id="page14"/>distinguished.  Accordingly, they were continually engaged in actions of more or less importance, and sometimes gained promotion by their success.  Both rose to the rank of Admiral, and carried out their flags to distant stations.

Francis lived to attain the very summit of his profession, having died, in his ninety-third year, G.C.B. and Senior Admiral of the Fleet, in 1865.  He possessed great firmness of character, with a strong sense of duty, whether due from himself to others, or from others to himself.  He was consequently a strict disciplinarian; but, as he was a very religious man, it was remarked of him (for in those days, at least, it was remarkable) that he maintained this discipline without ever uttering an oath or permitting one in his presence.  On one occasion, when ashore in a seaside town, he was spoken of as ‘the officer who kneeled at church;’ a custom which now happily would not be thought peculiar.

Charles was generally serving in frigates or sloops; blockading harbours, driving the ships of the enemy ashore, boarding gun-boats, and frequently making small prizes.  At one time he was absent from England on such services for seven years together.  In later life he commanded the Bellerophon, at the bombardment of St. Jean d’Acre in 1840.  In 1850 he went out in the Hastings, in command of the East India and China station, but on the breaking out of the Burmese war he transferred his flag to a

steam sloop, for the purpose of getting up the shallow waters of the Irrawaddy, on board of which he died of cholera in 1852, in the seventy-fourth year of his age.  His sweet temper and affectionate disposition, in which he resembled his sister Jane, had secured to him an unusual portion of attachment, not only from his own family, but from all the officers and common sailors who served under him.  One who was with him at his death has left this record of him: ‘Our good Admiral won the hearts of all by his gentleness and kindness while he was struggling with disease, and endeavouring to do his duty as Commander-in-chief of the British naval forces in these waters.  His death was a great grief to the whole fleet.  I know that I cried bitterly when I found he was dead.’  The Order in Council of the Governor-General of India, Lord Dalhousie, expresses ‘admiration of the staunch high spirit which, notwithstanding his age and previous sufferings, had led the Admiral to take his part in the trying service which has closed his career.’

These two brothers have been dwelt on longer than the others because their honourable career accounts for Jane Austen’s partiality for the Navy, as well as for the readiness and accuracy with which she wrote about it.  She was always very careful not to meddle with matters which she did not thoroughly understand.  She never touched upon politics, law, or medicine, subjects which some novel writers have ventured on rather too boldly, and

have treated, perhaps, with more brilliancy than accuracy.  But with ships and sailors she felt herself at home, or at least could always trust to a brotherly critic to keep her right.  I believe that no flaw has ever been found in her seamanship either in ‘Mansfield Park’ or in ‘Persuasion.’

But dearest of all to the heart of Jane was her sister Cassandra, about three years her senior.  Their sisterly affection for each other could scarcely be exceeded.  Perhaps it began on Jane’s side with the feeling of deference natural to a loving child towards a kind elder sister.  Something of this feeling always remained; and even in the maturity of her powers, and in the enjoyment of increasing success, she would still speak of Cassandra as of one wiser and better than herself.  In childhood, when the elder was sent to the school of a Mrs. Latournelle, in the Forbury at Reading, the younger went with her, not because she was thought old enough to profit much by the instruction there imparted, but because she would have been miserable without her sister; her mother observing that ‘if Cassandra were going to have her head cut off, Jane would insist on sharing her fate.’  This attachment was never interrupted or weakened.  They lived in the same home, and shared the same bed-room, till separated by death.  They were not exactly alike.  Cassandra’s was the colder and calmer disposition; she was always prudent and well judging, but with less outward demonstration of feeling and less

sunniness of temper than Jane possessed.  It was remarked in her family that ‘Cassandra had the merit of having her temper always under command, but that Jane had the happiness of a temper that never required to be commanded.’  When ‘Sense and Sensibility’ came out, some persons, who knew the family slightly, surmised that the two elder Miss Dashwoods were intended by the author for her sister and herself; but this could not be the case.  Cassandra’s character might indeed represent the ‘sense’ of Elinor, but Jane’s had little in common with the ‘sensibility’ of Marianne.  The young woman who, before the age of twenty, could so clearly discern the failings of Marianne Dashwood, could hardly have been subject to them herself.

This was the small circle, continually enlarged, however, by the increasing families of four of her brothers, within which Jane Austen found her wholesome pleasures, duties, and interests, and beyond which she went very little into society during the last ten years of her life.  There was so much that was agreeable and attractive in this family party that its members may be excused if they were inclined to live somewhat too exclusively within it.  They might see in each other much to love and esteem, and something to admire.  The family talk had abundance of spirit and vivacity, and was never troubled by disagreements even in little matters, for it was not their habit to dispute or argue with each other: above all, there was strong

family affection and firm union, never to be broken but by death.  It cannot be doubted that all this had its influence on the author in the construction of her stories, in which a family party usually supplies the narrow stage, while the interest is made to revolve round a few actors.

It will be seen also that though her circle of society was small, yet she found in her neighbourhood persons of good taste and cultivated minds.  Her acquaintance, in fact, constituted the very class from which she took her imaginary characters, ranging from the member of parliament, or large landed proprietor, to the young curate or younger midshipman of equally good family; and I think that the influence of these early associations may be traced in her writings, especially in two particulars.  First, that she is entirely free from the vulgarity, which is so offensive in some novels, of dwelling on the outward appendages of wealth or rank, as if they were things to which the writer was unaccustomed; and, secondly, that she deals as little with very low as with very high stations in life.  She does not go lower than the Miss Steeles, Mrs. Elton, and John Thorpe, people of bad taste and underbred manners, such as are actually found sometimes mingling with better society.  She has nothing resembling the Brangtons, or Mr. Dubster and his friend Tom Hicks, with whom Madame D’Arblay loved to season her stories, and to produce striking contrasts to her well bred characters.