James Austen: Jane's Literary Influencer?

 

The Loiterer Vol II, 1790

I'd heard of The Loiterer. It's the sort of name that sticks in your brain, and it had popped up numerous times in various Austen biographies I'd read. "I'll read that one day", I'd said to myself. Well I've now finally taken the time to delve into its pages to find out what it's all about.

It turns out that one of her older scholarly brothers, James Austen, created a new weekly periodical while he was a Fellow at Oxford University in his twenties. His intention was to create "a very well-bred and polite paper" which provided "a rough, but not entirely inaccurate Sketch of the Character, the Manners, and the Amusements of Oxford, at the close of the eighteenth Century". It was sold in Oxford, London, Birmingham, Bath and Reading for 3 pence an issue, and ran from January 1789 to March 1790. 

I didn't really know much about this literary brother who was ten years Jane's senior, but it turns out that as well as The Loiterer he was also an (unpublished) poet. Poetry was seen at the time as much more serious, respectable and intellectual than novel writing. And Claire Harman's view below makes me both melancholy and curious:

“His seniority, his sex and his choice of the art of poetry over prose meant that even after his sister had become a highly praised novelist, he was…still regarded as the writer of the family.” 

 

James Austen

The Loiterer consists of 60 issues, most of which were written by James, nine by his brother Henry Austen, and a handful by friends at Oxford University and an unknown correspondent. They mainly focus on topics that would appeal to young Oxford students (or "gownsmen" as one article pleasingly refers to them) - hunting, drinking, money, class, and social commentary - and most articles are witty and satirical. We get a mixture of essays and supposed letters to the editor. My personal favourite reads:

"DEAR MR. LOITERER, I have long had a great desire to see how my name would look in print; by inserting this, therefore, in your entertaining work, you will confer an everlasting favour, On your constant reader, and sincere admirer, TOM WITTY"

That one was particularly daft. The second issue was also one of my favourites where James wrote spoof newspaper articles imagining what papers would be like if everyone had to tell the honest truth:

"Monday. – The House met this day at four, and the Minister, according to his promise of last week rose to open the Budget. He informed the House, that he very much disliked the subject of Finance at all times, but that it was particularly disagreeable to him at present, as the expenditure of the last year had exceeded the revenue by some hundred thousand pounds...owing...chiefly to the enormous pensions he was obliged to grant to his friends;...and he was therefore resolved to lay on no new taxes which might draw odium on his administration, foreseeing that he should be well able to stand three or four years longer, at which time he purposed accepting of a Peerage, and enjoying the remainder of his life...  

He was answered by Mr. ––, who began by assuring the House, that...as for the calculations contained in the honourable Gentleman's speech, he knew not whether they were true, or false, as he had not listened to one single syllable...being entirely taken up in considering what answer he should make, as he well knew it was expected he should say something."

 

Pitt addressing the House of Commons, 1793
(National Portrait Gallery, London)

Much of the humour found in The Loiterer is very tongue-in-cheek. It jokingly makes fun of the world James sees and the people he encounters in it. And the sharp social commentary, using humour at people's folly to gently instruct (rather than a heavy didactic and moralising tone) strikes me as very similar to Jane's style.

It makes me realise the powerful influence her family and home environment must have been. She was raised within a close-knit domestic circle of intelligent, witty, well-read people who shared common literary tastes, styles and humour. And her early experiences within this family, being exposed to not only those literary tastes, but also to seeing an older brother having his works published, must have influenced and inspired a teenage Jane.

Because while James was busy publishing these articles, 13-year old Jane was back at home in Steventon busily writing her second volume worth of burlesque Juvenilia, all of which are also tongue-in-cheek, daft, and similarly poke fun at people and things. In fact, the style of her Juvenilia is suspiciously analogous to one of the letters printed in issue 9 of The Loiterer. This letter is a fictional complaint from a female reader asking for more romantic content and it is more frivolously frothy than all the other periodical content. The letter writer (calling herself Sophia Sentiment) hilariously damns the paper by calling it "the stupidest work of the kind I ever saw" and instead makes a request for future issues:

"Let us see some nice affecting stories, relating the misfortunes of two lovers, who died suddenly, just as they were going to church. Let the lover be killed in a duel, or lost at sea, or you may make him shoot himself, just as you please; and as for his mistress, she will of course go mad; or if you will, you may kill the lady, and let the lover run mad; only remember, whatever you do, that your hero and heroine must possess a great deal of feeling, and have very pretty names."

