ii, p. 151.

SIR WALTER SCOTT ON JANE AUSTEN

[From. _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1815]

_Emma; a Novel_. By the Author of _Sense and Sensibility, Pride and
Prejudice_, etc. 3 vols. 12mo. London. 1815.

There are some vices in civilized society so common that they are hardly
acknowledged as stains upon the moral character, the propensity to which
is nevertheless carefully concealed, even by those who most frequently
give way to them; since no man of pleasure would willingly assume the
gross epithet of a debauchee or a drunkard. One would almost think that
novel-reading fell under this class of frailties, since among the crowds
who read little else, it is not common to find an individual of
hardihood sufficient to avow his taste for these frivolous studies. A
novel, therefore, is frequently "bread eaten in secret"; and it is not
upon Lydia Languish's toilet alone that Tom Jones and Peregrine Pickle
are to be found ambushed behind works of a more grave and instructive
character. And hence it has happened, that in no branch of composition,
not even in poetry itself, have so many writers, and of such varied
talents, exerted their powers. It may perhaps be added, that although
the composition of these works admits of being exalted and decorated by
the higher exertions of genius; yet such is the universal charm of
narrative, that the worst novel ever written will find some gentle
reader content to yawn over it, rather than to open the page of the
historian, moralist, or poet. We have heard, indeed, of one work of
fiction so unutterably stupid, that the proprietor, diverted by the
rarity of the incident, offered the book, which consisted of two volumes
in duodecimo, handsomely bound, to any person who would declare, upon
his honour, that he had read the whole from beginning to end. But
although this offer was made to the passengers on board an Indiaman,
during a tedious outward-bound voyage, the _Memoirs of Clegg the
Clergyman_ (such was the title of this unhappy composition) completely
baffled the most dull and determined student on board, and bid fair for
an exception to the general rule above-mentioned,--when the love of
glory prevailed with the boatswain, a man of strong and solid parts, to
hazard the attempt, and he actually conquered and carried off the prize!

The judicious reader will see at once that we have been pleading our own
cause while stating the universal practice, and preparing him for a
dis