er
unwillingness to write; but at present she enjoyed hope and happiness,
the vigour and cheerfulness of youth among congenial companions, and a
home as yet unvisited by any acute sorrows.

No precise date has been assigned to the writing of _Elinor and
Marianne_; but after the completion of that sketch her time has been
fully mapped out[71] as follows:--

_First Impressions_ (original of _Pride and Prejudice_), begun October
1796, ended August 1797.

_Sense and Sensibility_, begun November 1797.

_Northanger Abbey_ (probably called _Susan_), written in 1797 and 1798.

It has been usual to dwell on the precocity of intellect shown in the
composition of the first two of these works by a young and inexperienced
girl, and no doubt there is much justice in the observation; but we
venture to think that it is in _Northanger Abbey_ that we get the best
example of what she could produce at the age of three- or
four-and-twenty. In the two others, the revision they underwent before
publication was so complete that it is impossible now to separate the
earlier from the later work; whereas in _Northanger Abbey_, while there
is good evidence from the author's preface of a careful preparation for
the press before she sold it in 1803, there is no mention of any radical
alteration at a subsequent date. On the contrary, she apologises for
what may seem old-fashioned in the social arrangements of the story by
alleging the length of time that had elapsed since its completion. There
is internal evidence to the same effect: she has not quite shaken off
the tendency to satirise contemporary extravagances; and it is not until
several chapters are past that she settles herself down to any serious
creation of characters. The superiority also in interest and fun of the
first volume over the second, though no doubt inherent in the scheme of
the story, is a defect which she would hardly have tolerated at a later
date. Nevertheless, we think her admirers may be satisfied with this
example of her youthful style. The charm with which she manages to
invest a simple ingenuous girl like Catherine, the brightness of Henry
Tilney--even the shallowness of Isabella and the boorishness of John
Thorpe--are things we part from with regret. And in parting with our
friends at the end of one of her novels, we part with them for good and
all; they never re-appear in another shape elsewhere; even Mrs. Allen
and Lady Bertram are by no means the same.

It seems