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Maintaining the grounds of a landed British estate: Georgian gardening

Posted in 18th Century England, 19th Century England, Georgian Life, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Mansfield Park, Natural world, Regency Life, Regency World, tagged , , , , , , , on August 30, 2012| 10 Comments »

Great landed estates were symbols of the owner’s wealth and status in British society. Everything was put on grand display – from the exquisite architecture of the house itself to the furniture, jewels, silver plate, servants, books, carriages, horses, deer, game, forests, fields, and splendid grounds and gardens.

Longleat House in Wiltshire Image @www.longleat.co.uk

A fine estate certainly elevated a man in a lady’s estimation. Take this passage in Mansfield Park, written from Mary Crawford’s point of view:

Tom Bertram must have been thought pleasant, indeed, at any rate; he was the sort of young man to be generally liked, his agreeableness was of the kind to be oftener found agreeable than some endowments of a higher stamp, for he had easy manners, excellent spirits, a large acquaintance, and a great deal to say; and the reversion of Mansfield Park, and a baronetcy, did no harm to all this. Miss Crawford soon felt that he and his situation might do. She looked about her with due consideration,and found almost everything in his favour, a park, a real park, five miles round, a spacious modern-built house, so well placed and well screened as to deserve to be in any collection of engravings of gentlemen’s seats in the kingdom, and wanting only to be completely new furnished—pleasant sisters, a quiet mother, and an agreeable man himself—with the advantage of being tied up from much gaming at present, by a promise to his father, and of being Sir Thomas hereafter. ” – Mansfield Park, Jane Austen

(It is to Mary’s credit that, after this consideration, she prefered Edmund, the younger son, until she discovered that he intended to become a man of the cloth, and even then she did not give him up so easily.)

Visitors arriving at a landed estate took a circuitous route to the house along winding paths that were designed to show the grounds to their best advantage. They would pass through wooded areas and open fields, past lakes and rivers and herds of deer or cattle, and through a controlled wilderness area.

“The idea with Brownian landscapes is that you effectively go round them,” explains Mowl. “When [Capability] Brown did his landscape designs they would always have drives in them. They were an essential part of what he would do.” – The English Landscape Garden

Witton approach from Norwich, 1801, Humphrey Repton Red Book. Image @University of Florida Rare Book Collection

Groundskeepers of extensive parks that featured winding drives and a variety of formal and ornamental gardens employed several means of keeping grass under control. Grazing sheep and cattle represented the first lines of defense. These herds were allowed to roam over vast expanses of land. Eighteenth-century romantic sensibility required that nothing as obviously artificial as a visible fence be allowed to contain them.

Highclere Castle is surrounded by park land designed by Capability Brown. Grazing sheep in the foreground.

A landscape feature called a Ha-Ha prevented grazing herds from coming too close to the house. The Ha-Ha, which consisted of a deep trench abutting a wall and which was hidden from casual view even at a short distance, allowed for the naturalistic features of romantic landscape gardening to take hold.

The Ha-Ha prevented grazing animals from crossing from one area of the estate to another. Image © John D. Tatter, Birmingham-Southern College

A Ha-Ha was so named because, as the myth goes, this landscape feature was so well hidden that an unsuspecting visitor would blurt out “ha-ha!” before falling into the trench.  This cross section shows how the system worked.

The trenches of a Ha-Ha could sometimes be 8 feet deep.The primary view is from the right and the barrier created by the ha-ha becomes invisible from that direction and sometimes from both directions, unless close to the trench. Image @Wikipedia

Not all Ha-Ha’s prevented deer, sheep, or cattle from grazing up to the front of the house (though considering their droppings, one would thinks that this would be highly preferred.) At Petworth, the Ha-Ha was placed at the side of the house.

Petworth with Ha-Ha on the side of the house. Image @The English Landscape Garden

Built at the edge of a pleasure grounds surrounding a house, the ha-aha made a virtually invisible barrier that kept the cows and sheep in their pastures yet allowed uninterrupted views from house into park of from park into distant countryside. It meant that pleasure grounds, park and landscape could seamlessly become one. It is probably French in origin. Charles Bridgeman is generally credited with it’s introduction, but the first remnants of a ha-ha had already been installed at Levens Hall in Cumbria in 1689. – Architessica: Gardens and Landscapes

The transitional area between the formal gardens and the large park surrounding the house was known as the wilderness. This area was as meticulously planned as the other areas of the estate, but here the plantings were more irregular and included native plants and trees; gravel walkways; a pond, lake or river or all three; waterfalls; lawns that resembled meadows; and areas where the vistas were framed to deliberately look natural. If cottages and villages were required to be moved to achieve this picturesque effect, then so be it. The master’s will was done.

