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In honor of the 200 year anniversary of William Wordsworth’s poem, “Daffodils,” the Cumbria Tourism board in the Lake District of England created a rap video by the squirrel M.C. Nuts to attract younger tourists.

My, how times have changed since Jane’s time! For comparison, here’s the original poem:

 

“Daffodils” (1804)

I WANDER’D lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretch’d in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed — and gazed — but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

A regency lady gets dressed

Progress of the Toilet, a series of engravings created in 1810 by James Gillray, a renowned and prolific British caricaturist, show three illustrations that depict a young lady being dressed by her maid. The details in these prints from an extensive print collection at the Yale University Library are striking and informative.

In the first plate, The Stays, Gillray depicts a young lady in her undergarments and wearing a cap, stockings, and slippers. On the floor sit a bowl and pitcher with water. Toiletries, pins, and jewelry are scattered on top of her dressing table. She inserts a busk between her breasts as her maid tightens her stays. Find a more detailed explanation about regency undergarments and regency fashions by clicking on the bolded words.


Elaborate powdered wigs of the previous century gave way to simpler hair styles, some cut quite short. In the illustration entitled The Wig, the maid prepares to place a short curly wig on her mistress’ head. Note that the mirror is now full length and that the side table looks different. Our young lady sits in a simple muslin day gown, with neck and arms covered, reading a book as her maid prepares her. A bonnet and an open robe or pelise (on chair) will complete her toilette. Find more regency hairstyles on this site.

In the third engraving, Dress Completed, we observe our young lady dressed for the evening and putting on evening gloves, which, typical of the day, are loose at the top. Her maid holds a shawl and fan, and her reticule hangs on a hook on the wall. The side table is no longer visible; her fashion plate book/magazine lies discarded on the floor. Our young lady’s slippers probably looked like this pair below. For a comprehensive view of footwear during this era, click here.

In The Mirror of Graces, 1811, a Lady of Distinction write, “Perhaps it is necessary to remind my readers that custom regulates the veiling or unveling the figure, according to different periods in the day. In the morning the arms and bosom must be completely covered to the throat and wrists. From the dinner-hour to the termination of the day, the arms, to a graceful height above the elbow, may be bare; and the neck and shoulders unveiled as far as delicacy will allow.”

Find regency clothing for sale on this site and a regency timeline in fashion here.

Salisbury


On July 6, 1810, Louis Simond wrote in An American in Regency England:

Salisbury is a little old city, very ugly, and of which there is nothing to say, except that the steeple of its cathedral, which is immensely high, and built of stone to its very summit, is twenty inches out of the perpendicular, which is really enough to take off the attention of the most devout congregation. We went to the morning service, and did not find a single person in the church except those officiating. It is not the the first time we have observed this desertion of the metropolitan churches–even where the steeples were quite perpendicular.


Well, I disagree with Louis Simond. We spent a pleasurable afternoon in Salisbury, gazing at the cathedral and visiting the town and found them charming. People are too picky at times: I enjoyed visiting an empty church. This allowed me to study its treasures up close and at leisure!

Update on the Rice Portrait

The “Rice Portrait” of a supposedly young Jane Austen failed to sell at auction at Christie’s on April 19th. For details, read The Globe article here or the Austen.blog’s extensive post about the failed sale.

To read the online NBC article, Confessions of an Austen-ite by Lisa Daniels, click here. And for a 3 minute video about the Rice Portrait, click here. (Wait for the commercial to end.)

For my assessment of the Rice Portrait, click here.

The Dandy’s Perambulations

The Dandy’s Perambulations, printed and sold in 1819 by John Marchall in Fleet Street, is posted in full by www.dandyism.net. Below are a few lines from the pamphlet:

[They] ran along together straight,
Until they reached the turnpike gate,
Where a coach had made a stop;
So they both got upon the top,
And after their disastrous falls,
At length in safety reached St. Paul’s.

Find a fairly cynical definition of a dandy on this Cambridge University Press site.