red herself of his admiring Pope 'no more than is
proper.' In 1786 we hear of James being in France; his cousin Eliza was
hoping for a visit of some months from him; but in the next year he had
returned, and he must have soon gone into residence at Oxford as a
young Fellow of his College; for there, in 1789, he became the
originator and chief author of a periodical paper called _The Loiterer_,
modelled on _The Spectator_ and its successors. It existed for more than
a twelvemonth, and in the last number the whole was offered to the world
as a 'rough, but not entirely inaccurate Sketch of the Character, the
Manners, and the Amusements of Oxford, at the close of the eighteenth
century.' In after life, we are told, he used to speak very slightingly
of this early work, 'which he had the better right to do, as, whatever
may have been the degree of their merits, the best papers had certainly
been written by himself.'

Edward Austen's disposition and tastes were as different from James's as
his lot in life proved to be. Edward, as his mother says, 'made no
pretensions' to literary taste and scholarship; but he was an excellent
man of business, kind-hearted and affectionate; and he possessed also a
spirit of fun and liveliness, which made him--as time went
on--especially delightful to all young people. His history was more like
fiction than reality. Most children have at some time or other indulged
in day-dreams, in which they succeed to unexpected estates and
consequent power; and it all happened to Edward. Mr. Thomas Knight of
Godmersham Park in Kent, and Chawton House in Hampshire, had married a
second cousin of George Austen, and had placed him in his Rectory at
Steventon. His son, another Thomas Knight, and his charming wife,
Catherine Knatchbull, took a fancy to young Edward, had him often to
their house, and eventually adopted him. The story remains in the family
of Mr. and Mrs. Knight's asking for the company of young Edward during
his holidays, of his father's hesitating in the interests of the Latin
Grammar, and of his mother's clinching the matter by saying 'I think, my
dear, you had better oblige your cousins and let the child go.' There
was no issue of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Knight, and by degrees they
made up their minds to adopt Edward Austen as their heir. This
resolution was not only a mark of their regard for Edward but also a
compliment to the Austen family in general, whose early promise their
cousins h