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She knew enough to feel secure of an honourable and speedy establishment, and her imagination took a rapid flight over its attendant felicities. She saw herself at the end of a few weeks, the gaze and admiration of every new acquaintance at Fullerton, the envy of every valued old friend in Putney, with a carriage at her command, a new name on her tickets, and a brilliant exhibition of hoop rings on her finger.
Northanger Abbey, Chapter 15
Ah, Isabella Thorpe, one of my favourite of all Jane Austen’s adventuresses…imagining with some relish, the materially rich life she will enjoy with James Morland as his wife and helpmeet.
A severe reality check is needed: and Jane Austen duly gives her one.
What Isabella is imagining in this passage are the trappings of a very rich woman,-the establishment, the household, the new carriage, the whole package, if you like. Sadly for her what she is imagining, and very prettily so may I note, is the life of a rich woman, not the life of a wife of a lowly curate, or rector of a living with a small income….Ahem.
Let’s consider the type of Jewellery she was fantasizing about, shall we?
and a brilliant exhibition of hoop rings on her finger.
Hoop ring is a generic term for rings set with stones in the manner pictured above, or simple, plain gold hoops like a plain wedding ring. In Jane Austen’s era that they were not necessarily given to mark one event, like an engagement ring. That term is very Victorian, by the way , and that is one of the reasons Jane Austen would not have referred to it as such- “engagement ring” : its first usage in the English language according to the Oxford English Dictionary is in 1861 (by George Elliot in Slias Marner) ,well after our time period.
Rings were undoubtedly given as tokens of love during our era.
Sentimental Jewellery, as it as known, was very popular:
In the eighteenth century the ring was still the most significant of all love tokens, its unbroken circle continuing to stand for mutual commitment and eternal regard. From the 1790s the message was sometimes reinforced by a clever arrangement of coloured stones, the initial letters of which spell a term of endearment. Typically they are as follows:
Ruby, Emerald, Garnet, Amethyst, Ruby and Diamond for Regard;
(A REGARD ring from my own collection)
Amethyst, Malachite, Jacinth, Turquoise and Emerald for Amite;
Lapis, Opal, Vermeil (a misnomer for a hessonite garnet) and Emerald for Love.
Sometimes the stones would be arranged in the form of a pansy flower called pensee in French, standing for “think of the giver”.
(See: The Triumph of Love: Jewellery 1530-1930 by Geoffrey Munn, page 57)
Plain gold hoop rings( like modern plain wedding rings) could be inscribed with lovers messages, and were known as “posey rings”. There is an 18th century “posey” ring- the term meant “little poems”-in the collection at Grimsthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire with an inscription engraved on the inside as follows:
THO FARE (sic) APART YET NEAR IN HEART
That the tradition continued ( but with not much effect, in this particular case ) is illustrated by the fact that a gold hoop ring romantically engraved with the motto, SANS PEUR” which alluded to the ideals of knights in the age of chivalry, was given to Lord Byron by Anne Isabella Milbanke in 1815.
Posey rings were also used as wedding rings.
Interestingly George III began the trend for an additional “keeper ring”( and it is from this that our modern eternity ring has evolved). On his marriage to Queen Charlotte on the 8th September 1761 in addition to a wedding ring, (and a magnificent collection of other types of jewellery) he gave her what was known as a “keeper ring” pictured below. It is still in the Royal Collection:
Mrs Papenidck , assistant keeper of the wardrobe and reader to Queen Charlotte, recorded in her diary that it was the King’s
“particular present to his bride”
and that it was a diamond hoop ring of a size designed not to stand higher than the wedding ring to which it was to serve as a guard. She added that:
On that finger the Queen never allowed herself to wear any other in addition although fashion at times almost demanded it.
Throughout the whole Georgina era, fashion certainly demanded that a profusion of rings be worn. Here is what William Taylor, a footman in service with Mrs Prinsep, a widow of a rich London business man, had to say about her and her friends fashion for wearing many rings:
Dressed up monstrous fine with their jewellery I took notice how many rings there were on th fingers of four of these old cats as I call them, and there were no less than thirty one, some wedding some mounring, and others set with diamonds and precious stones of great value.
(see The Dairy of William Tayler, Footman (1827)
The construction of hoop rings positively encouraged the wearing of many rings at one time. As Diana Scarisbrick notes in her magnificent book, Jewellery in Britain:
The new style of the Georgian era, emphasizing width rather than length meant that more than one ring could be worn on the finger, and hoops, enameled or set with stones or pearls round half the entire circumference were very popular.
(See page 362-3 Jewellery in Britain 1066-1837 by Diana Scarisbrick.)
Here are some example of ”what fashion demanded”: first, Ingres’ portrait of Marie Marcoz, Vicontesse de Senonnes (1816).
And here is a close up of her hands so that you can see the plethora of fashionable rings clearly:
This is Sir Thomas Lawrence’ portrait of Princess Sophia, daughter of George III and sister to the Prince of Wales
and a close up of her hand
and finally his portrait of Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire in 1819
and a close up of her hoops, at least one on every finger, note:
So, there you are…hoops, posey and “regard” rings and other rings in profusion , yes , should Isabella marry a rich man 
I wonder if she ever managed it……
So , now we know what the structure of General Tinley’s kitchen at Northanger might have resembled….we really ought to consider what modern gadgets the General might have in his deceptively ancient kitchen…no turnspit dogs or crones tending spits of roasting meats, that is certain.
No, he had a full staff- I love the image of footmen slinking around corridors,out of their livery….
The number of servants continually appearing did not strike her less than the number of their offices. Wherever they went, some pattened girl stopped to curtsy, or some footman in dishabille sneaked off.
So..what wonderful devices would these staff be using in this very busy kitchen(for woe betide any meals being served late in this particular household)…Let’s see…
He would most probably have installed an up to the minute range oven. Though they are often thought of as being essential items in a Victorian kitchen, cast iron ranges were in fact innovations of the Georgian period.
They really needed coal to fuel them- wood or turf burned on open hearths. And it wasn’t until the development of the railway system in Britain in the 1840s that the use of cast iron ranges –large or small- became widespread with the easy availability of coal, which was then easily transported about the whole country.
