by Jane Austen
Closet: ‘A small room of privacy and retirement’ ( Johnson’s Dictionary), usually adjoining a bedroom.
Wilhelminus: a comic, latinized version of Wilhelm, itself a German form of William; ‘Robertus’, his brother, is a latinized Robert.
157 Genius: see ‘The Generous Curate’, note to p. 65.
VOLUME THE THIRD
159 CONTENTS: as in the Contents for Volume the First and Volume the Second, JA inserted page numbers beside each of the items.
Kitty: JA refers to the heroine as Kitty, occasionally varied by the use of Catherine; Catharine is the later revised form. See Introduction, pp. xxii-xxiii, and Textual Notes, pp. 236–7.
160 Miss Mary Lloyd: see ‘Frederic & Elfrida’, note to p. 2. The Lloyds, who had rented Deane Parsonage from the Austen family since spring 1789, had to give up the house in Dec. 1792 in order to make way for the new curate of Deane, James Austen, and his wife, Anne, a situation that is echoed in the departure of the Webb family to make way for Mr Gower and his new bride in ‘Evelyn’. JA also gave Mary Lloyd a sewing bag containing a poem, ‘This little bag’, dated ‘January 1792’.
Evelyn
161 Evelyn: an imaginary village, echoing the name of Burney’s heroine Evelina and perhaps recalling the idealized ‘Sweet Auburn’ in Goldsmith’s ‘The Deserted Village’ (see ‘Frederic & Elfrida’, note to p. 3). Only Evelyn and Crankhumdunberry are hailed as ‘sweet village’ in JA’s teenage writings.
any house to be lett: the situation parallels that of ‘A Tale’, the final item in Volume the Second, in which Wilhelminus finds a Pembrokeshire cottage advertised ‘To be Lett’ in a newspaper.
threw up the sash: opened the window; the ‘sash’ is a sliding wooden frame, part of a sash window, that can be raised and lowered (OED). Such windows were popular in the late 18th century as they allowed more light and air into a room than leaded casement windows did.
161 would I form myself by such an example!: stock language in 18th-century novels, which often present their characters as positive examples on which readers might model their own conduct—as, indeed, do other characters within the fiction itself. See e.g. Female Stability: ‘I often think, when I am going to do any thing material, would Augustus have acted thus? and endeavour to form myself by his excellent example’ (iii, 158).
best of Women: like the phrase ‘best of Men’ (which appears three times in ‘Evelyn’), this hyperbolic praise echoes that of Sir Charles Grandison (see e.g. i, letters 19, 26, 37, 39). Unlike the helpful Mrs Willis, Mr Gower is comically undeserving of the tribute, being selfish, greedy, and opportunistic, where Sir Charles is noble, self-sacrificing, and generous.
162 their house: JA originally wrote ‘the remainder of their Lease’ (see Textual Notes, p. 236), suggesting that the family does not own but rents the house; there is a similar confusion in ‘A Tale’, in which Wilhelminus is initially said to have ‘bought a small Cottage in Pembrokeshire’, but proceeds to rent it.
circular paddock: a paddock offers enclosed pasture to horses, sheep, and cows; making it circular is a joke aimed at Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown (1715–83), a landscape gardener known to favour the circle, and his followers. Under Brown’s influence, straight avenues, canals, or walks converging on the ceremonial spine of the house disappeared in favour of a circular layout, enlivened by cleverly placed temples, obelisks, seats, pagodas, rotundas, etc.
paling: a fence made of pales, or pointed lengths of wood arranged closely together and driven into the ground.
Lombardy poplars: the Lombardy poplar is a tall, columnar variety, brought to England from Italy in the 18th century; a staple feature of the landscape in gothic fiction (see also the ‘Grove of Poplars’ in ‘Frederic & Elfrida’, p. 3). Travelling through France in 1789, Hester Lynch Piozzi noted that ‘the rage for Lombardy poplars is in equal force here as about London: no tolerable house have I passed without seeing long rows of them; all young plantations, as one may perceive by their size’ (Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, 2 vols. (1789), i, 9). Cf. JA’s letter from London on 17 May 1799: ‘The Drawingroom Window … commands a perspective veiw of the left side of Brock Street, broken by three Lombardy Poplars in the Garden of the last house in Queen’s Parade’ (Letters, 42). Lombardy poplars were commonly planted in a long line in order to mark a boundary or to screen something unattractive from view (as is the case in S&S, ch. 42), rather than (as here) in a circle around the entirety of a house, where they would block the view and obstruct the light.
alternatively placed in three rows: cf. the orchard in Sir Charles Grandison, offered as evidence of the ‘peculiar taste’ and fanciful character of Sir Thomas Grandison: ‘planted with three rows of trees, at proper distances from each other; one of pines; one of cedars; one of Scotch firs, in the like semicircular order’ (vii, letter 5). For JA’s jokes about ‘alternately’ in the teenage writings see ‘Frederic & Elfrida’, note to p. 3.
