Felix Holt

by George Eliot

  6 (p. 3). unrepealed corn-laws: the corn law was instituted in 1815 in order to restrict the import of foreign wheat following the end of the long war, thereby protecting the national agricultural interest; wheat was only to be imported once the price of home-grown wheat had reached eighty shillings a quarter (and colonial wheat sixty-seven shillings a quarter). Amended in 1828 with the introduction of a sliding scale on duty for corn, with the levels of duty payable being higher as the prices of domestic grain fell (and vice versa), the corn laws kept supplies limited and prices high. Benefiting the landed interests of the country by their evident protectionism, they became another target of radical protest, not least because of their perceived social bias, maintaining the interest of the landowners at the expense of that of the wider population. The corn laws were not finally repealed until 1846, after the exceptionally bad harvest of 1845.

  7 (p. 3). three-and-sixpenny letters: before 1840, postage was calculated on the basis of the distance letters were to travel as well as on their weight, with the cost being met by the addressee rather than the sender. An unwieldy and expensive system, it militated especially against the poor, the Irish Radical Daniel O’Connell complaining that it would cost a third of the average weekly wages of a poor man in order to send a letter to Ireland and to get one back again. Uniform prepayment of letters, irrespective of the distance they were to travel, was first proposed by Rowland Hill in the 1830s, and the penny post was inaugurated on 10 January 1840 in accordance with the proposals outlined in Hill’s Post Office Reform: its Importance and Practicability (1837).

  8 (p. 3). a brawny and many-breeding pauperism: under the Speenhamland system of poor relief, introduced in the 1790s in Speenhamland and extended into a number of other parishes (especially in the south of England), the decision was taken to supplement low wages out of the poor rate. The exact amount given was based on the price of bread and the size of the family of the person seeking assistance; any increase in the number of children brought a corresponding increase in the level of poor relief, a situation which led to frequent criticisms of the fact that the system was not only uneconomic, placing no responsibilities on employers to pay fair wages, but also encouraged the ‘breeding’ of pauper children by the clear economic advantages brought by such additions to the family. A review into the provision of poor relief was instigated by the Whig government under Lord Grey in February 1832, leading to the new Poor Law of 1834 under which such abuses were eradicated. Further references to their prevalence in the early 1830s, however, occur throughout the text, as in Chapter VIII, p. 106: ‘pauper labourers, who showed that superior assimilating power often observed to attend nourishment by the public money’.

  9 (p. 3). Non omnia grandior ætas quæ fugiamus habet, says the wise goddess: the ‘wise goddess’ is Pallas Athene who, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, VI, 28-9, becomes the Roman goddess Minerva, addressing her words to Arachne the weaver who had denied Minerva’s hand in her own skills: ‘Minerva disguised herself as an old woman, white-haired and supporting herself upon a stick, and spoke as follows: “Not everything that old age brings in its wake is to be shunned; experience comes with the passing years. Do not despise my advice” ’ The advice is, however, rejected, ultimately leading to Arachne’s metamorphosis into a spider.

  10 (p. 3). Posterity may be shot…: this particular image derives from the 1860s rather than the 1830s, referring to the experimental railway erected in 1864 in the grounds of the Crystal Palace, in which a railway carriage was propelled through a 600-yard tunnel by means of large fans situated at each end. The basic principle was that of the creation of a vacuum in a closed tube, hence Eliot’s use of the ‘barren’ and enclosed journey in contrast to the richness of experience allowed by travel on the outside of the stage-coach.

  11 (p. 5). the rick-burners had not found their way hither: the second half of 1830 saw a number of agricultural disturbances in which large numbers of haystacks were burnt, farmers’ houses sacked, and agricultural implements destroyed throughout the southern and eastern counties of England, with the main activity located in Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Kent, Sussex, and Norfolk. Though the highest frequencies were recorded in November 1830, such rural protests continued into 1831, and sporadic episodes could be detected into the mid 1830s. Usually carried out by poorly paid agricultural workers demanding better wages and higher levels of poor relief, these were the so-called ‘Swing Riots’ led by a mythical ‘Captain Swing’ from whom threatening letters were sent before most of the attacks. Legal redress was swift and severe: 644 people were gaoled, almost 500 transported to Australia, and 9 were hanged.

