can think of none like her, but of many to contrast with her in that
respect. Fanny Burney, afterwards Madame D'Arblay, was at an early age
petted by Dr. Johnson, and introduced to the wits and scholars of the day
at the tables of Mrs. Thrale and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Anna Seward, in
her self-constituted shrine at Lichfield, would have been miserable, had
she not trusted that the eyes of all lovers of poetry were devoutly fixed
on her. Joanna Baillie and Maria Edgeworth were indeed far from courting
publicity; they loved the privacy of their own families, one with her
brother and sister in their Hampstead villa, the other in her more
distant retreat in Ireland; but fame pursued them, and they were the
favourite correspondents of Sir Walter Scott. Crabbe, who was usually
buried in a country parish, yet sometimes visited London, and dined at
Holland House, and was received as a fellow-poet by Campbell, Moore, and
Rogers; and on one memorable occasion he was Scott's guest at Edinburgh,
and gazed with wondering eyes on the incongruous pageantry with which
George IV. was entertained in that city. Even those great writers who
hid themselves amongst lakes and mountains associated with each other;
and though little seen by the world were so much in its thoughts that a
new term, 'Lakers,' was coined to designate them. The chief part of
Charlotte Bronte's life was spent in a wild solitude compared with which
Steventon and Chawton might be considered to be in the gay world; and yet
she attained to personal distinction which never fell to Jane's lot. When
she visited her kind publisher in London, literary men and women were
invited purposely to meet her: Thackeray bestowed upon her the honour of
his notice; and once in Willis's Rooms, {117} she had to walk shy and
trembling through an avenue of lords and ladies, drawn up for the purpose
of gazing at the author of 'Jane Eyre.' Miss Mitford, too, lived quietly
in 'Our Village,' devoting her time and talents to the benefit of a
father scarcely worthy of her; but she did not live there unknown. Her
tragedies gave her a name in London. She numbered Milman and Talfourd