this respect she shows a regard to character hardly exceeded by
Shakspeare himself. These are his words: 'Like him (Shakspeare) she
shows as admirable a discrimination in the character of fools as of
people of sense; a merit which is far from common. To invent indeed a
conversation full of wisdom or of wit requires that the writer should
himself possess ability; but the converse does not hold good, it is no
fool that can describe fools well; and many who have succeeded pretty
well in painting superior characters have failed in giving individuality
to those weaker ones which it is necessary to introduce in order to give
a faithful representation of real life: they exhibit to us mere folly in
the abstract, forgetting that to the eye of the skilful naturalist the
insects on a leaf present as wide differences as exist between the lion
and the elephant. Slender, and Shallow, and Aguecheek, as Shakspeare has
painted them, though equally fools, resemble one another no more than
Richard, and Macbeth, and Julius Caesar; and Miss Austen's {142} Mrs.
Bennet, Mr. Rushworth, and Miss Bates are no more alike than her Darcy,
Knightley, and Edmund Bertram. Some have complained indeed of finding
her fools too much like nature, and consequently tiresome. There is no
disputing about tastes; all we can say is, that such critics must
(whatever deference they may outwardly pay to received opinions) find the
"Merry Wives of Windsor" and "Twelfth Night" very tiresome; and that
those who look with pleasure at Wilkie's pictures, or those of the Dutch
school, must admit that excellence of imitation may confer attraction on
that which would be insipid or disagreeable in the reality. Her
minuteness of detail has also been found fault with; but even where it
produces, at the time, a degree of tediousness, we know not whether that
can justly be reckoned a blemish, which is absolutely essential to a very
high excellence. Now it is absolutely impossible, without this, to
produce that thorough acquaintance with the characters which is necessary
to make the reader heartily interested in them. Let any one cut out from