12 MARCH 1921, Page 23

In The Personal Aspects of Jane Austen (John Murray, 9s.)

Mrs. Austen Leigh has written a charming little book which, though it does not add very much to our knowledge of this great writer, will yet probably serve to correct erroneous popular beliefs. Perhaps the author does not sufficiently appreciate lie exquisite wit of the subject of her biography. We also wish she had based her way of writing rather more on that of her great original. Perhaps no writer ever wrote so laconic and exquisite a style ; we wish that it were more studied by English writers, for it shows a kind of excellence which we do not possess in a high degree, but which is the beginning of the writer's art in France—a sort of epigrammatical terseness which yet does not sacrifice limpidity and flow.