She did not laugh at herself or her friends We can hardly read the words withou because there is always a tragedy underly- at once calling to mind some equally ing a comedy, or because she suffered good-natured, equally vacuous person, under the burden of a Weltschmerz which who is only tolerable so long as we are must have relief in laughter or tears. She tolerant a person about whom deeper laughed because she could not help it, and questions of use or purpose in life can makes those who read her laugh for the never be asked. Of the same type, but same reason. And if we, in this serious more obviously ridiculous, is Mrs. Palmage, are tempted to think lightly of a er, who, when she heard of Willoughby's genius which merely amuses us in this iniquities, "phenomenal" way, we may console ourselves with the reflection that under Jane Austen's guidance we learn to smile at the weaknesses of mankind rather than to fret over them. Such an attitude of mind will at once save us some trouble, and furnish us with a comfortable feeling of superiority.

To define humor is difficult, and perhaps the wisest course is to treat it as Mr. M. Arnold treats poetry, and describe it by examples. We cannot set forth in brief and precise terms what constitutes the poetical element in a fine passage of Milton, but when we read it we feel and know that it is poetical. The same is the case with humorous writing. When we read the opening sentences in "Pride and Prejudice," or "Persuasion," we say at once, "This is humor," "This is the humorous aspect of life."

mediately, and was very thankful that she had was determined to drop his acquaintance im. never been acquainted with him at all. She hated him so much that she was resolved never to mention his name again, and she should tell everybody she saw how good-for-nothing he was!

These are not in the least abnormal

characters, they are samples of an abundant stock; and only differ from others in their transparent silliness. The world is at play, and we are interested spectators of the game. We find that people do not say what they mean or mean what they say; that their motives in action are often mixed to such a degree that they could themselves with much difficulty disentangle the threads. The most excellent young men fall in love with the wrong women, and are only too glad to find themselves delivered from the chains in which they once yoked themselves with such rapture. Young ladies who exert their utmost skill, fail to gain their ends, while others, Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Som- apparently without effort, secure the hapersetshire, was a man who, for his own amuse-piness so richly deserved. But whatever ment, never took up any book but the "Baronetage; "there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs, changed naturally into pity and contempt, as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

If we mean to weep rather than laugh over the follies and vulgarities of life, we may as well put away the volumes at once; Miss Austen will certainly be no favorite of ours. We shall not get through a single novel, or even a single chapter, if we are resolutely bent on being serious. Turn where we will, the same murmur of quiet laughter rings in our ears. Mrs. Allen never talked a great deal, and could never be entirely silent: While she sat at her work, if she lost her needle or broke her thread; if she heard a carriage in the street, or saw a speck upon her gown, she must observe it aloud, whether there was any one at leisure to answer it or not.

:

the situation, with few exceptions it is amusing. Even Anne Elliot herself, whom we dearly love, provokes a smile as she trips down the streets of Bath:

Prettier musings of high-wrought love and eternal constancy could never have passed along the streets of Bath than Anne was sporting with from Camden Place to Westgate Buildings. It was almost enough to spread purification and perfume all the way.

It

Humor such as this, it may be said, does but skim the surface of life. takes no heed of the depths of sorrow lying underneath; it fails even to sound the fountains of joy. It is superficial and exists only by reason of its superficiality. Had Miss Austen felt more deeply, she would have written differently. "verities" of life, the "great mysteries " beyond it, would have attracted a more reflective mind. Does not this humor imply something like insensibility or halfknowledge? There is a tragic aspect of life, we may reply, as well as a comic; but it does not therefore follow that the tragic

The

covetous, and ill-tempered. Whenever she appears, we feel that there is a dark spot in the scene, that some one will be made uncomfortable, if it is in her power to do it. She is one of those persons whose object in life it is to keep "people in their places;" in other words, to tyrannize over them as much as possible. Yet, in spite of this strong feeling, we cannot help but laugh when one amiable scheme after another for spreading discomfort falls to the ground, and when advice given for selfish aims is set aside as of no value. Listen to her shrill, staccato

is more real than the comic. Laughter is
human no less than tears; the laughable
is as certainly a legitimate object of art,
as the sad or terrible. The important
point is that we should not confuse the
two. It is as great a mistake to turn
errors into tragedies, as it is to ridicule
what is really tragic. Jane Austen was
aware of her limitations; the tragic side
of life was not for her. She knew indeed
how to depict the pangs of disappointed
affection, but she also knew that they
were curable. Over the results of vicious
conduct she prefers to draw a veil; she
could not enter upon them without drop-tones!
ping into a serious vein, which is not her
vein. She wrote to amuse, and to a clear
mind and happy nature like hers, from
which irritation was almost wholly absent,
the pursuits of the world round her, often
aimless, often perverse, were an inex-
haustible source of laughter.

Yet we must not think of her as one who saw nothing in life but what was ridiculous. She makes us love some characters and despise others, though we smile at them all. In spite of her vulgar ity and fussiness, her ill-timed jokes, domestic hints, and epicurean sentiments, we still have something like an affection for Mrs. Jennings.

