Macaulay’s sister, Lady Trevelyan, told Mr. Austen Leigh that her brother had intended to write a memoir of Jane Austen, with criticisms on her works, to prefix it to a new edition of her novels, and from the proceeds of the sale to erect a monument to her memory in Winchester Cathedral. It is said that the references to the novels in Lord Macaulay’s “Journal” served to carry out his purpose so far, attracting a public which—to its shame, shall I say?—knew not the author, and selling off a whole edition of Jane Austen’s tales. That the erection of the monument in Winchester Cathedral followed is of less consequence. She needs no monument save what her brain and hands wrought out. Let her own works follow her.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] Jane Austen’s nephew, on visiting Abbotsford, was suffered to take into his hand one of the volumes of Sir Walter’s well-worn set of her novels.
JANE AUSTEN’S NOVELS, AND JANE AUSTEN.
“PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.”[13]
I.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Such is the lively sentence with which “Pride and Prejudice” begins. Then the author proceeds to illustrate the statement in her own admirable way.