Part 55 (1/2)

They all spent the evening together at Thorpe's

It see other than 'at the Thorpes''; but no edition has had the courage to e

4 Chapter XIII:--

And with these words she broke away and hurried off Thorpe would have darted after her, but Morland withheld hio She is as obstinate as----'

Thorpe never finished the simile, for it could hardly have been a proper one

So the first edition reads, followed by Bentley and the Winchester Edition The Haives 'Morland,' and this seems the natural solution The only alternative is to break up the sentence thus:--

but Morland withheld hio, if she will' 'She is as obstinate as----'

Thorpe never finished the simile, &c

But this does not seeine that the impropriety of the si it

5 Chapter XXII:--

And for his part, to his uncritical palate, the tea was as well flavoured from the clay of Staffordshi+re as from that of Dresden or Seve But this was quite an old set, purchased two years ago

So the first edition, and the Hampshi+re and Winchester Editions; but Bentley emends to 'Sevres,' which must surely be correct

6 Chapter XXVI:--

By ten o'clock the chaise-and-four conveyed the two froreeable drive of almost twenty miles, they entered Woodston, &c

So all the editions; but is not 'two' a misprint for 'trio'--ie

General Tilney, Eleanor, and Catherine? It is certain that Eleanor was of the party, for we read a little later: 'His son and daughter's observations were of a different kind They had seldom seen him eat so heartily at any table but his own'; nor is there anything to show that General Tilney rode on horseback

For an example of the use of the word 'trio' by Jane Austen, see _Mansfield Park_, chapter xxix: 'They were now a miserable trio'

'PERSUASION'

1 Chapter I: The Ha the first edition, print the opening passage as follows:--

Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshi+re, was a man who, for his own ae; where he found occupation for an idle hour and consolation in a distressed one; there his faculties were roused into ad the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any unwelcoed naturally into pity and contempt As he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century, and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed: this was the page at which his favourite volume always opened

This obviously ht than Macaulay belongs the credit of putting it right

Some of his old friends (says Sir G O Trevelyan in his _Life of Macaulay_[373]) may remember how he prided hie of _Persuasion_ which he maintained to be worthy of Bentley, and which undoubtedly fulfils all the conditions required to establish the credit of an emendation; for, without the alteration of a word, or even of a letter, it turns into perfectly intelligible coht to have puzzled, two generations of Miss Austen's readers

And in a footnote, Sir George says:--

A slight change in the punctuation effects all that is required According to Macaulay the sentence was intended by its author to run thus: 'There any unwelcoed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with an interest which never failed This was the page at which his favourite volume opened'

Whether or not the emendation would have satisfied Bentley the critic, it eventually satisfied Bentley the publisher, who adopted it in his later editions