peculiar genius which shines out clearly enough in her works, but of
which a biographer can make little use. The motive which at last induced
me to make the attempt is exactly expressed in the passage prefixed to
these pages. I thought that I saw something to be done: knew of no one
who could do it but myself, and so was driven to the enterprise. I am
glad that I have been able to finish my work. As a family record it can
scarcely fail to be interesting to those relatives who must ever set a
high value on their connection with Jane Austen, and to them I especially
dedicate it; but as I have been asked to do so, I also submit it to the
censure of the public, with all its faults both of deficiency and
redundancy. I know that its value in their eyes must depend, not on any
merits of its own, but on the degree of estimation in which my aunt's
works may still be held; and indeed I shall esteem it one of the
strongest testimonies ever borne to her talents, if for her sake an
interest can be taken in so poor a sketch as I have been able to draw.

BRAY VICARAGE:
Sept. 7, 1869.

_Postscript printed at the end of the first edition; omitted from the
second_.

Since these pages were in type, I have read with astonishment the strange
misrepresentation of my aunt's manners given by Miss Mitford in a letter
which appears in her lately-published Life, vol. i. p. 305. Miss Mitford
does not profess to have known Jane Austen herself, but to report what
had been told her by her mother. Having stated that her mother '_before
her marriage_' was well acquainted with Jane Austen and her family, she
writes thus:--'Mamma says that she was _then_ the prettiest, silliest,
most affected, husband-hunting butterfly she ever remembers.' The editor