ulay's success
would have been most certain might have been almost sufficient for his
object. A memoir written by him would have been a monument.

I am kindly permitted by Sir Henry Holland to give the following
quotation from his printed but unpublished recollections of his past
life:--

'I have the picture still before me of Lord Holland lying on his bed,
when attacked with gout, his admirable sister, Miss Fox, beside him
reading aloud, as she always did on these occasions, some one of Miss
Austen's novels, of which he was never wearied. I well recollect the
time when these charming novels, almost unique in their style of
humour, burst suddenly on the world. It was sad that their writer did
not live to witness the growth of her fame.'

My brother-in-law, Sir Denis Le Marchant, has supplied me with the
following anecdotes from his own recollections:--

'When I was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, Mr. Whewell, then
a Fellow and afterwards Master of the College, often spoke to me with
admiration of Miss Austen's novels. On one occasion I said that I had
found "Persuasion" rather dull. He quite fired up in defence of it,
insisting that it was the most beautiful of her works. This
accomplished philosopher was deeply versed in works of fiction. I
recollect his writing to me from Caernarvon, where he had the charge
of some pupils, that he was weary of _his_ stay, for he had read the
circulating library twice through.

'During a visit I paid to Lord Lansdowne, at Bowood, in 1846, one of
Miss Austen's novels became the subject of conversation and of praise,
especially from Lord Lansdowne, who observed that one of the
circumstances of his life which he looked back upon with vexation was
that Miss Austen should once have been living some weeks in his
neighbourhood without his knowing it.

'I have heard Sydney Smith, more than once, dwell with eloquence on
the merits of Miss Austen's novels. He told me he should have enjoyed
giving her the pleasure of reading her praises in the "Edinburgh
Review." "Fanny Price" was one of his prime favourites.'

I close this list of testimonies, this long 'Catena Patrum,' with the
remarkable words of Sir Walter Scott, taken from his diary for March 14,
1826: {149} 'Read again, for the third time at least, Miss Austen's
finely written novel of "Pride and Prejudice." That young lady had a
talent