Oxford World’s Classics

by Jane Austen

  105 four thousand pounds: Susan Lesley’s capital sum of £4,000, assuming interest paid to her at the usual rate of 5%, would yield a yearly income of £200; however, as Charlotte points out, Mrs Lesley would like to spend almost £4,000 per year on clothes and socializing.

  Curry: cf. the reference to ‘making a Curry’ in ‘A beautiful description of the different effects of Sensibility on different Minds’, see note to p. 64.

  Cleveland: also the name of the Palmers’ Somerset estate in S&S (ch. 20).

  set her cap at him: a phrase described by Marianne Dashwood as ‘common-place’ and ‘odious’ (S&S, ch. 9); cf. JA’s use of it in a letter of 21 May 1801 (Letters, 88). Women commonly wore caps of white linen or muslin in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Any woman intent on attracting a man would, so the saying assumes, wear her best cap, probably decorated with lace and ribbons, and would set it at the most fetching angle. In Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer (1773), Kate Hardcastle tells her father: ‘Well, if he refuses, instead of breaking my heart at his indifference, I’ll only break my glass for its flattery, set my cap to some newer fashion, and look out for some less difficult admirer’ (act 1, scene 1).

  107 Portman-Square: a large, very fashionable square in London, completed in the 1780s. After the death of her husband, ‘who had traded with success in a less elegant part of the town’, Mrs Jennings spends ‘every winter in a house in one of the streets near Portman-square’ (S&S, ch. 25).

  dismal old weather-beaten Castle: see note to p. 97.

  a long rigmerole Story: ‘rigmarole’ is included in the second edition (1788) of Classical Dictionary, where it is defined as ‘Roundabout, nonsensical. He told a long rigmarole story’. Boswell refers to ‘that manner vulgarly, but significantly, called rigmarole’ (Life of Johnson, i, 191 n. [1759]).

  Scotch Airs … every thing Scotch: the craze for Scottish landscape and literature was fed by e.g. James Macpherson’s cycle of ‘Ossian’ poems (1761–5), Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands, Sophia Lee’s The Recess; or, A Tale of Other Times, 3 vols. (1783–5), Boswell’s Journal of a Tour, and Ann Radcliffe’s The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne. A Highland Story (1789). Scottish poems, melodies, and songs (or ‘Airs’), popularized by writers including Allan Ramsay and Robert Burns, are widely praised in late 18th-century fiction. In e.g. Miss Elliott’s The Portrait. A Novel, 2 vols. (1783), Maria writes to Charlotte that ‘I … sung a variety of songs, but found he was particularly charmed with the simple plaintive stile of the Scotch airs … I agreed perfectly with him on the subject (ii, 165). JA herself played and sang Scottish airs; in P&P, Mary Bennet plays Scotch and Irish airs, and Miss Bingley sings a ‘lively Scotch air’ (ch. 6, ch. 10).

  toilett: toilette, dressing table, referring both to the table itself and to the acts of applying make-up, brushing hair, etc. The best-known 18th-century literary scene of a woman ‘at the toilette’ is Pope’s Rape of the Lock, canto 1, ll. 121–48 (see ‘Frederic & Elfrida’, note to p. 5).

  110 Galleries and Antichambers: long passages, a feature of medieval and Elizabethan houses and a frequent setting in gothic fiction; they were used to display paintings and for exercise in bad weather. Antechambers or withdrawing rooms, leading to adjoining bedchambers, could be used to receive guests (see ‘Frederic & Elfrida’, note to p. 4).

  111 Public-places: in London, these would include pleasure gardens, theatres, operas, dances, concert halls, picture galleries, and museums.

  Vaux-hall: on the south bank of the river Thames, Vauxhall Gardens—a 12-acre park featuring walkways, shrubberies, cascades, statues, and other attractions—remained a popular venue for public entertainment from the 17th to the 19th centuries. It had a reputation for being rowdy and seedy; Burney’s Evelina gets into trouble in the ‘dark alleys’ there (ii, letter 15).

  cold Beef … so thin: the slices of meat served at Vauxhall were famously thin; see e.g. John Dent’s The Candidate; A Farce ([1782]): ‘as easily seen through as a slice of beef at Vauxhall’ (act 2).

  Receipts: recipes.

  drawing Pullets: eviscerating or gutting young hens, in preparation for cooking them.

  112 Country-dance: here, the music accompanying ‘A rural or traditional dance, esp. in England and Scotland; spec. one in which couples begin by standing face to face in long lines’ (OED); a contrast to the formal, courtly minuet (see ‘Love and Friendship’, note to p. 70).

  pidgeon-pye: pigeon pie, a dish (like other game pies) often served cold, popular in Scotland and England.