In Pride and Prejudice 1995, Elizabeth Bennet and Lady Catherine de Bourgh conduct their heated discussion in Longbourn’s “wilderness”. No grazing required here.

These wilderness areas were unique to topography and region, for each estate was uniquely different.

Nature in Herefordshire is not like nature in Lancashire and the garden style that tries to emulate the same form everywhere (particularly
one imported from another country entirely) is destroying what Pope had called the genius loci.” – (Wildness in the English Garden Tradition: A Reassessment of the Picturesque from Environmental Philosophy Author(s): Isis Brook Reviewed work(s): Source: Ethics and the Environment, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Spring, 2008), pp. 105-119)

This plan of Paca Garden in Annapolis, MD, shows the formal gardens separated from the park by a wilderness area with pond, bridge, and follies. Image (a) Creating a Period Garden

Walking along a wilderness provided one with an endless variety of aesthetic experiences. Paths wended their way through woods that opened up to vistas. Large trees provided shelter for a bench or revealed moss growing on gnarly roots. Rivers, ponds, follies, and bridges provided natural sources of visual patterns. They were pleasant places to visit:

 A ‘pleasant place’ is supposed to be naturally crafted. It’s a balance between two opposites: wanting to cultivate the land and letting it grow freely.  However landscapers and architects finally accomplish this goal, the product always ends up being a beautiful oxymoron. – Landscape as Amenity

Chawton House grounds. One of the vistas from a gravel path. Image @Tony Grant

The exercise of walking along a wilderness ground was both visually and physically stimulating. These wilderness areas took years to design and arrange, with large trees moved from one area to another, buildings demolished or transported, and hillsides lowered or raised to “improve” the view.

Moving a full grown tree into place, Hayes, 1794

Such improvements, as they were generally known, required meticulous planning and strenuous effort. Master landscape gardeners like Lancelot “Capability” Brown and  Humphry Repton became household names. Jane Austen knew about such efforts and their resulting changes:

Mr. Rushworth, however, though not usually a great talker, had still more to say on the subject next his heart. “Smith has not much above a hundred acres altogether, in his grounds, which is little enough, and makes it more surprising that the place can have been so improved. Now, at Sotherton, we have a good seven hundred, without reckoning the water meadows; so that I think, if so much could be done at Compton, we need not despair. There have been two or three fine old trees cut down that grew too near the house, and it opens the prospect amazingly, which makes me think that Repton, or anybody of that sort, would certainly have the avenue at Sotherton down; the avenue that leads from the west front to the top of the hill, you know,” turning to Miss Bertram particularly as he spoke. But Miss Bertram thought it most becoming to reply—

“The avenue! Oh! I do not recollect it. I really know very little of Sotherton.”

Fanny, who was sitting on the other side of Edmund, exactly opposite Miss Crawford, and who had been attentively listening, now looked at him, and said, in a low voice—

“Cut down an avenue! What a pity! Does it not make you think of Cowper ?’ Ye fallen avenues, once more I mourn your fate unmerited.'”

He smiled as he answered, ” I am afraid the avenue stands a bad chance, Fanny.”

“I should like to see Sotherton before it is cut down, to see the place as it is now, in its old state , but I do not suppose I shall.” – Mansfield Park, Jane Austen

Sir Humphrey Repton, Whiton (Before) Image @British Architecture

Sir Humphry Repton left a valuable legacy with his Red Books. It was his habit to sketch before and after landscapes for his customers and present the drawings to them bound in red covers. His improvements for Whiton are subtle but important. Two parallel streams have been turned into a serpentine lake with a waterfall at one end. The distant fields provide a focal point with artfully arranged trees. If you look closely at the gravel path on the left, you can spy a gardener.

Sir Humphrey Repton, Whiton (After). Image @British Architecture

The samples below of Ferney Hall from The Morgan Library and Museum show the before and after drawing of an improved vista in which, using Jane Austen’s words, ” a prospect was opened”.

Ferney Hall by Repton. Image @The Morgan Library

The after image provides a glimpse of a folly. Instead of acting as a barrier, the woods give way to the scene, which provides a pleasant stopping point for the wanderer to sit and view. While such scenes looked natural, they were not.

Ferney Hall, After, by Repton. Image @The Morgan Library

Though visually the wild and the domestic were one is the same, “these were carefully managed scenes, designed to look natural, but actually contrived on a vast scale” – Landscape as Amenity

The wilderness was designed some distance from the house. Approaching closer, the visitor would see a more formal arrangement of fountains and shrubbery and mazes and flower gardens.

