the numerous species of this great British genus. The differences of

scheme, of time, of subject, of literary convention, are, of course,

obvious enough; the difference of sex does not, perhaps, count for much,

for there was a distinctly feminine element in “Mr. Spectator,” and in

Jane Austen’s genius there was, though nothing mannish, much that was

masculine. But the likeness of quality consists in a great number of

common subdivisions of quality—demureness, extreme minuteness of touch,

avoidance of loud tones and glaring effects. Also there is in both a

certain not inhuman or unamiable cruelty. It is the custom with those

who judge grossly to contrast the good nature of Addison with the

savagery of Swift, the mildness of Miss Austen with the boisterousness

of Fielding and Smollett, even with the ferocious practical jokes that

her immediate predecessor, Miss Burney, allowed without very much

protest. Yet, both in Mr. Addison and in Miss Austen there is, though a

restrained and well-mannered, an insatiable and ruthless delight in

roasting and cutting up a fool. A man in the early eighteenth century,

of course, could push this taste further than a lady in the early

nineteenth; and no doubt Miss Austen’s principles, as well as her heart,

would have shrunk from such things as the letter from the unfortunate

husband in the Spectator, who describes, with all the gusto and all the

innocence in the world, how his wife and his friend induce him to play

at blind-man’s-buff. But another Spectator letter—that of the damsel

of fourteen who{xiv} wishes to marry Mr. Shapely, and assures her selected

Mentor that “he admires your Spectators mightily”—might have been

written by a rather more ladylike and intelligent Lydia Bennet in the

days of Lydia’s great-grandmother; while, on the other hand, some (I

think unreasonably) have found “cynicism” in touches of Miss Austen’s

own, such as her satire of Mrs. Musgrove’s self-deceiving regrets over