I recommend Mrs. Grant's[167] letters, as a present to her [Martha]; what they are about, and how many volumes they form, I do not know, having never heard of them but from Miss Irvine, who speaks of them as a new and much-admired work, and as one which has pleased her highly. I have inquired for the book here, but find it quite unknown.
We are reading Baretti's other book,[168] and find him dreadfully abusive of poor Mr. Sharpe. I can no longer take his part against you, as I did nine years ago.
Our knowledge of the house which was the Austens' home at Southampton for two years, and of its surroundings, is derived from the personal reminiscences of the author of the Memoir, who was now old enough to visit his relatives, and who tells us that at this time he began to know, and 'what was the same thing, to love' his Aunt Jane. 'They lived,' he says,[169] 'in a commodious old-fashioned house in a corner of Castle Square . . . with 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.' Castle Square itself 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.' The whole of this building disappeared after the death of its eccentric owner in November 1809. His half-brother and successor in the peerage—the well-known statesman—became in after life an ardent admirer of Jane Austen's novels, and told a friend[170] that 'one of the circumstances of his life which he looked back upon with vexation was that Miss Austen should once have been living some weeks in his neighbourhood without his knowing it.' Had he known it, however, he would have had no reason—in the Southampton period—for imagining her to be an author.
On March 9, 1807, we may imagine the party taking possession of their new house; but Frank can have seen but little of it before he took command of the St. Albans in April, and went to the Cape of Good Hope on convoying duty. He was back by June 30.
On Cassandra's return, the two sisters must have been together for a considerable period; but till June 1808 we know little that is definite about them, except that in September 1807, together with their mother, they paid a visit to Chawton House—Edward Austen's Hampshire residence.[171]
During these years, Charles Austen was long engaged in the unpleasant and unprofitable duty of enforcing the right of search on the Atlantic seaboard of America. Hardly anything is said in the extant letters of his marriage to Fanny Palmer, daughter of the Attorney-General of Bermuda, which took place in 1807.
The month of June 1808 found Jane staying with her brother Henry in Brompton[172]; but we have no details of her stay beyond the fact that she watched some of her acquaintance going to Court on the King's birthday. On June 14 she left London with her brother James, his wife and two children, on a visit to Godmersham.