Chawton House: View from the wilderness towards the house and more formal plantings. Image @Tony Grant

The gentlemen who had these gardens designed for them had all been on the Grand Tour and learned the classics,” says Timothy Mowl of the University of Bristol. “It was part of their make-up and they wanted to display their taste and learning within gardens.” – The English Landscape Garden

Wrest Park, Bedfordshire. Image @The Telegraph UK

Landscape designs informed the process of maintaining the grounds. Large estates employed many gardeners to keep cricket and croquet fields in pristine condition, cultivate the ornamental and kitchen gardens, and oversee the orchards and hot houses. The question is: How did they do it?

Extensive gardens surrounding Wrest House in Bedfordshire. Wrest Park Gardens are spread over 150 acres (607,000 m²) near Silsoe, Bedfordshire, and were originally laid out in the early 18th century, probably by George London and Henry Wise for Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Kent, then modified by Capability Brown in a more informal landscape style, without sacrificing the parterres. Image from The Leisure Guide

As mentioned before, the first line of defense was allowing herds of sheep and cattle to graze. However, their by-products left something to be desired. (If anyone has ever walked through a cow pasture, they will know what I mean.)

English Garden at Leeds: Artfully contrived to look both contained and natural. Image @Landscape Into Land

Lawn mowing and ornamental landscaping held no particular interest to 99% of the people who lived during the Georgian era. Cottagers and town dwellers maintained small plots of vegetable gardens and laborers worked in the fields, using scythes to cut wheat and grain for their employers.

18th century method for harvesting grain with scythes. Image @Our Ohio

The laborers wielding scythes in the above image provide a clue to how grass was clipped – using a smooth, well-rehearsed motion, they worked in teams to cover large areas of ground. Their labor was cheap and they followed a system that included working in the morning when the ground was still damp.

Mowing Clover, late 19th c., by Arthur Verey

To prepare the lawn for scything, a gardener would:

“pole” the lawn first (swishing a long whippy stick across the grass to remove wormcasts) and … roll the ground to firm it and set the blades of grass in a uniform direction.” – Notes and Queries, The Guardian UK

19th Century Coalbrookdale Roller. Rolling the lawn tamped down the grass and seed, and promoted growth and strong roots. Image @jardinique.co.uk

The secret to maintaining a close-cropped lawn was to trim it frequently, about once a week. Lawn edges were best trimmed with sheep shearing clippers.

This gardening family is using shears, a rake, and a scythe in their cottage garden.

The grass was kept free of daisies with an instrument named a daisy grubber, which is the long-handled instrument with angled pick in the image below. Daisy grubbers are still sold today, as they apparently do the job well.

Dibbles and daisy grubber. Image @Garden History -Tools the Dibble

Dibbles were used to dig holes in the ground to plant seeds or bulbs, pry up roots, or jab weeds out between bricks and stone.

18th century gardener taking direction from a landscape designer. Note the man pruning the tree.

Even with these instruments, maintaining these large gardens took intensive labor. One can just imagine how much work was involved in protecting tender plants from insects and marauders, early frosts, and dry spells; and forcing exotic fruits and vegetables to grow out of season in hot houses.

Engelbrecht. 18th century German print of gardening – planting.

While improvements were made over the course of the 19th century, some customs remained the same:

“rich people used to show their wealth by the size of their bedding-plant list: 10,000 plants for a squire; 20,000 for a baronet; 30,000 for an earl and 50,000 for a duke. ” – Ernest Fields, Life in the Victorian Country House by Pamela Horn, p. 75.

Engelbrecht’s plate of an 18th century gardener working with flowers

Landed owners showed off their wealth through a variety of means, including the number of servants they employed.

Master and mistress in discussion with the head gardener

It was not unusual for a great estate to employ 60 – 100 gardeners. There was the full-time staff, consisting of a master gardener, who had begun his apprenticeship as a boy, and his assistants.

Pruning

Scottish gardeners were preferred, as it was thought that they had received the best training. Unmarried apprentice gardeners moved from estate to estate in order to gain experience and be promoted.

Dungbarrow

Junior staff worked long hours, around 60 hours a week, for, in addition to their gardening duties, they had to maintain the temperatures in glassed-in conservatories and meticulously care for archery, cricket, bowling and croquet lawns.

Woman using a rake

The master gardener hired local labor seasonally to help during peak times, so the number of laborers fluctuated.

The head gardener at the Thornham estate in Sussex at the end of the 19th century. Image by kitchen915

18th century garden cart and basket

With improvements in gardening equipment, including the invention of the lawn mower in 1830 by Edwin Beard Budding, machines began to take over the hard work of the scythe men.

First lawnmower invented by Edwin Beard Budding. Image @The Chronicle of Andrew Jackson, Wikispaces

I imagined a Regency gentleman pushing one in his regalia, and found this wonderful advertisement. After Budding’s initial invention, a variety of lawn mowers were invented, each improving on the other.

