Chapter XIX

.

[180] Henry Austen and John Bridges.

[181] William Stanley Goddard, D.D., Head Master of Winchester, 1796-1809.

[182] The Rector of Godmersham.

[183] Anglicised form of French word for cup-and-ball--_bilboquet_.

[184] As to the move to Chawton.

[185] Richard Mant, D.D., Rector of All Saints, Southampton, and father of Bishop Mant.

[186] She probably wrote _n_oonshine, a somewhat incorrect way of spelling _nuncheon_ (luncheon). See _Sense and Sensibility_, c. xliv.

[187] See p. 225.

[188] His approaching marriage to Harriet Foote.

[189] Frank.

[190] The Rector of Chawton, who was a bachelor.

[191] Mr. and Mrs. Leigh Perrot.

[192] In 1806, the small living of Hampstead Marshall became vacant by the death of old Mr. Fowle; and Lord Craven, the patron, looking round for an 'honest man' who would hold the living for his nominee, offered it to James Austen. He, however, felt scruples, grounded on the wording of the bond of resignation, and declined the preferment.

[193] Her second marriage to General H. T. Montresor.

[194] A joking suggestion that Sir Brook Bridges was about to propose to Cassandra.

[195] Sir John Moore's heroic twelve days' retreat to Corunna was now in progress, and the battle was fought there on January 16. It is mentioned again in the next two letters. The news on this occasion seems to have come very quickly. The _St. Albans_ (under the command of Francis Austen) was at Spithead, and there took charge of the disembarkation of the remains of Sir John Moore's forces (_Sailor Brothers_, p. 203).

[196] _Margiana; or Widdrington Tower_, anon. 5 vols. 1808. For a description of this romance see a reply by M. H. Dodds in _Notes and Queries_, 11 S. vii. pp. 233-4.

[197] _Women, or Ida of Athens_, by Sydney Owenson (afterwards Lady Morgan), published in 1809.

[198] _The Wild Irish Girl_, published in 1806.

[199] Mrs. Charles Austen, whose daughter Cassandra was born on December 22, 1808.

[200] Eldest daughter of Jane's brother Edward.

[201] This proved to be Hannah More's _Coelebs in Search of a Wife_, published in 1808. See next letter.

[202] Messrs. Crosby & Co. of Stationers' Hall Court, London.

[203] Mr. Austin Dobson, in his introduction to _Northanger Abbey_ (Macmillan, 1897), makes the mistake of saying that the 'advertisement' of the first edition of 1818 tells us that the MS. was disposed of to 'a Bath bookseller.'

[204] _Memoir_, p. 129.

[205] This implies that (if _Susan_ and _Northanger Abbey_ were the same) no arrangement was concluded in 1809. Indeed, it does not appear that the author contemplated a re-purchase at that time; and the publisher was unwilling to relinquish his rights on any other terms.

[206] Later writers have not even been content to accept the 'publisher in Bath,' but have found a name and habitation for him. Mr. Peach, in his _Historic Houses in Bath_, published in 1883 (p. 150 _note_), says: 'The publisher (who purchased _Northanger Abbey_), we believe, was Bull.' Mr. Oscar Fay Adams, writing in 1891 (_Story of Jane Austen's Life_, p. 93), becomes more definite in his statement that 'nothing of hers (Jane Austen's) had yet been published; for although Bull, a publisher in Old Bond Street [sc. in Bath], had purchased in 1802 [_sic_] the manuscript of _Northanger Abbey_ for the sum of ten pounds, it was lying untouched--and possibly unread--among his papers, at the epoch of her leaving Bath.'

It is true that Mr. Dobson, unable to find the authority for Bull's name, is a little more guarded, when he amusingly writes, in 1897:--

'Even at this distance of time, the genuine devotee of Jane Austen must be conscious of a futile but irresistible desire to "feel the bumps" of that Boeotian bookseller of Bath, who, having bought the manuscript of _Northanger Abbey_ for the base price of ten pounds, refrained from putting it before the world. . . . Only two suppositions are possible: one, that Mr. Bull of the Circulating Library at Bath (if Mr. Bull it were) was constitutionally insensible to the charms of that master-spell which Mrs. Slipslop calls "ironing"; the other, that he was an impenitent and irreclaimable adherent of the author of _The Mysteries of Udolpho_.'

Mr. Meehan, in his _Famous Houses of Bath and District_ (1901), is the most circumstantial of all, writing on p. 197:--

'Her novel _Northanger Abbey_, which is full of Bath, was finished in 1798, and in 1803 she sold the manuscript for ten pounds to Lewis Bull, a bookseller in the "Lower Walks" (now "Terrace Walk"). Bull had in 1785 succeeded James Leake, and he in turn was succeeded by John Upham. Bull was the founder of the well-known library in Bond Street, London--for many years known as Bull's Library.'

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