This satirical portrayal of romance novels could just as easily be found within Jane's Juvenilia and, like so much of her early writing, makes me laugh out loud. 

We'll never know whether Jane actually wrote this article and whether this was in fact the first time her writing appeared in print. But there's one more unusual fact about this issue. This was the only issue to be advertised in the Austen's favourite newspaper, the Reading Mercury. Coincidence?

Advert for issue no. 9, Reading Mercury, 6 April 1789
(The British Newspaper Archive)

It's fascinating to think that Jane was so encouraged in her early writing by her family that she was given the opportunity to print some of her work. But even if she wasn't, it's clear that being in such a literary-minded family, inspired and guided by her older brother James, had a profound influence on her writing.

Walking with Jane Austen

 

The Hazards of Walking to a Near Neighbour's for Dinner (1812-1823) by Diana Sperling

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen was a lover of walking.

She described herself and her great friend Martha Lloyd as "desperate walkers" in 1800 when she was 24, something I can heartily relate to. In my 20s I hiked almost every weekend and for my holidays I solo hiked the Ridgeway and South Downs Way in southern England. And when I clocked that not only did I have that in common with Jane Austen, but I also lived near where she grew up and have friends who live near places she stayed regularly, it seemed almost like a sign. A sign to revisit those walks that she regularly took, see the sights she saw, and feel the exertion she felt on those walks.

I've painstakingly gone through all of her surviving letters plus all the various memoirs and references from her nieces and nephews to pull out into a massive spreadsheet every documented walk Austen took. And I've reached a whopping total of 70 walks. These range from long afternoon strolls from Bath into the surrounding countryside for pleasure with family and friends, to very short sprints to visit close neighbours in Kent. 

Walking for Jane was clearly both practical, helping her get from A to B and connect with loved ones, but also so much more than that. It was a pastime she relished and enjoyed, a medium in which to bond with others socially, a way for her to maintain her health and stay active, and a way to experience the world on her own terms. Not only that but the connection between walking and writing is well documented, and having time and space outside helps give a writer perspective as well as enabling them to think at 3 miles an hour.

I'm very much at the beginning of my journey, but having now identified a number of Jane's walks that I will recreate, the task ahead of me now is to continue with my research of women's experience of walking in the late 18th century and early 19th century, and to follow in her footsteps. 

My first walk will be one she will have walked many, many times: between her home at Steventon Rectory and her friends the Lloyd's (and then her brother's) home in Deane Rectory, just up the road.

All that's left is for me to put one foot in front of the other...

Evening & Walking Dresses in August 1807
National Portrait Gallery, London

The harmonising effect of girls: then and now

Friendship is Magic

As a child I used to love My Little Ponies - they were, I think, my favourite toys to play with. And this morning I was secretly excited as my almost three-year old daughter asked to watch "ponies" on TV - something we'd never watched before. So we snuggled down on the sofa and watched our first episode together...

I was immediately struck by the overarching messages - echoes of the exact same messages for girls I read in texts over 200 years old. I know change takes time, but the specific similarity was very surprising.

Harmony Quest

The series we watched was subtitled 'Friendship is Magic' and the lead characters were on a quest to find the ‘Elements of Harmony’. As the programme is clearly directed at girls (all the lead characters are female) the message I was getting was that it is specifically important for girls to value friendship and harmony, and to work hard to make good relationships and create social harmony. The adventures are contained within that core premise.

Happily, my daughter also currently enjoys (but for how long?) what could be called 'boys' programmes, including Paw Patrol and Blaze and the Monster Machines. These programmes have overwhelmingly male characters and focus on heroism, courage, winning and adventure. There are of course friends present, but developing friendships per se is not the focus. And it's fascinating that these specifically gendered messages and language are still in use for boys and girls today.

Rewind to eighteenth century girls' conduct books, and we read the same language. As the steady rise of the cult of domesticity began, revering the domestic role of women, we see a responsibility set out for women in which creating social harmony is vital. This was particularly seen through the encouragement of domestic music for girls, who were expected to play the piano and sing to soothe the worries away from wearied fathers and brothers. Hampshire Record Office holds hundreds of letters between two friends, Anne Sturges-Bourne and Marianne Dyson, one of which states "most of my evening is employed in singing Clarion, which Papa always asks for, & I really am not tired of it" (Ref: 9M55/F6/38) A similar sentiment is expressed by a teenager about 20 years later: "I feel that, situated as I am, an only daughter…, it rests upon one, to make our home bright, cheerful and attractive to the boys, and comfortable to Father" (Quoted in Solie, Music in Other Words, p106). Here we can see how girls employed a double meaning of the word harmonious, by literally singing melodic harmony but also creating domestic harmony. 