Mowing a lawn in 1832. Credit: Ann Ronan Picture Library / Heritage Images

Needless to say, large areas of lawn needed a more efficient method of keeping the grasses trimmed. As the 19th century progressed, horses were employed to pull large lawn mowing machines.

Horse pulling a lawn mower. Image @The Cultural Landscape Foundation

They wore special leather over shoes to protect fragile lawns, such as those shown in the image below.

This short video on YouTube demonstrates how 18th century gardeners dealt with sudden cold snaps.

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Food – To Die For: Food Preparation in the Georgian Era

Posted in 19th Century England, Georgian Life, Georgian London, Jane Austen's World, Regency food, Regency Life, Regency World, tagged , , on August 5, 2012| 22 Comments »

Inquiring readers: Paul Emanuelli, author of Avon Street, has contributed posts for this blog before about the City of Bath as a Character and Law & Order and Jane Austen’s Aunt. He has graciously sent in an article about food preparation in the 18th and 19th centuries. The content will astonish you. Paul writes about Bath in his own blog, unpublishedwriterblog. It is well worth a visit.

Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a little bit of tart–a very little bit. Ours are all apple-tarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here. I do not advise the custard.”

Michael Gambon as Mr. Woodhouse, Emma, 2009

So says the ever-cautious, Mr Woodhouse, in Jane Austen’s Emma as he entertains his guests at supper. Yet Mr Woodhouse’s fears were not entirely in his imagination. At the time it was relatively common for commercially bought pickles and preserves to contain poisonous sulphate of copper to improve their eye-appeal. And even when prepared at home, the copper pans in which they were cooked, unless properly looked after, could also poison the ingredients.

Churning butter

Yet for most people who lived in the country, as Jane Austen did for much of her life, food-safety was not a major concern. Food was prepared and preserved either by the family themselves or by their domestic staff, and cooking and baking was done at home.

Food preparation in the kitchen.

The ingredients were for the most part grown and bought locally, and word travels quickly in small communities. Meat came from local farms or estates, and farmers and landowners had reputations to maintain, as did the local mill for flour, and the local shopkeepers for all that they sold.

Costermonger from Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor, 1840s.

The situation though, was very different in towns and cities. Here it was the shopkeepers and “costermongers” who sourced, stored, prepared and supplied the produce. And with a wider market at their disposal these tradesmen were often less concerned with quality, as they were with cost. The worst affected were the poor. For the most part they lived from hand-to-mouth and bought food in “pennyworths” or even “half-pennyworths.” Buying in these smaller quantities (enough for the day) meant goods often cost four or five times more than they would have cost had they been bought in regular quantities.

Bread Seller, William Henry Pyne, ca. 1805

Bread itself could be bought as quarter or half loaves and the poor subsisted largely on bread. But even then, bakers used chalk to make the bread whiter, and alum to enable the use of inferior flour, and while alum was not poisonous it inhibited the digestion and decreased the nutritional value of anything else their customers ate.

Rabbit seller, William Henry Pyne, 1805

The wealthier residents in towns and cities could afford a “better” diet, yet this too carried its own dangers. There was of course no refrigeration at the time and little concept of hygiene. In towns and cities most meat was killed locally, but then it had to be stored, sold and transported to the home. As late as 1862 the government estimated that one-fifth of butcher’s meat in England and Wales came from animals which had died of disease or were carrying considerably disease. And at the start of the nineteenth century butcher’s boys would deliver meat to the wealthier homes, carried on their heads, in baskets or trays, open to the heat and dirt of the day.

A butcher’s shop, by James Pollard

As the Industrial Revolution took hold, the British population grew, and so did the towns and cities. The nation became more dependent on imported and processed foods. The growing “middle classes” were acquiring a growing taste for tea, coffee, sugar, cocoa, and sauces and spices from around the world. The problem that the fictional Mr Woodhouse had been concerned about a few years earlier rapidly became a fact of life as the century progressed.

Coachman, seated, holding a tankard. Mezzotint by Ryley, printed in colours for John Bowles in London Feb. 1st, 1768

The “adulteration” of food and drink became increasingly commonplace. Producers, importers, merchants and sellers were all adding ingredients to increase bulk or “improve” appearance. The making of beer had more to do with chemistry than the brewing process. As Dr Richard Wetherby says, in my novel, Avon Street,

Have you any idea of how they adulterate the beer in the ale houses around Avon Street? It is full of foxglove, henbane, opium and God knows what other concoctions. They use chemicals so that they can water down the beer, keep its taste and appearance, but make it stronger, and still sell it cheaply.”