Shrubbery: ‘A plantation of shrubs’ (OED); it usually featured a winding, irregular path rather than a straight gravel walk. Cf. the shrubberies in JA’s early epistolary work Lady Susan (letters 15–17; unpublished until 1871—the title is not JA’s) and in MP (ch. 6, ch. 22).
four white Cows … at equal distances: flouting Gilpin’s picturesque ‘doctrine of grouping larger cattle’ in his Observations, Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty, Made in the Year 1772, On Several Parts of England; Particularly the Mountains, and Lakes of Cumberland, and Westmoreland, where he insists that two or four cows are inferior to three and that they must not be placed ‘at equal distances’ (ii, p. xii). Elizabeth Bennet cites the same doctrine when she refuses to join Miss Bingley, Mrs Hurst, and Darcy on a walk: ‘The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a fourth’ (P&P, ch. 10).
gravel road without any turn or interruption: like the straight gravel walk through the shrubbery, this gravel road affronts the picturesque requirements of a winding approach and a variety of striking prospects en route to a country house (see P&P, ch. 43; S&S, ch. 42).
a very elegant Dressing room: see ‘Frederic & Elfrida’, note to p. 4.
Chocolate: hot chocolate, a luxurious drink made by dissolving a paste or cake of cacao seeds into milk and sweetening it with (e.g.) vanilla.
venison pasty: a pie stuffed with deer meat, a luxurious dish.
163 a handsome portion: a substantial dowry. Cf. Lady Williams in ‘Jack & Alice’, who has ‘a handsome Jointure & the remains of a very handsome face’ (p. 10).
164 ten thousand pounds: far from being ‘almost too small a sum to be offered’, £10,000 is a very large dowry; Mrs Elton’s in E is ‘so many thousands as would always be called ten’ (ch. 22).
the next day, the nuptials … were celebrated: this is an invalid marriage (see ‘Henry & Eliza’, notes to p. 29; ‘Sir William Mountague’, note to p. 35; ‘The three Sisters’, notes to p. 59); no banns have been read or special licence obtained, and there is no clergyman to conduct the ceremony.
a rose tree … pleasing variety: the rose trees, like the grazing cows, contravene Gilpin’s advice to shun groups of four and pursue a ‘pleasing variety’ (see e.g. ‘that pleasing variety, which we admire in ground’, in Observations on the River Wye, 63).
Carlisle … Sussex: the city of Carlisle is in Cumberland, near the Scottish border, around 350 miles away from Sussex on the south coast of England.
Isle of Wight: a small island off the Hampshire coast, popular with tourists in the 18th century, the Isle of Wight clearly does not merit the title of a ‘foreign Country’. Fanny Price is mocked for being overly impressed by the Isle of Wight; she calls it ‘the Island, as if there were no other island in the world’ (MP, ch. 2).
164 Family Chaplain: in the late 18th century, only a very wealthy, old-fashioned family would have its own domestic chaplain. See Fanny Price’s regretful comments on the lost relationship of a great house to its chapel (MP, ch. 9).
165 wrecked on the coast of Calshot: Calshot is on the mainland, opposite the Isle of Wight; the Solent—the narrow channel between the Isle of Wight and the mainland—is not known for storms or shipwrecks. In 1539, Henry VIII built Calshot Castle to protect the south coast from potential invasion from French or Spanish forces; it was part of a chain of coastal defences that remained important throughout the 18th century.
