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upon the motives and principles which the readers may

recognize as ruling their own, and that of most of their

own acquaintances.-- From "The Quarterly Review,"

October, 1815.

Criticism/Interpretation II, Lord Macaulay

Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second.

But among the writers who, in the point which we

have noticed, have approached nearest to the man-

ner 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 cer-

tain sense, commonplace, 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 Ber-

tram, 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 hobby-horse, to use the

phrase of Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such as

we read of in Pope. Who would not have expected them

to be insipid likenesses of each other? No such thing.

Harpagon is not more unlike to Jourdain, Joseph Sur-

face is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than

every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend

brethren. And almost 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. -- From essay

on "Madame D'Arblay," 1843.

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