollections’—

  Dated. Amesbury Jany—9th 1870

  11. Copy of part of a letter from G. D. Boyle, Vicar of Kidderminster, to JEAL (NPG, RWC/HH, fos. 26–9°).

  Summerhill,

  Kidderminster.

  Oct. 7. 1869

  finished Oct. 16

  Dear Sir

  … I saw in the literary announcements of the autumn that you were engaged on a life of the incomparable novelist, Jane Austen; and I am tempted to tell you what I sincerely wish was better worth your attention.

  I was on intimate terms with a lady who died a few years ago, Mrs. Barrett, whose maiden name was Turner or Edwards. It seems odd that I should have a difficulty about her name, but the fact is that her mother was twice married, and her daughters (by two husbands) had all been married before they were known to my wife or her family. Mrs. Barrett was no ordinary woman. She had read widely and wisely, and preserved that most rare of gifts, the power of entering fully into the tastes, ∧and especially the intellectual tastes,∧ of a younger generation than her own. She had enjoyed the friendship of some remarkable people; but I think I was more interested in hearing her recollections of the author of ‘Persuasion’ than in any other of the reminiscences she recalled. Most unfortunately for the purposes of your biography she had lost, through the carelessness of a friend, a series of letters from Miss Austen of great interest. I often entreated her to write down her recollections, but although she possessed in no ordinary degree the power of writing interesting and remarkable letters, the recollections of a time of happiness long past by were, she said, too overpowering.

  There are, however, two or three matters I remember of interest. The artistic method of Miss Austen’s character painting has been a subject of constant remark since the time when Lord Macaulay’s epoz on Madame D’Arblay appeared in the Edinburgh Review. Her friend remembers well that, on one occasion, soon after the inimitable Mr. Collins had made his appearance in literature, an old friend attacked her on the score of having pourtrayed an individual; in recurring to the subject afterwards she expressed a very great drea
d of what she called ‘such an invasion of social proprieties.’ She said she thought it fair to note peculiarities, weaknesses, and even special phrases, but it was her desire to create not to reproduce, and at the same time said ‘I am much too proud of my own gentlemen ever to admit that they are merely Mr. A or Major C.’

  Mrs. Barrett declared that to a perfect modesty of character she united a real judgement of her own powers, and that on the appearance of a good review (I almost think it was one by Archbishop Whately in the Quarterly, at one time printed among Sir W. Scott’s miscellanies) she said, ‘Well! that is pleasant! Those are the very characters I took most pains with, and the writer has found me out.’

  To a question ‘which of your characters do you like best’? she once answered, ‘Edmund Bertram and Mr. Knightley; but they are very far from being what I know English gentlemen often are.’

  The change of ideas as to clerical duty may be discovered in a fact mentioned by the same lady, that Miss Austen was once attacked by an Irish dignitary, who preferred a residence at Bath to his own proper sphere, ‘for being over particular about Clergymen residing on their cures.’ This was, of course, in allusion to the conversation of Bertram & Crawford in Mansfield Park. There is one fragment more which I would willingly linger on and expand,—the tribute of my old friend to the real and true spring of a religion which was always present though never obtruded. Miss Austen, she used to say, had on all the subjects of enduring religious feeling the deepest and strongest convictions, but a contact with loud and noisy exponents of the then popular religious phase made her reticent almost to a fault. She had to suffer something in the way of reproach from those who believed she might have used her genius to greater effect; but her old friend used to say, ‘I think I see her now defending what she thought was the real province of a delineator of life and manners, and declaring her belief that example and not “direct preaching” was all that a novelist could afford properly to exhibit.’—Mrs. Barrett used to add, ‘Anne Elliott was herself; her enthusiasm for the navy, and her perfect unselfishness reflect her completely.’