George Washington Requests the Pleasure of Alexander Hamilton's Company to Dine, 1790

Susan reporting,

Before there was Evite, before there were texts, before there was even a telephone, hostesses and hosts invited their guests to dine with a hand-written note. If that hostess or host were sufficiently important, influential, or wealthy (or all of those), a specially engraved invitation like the one shown here might be sent. As elegantly worded and beautifully scribed as this invitation appears, the blanks left for the guest's name and other details made them a boon for those with a busy social life.

The card, left, was sent by President George Washington and his wife Martha Washington to invite Alexander and Elizabeth Hamilton to dine at the presidential mansion in January, 1790. Watch out for all the old-fashioned long-form S's that look like F's in the printed part of the invitation. In contrast, the handwritten S at the end of Hamilton's name is quite ordinary. I don't know why Eliza's name wasn't written in as well; perhaps the 18thc version of the modern "plus one" was understood.

At this time, Washington was the country's first president, and still in the first year of his first term; he had taken the oath of office in April, 1789 in New York City, which was then serving as the capital. In early 1790, Washington, his cabinet, and Congress were still creating what would become the federal government, but creating a presidential "style" was important, too. President and Mrs. Washington had to balance their social life between representing the new country in a properly dignified manner, and appearing too elitist or aristocratic, or even monarchical. New rituals like formal dinners and levees were developed, and invitations like this one would have been prized.

The young - they were both in their early thirties - Hamiltons must have been equally prized as guests. As the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton was a member of Washington's cabinet, and at this time he was considered among the most brilliant and powerful men in the country. In the same month in which this invitation was sent, Hamilton had proposed the first of his economic plans to Congress, his Report on Public Credit. Powerful or not, Hamilton or his wife must have realized the significance of this presidential invitation, and preserved it for posterity.

On loan from the New-York Historical Society, the invitation is currently on display at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia as part of their "Year of Hamilton." In addition to a special exhibition and interactive playscape called Hamilton Was Here: Rising Up in Philadelphia (opening 10/26), the museum is also hosting special programs and displaying many Hamilton-related pieces - including important letters and documents, portraits, and other artifacts - within their permanent collection over the next year. These will be marked with a special "Hamilton Was Here" label to make Hamilton-hunting easier (and for those of you Hamilfans unable to visit Philadelphia, I'll be sharing more, too.)

Above: Invitation, January, 1790, New-York Historical Society. 
Photograph ©2018 Susan Holloway Scott.
Read more about Eliza and Alexander Hamilton in my latest historical novel I, Eliza Hamilton, now available everywhere.

The Waltz in Its Early Years

Waltzing 1821

Loretta reports:

Some comments on the kinds of physical activities ladies of the 18th and 19th century engaged in led to me to thinking about dancing, and waltzing in particular.

Early in my writing career, I became aware that the waltz had changed over the years, and the early form of the dance wasn’t quite like what we’re familiar with. Images like the ones I’ve posted here don’t look like the style of waltz we’re used to.

According to Elizabeth Aldrich’s From the Ballroom to Hell, “During the first forty years of the nineteenth century, waltzing couples turned clockwise as partners while traveling counterclockwise around the room. This constant spinning, never reversing, could and did produce a feeling of euphoria—or worse, vertigo—that could result in a loss of control.”

9 Positions of the Waltz 1816

The dance was controversial. Lord Byron disapproved. Yes, really. Others said it was unsuitable for unmarried, highly sensitive, and/or delicate women. I can tell you from my own experience, learning to waltz in a ballroom dancing class, that it is very sexy, and I understood why people disapproved. Also, though I was much younger then, I wasn’t used to ballroom dancing, and one waltz left me a little winded. Even with lots of practice, an entire evening of dancing, in the Regency and Victorian eras, must have provided vigorous exercise.

If you're curious about the precise steps for this era (though they do vary), Carlo Blassis's (trans by R. Barton), The Code of Terpischore, offers a detailed description of the waltz. I have a hard time reading these sorts of instructions, but others of you may be able to picture or re-enact it better.

I wanted to focus on this excerpt, however, which gives a sense of one difference between earlier and later forms of the waltz: “The gentleman should hold the lady by the right hand, and above the waist, or by both hands, if waltzing be difficult for her; or otherwise, it would be better for the gentleman to support the right hand of the lady by his left. The arms should be kept in a rounded position, which is the most graceful, preserving them without motion; and in this position one person should keep as far from the other as the arms will permit, so that neither may be incommoded.” This does correspond with the early 19th century images.

Here is a note from Hints on Etiquette and the Usages of Society; with a glance at Bad Habits (1836): “If a lady waltz with you, beware not to press her waist; you must only lightly touch it with the open palm of your hand, lest you leave a disagreeable impression not only on her ceinture, but on her mind.”

Cruikshank, Specimens of Waltzing 1817

For a more detailed account of the waltz—with lots of lovely images—you might want to read Paul Cooper’s post at Regency Dances.org.

