Memoir of Jane Austen - James Edward Austen-Leigh (some good books to read TXT) 📗

keep my intimacies in their proper place, and prevent their clashing.  Among so many friends, it will be well if I do not get into a scrape; and now here is Miss Blashford come.  I should have gone distracted if the Bullers had staid . . . .  When I tell you I have been visiting a countess this morning, you will immediately, with great justice, but no truth, guess it to be Lady Roden.  No: it is Lady Leven, the mother of Lord Balgonie.  On receiving a message from Lord and Lady Leven through the Mackays, declaring their intention of waiting on us, we thought it right to go to them.  I hope we have not done too much, but the friends and admirers of Charles must be attended to.  They seem very reasonable, good sort of people, very civil, and full of his praise. {80}  We were shewn at first into an empty drawing-room, and presently in came his lordship, not knowing who we were, to apologise for the servant’s mistake, and to say himself what was untrue, that Lady Leven was not within.  He is a tall gentlemanlike looking man, with spectacles, and rather deaf.  After sitting with him ten minutes we walked away; but Lady Leven coming out of the dining parlour as we passed the door, we were obliged to attend her back to it, and pay our visit over again.  She is a stout woman, with a very handsome face.  By this means we had the pleasure of hearing Charles’s praises twice over.  They think themselves excessively obliged to him, and estimate him so highly as to wish Lord Balgonie, when he is quite recovered, to go out to him.  There is a pretty little Lady Marianne of the party, to be shaken hands with, and asked if she remembered Mr. Austen: . . .

‘I shall write to Charles by the next packet, unless you tell me in the meantime of your intending to do it.

‘Believe me, if you chuse,
‘Yr affte Sister.’

Jane did not estimate too highly the ‘Cousin George’ mentioned in the foregoing letter; who might easily have been superior in sense and wit to the rest of the party.  He was the Rev. George Leigh Cooke, long known and respected at Oxford, where he held important offices, and had the privilege of helping to form the minds of men more eminent than himself.  As Tutor in Corpus Christi College, he became instructor to some of the most distinguished undergraduates of that time: amongst others to Dr. Arnold, the Rev. John Keble, and Sir John Coleridge.  The latter has mentioned him in terms of affectionate regard, both in his Memoir of Keble, and in a letter which appears in Dean Stanley’s ‘Life of Arnold.’  Mr. Cooke was also an impressive preacher of earnest awakening sermons.  I remember to have heard it observed by some of my undergraduate friends that, after all, there was more good to be got from George Cooke’s plain sermons than from much of the more laboured oratory of the University pulpit.  He was frequently Examiner in the schools, and occupied the chair of the Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy, from 1810 to 1853.

Before the end of 1805, the little family party removed to Southampton.  They resided in a commodious old-fashioned house in a corner of Castle Square.

I have no letters of my aunt, nor any other record of her, during her four years’ residence at Southampton; and though I now began to know, and, what was the same thing, to love her myself, yet my observations were only those of a young boy, and were not capable of penetrating her character, or estimating her powers.  I have, however, a lively recollection of some local circumstances at Southampton, and as they refer chiefly to things which have been long ago swept away, I will record them.  My grandmother’s house had a pleasant garden, bounded on one side by the old city walls; the top of this wall was sufficiently wide to afford a pleasant walk, with an extensive view, easily accessible to ladies by steps.  This must have been a part of the identical walls which witnessed the embarkation of Henry V. before the battle of Agincourt, and the detection of the conspiracy of Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, which Shakspeare has made so picturesque; when, according to the chorus in Henry V., the citizens saw

The well-appointed King at Hampton Pier
Embark his royalty.

Among the records of the town of Southampton, they have a minute and authentic account, drawn up at that time, of the encampment of Henry V. near the town, before his embarkment for France.  It is remarkable that the place where the army was encamped, then a low level plain, is now entirely covered by the sea, and is called Westport. {83}  At that time Castle Square was occupied by a fantastic edifice, too large for the space in which it stood, though too small to accord well with its castellated style, erected by the second Marquis of Lansdowne, half-brother to the well-known statesman, who succeeded him in the title.  The Marchioness had a light phaeton, drawn by six, and sometimes by eight little ponies, each pair decreasing in size, and becoming lighter in colour, through all the grades of dark brown, light brown, bay, and chestnut, as it was placed farther away from the carriage.  The two leading pairs were managed by two boyish postilions, the two pairs nearest to the carriage were driven in hand.  It was a delight to me to look down from the window and see this fairy equipage put together; for the premises of this castle were so contracted that the whole process went on in the little space that remained of the open square.  Like other fairy works, however, it all proved evanescent.  Not only carriage and ponies, but castle itself, soon vanished away, ‘like the baseless fabric of a vision.’  On the death of the Marquis in 1809, the castle was pulled down.  Few probably remember its existence; and any one who might visit the place now would wonder how it ever could have stood there.

