And Shelley, four-famed—for her parents, her lord,
And the poor, lone, impossible monster abhorred—
"Frankenstein." to wit—a romance classed by Moore with those original conceptions that take hold of the public mind at once and for ever. Miss Ferrier is a foremost reaper of what Scott called the large harvest of Scottish characters and fiction, a harvest in which recent labourers (witness "Mrs. Margaret Maitland," &c.) have found new sheaves for their sickle. Lady Morgan presents us with a "Wild Irish Girl" and "Florence Macarthy." Mrs. Trollope is seen in the plethora of exhaustless authorship, surpassed therein only by Mrs. Gore, with her
Heaps of "Polite Conversation," so true
That one cannot but wish the three volumes were two;
But not when she dwells upon daughters or mothers—
Oh, then the three make us quite long for three others.
And who will not be ready to name Mary Russell Mitford, one of England’s truest autochthonai? and Mrs. S. C. Hall, that kindly and wise-hearted limner of the lights and shadows of Irish life? and Mrs. Bray, of Tavistock, the accomplished delineator of Devonshire characters and characteristics? and Lady Blessington, whose writings often beam, like her face in the golden age of Gore House (before the entrée of Soyer and the Symposium) with "enjoyment, and judgment, and wit, and good-nature?" and Mrs. Marsh, the powerful as well as industrious authoress of many an impressive fiction? and Currer Bell, one of the few who have lately excited a real "sensation?" and Mrs. Crowe, with her melodramatic points and supernatural adjuncts, some of which make even utilitarians and materialists look transcendental for the nonce? and Mrs. Gaskill, whose "mission" is as benevolent and practical as her manner is clear and forcible? The catalogue might be lengthened out with many other well-known titles, such as Landon, Martineau, Hoffland, Pardoe, Bowles, Pickering, Norton, Howitt, Johnstone, Ellis, Kavanagh, &c., &c.
In her own line of things, Jane Austen is surpassed, perhaps equalled, by none of this pleasant and numerous family. She is perfect mistress of all she touches, and certainly nil tetigit quod non ornavit—if not with the embellishments of idealism and romance, at least with the fresh strokes of nature. She fascinates you with common-place people. She effectually interests you in the "small-beer chronicles" of every-day household life. She secures your attention to a group of "walking gentlemen," who have not even the
Start theatric practised at the glass
to attract admiration, and of unremarkable ladies, who, shocking as it may seem to seasoned novel-readers, are
Not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food.
You have actually met all her heroes and heroines before—not in novels, but in most unromantic and prosaic circumstances; you have talked with them, and never seen anything in them—anything, at least, worthy of three volumes, at half-a-guinea a volume. How could such folks find their way into a printed book? That is a marvel, a paradox, a practical solecism. But a greater marvel remains behind, and that is, how comes it that such folks, having got into the book, make it so interesting?`