This is the trade card of Underwood and Co, who were ironmongers in Bristol from 1812 to 1828, and so might have supplied the General with his ovens at Northanger, which was situated in the nearby Severn estuary plains of Gloucestershire. They operated from Charles Street which at the time contained some of Bristol’s finest shops.
The kitchen grate they illustrate here has a hot plate on the right and a perpetual oven on the left. The advert also shows smoke jacks-which did away with the necessity for scullions or dogs turning the spit- roasted meat. These kitchen ranges were capable of generating great heat,and were designed to undertake the task of boiling and roasting. The original ranges, dating from the late 18th century had no provision for delicate cooking -making sauces or simmering- and eventually a stewing stove was introduced combining a kitchen gratw with ovens in order to have all the elements one needed to cook in one place.
John Farley in his book The General View of Agriculture in Derbyshire (1813) wrote of the history of the development of range cookers as follows:
About the year 1778 cast iron ovens began to be made at the Griffin Foundry now Messrs Ebenezer Smith and Company and to be set by the side of the grates at the public houses and some farm houses as to be heated by the fire in the grate when a small damper in the flue is drawn and about ten years after square iron boilers with lids were introduced to be set at the end of a fire grate and these have spread so amazingly that there is scare a house without these even of cottage of the first class…
Thomas Robinson patented a range in 1780 and it looked like this:
As you can see the closed oven was heated by the fire burning around one of its walls. This made for a very uneven heat,and this fault was not effectively remedied until the second quarter of the 19th century.
So what could the General’s oven range have looked like? Would it have resembled one of these above?
I wonder….
Now we know, for Jane Austen tells us, that the General was a fan of Count Rumford’s inventions. We are told that instead of seeing massive open hearths in the drawing-room, the view that struck Catherine’s Morland’s disappointed eyes was a Rumford fireplace:
An abbey! Yes, it was delightful to be really in an abbey! But she doubted, as she looked round the room, whether anything within her observation would have given her the consciousness. The furniture was in all the profusion and elegance of modern taste. The fireplace, where she had expected the ample width and ponderous carving of former times, was contracted to a Rumford, with slabs of plain though handsome marble, and ornaments over it of the prettiest English china.
Northanger Abbey, Chapter 20
What she saw was a Rumford hearth. Here is a caricature of Count Rumford standing before one of his fireplaces,which made more economic use of fuel-the heat as you can see was directed into the room and did not dissipate into a large hearth and up to the chimney:
America- born Benjamin Thompson, Count von Rumford, lived from 1753-1814. He not only invented this efficient fireplace, but also in his book, Essays Political Economical and Philosophical (1802) he wrote about many topics and the tenth essay deals with the Construction of Kitchen Fireplaces and Kitchen Utensils.
He was of the opinion that each cooking vessel should have its own separate closed fireplace, the door , its grate and ash-pit should be fitted with a draught controlling register and its flue with a damper. Fireplaces over 8 to 10 inches in diameter should be fueled from openings just above the level of the grate , smaller ones being fed from the top. Portable boilers and stew pans should be circular and suspended deep inside the fireplace . All boilers or stew pans should have well insulated lids preferably of double tinplate construction.
Here is an engraving of his patent kitchen stove,
(Do remember all these illustrations can be enlarged: just click on them)
And this is a clearer drawing of it:
The principle behind this strange looking contraption was that by finely controlling the fires, food could be cooked at just under boiling point- thereby making the food tender, juicy and more flavoursome than conventional ranges which could dry out the meat etc. .His stove also was very economical with regard to fuel-for the boilers and stew pans were completely sunk within their fireplaces, thus not much heat escaped ,and all as used effectivley.
These stove were as you can see very complex to operate. There were a total of fourteen individual fires which of course meant that there were fourteen draught controls, fourteen individual cooking vessels and 14 dampers to oversee. And that was probably their downfall for by 1840 they were quite forgotten. They were sold from 1799 by a Mr Sumner, an ironmonger, of New Bond Street London. And he installed one of these fantastical ranges in his own kitchen there, where it could be seen in action by prospective customers. Shades of modern Aga showrooms….
He sold 260 of these ovens,and similar success was reported by outlets for the stoves in Edinburgh and provincal cities. But by the mid 19th century, they had completely fallen out of favour.
So that could be what General Tilney’s stove looked like….I pity the poor harassed cook, frankly, working in the heat and under the stress of being on time-for the General certainly loved punctuality.
So what else would the General have had in his up to the minute kitchen?
I have to include this illustration of an early 19th century plate warmer: I think it is fabulous:
I do hope the General had at least one of these
I love the fact that by mentioning Rumfords- with the possibility of not only the Count’s fireplaces but his stoves being in use at Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen agains demonstrates to us just how to the minute she was.
If you would like to read more about innovations in the early 19th century kitchen and more of the type of gadgets the General may have had in his kitchen than I can do no better than recommend this book, from where some of the information for this post has been taken: Over A Red Hot Stove ,edited by Ivan Day and published by Prospect Books.
This is a fascinating collection of essays based on papers presented at the 19th and 20th Leeds Symposia on FoodHistory held between 2004 and 2005. It is quite technical and intricate and probably only for the food history obsessive like myself, but if you want to learn in great detail about the development of kitchen ranges, Ox roasts, the massive roast beef prepared at Windsor Castle, the history of clockwork jacks and how to bake in a beehive oven, then this book is for you.
Yesterday we explored the kind of kitchen that Catherine Morland hoped would be on display at Northanger Abbey…poor soul.