166 gout: ‘A specific constitutional disease occurring in paroxysms, usually hereditary and in male subjects; characterized by painful inflammation of the smaller joints, esp. that of the great toe, and the deposition of sodium urate in the form of chalk-stones; it often spreads to the larger joints and the internal organs’ (OED). The condition is associated with over-indulgence in eating or drinking, such as that displayed by Mr Gower.
favourite character of Sir Charles Grandison’s, a nurse: Grandison (an accomplished nurse himself ) recommends marriage to his uncle Lord W., who suffers from gout, because women shine in the ‘sick chamber’, where ‘they can exert all their amiable, and, shall I say, lenient qualities’ (iii, letter 11).
irregularity in the fall … enliven the structure: the castle, with its commanding coastal position, beautiful views, ancient pedigree, and rugged irregularity, answers Gilpin’s exacting requirements of the picturesque; the paddock would certainly offer a contrast, albeit one that breaches Gilpin’s rules.
winding approach, struck him with terror: unlike the straight gravel paths of Evelyn Lodge, this meandering route meets Gilpin’s requirements; it also echoes the ‘winding’ and fear-provoking layout of castles in gothic novels; see e.g. Ann Radcliffe’s The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne: ‘Alleyn was conveyed through dark and winding passages to a distant part of the castle, where at length a small door, barred with iron, opened, and disclosed to him an abode, whence light and hope were equally excluded. He shuddered as he entered, and the door was closed upon him’ (ch. 3).
168 Gipsies or Ghosts: a juxtaposition that is comic, even though gipsies as well as ghosts were feared in the period—see the terrified Harriet Smith’s encounter with a group of gipsies, ‘loud and insolent’, in E (ch. 41). Boswell recorded Johnson’s view that, as far as the existence of ghosts was concerned, ‘All argument is against it; but all belief is for it’ (Boswell, Life of Johnson, ii, 190, [1778]).
gallop all the way: cf. ‘A Tour through Wales’: ‘my Mother … galloped all the way’ (p. 156). JA’s ‘Evelyn’ ends abruptly here; her nephew James Edward and her niece Anna both wrote continuations of the tale (see pp. 205–8).
Kitty, or the Bower
169 Miss Austen: JA’s elder sister Cassandra; ‘The beautifull Cassandra’ (see note to p. 37), ‘Ode to Pity’, and ‘The History of England’ were also dedicated to her.
a place in every library in the Kingdom: JA is echoing the terms in which contemporary fiction was advertised. The title page of Edward and Harriet, or The Happy Recovery; A Sentimental Novel, 2 vols. (1788), states that the work ‘may be had at every Circulating Library in the Kingdom’; Charles Dibdin’s The Younger Brother: A Novel, 3 vols. (1793), includes a bookseller, Mr Allen, who boasts ‘look at this drawer: full, chuck full—all novels—I supply every library in the kingdom’ (iii, 138). Cf. later references in ‘Kitty, or the Bower’ to Mrs Peterson’s ‘Library’ and to the ‘kingdom’ (p. 199).
threescore Editions: sixty editions, an impossibly high number even for the most successful works of fiction; JA’s teenage writings are in any case unpublished. The figure of ‘threescore’ features on the title pages of some 18th-century novels and may contribute to JA’s dedicatory joke; see e.g. Daniel Defoe’s Memoirs of a Cavalier … Written Threescore Years Ago by an English Gentleman ([1720]); The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c. Who was Born in Newgate, and During a Life of Continu’d Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore ([1721]).
Kitty: here and elsewhere in the text (but not throughout), ‘Kitty’ has been deleted and ‘Catharine’ inserted above the line (see Introduction, pp. xxii-xxiii, and Textual Notes, pp. 236–7).
as many heroines have had … very young: the orphaned heroine is a stereotype of gothic and sentimental fiction; see e.g. the opening letter of The Orphan, A Novel, 2 vols. (1783), where we learn from the heroine that her ‘parents … left me at an age when happily I was too young to feel the misery of my helpless situation’ (i, 5–6).
Bower: ‘An arbour; a sheltered place covered with green trees, twined and bent’ ( Johnson’s Dictionary), associated with solitude and with medieval romance. William Cowper’s Hope (1781), like many other 18th-century poems, refers to ‘bow’rs of bliss’, alluding to Edmund Spenser’s Bower of Bliss in The Faerie Queene, bk II (1590), which may also be an influence on Kitty’s bower in this tale (Poems by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple (1782), 149).
infantine: ‘Not mature’ ( Johnson’s Dictionary); see ‘Collection of Letters’, note to p. 135.
170 tenure: tenor, or habitual state of mind.
enthousiastic: enthusiasm was both a positive and a negative attribute in this period. Johnson defines enthusiasm (negatively) as ‘A vain belief of private revelation; a vain confidence of divine favour or communication’ and ‘Heat of imagination; violence of passion; confidence of opinion’, but also (more positively) as ‘Elevation of Fancy; exaltation of ideas’. In her ‘warm’ rather than heated imagination, and in her cultivation of ‘Fancy’, Kitty seems to hover between the second and third senses of the word. JA’s niece Anna Austen used the working title of Enthusiasm for one of her novels; when it was abandoned, JA wrote regretfully that ‘ “Enthusiasm” was something so very superior that every common title must appear to disadvantage’ (Letters, 280, 18 Aug. 1814).