Letters to a young lady: 
On a variety of useful and interesting subjects: 
Calculated to improve the heart, to form the manners,
and enlighten the understanding by the Rev. John Bennett

The conduct book featured above, 'Letters to a Young Lady' by Rev. Bennett was originally published in 1798 and subsequently had multiple editions and is fairly standard for its time in suggesting that girls should play music to "harmonize...mind and spirits". 

While I am very used to reading this kind of message in eighteenth and nineteenth century texts, it's sadly fascinating to see this gendered language of creating harmony rebounding into our living rooms today.

Farewell to Clandon Park

Clandon Park

 
I had the huge privilege to work as the House Manager's Assistant part-time for three years at the beautiful Clandon Park from 2009 and, like so many others affected, am devastated by the nation's loss following the recent fire. Seeing the images of flames ripping through the rooms, destroying the beautiful objects that so many of us have lovingly cleaned and cared for over so many years, is truly heart-breaking.
 
The collection was fabulous and included one of the country's best assembly of porcelain and ceramic, including stunning Meissen harlequin commedia dell'arte figures and monkey orchestra as well as pieces by Sèvres, Bow and Chelsea.
 

Some of Clandon Park's fabulous ceramics

The fire-fighters did an amazing job, and I was reminded of the modest antique fire-fighting equipment displayed in the basement outside the old kitchen, just metres from where the fire broke out. When giving tours of the property, I would often finish here, concluding how significant a risk fire posed to historic mansions, never thinking it might later destroy the very property I was standing in.

Fire-fighting equipment on display in the basement of
Clandon Park, where the fire broke out

Without a doubt the awe-inspiring Marble Hall (a towering 40-foot cube) was the highlight of the mansion, described in 1747 by George Vertue as:

"a most noble and elegant Hall, 40 foot high, adorn'd with marbles, pillars, carvings, bass relieves by Rysbrake, stuccos, painting[s], guildings &co, most rich and costly."

The dramatic Marble Hall

Now all that remains is a shell, an echo of its former glory. Yet miraculously surviving are the Corinthian marble pillars, marble busts and statues, and one Venetian wall-lamp. And who knows what lies under the rubble in the ashes?


The Marble Hall (copyright Hayley Bystram)


The solitary marble "blackamoor" bust, nestled in the Saloon door's pediment - now broken free and gazing towards the open sky - leaves a ghostly reminder. The 1720s mansion was built by Thomas Lord Onslow using money from his wealthy new bride, Elizabeth Knight. Elizabeth was the sole heiress of not only her father but also her childless uncle, both of whom made their fortunes from large sugar plantations in Jamaica as well as slave trading. 

A haunting legacy now remains. With a lonely and proud face, a slave whose bondage and toil funded the building of Clandon is now its final inhabitant.

Surviving marble bust in the ruins of the Marble Hall

Back to life: A Regency square piano

I was lucky enough to acquire my very own square piano a few years ago, which needed some TLC to bring it back to working order - and luckily for me we were able to find a wonderful piano restorer in Somerset who has almost finished his amazing work! In just a few weeks we shall have it returned to our living room, so that the songs of period composers such as Hook, Storace and Dibdin can be played and sung to once more.

My square piano - restoration almost completed

 
Square pianos were a fundamental domestic instrument from the 1760s until well into the early nineteenth century, when they were replaced by piano fortes. At first they were expensive and elite, but by the turn of the nineteenth century (when my piano was built, in 1808) they were affordable for many British families. As the musicologist Charles Burney noted:

The tone was very sweet, and the touch...equal to any degree of rapidity. These, [with] their low price and the convenience of their form, as well as the power of expression, suddenly grew into such favour...in short [they could not be made] fast enough to satisfy the craving of the public.

Female music making in 1810 (courtesy of Albion Prints.com)

Played primarily by young women, they offered the latest in home entertainment of the era, with the small size of the square piano making it ideal for any sized drawing room. And unlike the harpsichord before them which were plucked, the square pianos' little hammers allowed the young lady to play loudly or softly, staccato or smoothly.

