ever, that it was the intention of the Austens to spend the
summer of 1801 by the sea--perhaps at Sidmouth; and a letter of Eliza
Austen informs us that this plan was duly carried out. She writes to
Phila Walter on October 29:--

I conclude that you know of our uncle and aunt
Austen and their daughters having spent the summer
in Devonshire. They are now returned to Bath,
where they are superintending the fitting up of
their new house.

So the house had at last been fixed on; and we learn in the _Memoir_
that it was No. 4 Sydney Terrace,[128] in the parish of Bathwick. The
houses here face the Sydney Gardens, and it is a part of Bath that Jane
seems to have fancied. Her residence there is now commemorated by a
marble tablet. How long the Austens resided in this house cannot
definitely be stated; perhaps they took it for three years--at any rate,
by the beginning of 1805 they had moved to 27 Green Park Buildings.
Possibly Mr. Austen, as he grew older, had found the distance to the
centre of the town too great for his powers of walking.

One of the few facts we know concerning their stay in Sydney Place is
that at one time Mrs. Austen was extremely ill, but the skill of her
medical adviser, a certain Mr. Bowen,[129] and the affectionate care of
her daughters pulled her through and enabled her to live for another
twenty-five years. Mrs. Austen has recorded the fact of her illness in
some humorous verses, entitled 'Dialogue between Death and Mrs. A.'

Says Death, 'I've been trying these three weeks and more
To seize on old Madam here at Number Four,
Yet I still try in vain, tho' she's turned of three score;
To what is my ill-success owing?'

'I'll tell you, old Fellow, if you cannot guess,
To what you're indebted for your ill success--
To the prayers of my husband, whose love I possess,
To the care of my daughters, whom Heaven will bless,
To the skill and attention of Bowen.'

In 1802, in addition to the visit to Steventon with its distressing
incidents,[130] Jane was at Dawlish; for, in a letter written in 1814,
she says of the library at Dawlish that it 'was pitiful and wretched
twelve years ago and not likely to have anybody's publications.' A
writer, too, in _Temple Bar_[131] for February 1879, states that about
this time the Austens went to Teignmouth (which would