Cow Keeper’s Shop in London, 1825, George Scharf

Milk too, was often watered down, sometimes by as much as 50%. So common did the adulteration of food become that books on housekeeping routinely carried warnings and tests for detecting added chemicals like plaster of Paris. Mrs Beeton in prefacing a recipe for a popular anchovy paste warned against shop-bought pastes,

In six cases out of ten, the only portion of those preserved delicacies, that contains anything indicative of anchovies, is the paper label pasted on the bottle or pot, on which the word itself is printed.”

Typical coffee house, late 18th century

In 1851 The Lancet, medical journal, commissioned a doctor from the London Royal Free Hospital to examine the adulteration of thirty common foods. The study revealed that China tea contained 45% sand and dirt together with traces of sulphate of iron; lard contained carbonate of soda and caustic lime; coffee included chicory, mangel wurzel (root vegetable) sawdust, and acorns; cocoa and chocolate were coloured with earth and included arrowroot and Venetian lead; sweets (candy) were found to contain chromate of lead, sulphate of mercury and various other noxious flavourings and colourings. Red lead and other chemical colourings were found to be routinely used in foodstuffs such as “Red Leicester Cheese.”

Six pence a pound, fair cherryes

Even after the study was published the merchants, tradespeople and government were slow to respond. It was not until 1860 that the Adulteration Act was passed. Thankfully, technology and innovation helped in the interim. In 1857 a process for the mass production of ice was patented allowing foods to be better preserved and transported. The availability of canned goods also increased. The army had been supplied with canned foods since 1820, but the cans had to be opened with a chisel or a bayonet, until the can-opener was invented in 1858. As technology improved, mass-produced processed foods like soups, sauces, biscuits, chocolate, pickles and egg-powder became more popular and were prepared to more rigorous standards. And though the Adulteration Act was still largely resisted, in 1872 official inspectors were created with the power to test food and impose substantial fines. Quality and safety of food gradually improved, which I am sure would have pleased the fictional Mr Woodhouse.

Old Covent Garden market, 1825, Scharf

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Refrigerated milk cart, 19th c. This design, from the USA, used ice to keep the air temperature cool for the transport of milk. Holes in the compartments allowed air to circulate from where the ice compartments to the milk compartments.

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The Effects of Nature: Wordsworth and Tintern Abbey

Posted in 19th Century England, Historic Publications, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency society, Regency World, tagged , , , , on August 3, 2012| 8 Comments »

Gentle readers, frequent contributor Tony Grant has recently returned from visiting the Lake Country with his friend, Clive. (Visit his blog, London Calling, where he shares his experiences and wonderful images.) While there he was reminded of Wordsworth’s poem about Tintern Abbey and sent in his thoughts. Thank you, Tony, for making poetry come alive!

“Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, : 1798”

Wye Valley

This rather ungainly title is the precursor to a poem by William Wordsworth written in 1798, as the title shows, which lays out his philosophy about his understanding of the world and the effect it has on him.

First of all the title tells us about a revisiting of the Wye Valley. Wordsworth may well have been using the guide book written by William Gilpin about the Wye and Tintern Abbey. Gilpin was a fellow lover of nature, who was also born in Cumberland and The Lakes. In this poem Wordsworth is revisiting, recalling, adjusting his memory of a place and adding to the strength of its power over him.

Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.”

The Lakes. Image @Tony Grant

Wordsworth emphasises seclusion such as a hermit might experience.. This aloneness is an important aspect of this poem. When we meditate we find a secluded tranquil spot to be alone in.

The use of his senses is paramount to this process.

again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.”

And also,

Once again I see

These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up,”

Foxgloves and dry stone wall. Image @Tony Grant.

Sound and sight come together to make an impression on his mind and feelings. But these are not short lived impressions. They have a deep and profound effect.

“oft, in lonely rooms, and ‘mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind,

With tranquil restoration: -feelings too

Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps,

As have no slight or trivial influence.”

Rocky outcrop, image @Tony Grant

Wordsworth is saying that remembering the sensations that nature has had on him can be recalled, relived at other times and in other places and help him overcome things such as weariness and other detrimental sensations.

how oft –

In darkness and amid the many shapes

Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir

Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,

Have hung upon the beatings of my heart –

How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

Tintern Abbey

Memory, imagination, recalling good sensations, becomes a sort of force that Wordsworth can use. He describes it as being “felt in the blood” and “along the heart. “ These sound strange phrases to us. We might describe these experiences as affecting us deeply or having a psychological influence or even providing a spiritual experience.