  Malbrook: ‘Marlbrough s’en va-t-en guerre’ or ‘Malbrook s’en va-t-en guerre’ (‘Marlbrough [or Malbrook] is off to war’), also known as ‘Mort et convoi de l’invincible Malbrough’ (‘The death and burial of the invincible Marlbrough’), one of the most popular French folk songs. It is a mock lament on the supposed death of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722), after the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709. The melody is likely to pre-date the lyrics, and is used as the tune for two other songs, ‘The Bear Went over the Mountain’ and ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’. For years, ‘Malbrook’ was known only traditionally; around 1780, however, the song became a hit across Europe and lent its name to fashions, silks, headdresses, carriages, and soups. The subject of the song was printed on fire screens, fans, and porcelain, embroidered on tapestries, and depicted on toys and keepsakes.

  112 Bravo … Poco presto: a hodge-podge of musical terms; the first three do indeed express admiration (as Charlotte and Eloisa claim): Bravo means ‘excellent’, Bravissimo ‘outstanding’, and Encora or ‘encore’ is a traditional, approving demand for more music or song. The other terms are descriptive and technical, directing performers on how to play: da capo means ‘repeat from the beginning’; allegretto means ‘brisk’, but somewhat less brisk than allegro; con espressioné means ‘with expression’ or ‘expressively’. Poco presto (‘a little’ and ‘very fast’) is an absurdly contradictory instruction.

  Execution: the ‘vocal or instrumental rendering (of a musical composition)’ (OED). Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopædia; or, An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, 2 vols., 7th edn (1751–2) states that ‘Execution is particularly used in French music, for the manner of singing.’

  Harpsichord: ‘A keyboard instrument of music (resembling in appearance the grand piano), in which the strings were plucked and set in vibration by quill or leather points set in jacks connected by levers with the keys’ (OED). By the early 1790s, the pianoforte was superseding it as the family instrument of choice; see Letters for references to JA’s pianoforte (88, 168) and Memoir, 182.

  satirical: cf. JA’s explanation of why Lady Middleton dislikes the Dashwood sisters: ‘because they were fond of reading, she fancied them satirical: perhaps without exactly knowing what it was to be satirical; but that did not signify. It was censure in common use, and easily given’ (S&S, ch. 36).

  114 Grosvenor Street: a very fashionable London address, running from Hyde Park to New Bond Street and boasting many titled inhabitants; a frequent setting in novels, including Sir Charles Grandison.

  April 10th: The date on which Clarissa runs away with Lovelace in Richardson’s epistolary novel, and the date she orders to be engraved on her coffin-plate.

  115 a proper size for real Beauty: one of JA’s running jokes, apparently reflecting her own height; cf. ‘Jack & Alice’, p. 10; ‘Love and Friendship’, p. 86; Jane Fairfax in E, ch. 20; cf. Henry Austen, ‘Biographical Notice’ (Memoir, 139).

  116 Toad-eater: ‘One who eats toads; orig. the attendant of a charlatan, employed to eat or pretend to eat toads (held to be poisonous) to enable his master to exhibit his skill in expelling poison’; hence, figuratively, a ‘toady’ or ‘fawning flatterer, parasite, sycophant’, or ‘A humble friend or dependant; spec. a female companion or attendant. contemptuous’ (OED). See ‘Henry & Eliza’, note to p. 28.

  117 celebrated … in Printshops: images of actresses, celebrated beauties, and notorious criminal
s were offered for sale in printshops.

  my Appearance as unpleasing … Small-pox: the disfiguring scars (or ‘pockmarks’) caused by smallpox were a cause of terror to many young women; since Margaret Lesley has already had the illness, she cannot suffer them now. Cf. the contrast between Jezalinda and Rebecca in ‘Frederic & Elfrida’, and Mary Tudor’s pockmarked face, perhaps modelled on that of Mary Lloyd, in Cassandra’s illustration of JA’s ‘History of England’ (see note to p. 128).

  Last Monday se’night: a week last Monday or Monday, seven nights ago.

  Rout: ‘rout’ can mean ‘A fashionable gathering; a large evening party or soirée of a type fashionable in the 18th and early 19th centuries’; however, given the context, JA is also playing on its popular, rowdy implications: ‘A disreputable group of people; a violent or unlawful mob; a gang of criminals or ruffians; (also) a violent horde. Later in weakened sense: a disorderly, disorganized, or unruly group of people; a boisterous throng; a crowd, a mob’ (OED).

