Barchester Towers
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2 (p. 443). Sir Charles Grandison: The hero of Samuel Richardson’s novel of that name (1754). a pattern of old-world courtesy and politeness.
3 (p. 447). ‘ Tis conscience that makes cowards of us all’: See Hamlet, III, i, 83: ‘Thus conscience does make cowards of us all’.
CHAPTER 14
1 (p. 460). petard: A case containing explosives, with an echo of Hamlet’s reference to the ‘engineer/Hoist with his own petar’ (III, iv, 206–7).
CHAPTER 15
1 (p. 470). the parasite plants grow and prosper. The image recalls Thackeray’s ironic use of it in the final chapter of Vanity Fair, when Amelia at last agrees to marry Dobbin: ‘Grow green again, tender little parasite, round the rugged old oak to which you cling!’
CHAPTER 16
1 (p. 475). nil admiran: To wonder at nothing.
2 (p. 478). his ‘congé’ from the bishop: Permission to leave, dismissal.
CHAPTER 17
1 (p. 481 ). couleur de rose. Rose colour.
2 (p. 482). Is the second childishness…sans everything: See As You Like It. II. vii. 165–6.
3 (p. 482). facile princeps: Easily first.
4 (p. 483). At last he rose…fresh woods and pastures new: See Milton, lycidas, lines 192–3.
CHAPTER 19
1 (p. 496). Erard: Sébastien érard (1752–1831), famous French maker of musical instruments.
2 (p. 496). Exhibition: The Great Exhibition of 1851.
3 (p. 497). his adherence to the rubric: Strict adherence to the rules directing the conduct of the church service, sometimes printed in red (hence ‘rubric’) in the prayer-book, was part of the Oxford Movement’s campaign to revive the liturgical life of the Church of England.
4 (p. 497). certain very heavy ecclesiastical legal expenses…in Bath: A reference to the trial of G. A. Denison (1805–96), Archdeacon of Taunton, before an ecclesiastical court in the Guildhall at Bath in July 1856. Denison was an extreme and pugnacious High Churchman who preached and published three sermons on the Eucharist which invited, and received, the opposition of Evangelicals, who took the issue to the ecclesiastical courts. The Bath court found Denison’s doctrine contrary to two of the Thirty-nine Articles, but he took the case to the court of arches where ft was dismissed on a legal technicality in 1857. See Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, Part I (1966), 491–5, where it is suggested that Denison is the prototype of Archdeacon Grantly.
5 (p.497). when the Archdeacon of Canterbury is named: Because the archbishop at this time was John Bird Sumner (1780–1862), known for his Evangelical sympathies.
6 (p. 498). Anathema maranatha!: From I Corinthians xvi, 22, a curse of excommunication. ‘Anathema sit’ means ‘let him be accursed’, ‘maranatha’ is usually interpreted as a Syriac word meaning ‘the Lord is come’.
1. From Miss Austen to Mr Trollope.’ Spectator. 16 December 1882; reprinted in Donald Smalley (ed.). Trollope: The Critical Heritage (Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1969), pp. 509–10.
2. ‘Books in General.’ New Statesman. XXXII, 8 June 1946. p. 145.
3. Partial Portraits (Macmillan. 1888), p. 113.
4. 13 August 1857; Trollope: The Critical Heritage, p. 51.
5. The Victorian Church. Part 1 (A. & C. Black, 1966), p. 440.
6. ‘Church Parties’, Edinburgh Review, XCVIII. 1853. p. 338. [W. J. Conybeare]
7. The Manliness of Christ (Macmillan. 1894), p. 194.
8. Letter to Thomas Allsop, 8 April 1820; reprinted in J. O. Hayden (ed.), Scott: The Critical Heritage (Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1970), p. 180.
9. Partial Portraits (Macmillan, 1888), p. 116.
10. ‘Persecuting Bishops’, Works (2nd edn. 1840), II, p. 5.