Methods of meditation use memory and imagination in this way. Athletes and sportspeople use this method too. We are experiencing the Olympics at this moment. Athletes have described how they use imagination to help them perform to the best of their ability. A white water canoeist was interviewed yesterday morning and asked how she prepares for such a hazardous descent and how is she able to get the timing of her turns just right. She answered that she imagines the descent through the rough and tumbling waters again and again, living in her imagination every move, paddle stroke and turn she is going to make.

Wordsworth gives even more importance to the powers of nature when he says these experiences have an effect ,

On the best portion of a good man’s life,

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

Of kindness and of love.”

He is saying our experience of nature has an actual effect on the way behave.

The chancel crossingot Tintern Abbey looking towards the east window, JWM Turner, 17942

Wordsworth takes his ideas to an even higher almost mystical religious level when he says,

that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened: -that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on –

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

And even the motion of our human blood

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul;”

The effects last into the afterlife and affect our experience of heaven. This is serious stuff. Wordsworth is completely taken with this concept.

Banks of the Wye

Towards the end of the poem it becomes a letter, almost a love letter, to his sister Dorothy, who he sees as his soul mate. He includes her in his understanding of what he experiences,

all which we behold

Is full of blessings.”

What is interesting to consider is that in this poem Wordsworth describes how he uses his experience of nature through his senses to lighten and bring joy and spiritual pleasure to himself at other times. This revisit to the Wye Valley five years after his first visit appears to be an attempt to strengthen his experiences of nature and to replenish and strengthen his memories so he can use a stronger dose, so to speak, of his experiences in future. This begs the question , does Wordsworths poem, help the reader of the poem along this path of spiritual experience in anyway or is he just telling the reader, you must go and experience nature yourself to gain these effects?

Edward Dayes, Tintern Abbey from across the Wye 1795.

What the poem does for me is help me recall my own experiences of places that gave me pleasurable experiences through my senses. Wordsworth in his poem is triggering our memory of good things too. He suggests we find a secluded place ourselves, remember, imagine and discover our own benefits. Nature can provide a healing process,

when thy mind

Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,

Thy memory be as a dwelling place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,”

There is something ageless in Wordsworth’s theory which is the theory of Romanticism. It makes me think of Karma and the Buddhist approach to meditation.

Tintern Abbey. Postcard photo courtesy of Paradoxplace.com.

As an addenda to the William Gilpin (1724-1804) reference above: Wordsworth may have used Gilpin’s guide book in the Wye Valley. Gilpin also was an advocate of experiencing nature and drawing benefits from it , it’s hues and colours and it’s natural arrangement He wasn’t averse, however, to making suggestions about its arrangement. He might suggest in his writing the removal or addition of a tree or even the roughing up and creation of a more crumbling effect of Tintern Abbey to create a better aesthetic affect. It is suggested that Jane Austen made fun of this in Northanger Abbey.

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Austen – Brontë Smackdown with Jane Austen’s World and Brontë Blog

Posted in 19th Century England, jane austen, Jane Austen Novels, Jane Austen's World, tagged , , on July 26, 2012| 46 Comments »

Gentle readers: Penguin English Library is holding an Austen/Brontë smackdown on its Facebook page, with Jane Austen’s World and Christine from Bronte Blog providing the ammunition for discussion. An edited version of my smackdown sits on Facebook, the full version sits on this blog. I have added Christine’s edited defense of Charlotte Brontë below my defense of Jane. Do go over to Penguin’s Facebook page and leave your comment! You will have the chance of winning a Penguin library canvas bag! Enjoy.

Romola Garai as Emma dancing a country dance at the local assembly hall.

Vic’s Unedited Take:

I’ve been asked to participate in a smackdown, pitting Jane Austen, whose best-selling novel starts with the most memorable opening line in literature – “It is a truth universally acknowledged…” – against Charlotte Brontë, who begins Jane Eyre with a sentence that barely qualifies as a decent Facebook entry: “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day”. Good lord. GO Team Austen!

I love smart and funny women who are quick with their tongues. If our dowdy spinster from Hampshire suddenly found herself at the Algonquin Round Table in post-World War One New York city, she would have jumped into the fray and easily held her own against such rapier wits as Dorothy Parker, Harold Ross, Edna Ferber and Harpo Marx. Charlotte Brontë would have sat slack-jawed amongst such august company, waiting for a lull in the conversation before daring to venture her opinion. Had Mark Twain materialized in front of Miss Austen and threatened to personally beat her skull in with her own shin-bone, she would have swiftly retorted, “Why I now fully understand, Mr. Twain, why Mrs. Hall of Sherbourn was brought to bed of a dead child, some weeks before she expected. T’was owing to a fright — I suppose she happened unawares to look at YOU.” Austen had teeth. No wonder Pride and Prejudice was chosen for the first Zombie mash-up!