In 1809 Mr. Knight was able to offer his mother the choice of two houses on his property; one near his usual residence at Godmersham Park in Kent; the other near Chawton House, his occasional residence in Hampshire.  The latter was chosen; and in that year the mother and daughters, together with Miss Lloyd, a near connection who lived with them, settled themselves at Chawton Cottage.

Chawton may be called the second, as well as the last home of Jane Austen; for during the temporary residences of the party at Bath and Southampton she was only a sojourner in a strange land; but here she found a real home amongst her own people.  It so happened that during her residence at Chawton circumstances brought several of her brothers and their families within easy distance of the house.  Chawton must also be considered the place most closely connected with her career as a writer; for there it was that, in the maturity of her mind, she either wrote or rearranged, and prepared for publication the books by which she has become known to the world.  This was the home where, after a few years, while still in the prime of life, she began to droop and wither away, and which she left only in the last stage of her illness, yielding to the persuasion of friends hoping against hope.

Chawton Church

This house stood in the village of Chawton, about a mile from Alton, on the right hand side, just where the road to Winchester branches off from that to Gosport.  It was so close to the road that the front door opened upon it; while a very narrow enclosure, paled in on each side, protected the building from danger of collision with any runaway vehicle.  I believe it had been originally built for an inn, for which purpose it was certainly well situated.  Afterwards it had been occupied by Mr. Knight’s steward; but by some additions to the house, and some judicious planting and skreening, it was made a pleasant and commodious abode.  Mr. Knight was experienced and adroit at such arrangements, and this was a labour of love to him.  A good-sized entrance and two sitting-rooms made the length of the house, all intended originally to look upon the road, but the large drawing-room window was blocked up and turned into a book-case, and another opened at the side which gave to view only turf and trees, as a high wooden fence and hornbeam hedge shut out the Winchester road, which skirted the whole length of the little domain.  Trees were planted each side to form a shrubbery walk, carried round the enclosure, which gave a sufficient space for ladies’ exercise.  There was a pleasant irregular mixture of hedgerow, and gravel walk, and orchard, and long grass for mowing, arising from two or three little enclosures having been thrown together.  The house itself was quite as good as the generality of parsonage-houses then were, and much in the same style; and was capable of receiving other members of the family as frequent visitors.  It was sufficiently well furnished; everything inside and out was kept in good repair, and it was altogether a comfortable and ladylike establishment, though the means which supported it were not large.

I give this description because some interest is generally taken in the residence of a popular writer.  Cowper’s unattractive house in the street of Olney has been pointed out to visitors, and has even attained the honour of an engraving in Southey’s edition of his works: but I cannot recommend any admirer of Jane Austen to undertake a pilgrimage to this spot.  The building indeed still stands, but it has lost all that gave it its character.  After the death of Mrs. Cassandra Austen, in 1845, it was divided into tenements for labourers, and the grounds reverted to ordinary uses.

CHAPTER V.

Description of Jane Austen’s person, character, and tastes.

As my memoir has now reached the period when I saw a great deal of my aunt, and was old enough to understand something of her value, I will here attempt a description of her person, mind, and habits.  In person she was very attractive; her figure was rather tall and slender, her step light and firm, and her whole appearance expressive of health and animation.  In complexion she was a clear brunette with a rich colour; she had full round cheeks, with mouth and nose small and well formed, bright hazel eyes, and brown hair forming natural curls close round her face.  If not so regularly handsome as her sister, yet her countenance had a peculiar charm of its own to the eyes of most beholders.  At the time of which I am now writing, she never was seen, either morning or evening, without a cap; I believe that she and her sister were generally thought to have taken to the garb of middle age earlier than their years or their looks required; and that, though remarkably neat in their dress as in all their ways, they were scarcely sufficiently regardful of the fashionable, or the becoming.

She was not highly accomplished according to the present standard.  Her sister drew well, and it is from a drawing of hers that the likeness prefixed to this volume has been taken.  Jane herself was fond of music, and had a sweet voice, both in singing and in conversation; in her youth she had received some instruction