During the eighteenth century, amateurs as well as philosophers ventured critical commentary on the arts. Talk concerning taste or beauty or the sublime was so much a part of general discourse that even novelists of that era incorporated such subjects in their work. So it would not be surprising to find that perspectives on aesthetics are sometimes presented in the novels of Jane Austen. In this article, the author argues that the strongest correlations and correspondences are in fact between Austen's and Hume's positions on aesthetics. Evidence in support of a Kantian analysis is first canvassed and later compared with claims in favor of a Humean alternative. The author establishes that the positions on taste and beauty and delicacy that are explicitly stated in or can be inferred from Austen's novels fit a Humean model--and fit it with a fair degree of precision. In doing so, she hopes to demonstrate a correspondence strong enough to serve as the staging area for the further speculations that constitute the second thesis of this article. The effort is not to establish some exclusive series of correspondences between Jane Austen's and Hume's normative stance, either in ethical or in aesthetic contexts, but to make a point about degree of fit, the case for which is largely cumulative. (Contains 25 notes.)