he improvement in most
country parishes began with the clergy; and that in those days a rector
who chanced to be a gentleman and a scholar found himself superior to his
chief parishioners in information and manners, and became a sort of
centre of refinement and politeness.

Mr. Austen was a remarkably good-looking man, both in his youth and his
old age. During his year of office at Oxford he had been called the
'handsome Proctor;' and at Bath, when more than seventy years old, he
attracted observation by his fine features and abundance of snow-white
hair. Being a good scholar he was able to prepare two of his sons for
the University, and to direct the studies of his other children, whether
sons or daughters, as well as to increase his income by taking pupils.

In Mrs. Austen also was to be found the germ of much of the ability which
was concentrated in Jane, but of which others of her children had a
share. She united strong common sense with a lively imagination, and
often expressed herself, both in writing and in conversation, with
epigrammatic force and point. She lived, like many of her family, to an
advanced age. During the last years of her life she endured continual
pain, not only patiently but with characteristic cheerfulness. She once
said to me, 'Ah, my dear, you find me just where you left me--on the
sofa. I sometimes think that God Almighty must have forgotten me; but I
dare say He will come for me in His own good time.' She died and was
buried at Chawton, January 1827, aged eighty-eight.

* * * * *

Her own family were so much, and the rest of the world so little, to Jane
Austen, that some brief mention of her brothers and sister is necessary
in order to give any idea of the objects which principally occupied her
thoughts and filled her heart, especially as some of them, from their
characters or professions in life, may be supposed to have had more or
less influence on her writings: though I feel some reluctance in bringing
before public notice persons and circumstances essentially private.

Her eldest brother James, my own father, had, when a very young man, at
St. John's College, Oxford, been the originator and chief supporter of a
periodical paper called 'The Loiterer,' written somewhat on the plan of
the 'Spectator' and its successors, but nearly confined to subjects
connected with the University. In after life he used to speak very
slightingly of this early work, which he had the better rig