] I am relatively new to JA, my first read being (I think) about 4 months ago. I have now read P&P twice and NA twice, and all the others except MP, which I am working on at present.

Good heavens, Justin! That's a lot of JA reading in a very short time. ;-) Have you tackled any of the juvenalia yet? It is very similar in tone to NA - lots of parody and irony. I think you'd like it. There's is quite a bit of it available at Jane Info.

] His situation perhaps is unique in that he is a more experieced man of the world dealing with a naive young lady (the most immature of JA's heroines so far.)

Another thing that enforces this feeling that Henry is a "man of the world" is the setting. All JA's other books take place in small country villages, but more than half of NA takes place in Bath, a large, fashionable city. We know that Darcy, for example, spends time in London, but we never see him there. We see Henry navigating social shoals in a way that none of JA's other heroes do, and I think this adds to the feeling that Henry is more worldly, though he is a clergyman. ;-)

The fact that he is paired with Catherine, JA's least worldly heroine (yes, even more than Fanny, for she see things at MP that Catherine would not have at Fullerton), and that much of their interaction can be viewed as instructive also reinforces this idea.