Jane Austen died on the 18th of July, 1817. After her death her early novel _Northanger Abbey_, and _Persuasion_, a mature work which has the same mellower quality as _Emma_, together with a pathos peculiarly its own, were published. From the testimony of her nephew and the internal evidence of her books, we may conclude Jane Austen to have been a decorous English gentlewoman, conservative in temper, essentially feminine; a silent, humorous observer of the most minute details; an affectionate daughter and sister and a delightful aunt; at home “a still, sweet, placid moonlight face, and slightly nonchalant”--abroad, perhaps a trifle chilling. We may eke out the meagre record of her life with many praises, drawn from widely-differing sources. If some of these appear to us extravagant, and we are driven by reaction to complain of a certain superficiality in Miss Austen’s writings, we should be disarmed by the recollection that she is never pretentious. No better example exists of a talent kept within its proper limitations. It has been well said, that her enclosed spot of English ground is indeed little, but never was verdure brighter or more velvety than its trim grass. * * * * * [Sidenote: Home at Steventon.] As the first twenty-five years, more than half of the brief life of Jane Austen, were spent in the parsonage of Steventon, some description of that place ought to be given. Steventon is a small rural village upon the chalk hills of North Hants, situated in a winding valley about seven miles from Basingstoke.... Of this somewhat tame country, Steventon, from the fall of the ground and the abundance of its timber, is certainly one of the prettiest spots. The house itself stood in a shallow valley, surrounded by sloping meadows, well-sprinkled with elm trees, at the end of a small village of cottages, each well provided with a garden, scattered about prettily on either side of the road.... North of the house, the road from Deane to Popham Lane ran at a sufficient distance from the front to allow a carriage-drive through turf and trees. On the south side the ground rose gently, and was occupied by one of those old-fashioned gardens in which vegetables and flowers are combined, flanked and protected on the east by one of the thatched mud walls common in that country, and overshadowed by fine elms. Along the upper or southern side of this garden, ran a terrace of the finest turf, which must have been in the writer’s thoughts when she described Catharine Morland’s childish delight in “rolling down the green slope at the back of the house.” REV. J. E. AUSTEN-LEIGH: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’ London: Richard Bentley, 1870. * * * * * [Sidenote: Appearance in girlhood.]