What she finds is the complete opposite of what she expected: all her hopes, based on her readings of horrid novels, led her to believe abbeys were staffed by a few ancient servants and meals were cooked in similarly ancient mouldering rooms:
With the walls of the kitchen ended all the antiquity of the abbey; the fourth side of the quadrangle having, on account of its decaying state, been removed by the general’s father, and the present erected in its place. All that was venerable ceased here. The new building was not only new, but declared itself to be so; intended only for offices, and enclosed behind by stable–yards, no uniformity of architecture had been thought necessary. Catherine could have raved at the hand which had swept away what must have been beyond the value of all the rest, for the purposes of mere domestic economy; and would willingly have been spared the mortification of a walk through scenes so fallen, had the general allowed it; but if he had a vanity, it was in the arrangement of his offices; and as he was convinced that, to a mind like Miss Morland’s, a view of the accommodations and comforts, by which the labours of her inferiors were softened, must always be gratifying, he should make no apology for leading her on. They took a slight survey of all; and Catherine was impressed, beyond her expectation, by their multiplicity and their convenience. The purposes for which a few shapeless pantries and a comfortless scullery were deemed sufficient at Fullerton, were here carried on in appropriate divisions, commodious and roomy. The number of servants continually appearing did not strike her less than the number of their offices. Wherever they went, some pattened girl stopped to curtsy, or some footman in dishabille sneaked off. Yet this was an abbey! How inexpressibly different in these domestic arrangements from such as she had read about — from abbeys and castles, in which, though certainly larger than Northanger, all the dirty work of the house was to be done by two pair of female hands at the utmost. How they could get through it all had often amazed Mrs. Allen; and, when Catherine saw what was necessary here, she began to be amazed herself.
Before we discuss the modern kitchen, I think we ought to consider the domestic offices which so baffled Catherine ;what would they have been like?
Northanger Abbey is clearly built around a quadrangle, and the modern block of domestic offices makes up one whole side. Katherine is used to having only a scullery and some pantries at home at the rectory at Fullerton:she is not used to the way the domestic offices of the rich were arranged in the late 18th /early 19th centuries.
Let’s see if we can try and envisage what the General’s Domestic Offices looked like…..
This illustration is taken from my copy of The Country House Kitchen by Pamela Sambrook and Peter Brears, and shows the type of rooms that amazed poor Catherine. Do remember, all the illustrations here can be enlarged by clicking on them)
There are two plans, showing two sets of domestic offices. The basement floor of Harewood House in Yorkshire the homes of the Lascelles family,
which was designed by John Carr between 1759-1791. Here are links to its Still Room, Kitchen, Servants Hall, Steward’s Room, Pastry Roomand Vegetable scullery
and Newnham in Oxfordshire built 1759-71.
The codes for the rooms are as follows:
BH- Bake House
BP- Butler’s Pantry
C -Cellars
D- Dairy
HR-Housekeepers Room
K – Kitchen
L – Larder
PS- Pastry
S- Store
SR -Steward’s Room
ST- Still Room
VG -Ventilation Gap
At Petworth in Sussex,
…this was the plan of the domestic offices which were built in a block separate to the main house:
You can clearly see that a large, rich household required more than a scullery and pantries to support its exalted way of life.
And of course all this impressive newness set amidst an old abbey might have been inspired by Jane Austen’s knowledge of and visit to such a place-Stoneleigh Abbey in Warwickshire- which she visited in 1806.
The Austen ladies-Jane and Cassandra plus Mrs Austen- went there to accompany their cousin, the Reverend Thomas Leigh to ensure his inheritance to the property. You can see from my photograph above that behind the classical frontage of the house there is a range of ancient, medieval buildings which were part of the original abbey.
Here is a drawing of that range:
This is a plan drawn up by architects to the trust which converted Stoneleigh into a number of individual residences, and you can see that Stoneleigh is also built- like Northanger- around a quadrangle :
Mrs Austen left us a magically detailed letter -dated August 13th 1806- to her daughter-in-law, Mary Austen, second wife of James, and she found while exploring the abbey she thought inextricably of Gothic imagery:
Behind the smaller drawing room is the state bed chamber, with a high dark crimson velvet bed: an alarming apartment just fit for a heroine…
And she found the sheer size of the place, especially the domestic offices, almost intimidating: I say almost for I think very little intimidated Mrs Austen:
We can now find our way about it, I mean the best part; as to the offices (which were the old Abbey) Mr Leigh almost despairs of ever finding his way about them. I have proposed his setting up directing posts at the Angles.
And the range of breakfast food available to them, quite astounding:
At nine in the morning we meet and say our prayers in a handsome chapel, the pulpit etc now hung with black. Then follows breakfast, consisting of chocolate coffee and tea, plumb cake, pound cake, hot rolls cold rolls, bread and butter and dry toast for me. The House-Steward (a fine large respectable looking man) orders all these matters.
I think Jane Austen turned her experience of Stoneleigh Abbey upside down when writing Northanger Abbey . At Stoneleigh there was an ancient range of buildings completing the quadrangle ( unlike at Northanger ) and also an amazing number of domestic offices. I must admit to loving this section of Northanger Abbey, where poor old Catherine’s imagination is stymied at every turn. Her limited domestic experience is confounded by what she sees at Northanger: to imagine that large households were managed by two female embers of staff- her impression of life in an abbey is of course based on her reading of her horrid books-is not wise.Even that dullard Mrs Allen had doubted they portrayed real life! Poor Catherine is about to receive an almighty shock when she goes hunting around Mrs Tilney’s bedroom….letting her imagination run riot, so that it impinges on real life…not a good idea.
How inexpressibly different in these domestic arrangements from such as she had read about — from abbeys and castles, in which, though certainly larger than Northanger, all the dirty work of the house was to be done by two pair of female hands at the utmost. How they could get through it all had often amazed Mrs. Allen; and, when Catherine saw what was necessary here, she began to be amazed herself.
Now we have seen exactly what constituted a grand range of domestic offices , tomorrow what we shall explore what modern innovations were available in General Tilney’s kitchen…which was only a tiny part of the Northanger Abbey Domestic Offices.
From the dining–room, of which, though already seen, and always to be seen at five o’clock, the general could not forgo the pleasure of pacing out the length, for the more certain information of Miss Morland, as to what she neither doubted nor cared for, they proceeded by quick communication to the kitchen — the ancient kitchen of the convent, rich in the massy walls and smoke of former days, and in the stoves and hot closets of the present. The general’s improving hand had not loitered here: every modern invention to facilitate the labour of the cooks had been adopted within this, their spacious theatre; and, when the genius of others had failed, his own had often produced the perfection wanted. His endowments of this spot alone might at any time have placed him high among the benefactors of the convent.
