ate Sir Robert Austen. At first she lived with her sister
about a mile from Olney; but in a few weeks took lodgings at the
vicarage here. Between the vicarage and the back of our house are
interposed our garden, an orchard, and the garden belonging to the
vicarage. She had lived much in France, was very sensible, and had
infinite vivacity. She took a great liking to us, and we to her. She
had been used to a great deal of company, and we, fearing that she
would feel such a transition into silent retirement irksome, contrived
to give her our agreeable company often. Becoming continually more and
more intimate, a practice at length obtained of our dining with each
other alternately every day, Sundays excepted. In order to facilitate
our communication, we made doors in the two garden-walls aforesaid, by
which means we considerably shortened the way from one house to the
other, and could meet when we pleased without entering the town at all;
a measure the rather expedient, because the town is abominably dirty,
and she kept no carriage. On her first settlement in our
neighbourhood, I made it my own particular business (for at that time I
was not employed in writing, having published my first volume and not
begun my second) to pay my _devoirs_ to her ladyship every morning at
eleven. Customs very soon became laws. I began _The Task_, for she
was the lady who gave me the _Sofa_ for a subject. Being once engaged
in the work, I began to feel the inconvenience of my morning
attendance. We had seldom breakfasted ourselves till ten; and the
intervening hour was all the time I could find in the whole day for
writing, and occasionally it would happen that the half of that hour
was all that I could secure for the purpose. But there was no remedy.
Long usage had made that which was at first optional a point of good
manners, and consequently of necessity, and I was forced to neglect
_The Task_ to attend upon the Muse who had inspired the subject. But
she had ill-health, and before I had quite finished the work was
obliged to repair to Bristol." Evidently this was not the whole
account of the matter, or there would have been no need for a formal
letter of farewell. We are very sorry to find the revered Mr.
Alexander Knox saying, in his correspondence with Bishop Jebb, that he
had a severer idea of Lady Austen than he should wish to put into
writing for publication, and that he almost suspected she was a very
artful woman.