Life and Errors

‘…If he writes his own history, as he proposes, we may gain something; but he must send it here to be printed. Nothing less than a neck-or-nothing London bookseller, like John Dunton of yore, will venture to commit to the press his strange details uncastrated…’

Walter Scott refers to John Dunton in a letter to John Morritt (April 30, 1814).  According to “Chambers’ Book of Days”, Dunton, a bookseller by trade,  wrote more than 60 works, and published more than 600.  Apprenticed at age 15 to learn the book trade from Thomas Parkhurst, Dunton invited more than 100 fellow apprentices to celebrate the funeral for the completion of this apprenticeship. The work Scott alludes to above is Dunton’s “Life and Errors”.  John Dunton was born on May 4^th, 1659 (O.S), or May 14^th (N.S.).

Battle of the Saintes

April 12^th, 1782 saw English Admiral George Rodney defeat a French fleet under the command of Comte de Grasse in the West Indies.  As published in Chambers’ “Book of Days”, fighting began about seven AM.  The French had fewer ships, but larger and more powerful.  The battle took nearly half a day, ending with an English victory that was a blow to French naval power in the region.  It also saved Jamaica from French invasion.

Admiral Rodney figures in the development of Walter Scott’s “The Pirate”, if the quote from Scott’s friend Will Clerk is accurate.  The quote is found in John Gibson Lockhart’s “Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott”.

‘When, many years afterwards, Clerk read The Pirate, he was startled by the resurrection of a hundred traits of the tabletalk of this lugger; but the author has since traced some of the most striking passages in that novel to his recollection of the almost childish period when he hung on his own brother Robert’s stories about Rodney’s battles and the haunted keys of the West Indies.’

Spouse-Selling

A Texas woman recently put her husband up for sale on Ebay, in the hopes of finding him a job.  She was not the first to do so.  Even in relatively modern times, there are recorded cases of actual sales of spouses, mainly of wives, not for work, but as a form of divorce.

One such transaction, according to Chambers’ “Book of Days”, occurred on April 7^th, 1832, involving the auctioning of one Mary Anne Thomson, with “ownership” transferring from husband Joseph to acquirer Henry Mears.  Affection apparently transferred elsewhere at an earlier date for both of the marital parties.  The knock-down price on the Thomson lot was twenty shillings with a Newfoundland dog thrown into the deal. 

Chambers provides several other examples along the same line for our delectation.  In many cases, all of which seem to occur in the most rural, backward areas, the auction is said to have taken place in a cattle auction, or an auction in a similar vein, with the auction lot being led to market in a halter.  The sale was not necessarily an unhappy event for either party, with bells ringing, in some cases, to help celebrate the event. 

In addition to the "Book of Days", several instances, along with citations, are to be found here: http://ontalink.com/history/18th_century/regions/British/wife_selling.html

At least one famous writer has included wife-selling in his work, and that is Thomas Hardy, in his “The Mayor of Casterbridge”.  We have Philip Allingham to thank for publishing on the Victorian Web website research on Hardy’s use of wife-selling as a plot device (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/hardy/pva283.html).

 

Here is a passage from Hardy’s "Mayor of Casterbridge":

‘Henchard's wife acted for the best, but she had involved herself in

difficulties. A hundred times she had been upon the point of telling her

daughter Elizabeth-Jane the true story of her life, the tragical crisis

of which had been the transaction at Weydon Fair, when she was not much

older than the girl now beside her. But she had refrained. An innocent

maiden had thus grown up in the belief that the relations between the

genial sailor and her mother were the ordinary ones that they had always

appeared to be. The risk of endangering a child's strong affection by

disturbing ideas which had grown with her growth was to Mrs. Henchard

too fearful a thing to contemplate. It had seemed, indeed folly to think

of making Elizabeth-Jane wise.

