FOOTNOTES:
[1] My readers may remember the old church at Kellynch, which was mentioned by Charles Musgrove as an apology to Captain Benwick for visiting the village.
[2] We are reminded of the discussion on handwriting, and the praise of Emma Woodhouse’s handwriting in “Emma.”
[3] The members of the Austen and Leigh families seem to have been much given to changing their names—sometimes acquiring estates in the process. Thus we have Mr. Leigh Perrot, Mr. Knight (who was originally Edward Austen), and at last Mr. Austen Leigh.
[4] There was a wise and really dignified moderation about people’s ideas then. Is it to our honour to have departed so far from the contented minds and simple habits of our predecessors?
[5] At the same time many popular lady novelists, including Miss Edgeworth, Lady Morgan, the Miss Porters, and Mrs. Brunton, were already in the field, and it was not immediately recognised, except perhaps, by a few great men, that a queen of novelists had appeared among them.
[6] It appears, however, to have been to her new publisher, Mr. Murray, that Jane Austen was indebted for an early sight of the books of the season, including “Paul’s Letters to his Kinsfolk.”
[7] Mr. Clarke’s tall language recalls the phrases of Mr. Collins in “Pride and Prejudice.”
[8] We have a single hint of Jane Austen’s delight in “a good play.” She alludes with eager expectation, in one of her letters, to her brother’s strenuous efforts to get tickets to hear Kean.
[9] “Persuasion” was published, together with “Northanger Abbey,” by Mr. Murray, in 1818, the year after Jane Austen’s death. The proceeds of her books which had fallen to her share in her lifetime were seven hundred pounds, but how the sum was apportioned to each novel we are not told. If contemporary favour is rarely a test of a book’s merit, still less is the sum of money which it fetches to begin with. Among the lady novelists of her day—none of whom, not even Maria Edgeworth or Susan Ferrier, deserves to be mentioned in the same breath with Jane Austen—there were several whose pecuniary gains must have been double and treble hers.
[10] The novel of the year.
[11] In addition, there is now a monument which was erected to Jane Austen’s memory by her nephew, the writer of the memoir.