A number of Brontë fans have accused Austen of writing sterile romance novel claptrap, which means that those poor souls don’t get Austen’s ironic take on life with its underlying passions at all. Can you imagine one of Brontë’s overwrought characters coming up with the cool line that Mary Crawford uttered in Mansfield Park? “Certainly, my home at my uncle’s brought me acquainted with a circle of admirals. Of Rears, and Vices, I saw enough. Now, do not be suspecting me of a pun, I entreat.” I had been of legal drinking age for a number of years before I understood exactly what rears and vices meant!

Brontë supporters think Jane’s novels lack passion and give us no sense of the greater society in which she lived. Let’s debunk that myth, shall we? Willoughby got a girl pregnant, enticed Marianne to behave like a hoyden, then cynically married an heiress for money. Wickham attempted to seduce an underage heiress, then ran off with a lusty, empty-headed 16-year-old virgin with no intention of marrying her. Lucy Steele was a sadistic, mean, and spiteful little bitch. Mrs. Norris was a verbal abuser who could have taught Lucy a thing or two in the nasty department. Fanny Price’s mother married for love, and look where that got her – barefoot, too many times pregnant, and living like a slattern in a hovel. John Thorpe was a douche-bag, plain and simple, as was William Elliott. Then there were the silly ministers, and the neglectful husbands, like Mr. Bennet and Mr. Palmer. Last but not least, Jane handed the dreaded specter of poverty to Mrs. and Miss Bates, and Mrs. Smith, whose cheerful demeanor belied her desperate state. Interwoven through Austen’s novels are her sparkling wit and clear observations of the human character. We are treated to strong heroines like Lizzie Bennet and Anne Elliot, and to alpha males like Mr. Darcy and Colonel Brandon, who, as men of few words, sprang into selfless action when heroism was required.

Idealized romanticized image of Jane Austen.

What does Charlotte Brontë offer us? That metrosexual cold fish, St. John Rivers. And then there’s Rochester, Mr. Sturm und Drang. He was a closet whiner and complainer, I’ll warrant, who, while holding all the power cards, forced poor plain Miss Eyre to listen to his incessant self-serving monologues. I bet he wandered around his cold stone house dragging the proverbial ball and chain in the form of the hidden insane wife, and wearing an expression that shouted to all but the blind: “Woe is me. Oh, woe is pitiful, loveless me.” As my dear friend, Lady Anne, told me, “Even Austen’s bad boys are more plausible than Brontë’s heroes.”

Where Mr. Darcy took his medicine with only a minor facial tick when Lizzie dressed him down after refusing his proposal, Rochester emoted suffering morning, noon, and night. Misery must have oozed out of his pores. Those obvious ploys for sympathy worked on me when I was 14 years old, but now that I am slightly longer in the tooth I am attracted to more mentally stable men, like Mr. Darcy. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I know that Darcy’s a cool and reserved character, and a bit of a prig. Taming him would be a REAL challenge, one that Elizabeth Bennet took on with relish. Whatever you think of him, there’s no denying that Darcy’s passion for Lizzy simmered and sizzled throughout Pride and Prejudice. Austen’s writing style might be spare and cerebral, but the chemistry between her heroes and heroines leaps off the pages and keeps us enthralled.

Jane Austen’s writing desk

In closing (and here my imagination has taken over), one suspects that after their wedding, our young and virile Mr. Darcy gave Lizzie some extremely satisfying romps in bed, followed by a repeat performance or two, whereas poor Mr. Rochester – well, let’s face it – he was OLD, and his physical health was compromised by that pesky though fortuitous fire. (Deux ex machina, anyone?) My guess is that, after observing his manly duty with Mrs. Rochester, he most likely gave her a peck on the cheek before rolling to the other side of the bed and instantly falling asleep. As her husband snored contentedly, a frustrated (but romantically inclined) Jane was frequently left to lie in the dark and think of England.

Christine’s edited version: 

‘In Austen, sex is just a kiss on the hand. In the Brontës, everything happens’. So says a newspaper clipping kept at the Brontë Parsonage Museum Library. After hearing that, the Brontës would get a twinkle in their eyes that would belie their quieter, Northern-lasses-from-a-parsonage appearance.

Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte herself, after reading Emma pronounced ”the passions are perfectly unknown to her, she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy Sisterhood; even to the Feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but distant recognition; too frequent converse with them would ruffle the smooth elegance of her progress.”

Which she corroborated after reading Pride and Prejudice: “An accurate daguerrotyped portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses”.