But Susan Henchard's fear of losing her dearly loved daughter's heart by

a revelation had little to do with any sense of wrong-doing on her own

part. Her simplicity--the original ground of Henchard's contempt for

her--had allowed her to live on in the conviction that Newson

had acquired a morally real and justifiable right to her by his

purchase--though the exact bearings and legal limits of that right were

vague. It may seem strange to sophisticated minds that a sane young

matron could believe in the seriousness of such a transfer; and were

there not numerous other instances of the same belief the thing might

scarcely be credited. But she was by no means the first or last peasant

woman who had religiously adhered to her purchaser, as too many rural

records show.’

Fear not, Scott fans.  Dr. Allingham mentions Walter Scott alongside “The Mayor of Casterbridge”.  But it is not in the wife-selling discussion, per se.  It is more in Scott’s development of character.  Allingham provides a series of questions for the student of Hardy (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/hardy/pva121.html), including the following: ‘Donald Farfrae is a romantic figure right out of the novels of Sir Walter Scott: how does Hardy make him a sympathetic character in this episode?’  Not to answer, but here’s one section of Hardy’s novel:

‘While thus furtively making her survey the opening words of a song

greeted her ears from the front of the settle, in a melody and accent

of peculiar charm. There had been some singing before she came down; and

now the Scotchman had made himself so soon at home that, at the request

of some of the master-tradesmen, he, too, was favouring the room with a

ditty.

Elizabeth-Jane was fond of music; she could not help pausing to listen;

and the longer she listened the more she was enraptured. She had never

heard any singing like this and it was evident that the majority of the

audience had not heard such frequently, for they were attentive to a

much greater degree than usual. They neither whispered, nor drank, nor

dipped their pipe-stems in their ale to moisten them, nor pushed the mug

to their neighbours. The singer himself grew emotional, till she could

imagine a tear in his eye as the words went on:--

     "It's hame, and it's hame, hame fain would I be,

     O hame, hame, hame to my ain countree!

     There's an eye that ever weeps, and a fair face will be fain,

     As I pass through Annan Water with my bonnie bands again;

     When the flower is in the bud, and the leaf upon the tree,

     The lark shall sing me hame to my ain countree!"

There was a burst of applause, and a deep silence which was even more

eloquent than the applause. It was of such a kind that the snapping of a

pipe-stem too long for him by old Solomon Longways, who was one of those

gathered at the shady end of the room, seemed a harsh and irreverent

act. Then the ventilator in the window-pane spasmodically started off

for a new spin, and the pathos of Donald's song was temporarily effaced.

"'Twas not amiss--not at all amiss!" muttered Christopher Coney, who was

also present. And removing his pipe a finger's breadth from his lips, he

said aloud, "Draw on with the next verse, young gentleman, please."

"Yes. Let's have it again, stranger," said the glazier, a stout,

bucket-headed man, with a white apron rolled up round his waist. "Folks

don't lift up their hearts like that in this part of the world." And

turning aside, he said in undertones, "Who is the young man?--Scotch,

d'ye say?"

"Yes, straight from the mountains of Scotland, I believe," replied

Coney.

Young Farfrae repeated the last verse. It was plain that nothing so

pathetic had been heard at the Three Mariners for a considerable time.

The difference of accent, the excitability of the singer, the intense

local feeling, and the seriousness with which he worked himself up to a

climax, surprised this set of worthies, who were only too prone to shut

up their emotions with caustic words.’

Euripides

‘…It is observed by Schlegel, that his tone of the tragedies of Euripides approaches more nearly to modern taste than to the stern simplicity of his predecessors. The passion of love predominates in his pieces, and he is the first tragedian who paid tribute to that sentiment which has been too exclusively made the moving cause of interest on the modern stage,—the first who sacrificed to

" Cupid, king of gods and men."