Northanger Abbey, Chapter 23
The relentlessly improving hand of the General at Northanger reigns down on Catherine’s wild imaginings about abbeys: she is very soon disabused of her romantic notions as she tours the Abbey with the General in Chapter 23.
We will look at the improvements the General may have added to his kitchen tomorrow, but today I’d like to try and imagine what Catherine Morland would have liked to have seen, instead of being confronted by a gleaming range of very modern conveniences.
I think she might probably have imagined a room that looked something like this:
(Do remember you can enlarge all these illustrations , in order to examine the detail, merely by clicking on them)
This is the rather magnificent kitchen not of an abbey, but of Burghley House in Lincolnshire the home of the Cecil family.
It is one of the oldest parts of the building, built circa 1555.
The ceiling, as you can see, is appropriately fan vaulted, and has a very tall roof- complete with glazed lantern. This enabled the smoke and fumes from the large kitchen fires, necessary for the cooking of the meat for the household, to rise and escape.
It also has some other “Gothic”-touches : the massive oil painting of a butchered oxen…
…and a chimney fire breast decorated with skulls…how horrid.
These were the skulls of turtles ..used for making turtle soups….
And placed above, a stern warning notice from His Lordship to the staff …Would you join the company of skulls if you disobeyed? *shudder* It brings to mind shades of Mrs Norris, frankly. How horrid
And what would be cooking in this dark and mysterious place?
Suckling pig…?
(Do please click on the video to make it play)
On a spit hand in front of a roaring blaze, turned by some small child or dog?
Served on a large platter?
Of course, Catherine saw none of this……what she did see, we shall discover tomorrow…..
If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to — Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?
Northanger Abbey, Chapter 24
(The fateful moment in Chapter 24 as illustrated by Joan Hassell for the
Folio Society’s edition of the Complete Works of Jane Austen)
And so with words of wisdom and not a little exasperation Henry Tilney neatly skewers Catherine Morland’s fervid imaginings, the result of letting her imagination run wild, fueled as it was with the influence of the Gothic romances of the time:
Oh! I would not tell you what is behind the black veil for the world! Are not you wild to know?”
“Oh! Yes, quite; what can it be? But do not tell me — I would not be told upon any account. I know it must be a skeleton, I am sure it is Laurentina’s skeleton. Oh! I am delighted with the book! I should like to spend my whole life in reading it. I assure you, if it had not been to meet you, I would not have come away from it for all the world.”
“Dear creature! How much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho, we will read the Italian together; and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you.”
“Have you, indeed! How glad I am! What are they all?”
“I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocketbook. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries. Those will last us some time.”
“Yes, pretty well; but are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid?”
Northanger Abbey, Chapter 6
The craze for gothic literature, as depicted rather affectionately but ultimately scornfully by Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey was of course only one side of that particular coin.
The craze was reflected in art of the period too.
Today we really find it difficult I think to realise why the reaction to the Gothic then was so extreme. I think it might be helpful to look at one picture which is representative of the genre and its story , for it helps explain some of the attitudes of the late 18th early 19th century towards these novels/pictures.
One of the most shocking of all the Gothic images was this picture by Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare,
which was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Show of 1782.
Henry Fuseli – portrayed below by James Northcote in 1778- was an artist who had no formal art education.
Born in Zürich in 1741 and originally destined for a career in the church he took Holy Orders in 1761 He then travelled to England in 1765 and on the advice of Sir Joshua Reynolds decided to make art his career. He made a tour of Italy to study the art and classical ruins and returned to England in 1778.
Among the usual fare of the exhibition- landscapes and portraits- this picture certainly stood out from the others, even those with a Gothic tinge like this one by Phillip de Loutherberg, the artist and theatrical designer,
The Nightmare ,as you can clearly see above, portrays a young girl sleeping with an incubus squatting down on her abdomen, looking out of the painting towards the viewer, together with a spectral horse’s head, complete with bulging white eyes.
Horace Walpole, author of the first gothic novel The Castel of Otranto( more on this later) summed up his feeling on this picture quite succinctly by adding this word alongside the description of the picture in his copy of the catalogue of the exhibition
Shocking.
Debate began as to what exactly Fuseli was actually painting: a scene from literature? Something inspired by a scene from Shakespeare- Queen Mab/Romeo and Juliet? Or, horrors, something from his own imagination meant to provoke feelings of revulsion in the audience ?
The proper view to then taken upon artistic subjects was that it was acceptable to paint and create works of art that evoked extremes of feeling-such as terror, for example- but not to create works of art that evoked feelings of horror or disgust. There the line was drawn in the sand. This picture to the late 18th century eye, crossed that particular line.
The debate about the merits of the picture was carried out in the press, notably the Morning Chronicle and of course this fuelled interest in this uneasy picture.
After the debate began , visitors figures to the Royal Academy show rose. The first pieces about the painting appeared in the Morning Chronicle on May 8th.
On May 9th, the day after the first of the Morning Chronicles pieces about the painting 2 713 people were recorded as having visited the exhibition (the average daily intake of people was 1782.) The final day attracted 5085 crowding to see it.
There is no doubt that this picture created a sensation.
It became very popular as a print. It is thought that over 2000 engravings were made initially of the painting in 1783,and sold for five shillings each. A pirate edition as issued in Paris. New authorised editions were issued from 1803 onwards, and eventually its fame spread,via the distribution of the prints across Europe and into America, far and wide.
Attacks were made on it, especially after the connection between the picture and its probable subject matter -sex- was made.
The Reverend Robert Bromley Rector of St Mildred’s in the Poultry, raised the moral standard and set to to attack a picture, which appeared to him to vary from the norm most spectacularly because it appeared to have no moral, instructive or educational foundation :
The dignity of moral instruction is degraded whenever the pencil is employed on frivolous whimsical and unmeaning subjects…The Nightmare…or any dream that is not marked in authentic history as combined with the inspiring dispensations of Providence and many other pieces of a visionary and fanciful nature, are speculators…if it be right to follow Nature, there is nothing of her here, all that is presented is a reverie of the brain…mere waking dreams as wild as the conceits of a madman
( See: A Philosophical and Critical History of the Fine Arts Painting Sculpture and Architecture, 1793).