What are you about? Where are you going?
Mrs. Norris called out: "Stay, stay, Fanny!
Don't be in such a hurry. Depend upon it, it
is not you that are wanted; depend upon it, it
is me (looking at the butler); but you are so
ready to put yourself forward. What should
Sir Thomas want you for? It is me, Bad-
deley, you mean. I am coming this moment.
You mean me, Baddeley, I am sure; Sir
Thomas wants me, not Miss Price."
Miss Price, I am certain of its being Miss
But Baddeley was stout. "No, ma'am, it is
Price." And there was a half smile with the
words which meant, "I do not think you will
answer the purpose at all."

Poor Mrs. Norris! the very servants understand and sit in judgment. Gradu'Well, my dear, 'tis a true saying about an ill wind, for it will be all the better for Colonel ally she finds herself, in spite of her very Brandon. He will have her at last; ay, that he animated efforts, more and more neglected will. Mind me, now, if they ain't married by and useless, till at length nothing is left Midsummer. Lord! how he'll chuckle over for her but to retire into a distant part of this news. I hope he will come to-night. It the country with her disgraced and favorwill be all to one a better match for your sis-ite niece, Mrs. Rushworth. ter. Two thousand a-year without debt or It would not be easy within the limits drawback-except the little love-child; in- of a short paper to go through the catadeed, ay, I had forgot her; but she may be logue of Miss Austen's characters. Un'prenticed out at small cost, and then what like many modern novelists, she never does it signify? Delaford is a nice place I

Other authors have can tell you; exactly what I call a nice, old-repeats herself. fashioned place, full of comforts and con- given us the same characters in different veniences; quite shut in with great garden- scenes; she gives us the same general walls, that are covered with the best fruit-trees scenes, but the characters are always difin the country; and such a mulberry-tree in ferent. The silly chatter of Miss Bates one corner! Lord! how Charlotte and I did is as unique in its way as the rattle of Mr. stuff the only time we were there! Then there John Thorpe. Mr. Collins and Mr. Elton is a dovecote and some stew-ponds, and a very both marry for money, and both propose pretty canal; and everything in short that one to a lady who has not the least intention could wish for." of accepting them; but the formal pomposity of the one is not in the least like the pushing vanity of the other. Miss Lucy Steele and Miss Fairfax both contract secret engagements, but we despise the one and admire the other. Vulgarity meets us in Miss Steele, Isabella Thorpe, and Lydia Bennet; we see it in a variety of forms and in different degrees, and perhaps Miss Steele may be allowed to bear away the palm. The same holds

It is difficult to get over such a speech as that; but we do get over it, because Mrs. Jennings is at all times willing to include others in her comforts. She is without any trace of malignity or selfishness, a sympathetic friend in affliction, a careful nurse in sickness. But Mrs. Nor ris we hate, as perhaps we never hated any living person. She is ridiculous, it is true, but she is also mean, grasping, VOL. XXXVIII. 1928

LIVING AGE.

good of the more serious characters. | about something unconnected with the story; Catherine Morland, if she can be called an essay on writing, a critique on Walter serious, is not like Fanny Price, yet both Scott, or the history of Buonaparte, or someare types of a natural, simple-minded girl. thing that would form a contrast, and bring Elizabeth Bennet is extremely clever, and the reader with increased delight to the playnot less so is Emma Woodhouse, yet style. fulness and epigrammatism of the general neither reminds us of the other. Anne Elliot and Elinor Dashwood are patient and constant in their affections, and are perhaps more alike than any of the others we have compared. Both have an unusual force of character, though called upon to exercise it in very different spheres of action; both, under a quiet exterior, conceal a great depth of affection, but the story of Anne's life is more pathetic, her love is more deeply tried than Elinor's. If Colonel Brandon may rank with Mr. James Knightley in regard to tact, sense, and delicacy, sentiment and melancholy, rheumatism and a flannel waistcoat, serve to distinguish the former, while Mr. Woodhouse, who to himself is a sufficiently serious subject, is sui generis, not to be approached, and never to be forgotten.

"That young man is very thoughtless," he says of Mr. Churchill, who proposes to find room for a ball at the "Crown," by using two rooms, and dancing across the passage. "Do not tell his father; but that young man is not quite the thing. He has been opening the doors very often this evening, and keeping them open very inconsiderately. He does not think of the draught. I do not mean to set you against him, but, indeed, he is not quite

the thing!"

Walter Scott also thought highly of this novel, and many will select it as the best of her productions. Others are in favor of "Persuasion," which, though written in declining health, certainly exhibits no sign of declining vigor. In no other is the interest more sustained, the characters more striking or exact, the incidents more fresh and unconventional; in no other is pathos so largely blended with humor. Most careful readers will probably find a difference between the first three of the novels and the last three. "If the former show quite as much orig. inality and genius, they may perhaps be thought to have less of the faultless finish and high polish which distinguish the latter" these words of Mr. AustenLeigh are a true criticism. On the whole, looking at the truth, variety, and exquisite development of the characters, "Emma" seems to deserve the first place. Miss Austen said of the principal character, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." If we cannot read the story of Emma's blunders without a smile at her perverse love of match-making, and her conceited assumption that she can govern others, and arrange their private concerns as she will, we also feel that she grows upon us; she learns by experience; step by step she becomes more worthy of the manly regard which has watched over her from childhood. She is always clever and refined; often brilliant; a little imperious, as her situation permits, a little wayward, but always a lady, and always charming. We part from her with a feeling that we have been in good and amusing society, with a woman who, though capable of foolish actions, has sense and good humor, and we go about our way cheered by the thought that persons may make life very pleasant without being monsters of perfection.