  12 (p. 6). Voluntaryism: the principle by which religion should be supported by voluntary donations from the faithful rather than by the state.

  13 (p. 7). the agitation about the Catholics in ’29: until 1829, Catholics had been subject to a number of political and civil disabilities, being excluded, for example, from both local and national government. The ‘Irish question’ of the day, emancipation was strongly supported by the Whigs and Emancipation Bills twice succeeded in the Commons in the early 1820s, only to be defeated in the Lords. In 1828, however, Daniel O’Connell, a Catholic politician and barrister (and founder of the Catholic Association in 1823), was returned at the election in County Clare. This pressured the English government into carrying emancipation through, for although O’Connell had been legitimately elected, since he was Catholic he was unable to take up his parliamentary seat, a fact which served to make agitation for Catholic reform even greater, as well as raising the fear of civil war. The Catholic Emancipation Act, removing all disabilities from Catholics, was eventually passed in 1829, carried by the Tory government, and led by the Duke of Wellington and Peel in a move regarded as a political volte-face and a betrayal of Tory principles, not least because Peel had hitherto been one of the most prominent opponents of emancipation. This particular point of view is evident in Chapter II of Felix Holt (p. 34) in John Lingon’s conviction that ‘anything really worthy to be called British Toryism had been entirely extinct since the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel had passed the Catholic Emancipation Bill’.

  14 (p. 7). Nottingham riots: following the defeat of the Second Reform Bill in the House of Lords on 8 October 1831, Nottingham was immediately subject to considerable reform agitation, Nottingham Castle, the property of the Duke of Newcastle (a landlord who had evicted those of his tenants in favour of reform) being burnt down two days later. Such outbursts were not, however, limited to Nottingham, and rioting, together with the sacking of the gaol and an attack on the town-hall, took place in Derby, and in Bristol the Bishop’s Palace was destroyed. A new Reform Bill was introduced in December 1831.

  15 (p. 7). Sir Humphry Davy: Sir Humphry Davy (1778–1829) published his Elements of Agricultural Chemistry in 1813. In it he applied his scientific insights to the practice of farming, advocating in particular the use of crop rotation instead of the habit of leaving land fallow in order to regain lost nutrients.

  16 (p. 7). Break up your fallow-ground: Jeremiah 4:3, Hosea 10–12: and the reading adopted in the second, third and fourth editions of Felix Holt. The manuscript and the first edition have ‘Plough up the fallow-ground of your hearts’.

  17 (p. 8). the shade of Virgil in a more memorable journey: the ‘shade of Virgil’ acts as guide to Dante through Hell and Purgatory in Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia. In Canto I of the Inferno in the ‘eternal and terrible place’ of Hell, Virgil, the image of human wisdom, leads Dante out of the ‘dark wood’ of sin in which he is lost and from there he accompanies him on successive stages of his pilgrimage in the Inferno and Purgatorio.

  18 (p. 8). the Wanderer in the ‘Excursion’: Wordsworth, one of Eliot’s favourite poets whom she read and re-read throughout her life, published The Excursion in 1814. The poem, in nine books and originally intended to form the middle section of a larger three-part work ‘on Man, Nature, and Society’, details the travels of the poet who is accompanied by
the ‘Wanderer’, a philosophic pedlar who is his guide and companion. The last two books focus on the industrial changes of the early nineteenth century and on the sense of destruction which this brought, as well as its consequences for the working class. As in Felix’s own political and social philosophy later in the novel, the emphasis is firmly placed on the remedial effects of education.

  19 (p. 8). the recent initiation of Railways …: proof of God’s anger against Stephenson: George Stephenson (1781–1848), the most famous British railway engineer, was the engineer of the Stockton to Darlington railway (1825) and of the Liverpool to Manchester line, as well as being the builder of the celebrated engine The Rocket. The Liverpool to Manchester railway opened in 1830 and William Huskisson, President of the Board of Trade from 1823 and MP for Liverpool, was killed at the opening ceremony by the train being pulled by Stephenson’s Rocket.