Fuseli tried to defend himself and devoted a whole Royal Academy lecture on painting to the theme of invented subjects, asking the audience to question why it was not considered acceptable to paint subjects coined from the imagination, and not from reference to nature, or literature:
Why not if the subject be within the limits of art and the combinations of nature, though it should have escaped observation? Shall the immediate avenues of the mind, open to all observers from the poet to the novelist be shut only to the artist…for if these images so pursue us when our minds are in a kind of waking dream and all this with an air of unreality why , should we not turn to use this vice of the mind?
The debate surrounding this picture still continued into the 20th and 21st centuries.
And of course, all this debate around art, explains some of the responses to the Gothic literature of the time. It was different (and possibly thought of as dangerous by morlalists) because it evoked feelings in the reader that are not associated with the Classics, with Shakespeare etc.
It was( and is, in some ways ) slightly daring to read these books and to contemplate this type of art……Which makes this type of literature perfect fodder for impressionable teenagers. Which Jane Austen knew well. Or as in this print by James Gillray shows, has attractions for mature ladies who should know better than to give themselves thrills by reading The Monk late at night by candlelight
No wonder Jane Austen wrote her cautionary tale If you would like to read more on this subject, then I can reccommend looking at the catalogue to a Tate Gallery exhibition about it entitled Gothic Nightmares
Sadly, it appears now to be out of print and the few copies available are consequently ferociously expensive.
A much cheaper alternative is to view the on-line exhibit that accompanied the original exhibition, which was held at Tate Brtiain in 20o6 and is still -praise be- available at the Tate’s website here..
Do you dare do it?
I was lucky enough to receive a Kindle for Christmas.
It has transformed my reading habits. Small and light enough to be carried in my handbag wherever I go, as a result of owning it I’ve read far more than I ever did before. Its long battery life and the addition of a rather spiffy case with an integrated reading light have made me a very happy woman.
I downladed the complete works of Jane Austen (naturally, and within the first five minutes of owning it) for a song, but am terribly excited by the news, related to me by my dear friend Karen of Bookish NYC, that the British Library is going to make lots of 19th century fiction available as free downloads for Kindle users.
I cannot ever contemplate buying a first edition of a Jane Austen novel (I’d rather keep the roof above my head in good order instead ) but I do own a facsimile copy of the first edition of Pride and Prejudice which was produced by the British Library in a limited edition(and is still available to buy).
If the new e- books are of the same quality I will be happy.
And I really do look forward to the paperback facsimiles of the first editions too .
Brava British Library!
As the most recent adaptation of Emma ends its current screening on PBS tonight, this marks the end of the AustenOnly Emma season of posts. I do hope you have enjoyed them.
From tomorrow we shall begin a short Northanger Abbey season, for as I understand it, the next Austen production to be screened by PBS will be the ITV adaptation of Northanger Abbey starring Felicity Jones and JJ Feild.
I do hope you will join me for some Gothically inspired posts….don’t be afriad now, will you?
This is a very interesting book, written by Doctor SusannaWade Martins of the University of East Anglia.
Throughout her career she has studied the Holkham estate in some detail, and therefor it is highly appropriate that she has written the first biography of Thomas Coke-Coke of Norfolk-in over a hundred years.
And it is of interest to anyone who has read Jane Austen’s books and has wondered what exactly did Mr knightly do? How would Elizabeth and Darcy have spent their time at Pemberley? What was Darcy’s life like before he met Elizabeth? What should Henry Crawford have been doing at this estate at Everingham?
I know from my experience in the past ten years with online Austen communities that speculation about these pressing questions continues apace amongst those of us who are interested in these characters and their lives.
Reading this book will , in my opinion give you one of the best impressions of the type of life they might have led, in one single, very readable, affordable volume.
Now, do note, I am certainly not arguing that Coke of Norfolk was the basis for any of Jane Austen’s landowning charcters.What I am saying is that reading this book will give a good over view of the type of life these characters may have led on their estates in the English countryside,and instead of trawling though many varied books to try an understand just what that life was like , you can now purchase this one volume as a starting point and be very well served by it.
Thomas Coke inherited, in 1776, the great Holkham estate with as its magnificent centre piece of this Palladian mansion, designed by Matthew Brettingham
It was in wonderful heart. He continued to improve it and the conditions of his tenant farms, wanting to encourage gentlemen into the profession to raise standards of his tenantry and consequently of his farms and stock. The detail of how this improvement was achieved- by buildings, lease terms etc- is chronicled in a clear and very readable manner by Doctor Matins,
Prior to inheriting, Coke he lived the life of an upper class gentleman, being educated on a Grand Tour
Here he is, above, as depicted by Pompeo Batoni while in Rome.
And then he entered politics. He was a Whig supporter all his life and was vociferously opposed to the war with America ,talking the side of the colonists. He also supported the abolition of the slave trade, the emancipation of Catholics and parliamentary reform.
Here is his political map of Norfolk drawn up for Coke by Humphrey Repton-also from Norfolk- who was a parliamentary agent prior to gaining fame-and mentions in Mansfield Park- as the first “landscape designer’.It was designed and commissioned to show the extent of political interest of both the Tory and Whig parties in Norfolk:
This book covers his personal life as well as his political life and there it is of great interest to those of us who wonder how Darcy and Elizabeth would have organised their domestic life at Pemberley. Family life for the Cokes was concentrated mainly around Holkham and the orgnaisiation of the domestic life of the house was firmly in the hands of many capable women-namely Cokes first wife and his daughter who took over the domestic reigns on her mother’s death. Doctor Martins gives a detailed account of estate life from the point of view of the women in the family and it makes for very interesting reading.
I can highly recommend it for anyone interested in the lives of the upper classes of this period.
For a more detailed examination of the organisation and development of such a large estate, then I can recommend anther book by Doctor Martins:
A Great Estate at Work is a fascinating book, the result of Doctor Martin’s work for her Phd thesis.She was granted access to the Holkham Archive and the result is a fabulously detailed book chronicling the development of the estate from 1776-1860. Obvoiulsy this covers more than the period about which Jane Austen wrote, but it is a great help to read it in order to set in context the improvements of the agrarian revolution and how they panned out later in the 19th century.
