A Memoir of Jane Austen

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40
Early Compositions
the time she was sixteen.° Her earliest stories are of a slight
and flimsy texture, and are generally intended to be nonsensical,
but the nonsense has much spirit in it. They are usually
preceded by a dedication of mock solemnity to some one of
her family. It would seem that the grandiloquent dedications
prevalent in those days had not escaped her youthful penetration.
Perhaps the most characteristic feature in these early productions
is that, however puerile the matter, they are always
composed in pure simple English, quite free from the overornamented
style which might be expected from so young a
writer. One of her juvenile effusions is given, as a specimen of
the kind of transitory amusement which Jane was continually
supplying to the family party.
THE MYSTERY.°
AN UNFINISHED COMEDY.
DEDICATION.
T O THE R EV. G EORGE A USTEN.
SIR,–– I humbly solicit your patronage to the following Comedy,
which, though an unfinished one, is, I flatter myself, as complete a
Mystery as any of its kind.
I am, Sir, your most humble Servant,
THE AUTHOR.
THE MYSTERY, A COMEDY.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
Men.
Women.
Col. ELLIOTT.
FANNY ELLIOTT.
OLD HUMBUG.
Mrs. HUMBUG
YOUNG HUMBUG.
and
Sir EDWARD SPANGLE DAPHNE.
and
CORYDON.