170 equip her for the East Indies: that is, furnish her with all the necessary provisions for a journey to the East Indies, where young women could expect to find husbands among the numerous single young men employed by the East India Company. JA may have in mind her aunt Philadelphia Hancock (1730–92), the Revd George Austen’s elder sister, who in 1752 sailed to India, disembarking at Madras, and married Tysoe Saul Hancock, an East India surgeon, in Feb. 1753; he was seven years her senior. Like Kitty, Philadelphia and George were orphaned early.
Maintenance: ‘Supply of the necessaries of life; sustenance’ ( Johnson’s Dictionary); here, as afforded to an impoverished young woman by marriage to a wealthier man.
Bengal: the British name for a province in north-east India, where the East India Company was based.
171 Dowager: ‘A widow with a jointure’; ‘The title given to ladies who survive their husbands’ ( Johnson’s Dictionary).
companion: see ‘Henry & Eliza’, note to p. 28.
Chetwynde: the name of a village in Gloucestershire, though this one turns out to be located in Devonshire.
Peterson: this Anglo-Saxon surname was later changed, here and elsewhere in ‘Kitty, or the Bower’, to the courtly-romantic name ‘Percival’ (see Introduction, pp. xxii-xxiii, and Textual Notes, p. 237). Of the many small revisions made to the story, this is the most consistent alteration. A Lady Percival appears in ‘Sir William Mountague’.
Dudley … younger Son of a very noble Family: this unpleasant character and his insolent, high-born relatives are probably named after Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and his family; as the earliest favourite of Elizabeth I, Dudley would be a natural target of JA’s antipathy (see ‘The History of England’, ‘Elizabeth’, note to p. 129).
tythes: that is, tithes, ‘The tenth part of the annual produce of agriculture, etc., being a due or payment (orig. in kind) for the support of the priesthood, religious establishments, etc.’ (OED). Landowners were meant to make such payments to the rector of a parish; the amounts of money involved varied considerably and were the subject of much public debate. In her spoof ‘Plan of a Novel’ JA followed the advice of James Stanier Clarke (Letters, 320) and included a clergyman who offers ‘his opini
on of the Benefits to result from Tythes being done away’.
parade: ‘Shew; ostentation’ ( Johnson’s Dictionary).
172 Stanley: a name with Elizabethan pedigree; Henry Stanley (1531–93), 4th Earl of Derby, participated in the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots.
Working: see ‘The Mystery’, note to p. 50.
173 Establishment: the domestic staff who run the household and prepare for the reception of visitors. Cf. William Combe, The Devil Upon Two Sticks in England: Being a Continuation of Le diable boiteux of Le Sage, 6 vols. (1790–1): ‘she is such an excellent manager, that she lives in a very elegant house—keeps a very handsome equipage—possesses an ample establishment of servants—is never without company’ (ii, 192).
sweep: ‘A curved carriage drive leading to a house’ (OED). The earliest example the OED gives of the word in this sense comes from S&S.
Music of an Italian Opera … hight of Enjoyment: by the 1790s, at least as much deprecation as enjoyment of Italian opera is expressed in fiction, though Burney’s heroines Evelina and Cecilia both delight in it (Evelina, i, letter 12; Cecilia, i, ch. 8).
half the year in Town: that is, during the London winter season, from New Year until the king’s official birthday on 4 June. See ‘Jack & Alice’, note to p. 14.
174 Modern history: Western historical study traditionally divides history into ancient, medieval, and modern periods. Although these have no definite chronological limits, ancient history is usually thought of as ending with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in ad 476, and medieval history, when considered as separate from modern history, with the discovery of the Americas in the late 15th century (see OED ‘history’, sense 2). In her Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, 2 vols. (1773), Hester Mulso Chapone cautions against ‘mixing ancient history with modern’ (ii, 183).
Mrs Smith’s Novels: by Aug. 1792 Charlotte Smith had published Emmeline, the Orphan of the Castle, 4 vols. (1788), Ethelinde, or the Recluse of the Lake, 5 vols. (1789), Celestina. A Novel, 4 vols. (1791), and Desmond. A Novel, 3 vols. (1792). She had completed six more novels by 1798.