It’s an easy choice: either you like opening a book and gazing at a quiet and ever-green meadow, nice and lovely but always nice and lovely, sometimes too nice and too lovely or you like opening a book and looking at an ever-changing moor, sometimes bleak, sometimes radiantly in bloom, never predictable, always engaging. If you choose the latter, remember that being Team Brontë is more than a mere liking. As another newspaper said (as early as 1916): “Miss Austen and Thackeray have admirers; Charlotte Brontë has worshippers”.

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Law & Order and Jane Austen’s Aunt, by Paul Emanuelli

Posted in 19th Century England, Bath, Crime, Georgian Life, Jane Austen's World, Regency Customs, Regency Life, tagged , , on July 24, 2012| 16 Comments »

Inquiring readers: Paul Emanuelli, author of Avon Street, has contributed a post for this blog before about the City of Bath as a Character. He has graciously sent in an article about crime and an incident involving Jane Austen’s aunt, Mrs James Leigh-Perrot. Paul writes about Bath in his own blog, unpublishedwriterblog. It is well worth a visit!

Arrest of a woman at night, 1800. Thomas Rowlandson. Image @The Proceedings of the Old Bailey

Apart from the Bow Street Runners in London there was no organised police force in 18th Century England. The capture and prosecution of criminals was largely left to their victims to deal with. Every parish was obliged to have one or two constables, but they were unpaid volunteers working only in their spare time. A victim of crime who wanted a constable to track down and arrest the perpetrator was expected to pay the expenses of their doing so.

Sometimes victims of crime hired a thief-taker to pursue the wrong-doer. Again, they were private individuals working much like latter day bounty hunters. Sometimes, thief-takers would act as go-betweens, negotiating the return of stolen goods for a fee. Many though were corrupt, actually initiating and organising the original theft in order to claim the reward for the return of goods, or extorting protection money from the criminals they were supposed to catch.

Covent Garden watchhouse. Image @The Proceedings of the Old Bailey

For the most part, unless a criminal was “caught in the act” (probably) by their intended victim it was unlikely they would be brought to justice. In the absence of a police force, the maintenance of “Law and Order” therefore came to depend more on deterrence rather than apprehension and the harshest penalty of all came to cover more and more crimes. In 1799 there were 200 offences that carried the death penalty, including the theft of items with a monetary value that exceeded five shillings.

In practice, judges and juries often recognised the barbarity of the punishment in relation to the crime. Juries might determine that goods were over-priced and bring their value down below the five shilling threshold. Defendants might claim “benefit of clergy” which by virtue of stating religious belief and reading out an oath allowed the judge to exercise leniency. In other cases the Government could review the sentence. Between 1770 and 1830, 35,000 death sentences were handed down in England and Wales, but only 7000 executions were actually carried out.

Milliners shop, after Henry Kingsbury

On the 8th August 1799, Jane Leigh-Perrot was accused of stealing a card of white lace from a millinery shop in Bath. The Leigh-Perrots, a wealthy couple, were Jane Austen’s mother’s brother and sister-in-law (Jane’s Uncle and Aunt). The white lace valued at £1 was found in Mrs Leigh-Perrot’s possession together with a card of black lace that she had bought and paid for from the same shop. Mrs Leigh-Perrot denied stealing the lace, saying that the sales clerk must have given it her by mistake when he handed over her purchase. She was nevertheless arrested on a charge of “grand theft” and the lace she was said to have stolen was worth four times the five shillings that carried the death sentence.

Jane Cholmeley Perrot, aka Jane Austen’s Aunt Perrot

In practice it was unlikely (given her standing) that if she had been found guilty she would have been sentenced to death. The alternatives, however, included branding or transportation to the Australian Colonies with the prospect of forced labour for 14 years. Jane Leigh-Perrot was refused bail and committed to prison on the sworn depositions of the shopkeeper. Due to her wealth, social standing and age she was allowed to stay in the house of the prison keeper, Mr Scadding, at the Somerset County Gaol in Ilchester, rather than being kept in a cell. Mrs Leigh-Perrot still wrote though that she suffered ‘Vulgarity, Dirt, Noise from morning till night’. James Leigh-Perrot insisted on remaining with her in prison.

Mr James Leigh-Perrot. Image @JASA

During her trial Jane Leigh-Perrot spoke eloquently for herself. Several testimonials as to her character were also read out to the court. At the conclusion of the trial the jury took only 10 minutes to find her “Not Guilty.” It does, however, make you wonder how someone less well refined, less well-connected, less eloquent, less educated, less wealthy might have fared. The evidence of her guilt, might have been quite sufficient to send someone else to the gallows, or transported, or branded with a hot iron. She was after all caught in possession of the item and identified by the shop-keeper. In “Persuasion” Captain Harville asks Anne Elliot, ‘But how shall we prove anything?’ Anne replies, ‘We never shall.’

Mrs. Leigh-Perrot. Image @JASA

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