Macaulay's biography of Jane Austen

[Rodney Ulyate]

There's an extraordinary passage in JE Austen Leigh's Memoir of his aunt:


The admiration felt by Lord Macaulay would probably have taken a very practical form, if his life had been prolonged. I have the authority of his sister, Lady Trevelyan, for stating that he had intended to undertake the task upon which I have ventured. He purposed to write a memoir of Miss Austen, with criticisms on her works, to prefix it to a new edition of her novels, and from the proceeds of the sale to erect a monument to her memory in Winchester Cathedral. Oh! that such an idea had been realised!


Indeed! I'd be fascinated to know how far along was this project when the great man died. But apparently I'm quite alone. The passage above seems never to have been quoted or remarked upon in any subsequent work, on either figure, and has almost certainly never been followed up. For all we know, there are copious notes among his papers...

[Ecurb]

Cool. I knew Macauley was an Austen fan (i think Horatius would have been had he lived in the right era). Here's Macauley on Austen:

"Shakespeare has had neither equal or second. But among the writers who, in the point which we have noticed, have approached nearest to the manner of the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen, a woman of whom England is justly proud. She has given us a multitude of characters, all in a certain sense, common place, all such as we meet every day. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings. There are, for example, four clergymen, none of whom we should be surprised to find in any parsonage in the kingdom, Mr Edward Ferrars, Mr Henry Tilney, Mr Edmund Bertram, and Mr Elton. They are all specimens of the upper part of the middle class. They have all been liberally educated. They all lie under the restraints of the same sacred profession. They are all young. They are all in love. Not one of them has any hobbyhorse...Not one has a ruling passion... Who would not have expected them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. ...[no characters in literature are more unlike] than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend brethren. And all this is done by touches so delicate, that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only by the general effect to which they have contributed.

A line must be drawn, we conceive, between the artists of this class, and those poets and novelists whose skill lies in the exhibiting of what Ben Jonson called humours.... There are undoubtedly persons, in whom humors such as Ben described have gained ascendancy... avarice... insane desire... malevolence... The feeling which animated Clarkson and other virtuous men against the slave-trade and slavery, is an instance of a more honourable kind.

...But we conceive that the imitation of such humours, however skilful and amusing, is not an achievement of the highest order; and, as such humours are so rare in real life, they ought, we conceive, to be sparingly introduced into works which profess to be pictures of real life... The chief seats of all, however, the places on the dais and under the canopy, are reserved for the few who have excelled in the difficult art of portraying characters in which no single feature is extravagantly overcharged." [South-68, #26]

[Jackson Richardson]

Cool. I knew Macauley was an Austen fan (i think Horatius would have been had he lived in the right era). Here's Macauley on Austen:

"Shakespeare has had neither equal or second. But among the writers who, in the point which we have noticed, have approached nearest to the manner of the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen, a woman of whom England is justly proud. She has given us a multitude of characters, all in a certain sense, common place, all such as we meet every day. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings. There are, for example, four clergymen, none of whom we should be surprised to find in any parsonage in the kingdom, Mr Edward Ferrars, Mr Henry Tilney, Mr Edmund Bertram, and Mr Elton. They are all specimens of the upper part of the middle class. They have all been liberally educated. They all lie under the restraints of the same sacred profession. They are all young. They are all in love. Not one of them has any hobbyhorse...Not one has a ruling passion... Who would not have expected them to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing. ...[no characters in literature are more unlike] than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend brethren. And all this is done by touches so delicate, that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only by the general effect to which they have contributed.

A line must be drawn, we conceive, between the artists of this class, and those poets and novelists whose skill lies in the exhibiting of what Ben Jonson called humours.... There are undoubtedly persons, in whom humors such as Ben described have gained ascendancy... avarice... insane desire... malevolence... The feeling which animated Clarkson and other virtuous men against the slave-trade and slavery, is an instance of a more honourable kind.

...But we conceive that the imitation of such humours, however skilful and amusing, is not an achievement of the highest order; and, as such humours are so rare in real life, they ought, we conceive, to be sparingly introduced into works which profess to be pictures of real life... The chief seats of all, however, the places on the dais and under the canopy, are reserved for the few who have excelled in the difficult art of portraying characters in which no single feature is extravagantly overcharged." [South-68, #26]

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