Our hammers with the original leather hinges still intact.
The 1960s felt is being replaced with leather to create an authentic sound

As befitted the performance style of the songs she would sing, expressivity and stirring emotionality were paramount. In a guide to singing of 1765, Jonas Hanway noted how "music may fire the mind with martial ardour...warm the breast with a religious zeal, or sooth[e] it into tears of penitence".

And indeed, when you examine the music collections of girls of this era, they are filled with stirring songs telling tales of dangerous naval battles or compassion for fallen women pleading for pity.

Another innovative way to play expressively was to use the square piano's sustain pedal. Our little piano had lost its pedal, so our talented restorer has turned a new one for us and reattached it. The sustain system is very straight-forward with a simple string pulling the dampers up to allow the strings to ring.

The newly turned pedal, replete with hook for the string to go through

It is also an exceptional instrument to play. The action of the keys is very shallow and light, so it is much easier to play fast runs, making the experience very different to a modern piano. In fact, at the time many music guide books encouraged women to hide any appearance of effort or virtuosity, to ensure their performances looked natural and modest. Music making for women should have no sense of having required hours of strenuous toil - music was simply one of many accomplishments. A light touch on the keys would surely have aided this representation of ease.

Although Broadwood was one of the most popular makers of square pianos, the musician Muzio Clementi also became a keen producer of these instruments in London from the 1790s. My piano comes from his Cheapside workshop and we can tell from its handwritten serial number that it was made in 1808.

My only concern now is the tuning. Unlike iron-framed modern pianos, the wood in square pianos moves and shifts with humidity, meaning the strings require regular tuning. I have been warned that to tune my piano will take around an hour. Now I just need to find an authentic Regency stool to sit on, practice my Regency repertoire, and ensure the piano returns in one piece.



The spaces for the pegs for strings - all neatly labelled

Wilderness or shrubbery?

'"Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favour me with your company."

"Go, my dear," cried her mother, "and shew her ladyship about the different walks..."'

The term wilderness isn't one we often use any more and so trying to imagine the environment Elizabeth and Lady Catherine have just strolled into in Pride and Prejudice can be frustrating.

A wilderness however was an exceedingly popular garden feature from the seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century. Unlike the wildness that the word conjures up, it was actually a highly structured space. Developing from bosquets (formal lines and rows of trees), wildernesses were places where you could walk on gravel or grass paths, through neatly ordered geometric lines or curves of trees.

To understand what they were like, it is worth quoting Philip Miller from his Gardener’s Dictionary of 1735 at length:

The usual Method of contriving Wildernesses is, to divide the whole Compass of Ground, either into Squares' Angles, Circles, or other Figures, …  the Walks are commonly made to intersect each other in Angles...and the more these Walks are turned, the greater Pleasure they will afford. These should now and then lead into an open circular Piece of Grass; in the Center of which may be placed either an Obelisk, Statue, or Fountain.

An eighteenth century wilderness, as planted

The idea was that you could lose yourself within the shady walks, deep in contemplation, similar to a philosopher under a tree. As Robert Burton wrote in his Anatomy of Melancholy in 1612:

What is more pleasant than to walk alone in some solitary grove...to meditate upon some delightsome and pleasant subject.

At Ham House in Richmond, near London, the garden has been recreated as it would have been in the seventeenth century, so you can wander around through leafy corridors and really get a feel for this type of walk.

Wandering the Wilderness at Ham House, Richmond (National Trust)

By the 1750s however such formal spaces were becoming unfashionable and any linear features were slowly disappearing, in order to reflect the more liberal and free-thinking attributes of a patriotic Britain. Curved walks became serpentine and walls of trees and hedges gradually turned into shrubberies bursting with borders of small flowers running back into taller flowering shrubs and then trees. Now such shady walks included honeysuckle, primroses, sweet briars, pinks, roses, peonies, lilacs, laburnams and syringas. Capability Brown, who we associate so closely with sweeping acres of rolling turf, created many such flowering shrubberies, often referred to as Pleasure Gardens. These walks were close to the house, to allow the owners and their visitors pleasant, sheltered walks in both summer and winter. Austen herself highlights this in Mansfield Park when Lady Bertram states: '"Mr Rushworth, ... if I were you, I would have a very pretty shrubbery. One likes to get out into a shrubbery in fine weather."' In her home at Chawton, Austen had a shrubbery border of which she was very fond.

So we can see how, by the late eighteenth century, when Austen was writing, wildernesses were wholly unfashionable and outdated, and had been replaced by the more modern shrubbery. Why therefore did Austen give the Bennets a wilderness? Was she perhaps drawing the readers' attention to the fact that the Bennets did not have the money to update their garden, and highlighting their lack of wealth and fashion? Or could she have been pointing to Lady Catherine's outdated language when describing shaded gravel walks near the house?