Images: Waltzing 1821, courtesy Lewis Walpole Library Digital Collection; Detail from frontispiece to Thomas Wilson's Correct Method of German and French Waltzing (1816), showing nine positions of the Waltz, via Wikipedia; Specimens of Waltzing, George Cruikshank, 1817-06-04, courtesy New York Public Library.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed. FYI: If you order a book through one of my posts, I might get a small share of the sale.

Baron de Berenger—Horse Whisperer?

Thomas Alken, A Gentleman Riding With a Groom, and Coversing

Loretta report:

Last year, during my visit to the Kensington Central Library, Dave Walker introduced me to the Baron de Berenger’s gun. Thanks to Dave's introducing me to this colorful character, I’ve spent some time with de Berenger’s Helps and Hints: How to Protect Life and Property. It surprised me in a number of ways.

At the time of my stories, animals tended to be treated brutally. I won’t go into the ugly details, but, generally speaking (of course there were many exceptions) if human life was cheap, non-human life was close to worthless, the RSPCA notwithstanding. And while life was kinder to humans of the privileged classes, they were not necessarily kinder to their animals, especially their horses. And so I was struck with de Berenger’s views on the subject:

“[A] rider should, to appearance at least, be a part of his horse; in the efforts of both these component parts there should seem as if there was but one and the same impulse,— a generous and reciprocal attention to please,—to serve, and to spare; and when that is accomplished, most horses will display as much delight in being rode, as the rider will be delighted in riding such a horse; but to accomplish this to perfection, an intimacy, nay, an affection, must be established between yourself and the generous animal; but which ... cannot be attained by the intercourse which, by far too generally, prevails between fashionable characters and their horses; these poor, willing, and faithful animals, rarely experiencing any other notice, save that of being urged on by whip and spur, to exertions but too frequently woefully distressing to a willing frame ... What has secured to the dog the reputation of being more affectionate, more intelligent, and more faithful, than the horse? Because, even the exquisite will deign to hold a familiar and encouraging intercourse, nay, conversation, with him: not so with the poor horse; except when being cleaned or fed, it stands unnoticed for many hours in dull solitude, at least as far as man is concerned. With him the cheering influence and the enjoyments of the sun are embittered by a portion of severe, because generally inconsiderate, labour; even then, and although enduring willingly, hardly ever to experience the pattings of a condescending hand as a cheap encouragement!  ... nevertheless, and aware as the horse must be that it is led forth to endure straining labour, we see him cheerfully leave the stable, ever as willing slavishly to serve his master, as to please him, in any way, which he is taught to know as agreeable to him. Only familiarize with and pet him, as much as you do the dog, and his best endeavours at least to rival canine affection, intelligence, and fidelity, will soon be placed beyond all doubt.

The entire entry, from which I’ve also included a clipping (at right), is well worth reading. I’d be especially interested in the reactions of our horse-loving/riding/driving Nerdy History persons.

Image: Henry Thomas Alken, A Gentleman Riding With a Groom, and Conversing (undated), courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

From the Archives: They Do It Differently in France, Part One

Frances Trollope ca 1832

Loretta reports:

[Note: This post is from 2010, when I was researching my Dressmakers series. In light of recent discussions about the differences in the way married and unmarried women dressed, it seemed worth a return engagement.]

I had occasion to reopen my yellowed copy of Fanny Trollope’s  Paris and the Parisians recently, and was reminded what a delightful account she offers of Paris in 1835.  I suggest you read the entire Letter XXXV —which I have had to hack up mercilessly below.  It points out a very interesting cultural difference.

By this time, in England, arranged marriages were a thing of the past, but not in France.  This led to some interesting differences in social behavior.  In France, Fanny tells us, the unmarried girls are the last to get dancing partners.  It’s the married women—and many of them no spring chickens—to whom all the young gallants flock.  She discusses this oddity with an unnamed French woman of her acquaintance, who asks, "Will you then have the kindness to explain to me the difference in this respect between France and England ?"

Fanny: " The only difference between us which I mean to advocate is, that with us the amusement which throws young people together under circumstances the most likely, perhaps, to elicit expressions of gallantry and admiration from the men, and a gracious reception of them from the women, is considered as befitting the single rather than the married part of the community."

 " With us, indeed, it is exactly the reverse," replied she,—" at least as respects the young ladies. By addressing the idle, unmeaning gallantry inspired by the dance to a young girl, we should deem the cautious delicacy of restraint in which she is enshrined transgressed and broken in upon. A young girl should be given to her husband before her passions have been awakened or her imagination excited by the voice of gallantry.…When a girl is first married, her feelings, her thoughts, her imagination, are wholly occupied by her husband. Her mode of education has ensured this; and afterward it is at the choice of her husband whether he will secure and retain her young heart for himself. In no country have husbands so little reason to complain of their wives as in France ; for in no country does the manner in which they live with them depend so wholly on themselves.”

