Oldal 23 [23]
OCR
9 SPLENDID ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF THE BOOK OF THE PASSIONS. BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ. Author of * Attila,’ “ The Gipsy,” &c. &c. In one handsome Royal Octavo Volume, printed on fine paper, with Sixteen beautiful Engravings, done on Steel, from Designs by the best Artists ; and bound in Extra Embossed Cloth, or Morocco Extra with Gilt Edges. THE NOVELS JANE AUSTEN; CONTAINING SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, EMMA, AND NORTHANGER ABBEY. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, MANSFIELD PARK, PERSUASION, COMPLETE IN ONE LARGE VOLUME. Bound in elegant Embossed Cloth, or neatly half bound with Calf backs and corners. Miss Avsten’s novels are among the most original that have appeared since the 6 Amelia” of Fielding. We see in them no traces of thoughts, or incidents, or characters, supplied by other writers; they are self-suggested throughout. As a picture of the habits of the provincial middle classes thirty years ago, they are as true to life as the master-pieces of Gainsborough, possessing all his exactness and literal fidelity, without his coarse vigour. No one makes so much of a rustic pic-nic ; 1mparts such a piquant flavour to the gossip of country cousins; or portrays a village ss Mrs. Candor” with such skill and whimsical effect, without verging on caricature, as Miss Austen. She makes as free of the old maid’s tea-table, and Jets us into all the secrets of the Lady of the Manor’s coterie. She has no heroes or heroines, in the ordinary acceptation of the term; her dramatis persone are for the most part of a homely, quiescent, every-day caste; yet they uniformly interest us, being worked out with uncommon ingenuity, and their veriest common-places turned to humorous account. Miss Austen never affects the romantic or imaginative. She has no highly-wrought scenes of passion or pathos; no startling surprises, or melodramatic contrasts; but finishes up to nature, without once going beyond it. Her dialogues are remarkable for their ease, and point, and archness, and so exquisitely characteristic as almost to induce the conviction that they had been overheard by the writer, and taken down in short-hand. Those who have read “ Emma,” and more especially “ Mansfield Park,” will have little hesitation in placing Miss Austen in the same rank with Goldsmith; for, like him, she is the most social and unambitious of novelists, and scatters over the homeliest subjects a thousand artless, inimitable graces. How perfect is her description of the gipsy-party on the village common; and of the broad shady oak in Mansfield Park, under which the young 2