In the same vein this book,above, The English Model Farm again by Doctor Martins is rather on the specialised side , but is fascinating, showing how landlord were able to develop the ideal farming conditions, if they were sufficiently interested and motivated during the period 1700-1914. I am afriad it now appears to be out of print,but for anyone seriously interested in the development of farm bulings etc during this period I can highly reccommend it.
For those of you interested in the social effects of the agrarian revolution, for example, the social distress caused by enclosing the land , then I can recommend this book by another member of staff at the University of East Anglia: Professor Tom Wilkinson.
The Transformation of Rural England is a fascinating book for in great detail, it chronicles the impact of the improvements in agriculture and the changes in the usage of the land as a result. In addition it deals with the physical effect on the landscape and the social consequences of these improvements. I highly recommend it,but it is rather technical and detailed, and I would only recommend purchasing it to those of us who are serious students of the subject.
But for a good and comprehensive view of the type of improvements that someone like Mr Knightley might have made and the type of life he and Darcy might have lead I can think of no better introduction than Susanna Wade Martins book on Thomas Coke. And as it is soon to be released in paperback form at a very reasonable price :got to it,say I !
“It is a very simple story. He went to town on business three days ago, and I got him to take charge of some papers which I was wanting to send to John. He delivered these papers to John, at his chambers, and was asked by him to join their party the same evening to Astley’s. They were going to take the two eldest boys to Astley’s. The party was to be our brother and sister, Henry, John — and Miss Smith. My friend Robert could not resist… However, I must say that Robert Martin’s heart seemed for him, and to me, very overflowing; and that he did mention, without its being much to the purpose, that on quitting their box at Astley’s, my brother took charge of Mrs. John Knightley and little John, and he followed with Miss Smith and Henry; and that at one time they were in such a crowd, as to make Miss Smith rather uneasy.”
Emma, Chapter 54
and
“Harriet was most happy to give every particular of the evening at Astley’s, and the dinner the next day; she could dwell on it all with the utmost delight”
Emma, Chapter 55.
So all is well: Harrriet and her lover are reunited at Astleys.
But what exactly was Astley’s? And it may interest you to know that there was more than one in London…so which one is referred to here?
Let’s attempt to find out, shall we?
The most famous of Astley’s theatres was Astley’s Amphitheatre which is pictured above. This print is by Rowlandson and Pugin, and is from my copy of the Microcosm of London published by Rudolph Ackermann.
This theatre was built on the south side of the river Thames in London over Westminster Bridge, opposite the houses of parliament. It was the property of the theatrical entrepreneur, Phillip Astley . Hopefully you can clearly see the position of the theatre in this section from my copy of Smith’s New Map of London 1809:
Do remember – you can enlarge all these illustrations by clicking on them.
It was first opened in 1770 and was originally merely an open air circus ring, surrounded by seats for the audience (which were mercifully covered to protect them from the elements). It became famous for its equestrian performances. By 1780 it boasted a compete roof and became known as The Amphitheatre Riding House. In 1794 the amphitheatre burnt down-a common hazard for early 19th century theatres. It was rebuilt and when in 1796 Jane Austen visited it, it was performing elaborate spectacles, on a scale unknown in England before:
We are to be at Astley’s tonight,which I am glad of...
(see: Letter to Cassandra Austen dated 23rd August 1796)
It was an unpatented theatre, which meant that it could only stay within the confines of the law regarding theatrical performances in the 18th/ early 19th centuries if it had a license for performance, and also performed anything but plays. The 1737 Licensing Act (which was in effect a piece of legislation sponsored by the Walpole government to control and censor the content of stage performances) confined the professional , paid, performance of legitimate, spoken word theatrical performances ( plays, in short) to the two patent theatres in London: Covent Garden and the Theatre Royal,Drury Lane .They were the only theatres that had licenses to perform plays on a permanent basis in London.
The establishment – more by accident than design- of Samuel Foote’s Little Theatre in the Hay ( as mentioned in Pride and Prejudice) did not provide open competition to the two existing drama houses. Foote’s theatre was licensed to stage plays but they could only be performed in the summer,when the two other main houses were closed. As Drury Lane and Covent Garden concentrated on performing during the autumn, winter and spring, the Little Theatre in the Hay did not really compromise their monopoly of serious theatrical performance.
As one of the un-patented theatres Astleys was not therefore supposed to perform plays- performances of the spoken word. But it –along with the growing number of other “illegitimate” theatres in London-often tried to circumvent the law by adding straight plays in among the permitted equestrian exhibits and burlettas. Astley’s Amphitheatre operated only on a summer license obtained from the Lord Chamberlain, as is clear from this description of the theatre taken from my copy of A New Picture of London 1803, one of the first tourist guides to London:
This Theatre is situated in the Westminster-road near the bridge, and is built on the very ground on which Mr. Astley, sen. formerly exhibited feats of horsemanship and other amusements in the open air; the success and profits of which enabled him afterwards to extend his plan and erect a building, which, from the rural cast of the internal decorations he called the ROYAL GROVE.
In this theatric structure, stage exhibitions were given, while, in a circular area, similar to that in the present theatre, horsemanship, and other feats of strength and agility, were continued. About seven or eight years ago, it was accidentally burnt down, after which the present theatre was erected under the appellation of the AMPITHEATRE of ARTS.
The interior of the building, though for a summer theatre somewhat heavy in its style, has been rendered truly elegant by its late additional decorations; and the stage and scenery are also greatly improved. The horsemanship, for which a circular ride is provided, is still continued, though it forms a much smaller portion of the evening’s entertainment than formerly.
This theatre always opens on Easter Monday; and its amusements continue till October or November. There are two tiers of boxes, a pit, and gallery.
To get a taste of the type of performances which were staged at Astleys, do look at this description of a visit to Astley’s by one of my favourite diarists of this period, Joseph Ballard, an American -a Bostonian-who visited England in 1815.
This extract from his diary gives a vivid impression of the type of entertainment Astley’s offered:
April 22nd:
This evening went to Astleys Amphitheatre near Westminster Bridge.
The interior is very pretty lighted by a splendid chandelier, which descends through the ceiling and when coming down makes a beautiful appearance.