  Mrs Kickabout’s: the name appears in an old nursery rhyme: ‘Old Sir Simon the king, | And young Sir Simon the squire, | And old Mrs. Hickabout | Kicked Mrs. Kickabout | Round about our coal fire’. Cf. ‘Frederic & Elfrida’, note to p. 5.

  on him depended … my Life: Cf. ‘Love and Friendship’: ‘no sooner did I first behold him, than I felt that on him the happiness or Misery of my future Life must depend’ (p. 72).

  118 Lady Flambeau’s: a flambeau is a wax torch, used to light the way to and from a carriage.

  Pope’s Bulls: papal edicts. In this case, the bull is required to invalidate Lesley’s marriage; his spouse is Protestant (and has committed adultery), while he has become a Catholic. Cf. the complications of Sir Charles Grandison, whose hero is engaged to an Italian Catholic while being romantically involved with an English Protestant.

  The History of England

  120 Henry the 4th … Charles the 1st: JA’s title echoes that of Oliver Goldsmith’s schoolroom text The History of England, from the Earliest Times to the Death of George II, 4 vols. (1771), itself based on David Hume’s The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688, 6 vols. (1754–62), which JA may also have known. Her copy of Goldsmith’s History of England survives and contains more than 100 of her marginal comments; Sabor thinks they were probably made not long before she composed her own ‘History of England’ ( Juvenilia, 316–55, 455). JA may also have read and drawn on Goldsmith’s An History of England in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son, 2 vols. (1764) and An Abridgment of the History of England (1774).

  partial, prejudiced, & ignorant Historian: gesturing towards the preface to Goldsmith’s History of England, in which ‘it is hoped the reader will admit my impartiality’ (i, p. viii). JA tests this hope to instant breaking point, spoofing Goldsmith’s transparently Whig and Protestant sympathies with her pro-Tory, pro-Catholic stance and her abuse of readers who might think or feel differently.

  120 To Miss Austen: cf. JA’s dedication to her elder sister of ‘The beautifull Cassandra’. Cassandra is also the illustrator of ‘The History of England’, contributing thirteen medallion portraits and signing all but one of them ‘C E Austen pinx[it]’ (‘C E Austen painted it’).

  very few Dates in this History: remarkably, the first of Goldsmith’s histories of England (1764) includes no dates at all. The last word of JA’s ‘History’ is a date: ‘Saturday Nov. 26th 1791’, but there are only four other dates in total. ‘The History of England’ also features very few battles (see note to p. 122).

  121 Henry the 4th: Henry IV, known as Henry Bolingbroke (1367–1413), King of England and Lord of Ireland; only son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, grandson of Edward III. The first of the Lancastrian monarchs, Henry IV reigned from 1399 to 1413.

  the rest of his Life … Pomfret Castle: Richard died three months later, aged 33, having been forced to abdicate in Sept. 1399. He was imprisoned in Pontefract Castle, a remote Norman fortress in Yorkshire.

  happened to be murdered: Goldsmith reports this royal assassination as among ‘the most horrid crimes’ (History of England, ii, 153); in Richard II, Shakespeare depicts the murder, and Henry’s guilt thereafter (act 5, scenes 5–6). On the comic use of ‘happened’ to cover up a crime, cf. ‘Love and Friendship’: ‘Sophia happening one Day to open a private Drawer in Macdonald’s Library with one of her own keys, discovered that it was the Place where he kept his Papers of consequence & amongst them some bank-notes of considerable amount’ (p. 85).

  Henry was married … who was his Wife: Shakespeare’s Henry IV, on which JA is presumably relying, does not mention his queen in Part 1 or Part 2; Goldsmith, however, reports that ‘by his first wife, Mary de Bohun, Henry IV had four sons … and two daughters. By his second wife he had no issue’ (History of England, ii, 174).

  long speech … still longer: see Henry IV, Part 2 (act 4, scene 5).

  beat Sir William Gascoigne: William Gascoigne (c.1350–1419), chief justice of the king’s bench. The incident reported by JA appears in Goldsmith’s History of England: ‘the prince was so exasperated … that he struck the judge in open court’; the magistrate ‘immediately ordered the prince to be committed to prison’ (ii, 171–2). It is also discussed in Henry IV, Part 2 (act 5, scene 2). JA may be recalling The Loiterer, no. 43, in which a correspondent called Bluster writes that ‘The brightest aeras of our History have been equally distinguished for Battles and Boxing Matches; for beating our Enemies abroad, and threshing our Friends at home. Henry the Vth, who afterwards gave the French so many Cross-Buttocks, first began practising against one of the Judges in England, and laid in a blow so neatly, that his Lordship, it seems, could neither stop nor return it’ (5).