Of the many amusing scenes in Miss. Austen's works, perhaps the two most irresistibly laughable, are those in which Dashwoods, Miss Lucy Steele, and Mr. Mr. Elton proposes to Emma, and the E. Ferrars are brought together. Emma has done her best to bring about a match between Mr. Elton, the clergyman of the parish, and her friend Miss Harriet Smith.

"It is impossible for me to doubt any long-ings, strong in itself and strongly spoken. She You have made yourself too clear. Mr. Elton, my astonishment is much beyond any thing I can express. After such behaviour as I have witnessed during the last month to Miss Smith-such attentions as I have been daily in the habit of observing-to be addressing me in this manner this is an unsteadiness of character, indeed, which I had not supposed possible! Believe me, sir, I am far, very far from gratified on being the object of such professions."

erature in which the dramatic genius of the French Basques, and to the ports of the last hundred years has most adequately expressed itself; we can hardly imagine that Jane Austen, or Scott, or Thackeray, or Charlotte Brontë, will not find some readers, as long as English literature is read at all. Unfortunately the trick of writing a novel is so easily caught that we are apt to lose sight of the great masters in the scores of stories - often far from uninteresting - which are poured out on the world from year to year. All the more necessary is it that we should read the best, and ascertain why they are the best. This is a duty for every one; more especially when we think of the education and the reading of women, we might demand, with some show of reason, that among a young lady's accomplishments should be included the power of distinguishing a good novel from a bad one. From this point of view a course of Miss Austen would be most salutary.

From Nature. ON THE WHALE FISHERY OF THE BASQUE PROVINCES OF SPAIN.*

Bayonne, Biarritz, Guétary, St. Jean de Luz, and Ciboure. But in looking through the books and papers on the subject, a list of which was kindly furnished to me by Prof. Flower last June, I did not find any particulars respecting the Spanish ports, where the Basque sailors are more numerous than in France, and inhabit a more extensive line of coast. I therefore thought it possible that, by visiting those ports and making inquiries respecting the literature of the provinces in which they are situated, and the local traditions, I might be able to collect some farther information touching the whale fishery of the Basques. It has now been suggested to me that such particulars as I have succeeded in bringing together, from their bearing on the history of the Balana biscayensis, a nearly extinct animal, would be interesting to the Zoological Society. I therefore have pleasure in communicating the following notes on the subject.

The coast which I personally visited this summer extends from the French frontier to the Cabo de Peñas, including the Basque provinces of Guipuzcoa and Vizcaya, and the purely Spanish provinces of Santander and the Asturias. It is for

My attention was drawn to the Basque the most part bold and rocky, with lofty whale fishery by observing, during my cliffs of cretaceous limestone, having study of Arctic literature, and especially strata hove up at great angles. Occawhile editing the voyages of William Bafsionally there is a stretch of sand, genfin, that the first English whaling vessels erally at the mouths of rivers, and here were in the habit of shipping a boat's crew and there a rocky little boat-harbor. Forof Basques to harpoon the whales. I was ests of oak and chestnut clothe the mouninformed that a whale, the Balana biscay-tains, with occasionally open spaces of ensis, had frequented the coasts of the Basques provinces from time immemorial; but that it had become nearly extinct in the seventeenth century, when the Basques began to extend their voyages further north, and across the Arctic Circle. Hence the Basques had become dexterous whale-fishers long before any other Eu-ward the next port is Pasajés, and then ropean people had entered upon that perilous occupation.

I found that several naturalists had investigated the history of the Biscayan whale, notably Eschricht and Reinhardt in Denmark, M. Fischer in France, and Prof. Flower in this country. Full information respecting these investigations is contained in Eschricht and Reinhardt's memoir, published by the Ray Society in 1866; and many interesting particulars have since been brought to light respecting the whale fishery so far as it relates to

*By Clements R. Markham, C.B., F.R.S. Read at the Zoological Society, December 13. Revised by

the author.

fern and heather and bushes of arbutus and myrtle. In some places the chestnut groves come down almost to the water's edge. Along this coast there are many small fishing-towns. Fuenterrabia, on its frontier. Following the coast to the westpicturesque hill, overlooks the French

comes the city of San Sebastian, which Zarauz is a town stretching along the was the centre of the old whale fishery. shores of a sandy bay. Guetaria is built in a cleft of rocks which are sheltered behind the island of San Anton. Zumaya and Deva are at the mouths of rivers; and Motrico is a picturesque little town built on steep slopes like Clovelly, overlooking a rocky bay. These are the ports of Guipuzcoa.

Andarroa, at the mouth of its river, where small schooners are still built, is the first port of Vizcaya, coming from the east. Lequeitio is a large and more important place, sending out about a hundred