The performances were of the pantomime and equestrian kind, the subject being the Life and Death of the high-mettle racer. During this piece there was a correct representation of a horse race. The pit was railed through the centre and the horses started from the back of the stage at a long distance from the audience and passed through the pit.
A fox chase was also admirably done, from the starting of the fox till his death, the dogs and horses in full speed after the little animal.
This was so illustrative that the audience heartily joined in the tally–ho of the huntsmen etc.
In the course of the harlequinade a curious transformation set the house in a roar.
A barber as carrying a wig box whereupon was written “Judge Wisdom’s Wig” The clown desiring to see it, he set it own and opened it, when a large wig (such as the judges in this country wear upon the bench) appeared. Harlequin struck it with his word and out marched a venerable owl who majestically stalked across the stage and made his exit. Such success has this piece met with that tonight was the one hundredth night of its representation.
There were in fact two Astleys theatres. And the second Astleys also tried to circumvent the law regarding spoken performances.
Astley opened another theatre on Wych Street near Newcastle Street , just off the Strand, in London in 1806.
Besides the Amphitheatre, Messrs. Astleys have a very elegant Pavilion, for exhibiting amusements of a similar description, which they have lately erected, and fitted out in a most complete style, in Newcastle-street in the Strand, and named ASTLEY’S PAVILION. At this place the horses have displayed some feats of so wonderful a description, as could not easily be conceived unless they were seen. In this place eight horses have lately performed country dances, &c. in a manner that has astonished all the spectators. To this have been added divers horsemanships, the twelve wonderful voltigers, &c.
(See The Microcosm of London etc )
This was called the Olympic Pavilion, but it was as can be seen from the above quotation, known as Astley’s Pavilion, the Pavilion Theatre the Olympic Saloon, or simply, and confusingly, Astley’s.
Phillip Astley staged equestrian performances here, and through the influence of Queen Charlotte, managed to botain a license from the Lord Chamberlain also to perform musical perforamces, burlettas, including dance.
This buiding itself was very interesting as it as built from the reclaimed timbers of naval ships– prizes -that Astley had bought. The deck of a ship was used to make the stage and the floors. The new theare was built just like a traditional playhouse compete with stage orchestra side boxes galleries and a pit surrounding the ring:
One of Jane Austen’s favourite actors, Robert Elliston bought the license from Astley in 1812. He decided to make a concerted effort to break the monopoly on spoken drama held by the two patent theatres: initially he tried to rename Astley’s, The Little Drury Lane Theatre.
Of course, objections to this name were made from the legitimate parent holders, and he had to close. But he re-opened again simply as Astleys and introduced a programme of
“farce, melodramas, and pantomine-burlettas”
He also managed to again circumvent the prohibition on licensed theatres from performing the spoken word by continuing to add plays to the programme of events. Obviously, what made it daring of Elliston to do this was the closeness of his theatre in the Strand to the patent theatres, Covent Garden and especially, Drury Lane.(You can see how close he was from the map above of the area)
Paula Byrne in her book, Jane Austen and the Theatre argues that Jane Austen probably approved of Elliston’s stance against the two patent theatres. She may be right – we will never know for sure, but we do know that the Austen family were not afraid to patronise the illegitimate theatres and often went to others apart from Astley’s : Henry Austen, Jane’s brother, in particular patronized illegitimate theatres. He had a box at the Pantheon on Oxford Street, which from 1812 also staged a mixed bill of burlettas and ballet to try to circumvent the law on performing plays.
Paula Byrne is of the opinion that Jane Austen chose to reconcile Robert and Harriet at Astleys, because it was an illegitimate theatre, where performances were not of the most rarefied nature, and it was exactly the type of place where a yeoman farmer and a girl carrying the “stain of illegitimacy” could meet with and be seen in the company of the gentry (the Knightley family) without raising adverse comment. Perhaps.
But what is interesting to me is that cannot be exactly certain at which of the two theatre Harriet and Robert Martin reconciled their differences.
The Amphitheatre on the south bank of the Thames was, as we have noted , a summer theatre, but also ,as we have seen, it could stage performances into September, October and sometimes even in November. The Astleys of the Strand was not a summer theatre but began its season in September.
Though Jane Austen does not tell us exactly when Harriet’s fateful trip to the theatre took place, it appears to have been in late summer , possibly early September: it could not be late September as that was when Harriet was married to Robert Martin:
Before the end of September, Emma attended Harriet to church, and saw her hand bestowed on Robert Martin
Emma, Chapter 55.
Paula Byrne argues that it is the crowds that frighten Harriet which give the game away:
Given that the Austens patronized the Lambeth Amphitheatre Jane may well have intended the same theatre. On the other hand the genteel John Knightley’s visit Astley’s as a treat for their boys and Harriet on quitting their box is made uneasy by the size of the crowds. This suggest the superior Olympic Pavilion. The Lambeth Amphitheatre had its own separate entrance for the boxes and the pit with the gallery entrance fifty yards down the road, so it would be more likely that Harriet encountered large crowds at the Olympic.
(Page 43)
I suppose it doesn’t really matter in the end , given the similarities between the two theatre, but its good to know I think, that there were two different Astley’s. Given that there were two and that one fits the bill a little better than the other we can’t necessarily assume that the Westminster Bridge Astleys was The One. And fun to speculate which one was the location for Harriet and Robert’s romantic evening of low comedy, equestrianism and burletta. And yes, its just this type of conundrum that keeps me awake at night…..
You were both talking of other things; of business, shows of cattle, or new drills;
Emma Chapter 54
Mr Knightly is portrayed by Jane Austen as a very concerned landlord, eager to share with his tenant new developments in agricultural practices.
And well he might for the late 18th /early 19th century was a time of great improvement in and change in the British countryside. Let see why Our Hero is so concerned with innovations in Agriculture and what it says about him and his character.
Prior to the 18th century Britain was farmed mainly on the strip field system, a system that had prevailed since the medieval period. More than half the countryside was in fact uncultivated- being open commons, moorland and heaths.
The introduction of the Enclosure Acts in the early 18th century began to change this rapidly, and the change became even more pronounced after 1760,and the beginning of the reign of George III.
