not.

Frank has got a very bad cough, for an Austen; but
it does not disable him from making very nice
fringe for the drawing-room curtains.

* * * * *

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. A