An anonymous article in the Quarterly Review, following the appearance of Emma in 1815, full of generous appreciation of the charm of the new writer, was the beginning of Jane Austen’s fame; and it is only within a few years that we have learned that the friendly and discerning critic was Walter Scott.  He continued to be her admirer until her early death; but these two, the greatest writers of fiction in their age, were never brought together.  Both were home-loving people, and Miss Austen especially was averse to publicity and popularity.  She died, quietly as she had lived, at Winchester, in 1817, and was buried in the cathedral.  She was a bright, attractive little woman, whose sunny qualities are unconsciously reflected in all her books.

WORKS.  Very few English writers ever had so narrow a field of work as Jane Austen.  Like the French novelists, whose success seems to lie in choosing the tiny field that they know best, her works have an exquisite perfection that is lacking in most of our writers of fiction.  With the exception of an occasional visit to the watering place of Bath, her whole life was spent in small country parishes, whose simple country people became the characters of her novels.  Her brothers were in the navy, and so naval officers furnish the only exciting elements in her stories; but even these alleged heroes lay aside their imposing martial ways and act like themselves and other people.  Such was her literary field, in which the chief duties were of the household, the chief pleasures in country gatherings, and the chief interests in matrimony.  Life, with its mighty interests, its passions, ambitions, and tragic struggles, swept by like a great river; while the secluded interests of a country parish went round and round quietly, like an eddy behind a sheltering rock.  We can easily understand, therefore, the limitations of Jane Austen; but within her own field she is unequaled.  Her characters are absolutely true to life, and all her work has the perfection of a delicate miniature painting.  The most widely read of her novels is Pride and Prejudice; but three others, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Mansfield Park, have slowly won their way to the front rank of fiction.  From a literary view point Northanger Abbey is perhaps the best; for in it we find that touch of humor and delicate satire with which this gentle little woman combated the grotesque popular novels of the Udolpho type.  Reading any of these works, one is inclined to accept the hearty indorsement of Sir Walter Scott:  “That young lady has a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with.  The big bowwow strain I can do myself, like any now going; but the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me.  What a pity such a gifted creature died so early!”