JANE AUSTEN AT LYME 229 



sweeps of country, and still more its sweet retired 

 bay, backed by dark cliffs, where fragments of low 

 rock among the sands make it the happiest spot for 

 watching the flow of the tide, for sitting in unwearied 

 contemplation ; the woody varieties of the cheerful 

 village of Up Lyme, and, above all, Pinny with its 

 green chasms between romantic rocks, where the scat- 

 tered forest trees and orchards of luxuriant growth 

 declare that many a generation must have passed away 

 since the first partial falling of the cliff prepared the 

 ground for such a state, where a scene so wonderful 

 and so lovely is exhibited, as may more than equal 

 any of the resembling scenes in the far-famed Isle of 

 Wight: these places must be visited and visited again 

 to make the worth of Lyme better understood." 



It was in the autumn of 1804 — thirteen years before 

 Persuasion was finished — that Jane Austen spent a 

 few weeks with her father and mother at Lyme, and 

 it is to the strong impression then received that we 

 owe the above graphic description. We venture to 

 offer the present paper as a simple, but not, we trust, 

 uninteresting commentary on this unique passage in 

 her writings. 



Lyme Regis still remains an old-world town, quaint 

 and picturesque ; changed, indeed, since the visit of 

 Jane Austen, but not yet vulgarised by modern improve- 

 ments. Now, as then, the principal street of the little 

 town almost hurries into the water, while the walk to 

 the Cobb, " skirting round the pleasant little bay," is 

 as picturesque as when the party from Uppercross 

 strolled along it that late autumn afternoon. The 

 cliffs above are yellow in summer-time with wild 

 brassica and melilot, and the beach below is animated 

 as in 1804 with bathing-machines and company. The 



