The amusing parlour-game of Jane Austen topography is always being played somewhere. A few years ago there was a correspondence in the _Literary Supplement_ about the precise position of Emma’s Highbury on the map. Some Austenites voted for Esher, others for Cobham, others again for Bookham. There has been another correspondence about Mansfield Park. Lady Vaux of Harrowden “identifies” it with Easton Neston, near Towcester. Sir Francis Darwin and the Master of Downing are for Easton in Huntingdonshire. People have consulted Paterson’s Roads about it. Mr. Mackinnon, K.C., points out that it must have been about four miles north of Northampton. But I like him best when he says, “I do not suppose any actual park was in Jane Austen’s mind.” _Brigadier, vous avez raison!_ I do not suppose any actual place was in Jane Austen’s mind when she assigned her personages a home or a lodging. You might as well try to fix the number of the house in Gracechurch Street where Elizabeth’s uncle lived. Are we not shown the “real” Old Curiosity Shop? And the “real” Bleak House? And Juliet’s tomb at Verona? And the exact point of the Cobb where Louisa Musgrove fell? It is easy to see why Jane Austen lends herself more readily than most writers to this topographical game. She was very fond of topographical _colour_, giving not only real place-names to the neighbourhood of the fictitious homes, but exact distances in miles. It was so many miles from Highbury to Kingston market-place, and so many to Box Hill. Yet she was always vague about the exact spot from which these distances were calculated. For there her imagination had its home, it was her private Paradise of Dainty Devices; she wanted a free hand there, unhampered by maps, road books, and other intrusions from the actual world. In fact, she did with real places just what Scott, say, did with historical people, kept them to surround the imaginary centre of the tale. You can “identify” Charles Edward, but not Waverley. You can “identify” Nottingham, but not Mansfield Park.