  122 Henry the 5th: Henry V (1386–1422), King of England and Lord of Ireland, eldest son of Henry IV and his first wife, Mary, reigned from 1413 to 1422. He is the only monarch whom Cassandra depicts in military dress, and Agincourt is the only battle mentioned in ‘The History of England’. Cassandra’s portrait resembles in style H. W. Bunbury’s satirical military prints ‘The Recruits’ (1780) and ‘The Relief’ (1781), but Henry V is wearing the uniform of his namesake Henry Austen, then aged 21 and serving in the Royal Regiment of Artillery (see Love and Freindship, ed. Alexander, pp. xxiv–xxvi, 412 n.).

  forsaking all his dissipated Companions: Goldsmith records Henry’s renunciation of ‘his former companions’ (History of England, ii, 176), an episode that is famously dramatized in Henry IV, Part 2 (act 5, scene 5).

  Lord Cobham … burnt alive: John Oldcastle, Baron Cobham (d. 1417), soldier and rebel, executed for heresy and treason; he was probably Shakespeare’s model for Falstaff. Goldsmith, narrating his execution, writes that ‘He was hung up with a chain by the middle; and thus at a slow fire burned, or rather roasted, alive’ (History of England, ii, 179).

  turned his thoughts to France: cf. the king’s words in Henry V: ‘For we have no thought in us but France’ (act 1, scene 2).

  famous Battle of Azincourt: referring, briefly, to the momentous English victory over the French at Agincourt ( JA uses the French spelling, ‘Azincourt’) on St Crispin’s Day, 25 Oct. 1415; this battle lies at the heart of Shakespeare’s Henry V.

  Catherine … Shakespear’s account: Catherine of Valois (1401–37), daughter of the French king Charles VI, was Queen consort of England from 1420 until 1422. On her multiply ‘agreable’ nature—she is likeable, kisses the king, and consents to marry him—see Shakespeare’s Henry V (act 5, scene 2).

  123 Henry the 6th … this Monarch’s Sense: Henry VI (1421–71), King of England and Lord of Ireland, the only child of Henry V and Catherine of Valois. He came to the throne as a 1-year-old in 1422, and ruled in person from the age of 16. Naturally unsuited to govern, in 1453 he suffered a severe mental and physical collapse and was left helpless. In Goldsmith’s account, the attack on his health ‘so far encreased his natural imbecility that it even rendered him incapable of maintaining the appearance of roy
alty’ (History of England, ii, 223). Cassandra depicts him in clerical attire, perhaps signalling his lack of involvement in worldly affairs.

  Duke of York … right side: JA backs the Yorkists in the civil war that raged across England in the latter half of the 15th century (the emblem of the Yorkists was the white rose, that of the Lancastrians the red). Henry VI was descended from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the son of Edward III. JA sees his claim to the throne as weaker than that of Richard, Duke of York, who was descended from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, John of Gaunt’s older brother. But her flagrant bias towards the Yorkists stems from her declared hatred of the Tudors, especially Elizabeth I.

  123 my Spleen: variously regarded as the seat of laughter, melancholy, caprice, jest, and anger (all of which are involved in JA’s ‘History’), ‘spleen’ in this context refers primarily to the ‘Violent ill-nature or ill-humour; irritable or peevish temper’ (OED) that JA, as a ‘partial, prejudiced, & ignorant Historian’, plans to express (‘vent’) at will. Venting spleen was often associated with women; see e.g. The Anchoret. A Moral Tale, in a Series of Letters, 3 vols. (1773): ‘I would vent a little female spleen’ (iii, 181).

  Margaret of Anjou … pity her: Margaret (1430–82), daughter of the Duke of Anjou, who married Henry VI in 1445. This was the first of her many ‘distresses & Misfortunes’, which included the death of her only son, Prince Edward, in the Battle of Tewkesbury (1471), when she was taken prisoner by the victorious Yorkists. In 1475, she was ransomed by her cousin, King Louis XI of France; she died in poverty aged 52. Shakespeare depicts her as wicked, clever, and ruthless in Henry VI, Part 1, but in Goldsmith’s account ‘this extraordinary woman’ is said to deserve ‘our pity’ for ‘her courage and her distress’ (History of England, ii, 246).

  Joan of Arc … such a row: Joan of Arc (c.1412–31), a teenage peasant girl who accompanied and inspired the French forces to a great victory over the English in 1429. Captured by the English, she was tried for heresy and sentenced to burn at the stake in 1431. Shakespeare portrays her in Henry VI, Part 1 as rude, noisy, and unrepentant, qualities which may have prompted JA to use the ‘very low expression’ ( Johnson’s Dictionary) ‘made such a row’. Cf. The Loiterer, no. 12 (p. 12), and Grose’s Classical Dictionary: ‘ROW, a disturbance. A term used by the students at Cambridge’.