As a result of enclosures, large areas of land could be cultivated by a single landowner, and this led to the emphasis being on achieving higher and better yields of crops. The introduction of the seed drill by Jethro Tull and crop rotation system and fodder crops -wheat, barley, turnips and clover -by Charles “Turnip” Townshend, the second Viscount Townshend of Norfolk improved the efficiency of sowing crops. The improvements and ready availability of fodder crops meant that animals could now survive winter in a far healthier state than previously.
Robert Bakewell a Leicestershire farmer also began to improve livestock through selective breeding. His aim was to provide enough meat to feed every household in the kingdom with meat. The population of Britain over the course of the 18rhy century rose to 10 million so this was a timely intervention. The outbreak of war with France in 1803 added further serious impetus to agricultural improvements: home production of food became ever and vitally important, and this led to a massive expansion of British farming until the defeat of Napoleon in 1815.
The encouragement to improve all matters agricultural was lead from the highest levels in society. George III had serious examples of model farms at Windsor, Kew and Mortlake and contributed articles to the Annals of Agriculture under the non de plume of Ralph Richardson. As Arthur Young the journalist and proprietor of the Annals of Agriculture, wrote
We are all farmers now from the Duke to the apprentice.
And indeed as is shown in Emma the common interest in improving agricultural mater was a great social leveler: Robert Martin is thought of as a friend by the great landowner in the area, Mr Knightley.
This serious involvement of the great and the good was on public display at the great sheep-shearing events held in the summer on the great estates around the country, the most famous being those held by Thomas Coke of Norfolk (seen here with his prized Southdown sheep on his estate at Holkham)
and the 5th duke of Bedford at Woburn.
The sheep shearings were held over a period of 3-4 days and combined an opportunity for framers, grand and small, to meet “on common ground” in order share new methods of husbandry of both animals and crops.
This is a picture of the Woburn Sheepshearing by George Garrad circa 1804. The range of social classes present and participating in these events is sown by some sketches made by the artists of individuals attending the event:
Arthur Young
Lord Winchelsea
Samuel Whitbread, the fabulously rich brewing heir and M.P.
Sir Joseph Banks, of Kew gardens
And Holland, the Shepherd.
These sheep shearings were the forerunners of the great agricultural shows that are still held today during the summer in Britain. The American Ambassador to Britain, William Rush, attending the shearing at Holkham in 1819 was impressed by the informal atmosphere and how Thomas Coke led the
Informal discussion and explanation on everything connected with agriculture in the broadest sense on his grounds at the dinner table and even more impressively on horseback…he plays the part of the old English country gentleman as he rides from field to field attended by friends who are also mounted
At the same time as a result of the interest in matters agricultural , agricultural societies were also formed on nearly every county as forum where interested parties could meet and discuss innovations in this sphere. These societies were also encouraged by the highest in society:
Thomas Coke encouraged improvements in land by giving a piece of silver plate to the value of five guineas to the Norfolk Agricultural Society, to be awarded
To such person as shall convert the greatest area of waste or unimproved meadows in the most complete manner
Sometimes the sheep shearings were not to everyone’s tastes. Arthur Young eventually gave up attending them In 1806 he wrote to Thomas Coke refusing an invitation to attend a follows:
There is not one feature that would carry a Christian there for pleasure, but a thousand to repel him and this is so much the case with all public meetings that are odious. The Norfolk farmer are rich and profligate; coarse oaths and profanities salute the ear at every turn; and the gentlemen and great when they are without ladies are too apt to be as bad as the mob and many of them much worse…much as I love agriculture I can renounce it with more pleasure than I can partake of it thus contaminated
Seems to me that he and the unreconstructed Emma might get on…….
Back to why this was all connected for the good with Mr Knightley. As Susanna Wade Martins writes in her fabulous biography of Thomas Coke( more on that later) :
One of the first duties of a patriot was the improvement of his estate, seen as a moral obligation by the middle of the eighteenth century….By the time Thomas Coke inherited (Holkham in 1776-jfw) the roles of landlord and tenant in the business of commercial farming had become established. It was the duty of the landlord to provide the fixed capital in the form of fields, farm roads and buildings and the tenant the working capital such as seed, stock and implements for the farm. In times of farming prosperity when prospective tenants were numerous the landowner could try and pass on to the tenant some responsibilities such as the hedging of fields …Similarly in times of agricultural depression when tenants were more difficult to find and retain the landlord might have to take some of these responsibilities back…The responsibilities of the landlord had been fully understood by Cokes predecessors and were ones that they had taken very seriously.
So, Mr Knightley, portrayed as concerned about his tenants welfare and well-being and being interested in all matters agricultural was being also portrayed as a great patriot, not only caring for those immediately around him but for the prosperity and survival of the country as a whole in time of war.
Jane Austen clearly viewed absentee landlords with contempt: see her portrayal of another Norfolk man, Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park who is content to let his agent run his estate there even though he knows he is not of the highest character. Pity his poor tenants in that case.
Mr Kinightley’s tenants have no such fears.
As Lord Kames wrote in The Gentleman Farmer (1787):
Every gentleman farmer must of course be a patriot…in fact if there be any remaining patriotism in the nation it is to be found among that class of men.
No wonder Emma adores him…..
A new month- a new site…..
I would like to introduce you all to a new project, one I have been working on for years- a Jane Austen Gazetteer.
The aim of the site is to allow you to virtually visit all the places associated with Jane Austen and her family. Though we can still visit many of those places to day, they have changed irrevocably in the intervening 200 years. Looking at them via the medium of maps, engravings and descriptions all contemporary with Jane Austen brings us closer to the places as she knew them.
At present only the main locations associated with Jane Austen have been completed, but in time I hope the site will grow to become a comprehensive guide to Jane Austen’s world as she would have known it.
Each page on the site gives details of a one particular location, and will usually contain a contemporary description, a map and possibly an engraving. In addition external links to current websites are provided where appropriate, together with details of all Jane Austen’s references to those places, for example details of all her letters which document that particular place,etc.
I do hope you will enjoy exploring the site, a glimpse into Jane Austen’s world .
Enjoy!