The dramatic use of this passion has been purified in modern times, by the introduction of that tone of feeling, which, since the age of Chivalry, has been a principal ingredient in heroic affection. This was unknown to the ancients, in whose society females, generally speaking, held a low and degraded place, from which few individuals emerged, unless those who aspired to the talents and virtues proper to the masculine sex. Women were not forbidden to become competitors for the laurel or oaken crown offered to genius and to patriotism; but antiquity held out no myrtle wreath, as a prize for the domestic virtues peculiar to the female character. Love, therefore, in Euripides, does not always breathe purity of sentiment, but is stained with the mixture of violent and degrading passions. This, however, was the fault of the age, rather than of the poet, although he is generally represented as an enemy of the female sex; and his death was ascribed to a judgment of Venus.

" When blood-hounds met him by the way,
And monsters made the bard their prey." 

This great dramatist was less successful than Sophocles in the construction of his plots; and, instead of the happy expedients by which his predecessor introduces us to the business of the drama, he had too often recourse to the mediation of a prologue, who came forth lo explain, in detail, the previous history necessary to understand the piece…’

Chambers’ Book of Days credits September 30^th as being the day the Athenian tragedian Euripides was born.  The year was 480 B.C.  The text above comes from Sir Walter Scott’s “Essay on the Drama”.

Great Plague of London

Per Chambers’ “Book of Days”, the Great Plague of London reached its worst during the week ending September 19, 1665.  Approximately 20% of London’s population perished of the disease between 1665-1666.  During the week of September 19^th, 10,000, or so, of the estimated 100,000 total deaths occurred. 

According to many, including Walter Scott, the best description of the plague came from Daniel Defoe.  From “The Works of Daniel Defoe”, by Defoe, George Chalmers, and John Scott Keltie, comes the following quote:

‘The History of the Great Plague in London,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'is one of that particular class of compositions which hovers between romance and history. Undoubtedly Defoe embodied a number of traditions upon this subject with what he might actually have read, or of which he might otherwise have received direct evidence. This dreadful disease, which, in the language of Scripture, might be described as "the pestilence which walketh in darkness, and the destruction that wasteth at noon-day," was indeed a fit subject for a pencil so veracious as that of Defoe. Had he not been the author of Robinson Crusoe, Defoe would have deserved immortality for the genius which he has displayed in this work.'

The Book of Days includes several paragraphs of Defoe’s description, including: 

'the face of London was strangely altered—I mean the whole mass of buildings, city, liberties, suburbs, Westminster, Southwark, and altogether; for, as to the particular part called the City, or within the walls, that was not yet much infected; but, in the whole, the face of things, I say, was much altered; sorrow and sadness sat upon every face, and though some part were not yet overwhelmed, yet all looked deeply concerned, and as we saw it apparently coming on, so every one looked on himself and his family as in the utmost danger: were it possible to represent those times exactly, to those that did not see them, and give the reader due ideas of the horror that every-where presented itself, it must make just impressions upon their minds, and fill them with surprise. 

London might well be said to be all in tears; the mourners did not go about the streets indeed, for nobody put on black, or made a formal dress of mourning for their nearest friends; but the voice of mourning was truly heard in the streets; the shrieks of women and children at the windows and doors of their houses, where their nearest relations were perhaps dying, or just dead, were so frequent to be heard, as we passed the streets, that it was enough to pierce the stoutest heart in the world to hear them. Tears and lamentations were seen almost in every house, especially in the first part of the visitation; for towards the latter end, men's hearts were hardened, and death was so always before their eyes, that they did not so much concern themselves for the loss of their friends, expecting that themselves should be summoned the next hour.

As the infection spread, and families under the slightest suspicion were shut up in their houses, the streets became deserted and overgrown with grass, trade and commerce ceased almost wholly, and, although many had succeeded in laying up stores in time, the town soon began to suffer from scarcity of provisions. This was felt the more as the stoppage of trade had thrown workmen and shopmen out of employment, and families reduced their numbers by dismissing many of their servants, so that a great mass of the population was thrown into a state of absolute destitution.