MESS TYTLER ON MISS AUSTEN.t

WHATEVER draws attention to Miss Austen is a boon to man- kind and a benefit to literature, and it would not be easy to find anything about her and her novels that it would not be plea- sant to read, if the treatment be only appreciative and the style good,—dud both those conditions are amply fulfilled in Miss Tytler's book, It is only too lazily delightful to wander in spirit about the lanes of Highbury with Emma Woodhouse, or linger iu the glades of Mansfield Park with Fanny Price, or look out on the sea from the Cobb of Lyme Regis with Anne Elliot, or accompany Elizabeth Bennet to her pitched battles at Rosings, or her triumph at Pemberley. We could read Miss Austen's novels almost for ever, and anything con-

• The translator probably means "retnains."

forte A outer' (and her Works. By Sarah TyLlor, London: Cassell, Puttee, Galptn, and Co. cerning them has, of course, its borrowed. charm. The present writer has beaten Lord Macaulay in his devotion to Miss Austen's stories; and as to Sir Walter Scott, he is nowhere in the race. But for all this devotion, and for all this sympathy with Miss Tytler's enthusiasm, the truth will out, that, beyond. this general advantage of recalling public attention to Miss Austen, Miss Tytler's book is a mistake. It is all very wise and right to have tales from the great classics, from Chaucer, from Shakespeare, and the like, because young people cannot understand these in the original ; but the idea of tales from Miss Austen is simply absurd, when they are themselves tales in the simplest, purest English, that Miss Tytler herself could not render more intelligible, and therefore, in altering, can only injure. Why should she urge us to go round the park, on the promise that she can show us glimpses into it hero and there, if we crane our necks very much at the openings—few and far between—and do not object to the dullness and glare of the long, intervening stretches of high wall, when the gate stands wide open, and innumerable friendly porters, in the shape of publishers, are pressing us to enter and enjoy every beautiful characteristic, every sunny glade and shady nook and alluring vista ? And Miss Tytler charges nearly as much for her peeps, as the benevolent gatekeepers do for what is equal to the fee-simple of the estate. As well might we prefer to confine our knowledge of Anne Elliot to an interview iu Mrs. Smith's attic, or of Fanny Price to one at Portsmouth, with all the sordid surroundings of her uncomfortable home, when we had been invited. to accompany them to Lyme or to Mansfield, as make our acquaintance with Miss Austen through the broken narratives of Miss Tytler's book, when all the exqui- site and perfect stories are at our command in a form, nearly— probably quite—as cheap, a not as pretty, as Miss Tytler's publishers aro asking for the Michaelmas-daisy bespangled volume—we had nearly said daisy-bespattered, for we cordially dislike these meaningless bindings—now before us,

Miss Tytler thinks it desirable " to present in one volume the most characteristic of Jane Austen's novels, together with her life." And she adds, in reference to the order which she has given to them, that it is "as the author wrote them, and not as they happened. to be published." We confess we cannot see the force of the argument in favour of one volume, instead of the usual live or, including the life, six. The present writer knows an ardent admirer of George Eliot who regards her works as a Gospel, but even this enthusiast does not deem it necessary to have them bound together.

What is the object of binding them together ? Is it that we may

easily compare the action of similar heroines under similar cir- cumstances ? But no sensible admirer of Miss Austen would care to compare Eleanor Dashwood's conduct and feelings when her sister sprains her ankle, with those exhibited by Elizabeth Bennet when Jaue is laid up with a cold ; the circumstances both of cause and effect are too different, to make the comparison one of any interest. Seriously, the com- parison of the various characters, it is clear, can only be made by the mind of the reader, on a review of the whole ..of the tales, and not character by character or cir- cumstance by circumstance ; and this comparison can not

only be made as easily when the tales are not bound to-

gether, but far more easily when they are complete— indeed cannot be made at all with correctness in Miss Tytler's mutilating abbreviations and interrupted narrative. Imagine being interrupted in the middle of Captain Weutworth's explanation to Anne by a foot-note to point out what Miss Tytlor thinks is too subtly indicated for detection without her kind help, that in alluding to the absence of any cause of gratitude as a motive for Captain Benwiek's proposal to

Louisa Musgrove, he means to explain that that had been the explanation of his own attentions. Again, Miss Tytler interrupts us to draw our attention to Miss Austen's insight.

It has the effect of patronising her, and distinctly annoys us and disturbs the unalloyed pleasure which wo were enjoying. In the same novel, when Anne is wondering where Mr. Elliot can have hoard so much of her, Miss Tytler iuterpolates," Jane Austen remarks with great truth that no one can withstand the charm of a mystery." And not only do explanation and

admiration of Miss Austeu disturb us, but trite little moral re- flections of Miss Tytler's own. Thus—taken, like the foregoing examples, all in one place, from the abridgment of Persuasion,

for we only want sufficient illustration for self-justification —we have a foot-note appended, when Anne is explain- dug why she had yielded to Lady Russell's advice in her early refusal and says, "A strong sense of duty is no bad part of a woman's portion," and the foot-note is to this effect, " No, indeed, it is her chief treasure." The notes.

explanatory of the history or customs of the time of Miss Austen's novels arc quite as disturbing, and of very little value- to readers with as much common-sense and education as pro- bably falls to the lot of those who would take up either the novels themselves or Miss Tytler's abstract.

We have not only to complain that Miss Tytler has not fulfilled her intention " to present in one volume the most characteristic of Jane Austen's novels," since they are not the novels at all, but abridgments, in which paragraphs by Miss Austen are frequently alternated

with others by Miss Tytler of comparison or reflection ; but, beyond this, that two novels—and one of them Mans- field Park—arc passed. over all but unnoticed, and without any explanation, except want of space, and this when the recom- mendation of the book is that all the most characteristic novels are to be found in one volume. Why, Mansfield Park is either the second or third in.order of merit ! How are we to forgive the absence of Mrs. Norris and her purloining of the green baize, or of Mr. Rushworth and his forty-two speeches; or of Yates and his inimitable, because perfectly natural, start, when Sir Thomas Bertram makes " this his first appearance on any stage ;" or of the thoughts of Tom when his father appears, and the house closes " with the greatest eclat ?" One more item of her promise Miss Tyticr fails to redeem. She pro- mises the novels in the order in which they were written, and yet places Sense and Sensibility fourth, though, by her own showing, it was Miss Austen's earliest work ; and Emma she places before Mansfield Park, while showing that it was written later. There is little to claim for the sketch of Miss Austeu's life, as there is, admittedly, almost no original information, and the • facts are .taken nearly exclusively from Mr. Austen Leigh's memoir of his aunt.

Beyond what may be called our negative objections to the book—as giving us far less and nothing more than the novels them selves—is one positive objection,— namely, that in her sketch of Miss Austen's character, Miss Tytler seems to us to dwell un- necessarily, at this distance of time, on the self-assertion and love of being first, which are asserted to have been characteristics of this clever young authoress. It does not seem the part of an admirer and disciple of Miss Austen to make her readers feel, as they never felt before, that conceit and self-opinionated- ness were leading traits in her character,—that she liked ruling and being worshipped at bonne, but treated outsiders and those socially beneath her with polite coldness and hauteur. This is the impression left on our minds ; an impression which we hope soon to forget, while remembering only the keen and delicate observation, and the good-natured irony and merry humour, of her stories.