  20 (p. 8). there were men of old family … who voted for the Bill: the First Reform Bill was introduced to the House of Commons by Lord John Russell in March 1831. Together with Lords Durham and Duncannon and Sir James Graham, he formed one of the founder members of the Cabinet committee specifically appointed by Lord Grey, the Whig Prime Minister, in order to further the issues of parliamentary reform and to develop a scheme for its introduction.

  21 (p. 9). Generations back, the heir of the Transome name had somehow bargained away the estate, and it fell to the Durfeys: this is the first reference to the complex legal history of Transome Court and its inheritance which is to form a major element in the plot of Felix Holt. Already suggesting some insecurity surrounding the tenure of the current Transomes, it makes concise mention of the original sale of the entailed rights to the estate (by Thomas Transome), and to the claims which continued to arise in respect of these rights. See also Appendix A for a summary of the relevant laws of entail and their relevance for the plot.

  22 (p. 10). The poets have told us…: both Dante and Virgil describe a forest in which the trees contain the souls of the dead, and which bleed if any twig or branch is broken from them. In Book III of the Aeneid Aeneas breaks off the boughs of trees which then begin to bleed and to reproach him for his actions. In Canto XIII of the Inferno, in the second ring of the seventh circle of Hell, Dante sets out through a pathless wood, where the boughs are knotted and warped and poisonous thorns take the place of fruit or green leaves. Here, as Canto XI (11. 43–5) explains, are those ‘who rob themselves of your world or gamble away and dissipate themselves, lamenting where they should rejoice’. Dante breaks off a twig: ‘And I put out my hand a little and plucked a twig from a great thorn, and its trunk cried: “Why are you tearing me?” And when it had turned dark with blood it began again: “Why are you mangling me? Have you no spirit of pity? We were once human and now are turned to sticks; your hand might well have been more full of pity if we had been souls of serpents.” As a green brand that is burning at one end drips from the other and hisses with the escaping wind, so from the broken splinter came forth words and blood together; at which I let fall the tip and stood as one afraid’ (Canto XIII, 11. 31–45).

  CHAPTER I

  1 (p. 12) the memorable year 1832: the first half of 1832 saw the final stages in the passing of the Reform Bill. First introduced in March 1831 only to be rejected by the House of Lords, it was followed by a second Reform Bill in July and a second rejection by the Lords in October, with a third Reform Bill, including some further modifications, being introduced in December. Faced with the Whig threat of the creation of more peers in order to ensure its safe passage through the Lords, the Lords eventually capitulated and the Reform Bill was finally passed on 4 June 1832.

  2 (p. 18) I left him behind … the rest of the luggage: Eliot’s careful phrasing here further amplifies Harold’s egotistical disregard for others, his son (as yet unnamed in the novel) being equated with another piece of luggage.

  3 (p. 19) Sir Francis Burdett had been generally regarded as a madman: Sir Francis Burdett (1770–1844) was, in spite of his title, a populist Radical MP for much of his life and an early campaigner for parliamentary reform, organizing petitions to this end through a number of provincial towns in 1816. A strong advocate of the extension of the franchise, he was elected for Middlesex in 1802, immediately becoming involved in a much contested electoral dispute. In 1807 he became the Member for Westminster, where he remained until 1837, after which he resigned. He subsequently became a Conservative and won his seat back again.

  4 (p. 29) Mr Burke’s style, or of Chateaubriand’s eloquence …: Mr Southey’s Thalaba: reading in Felix Holt becomes an act of some significance, as in Felix’s own later denunciation of Byron to Esther in Chapter V, p. 69, or Esther’s own reading of Chateaubriand (see Chapter X, note 3). Mrs Transome’s reading amplifies the account of the accomplishments of her youth, and the clear indications of their empty and fragmentary nature. The writers and works given here were all prominent around the turn of the century; Burke’s (anti-Radical and highly Tory) Reflections on the French Revolution was published in 1790, prompting Paine’s two-part The Rights of Man (1791–2) in response, a work which signally does not figure in Mrs Transome’s literary pursuits. François–René Chateaubriand, himself a follower of Edmund Burke, published his Génie du Christianisme in 1802, a text in which his ‘eloquence’ was felt to be particularly marked. Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads was published in 1798, and Mrs Transome’s ‘laughter’ suggests what is perhaps a fashionable disregard for their aesthetic, at least in her social world. The Tory poet, Robert Southey, published Thalaba the Destroyer in 1801.