Finally, it is also interesting to note how Austen could combine a criticism of the old-fashioned nature of the gardens at Mansfield Park with a conservative approval for the preservation of useful features, showing a mature respect for old and new, when she writes about how:

A considerable flight of steps landed them in the wilderness, which was a planted wood of about two acres, and though chiefly of larch and laurel, and beech cut down, and though laid out with too much regularity, was darkness and shade, and natural beauty, compared with the bowling-green and the terrace. They all felt the refreshment of it, and for some time could only walk and admire.

By the end of the eighteenth century, your decision to have a wilderness or shrubbery was actually an important social indicator, and was commented on by guests and visitors alike. But whatever you had, the necessity of having a shaded place for pleasant sheltered walks close to the house was fully appreciated by the Georgians. Luckily for us, many such spaces still exist and can be equally enjoyed by visitors today.

The Pleasure Ground or Shrubbery at Petworth House

Women vs Men: Battle of the Bodies

In the eighteenth century much of our medical understanding was founded on the knowledge of the Ancients. The Hippocratic doctrine of the four humors was its basis, and it attempted to explain the differences between men and women through them. For example it was believed that women and children suffered more from cold and moist humours than men (phlegm), leading to them having naturally weaker and less controlled bodies and minds.



The Four Humors

As society changed in England during the eighteenth century the role of women began to be questioned. Were women different because of nature or nurture? Feminists such as Mary Wollstonecraft argued strongly that a lack of decent education for women, as well as social opportunities, were the causes of gender inequalities. Unsurprisingly however the male orientated world of science (or natural philosophy as it was called) generally argued the opposite. With new branches of anatomy and physiology, thanks to more opportunities for dissection, men directed their studies at trying to understand what made women so fundamentally different through studying the human body. It was important to them to try and establish exactly where women fitted in and why, and the skeleton was seen as the way to do this.

Before about 1750 the human skeleton was almost thought of as asexual, with gender differences only being apparent in reproductive organs and the exterior body. (Yet this in itself was still enough to prove some sort of gender superiority, as women's reproductive organs were seen as inferior to men's because they were an inverted version of the ideal.)  The first publication to contain both text and illustration of male and female skeletons was the Traité d’ostéologie published in 1759 with illustrations by Marie d'Arconville.

Marie Genevieve Charlotte Thiroux d'Arconville

D'Arconville chose to incorrectly represent the female skull as smaller in proportion to the body, as well as drawing broader hips and a narrower ribcage, perhaps reflecting the use of tight corsets during this period. Later, in 1796, a German anatomist called Samuel von Soemmerring also published illustrations of a female skeleton, but his were quite different to d'Arconville's, particularly with reference to the ribcage. In fact his work was criticised for not showing a narrower ribcage - not for scientific reasons, but for cultural ones: 'women's rib cage is much smaller than that shown by Soemmerring, because it is well known that women's restricted life style requires that they breathe less vigorously'.


Soemmerring's illustration showing the effects of corsets, 1785

Through these new medical illustrations of male and female skeletons however, men were now able for the first time to see internal differences between the genders, and it is interesting to see how they used this knowledge to further solidify their gender bias. Women's larger pelvis' were seen as 'proof' that women were naturally bound for motherhood and domesticity, unlike men who were clearly not, and this scientific knowledge complemented the increasing nostalgia for the role of motherhood that developed during the nineteenth century, reflected in art and literature. Likewise it was thought that the reason women and children had proportionately larger heads than men was simply because their skulls lacked the complete evolutionary growth of men's. This psuedo-science of craniology was also applied to Africans and Aborigines in an attempt to justify their subjugation by white men.



Skeletons by John Barclay, 1820

To conclude, by discovering differences in men and women's bodies in the later eighteenth century, anatomists sought to understand why women were culturally different, but without taking culture into account. Morality and gender, physicality and character, all were combined in 'scientific' understanding. This can be summed up by a doctor called J. J. Sachs who stated in 1830:

The male body expresses positive strength, sharpening male understanding and independence, and equipping men for life in the State, in the arts and sciences. The female body expresses womanly softness and feeling. The roomy pelvis determines women for motherhood. The weak, soft members and delicate skin are witness of women's narrower sphere of activity, of home-bodiness, and peaceful family life.