  5 (p. 29) the succession of the House of Brunswick: the duchy of Brunswick-Luneberg was established in north-western Germany in 1235, being shared among different members of the Guelphs in the thirteenth century. One in particular, the House of Hanover, rose to prominence in the seventeenth century because of its marriage connections with the English royal family, later succeeding to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland in 1714.

  CHAPTER II

  1 (p. 33). cock-fighting … gained little by the abolition of a practice: one of several minor anachronisms in the novel. Though the subject of much censure, cock-fighting was not actually abolished until 1849.

  2 (p. 33). Christ’s Hospital: founded in 1552, Christ’s Hospital was originally a London city charity school, associated with almshouses for the poor. Though traditionally educating the orphan offspring of the lower clergy, as well as those of indigent gentlemen and officers, it had changed its social composition considerably by the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, often at that time taking on the label of a ‘great’ or ‘public’ school. As Mr Lingon’s comment about charity-school Latin indicates, however, its Old associations could still linger on and it was not to be one of the nine ‘great’ public schools (Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Westminster, Winchester, Charterhouse, St Paul’s, Merchant Taylors’ and Shrewsbury) investigated by the Clarendon Commission of 1861. Harold himself (as well as his brother Durfey) had been to Eton.

  3 (p. 34). Melchisedec and the tithe: Melchizadek was the king of Salem and ‘Priest of the Most High God’. An epiphany of Christ, prefiguring his priesthood, the patriarch Abraham paid tithes to him: ‘To whom Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation king of righteousness, and after that king of Salem, which is, king of peace’ (Hebrews 7:2). The implication here resides in the fact that Melchizadek was provided for by God, and hence prepared to live off the offerings of other people, the latter forming the (ironic) substance of John Lingon’s own interpretation of this element of biblical history; like Melchizadek, John Lingon ‘never meddled with business’.

  4 (p. 34). Visitation sermon: the Visitation Sermon is the official title given to the sermon preached on the occasion of an Episcopal Visitation, when the bishop undertakes a periodic visit to a diocese in order to inspect its spiritual and temporal wellbeing.

  5 (p. 34). rights of man stopping short at ten-pound householders: an allusion to Tom Paine’s celebrated radical
manifesto The Rights of Man of 1791–2 (see Chapter III, note 5), this also offers a critique of the policy by which the franchise was enlarged in the First Reform Bill of June 1832. Conferring the right to vote upon those men who either owned or rented property for which the annual rental value was £10 or more in towns (in rural regions the qualifying level was forty shillings), it enlarged the franchise in England and Wales by c. 250,000 voters (from a previous level of c. 435,000). The total population at that date was some seven million.

  6 (p. 34). old Pretender: James Stewart (or Stuart), the son of James II, was known as James III among the Jacobites following his father’s death in 1701. The popular epithet ‘Pretender’ signified his claims or pretensions to the throne.

  7 (p. 35). William Pitt … save my country, heaven!: Sir William Pitt (1759–1806) was Tory Prime Minister in the reign of George III. His last words are in fact disputed though none of the currently accepted variants accords with the words credited to him by John Lingon. Lord Stanhope in the first edition of his Life of the Right Honourable William Pitt (1861) records Pitt’s last words as ‘How I love my country’, though in the 1879 edition they are given as ‘O my country! How I love my country!’. G. Rose’s Diaries and Correspondence in 1806 gives ‘My country! Oh, my country!’. Oral tradition, however, supplies yet another alternative: ‘I think I could eat one of Bellamy’s veal pies.’

  8 (p. 39). the one-eyed calender in the ‘Arabian Nights’: a Kalendar is a member of a Mohammedan mendicant fraternity, and several (each with one eye) in fact appear in the Arabian Nights, three of them relating tales of how they had received their injury during their travels.