Marie J. Lafont-Porcher ca 1835

After politely debating which country has got it all wrong, the Unnamed Lady concludes:  “…as we go on exchanging fashions so amicably, who knows but we may live to see your young ladies shut up a little more, while their mothers and fathers look out for a suitable marriage for them, instead of inflicting the awkward task upon themselves?* And in return, perhaps, our young wives may lay aside their little coquetries, and become mères respectables somewhat earlier than they do now. But, in truth, they all come to it at last."

*Italics mine.

Images: Frances Trollope, by Auguste Hervieu circa 1832, courtesy National Portrait Gallery NPG 3906 via Wikipedia. François Kinson, Portrait of Marie J. Lafont-Porcher circa 1835, courtesy Groeningemuseum, via Wikipedia.

A Duke's Household

Morris, Woburn Abbey 1866

Loretta reports:

In A Duke in Shining Armor, my heroine says, “It’s good to be a duke.”

Though dukes, by and large, are nothing like as numerous or as attractive as we paint them in romance novels (as I describe at RT Book Reviews), and any number have fallen on hard times in the past and present, things were not so bad for the 11th Duke of Bedford.

Reading Lucy Lethbridge’s Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times, I came upon this:

“At Woburn Abbey, the eleventh Duke of Bedford maintained until his death in 1940 not only a household of at least sixty indoor servants to attend solely to his wife and himself, but two separate, fully staffed residences in Belgrave Square, including four cars and eight chauffeurs; the Woburn parlourmaids were all Amazonian at over five foot ten, as had always been the Bedfords’ stipulation.”

According to the 13th Duke, (who sounds like a pip, and whose books I intend to read):

“‘Guests never travelled with your suitcase, that was not considered the thing to do. It had to come in another car, so you had a chauffeur and a footman with yourself, and a chauffeur and a footman with the suitcase, with another four to meet you. Eight people involved in moving one person from London to Woburn.’”

11th Duke of Bedford in Coronation Robes

While other noble families changed or economized as the times demanded, the Bedfords continued in the lavish late Victorian/Edwardian style until 1940. “The [11th] Duke always started meals with his own cup of beef consommé and a plate of raw vegetables served to him on a three-tiered dumb-waiter. The Duchess’s secretary-companion had her own quarters that included a cook and a maid.” The duke’s mistress had her own rooms with her own staff—on the premises, I assume?

Apparently, the 11th Duke of Bedford is also responsible for the grey squirrel invasion of England.

Images: Woburn Abbey, from Francis Orpen Morris, The County Seats of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland 1866; 11th Duke of  Beford in Coronation Robes, Photo credit: Middlesex Guildhall Art Collection.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Pre-Victorians Becoming Posture Perfect

C.E. Drummond, Scene at Scotsbridge 1830

Loretta reports:

“A horrible instrument was devised which I had to wear while doing my lessons.  It was a steel rod which ran down my spine and was strapped at my waist and over my shoulders—another strap went around my forehead to the rod. I had to hold my book high when reading, and it was almost impossible to write in so uncomfortable a position. However, I probably owe my straight back to those many hours of discomfort.”—Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, The Glitter and the Gold

C.E. Drummond, watercolour drawing 1828-1830

This sort of thing fit the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, when everything seems to have become so very strict: divisions between classes, excruciatingly complicated etiquette, and fashion.

But I had not thought about posture devices for the earlier period. After all, Susan and I are well aware that acutely straight posture was the order of the day in the 18th and 19th centuries. Women’s shoulder blades were supposed to come as close as possible to meeting in the back, and dress designs reflected this. The corset and especially the busk were all part of maintaining elegant posture.

Then, thanks to Susan's alerting me to an image, I bought and started reading Susan Lasdun’s Making Victorians: The Drummond Children’s World 1827-1832. It has proved enlightening on a number of counts, not least the posture devices used on girls in the pre-Victorian era.

An especially poignant image, a watercolor by Cecile Elizabeth Drummond (at top), brought the point home forcibly—as it evidently did to the errant child. At her feet lies her backboard, which she’s apparently abandoned. And there is Mama, holding a birch rod—a bundle of twigs with which the little girl will be punished for her misbehavior.

C.E. Drummond, watercolour drawing 1828-1830

Lady Lasdun describes the backboard as a “painful” device, yet I’ve seen images of modern children wearing such backboards, in re-enactments (here, here, and here, for example). If it truly were painful, would the re-enactment have been allowed? And would someone be selling them as "only suitable for use by children."?

No doubt the backboard wasn’t comfortable—in the book are several images of children who’ve discarded their backboards and are anticipating a whipping—but it was probably less painful than the whipping, and certainly more comfortable than the iron monstrosity Consuelo Vanderbilt endured. Frankly, I suspect this sort of thing would have benefited my posture enough to compensate for the unpleasantness…though of course I wouldn’t have thought so at the time!

Images: watercolors by Cecil Elizabeth Drummond, 1828-30 (made); Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection; Given by Miss Barbara Drummond, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Funeral Etiquette in the Early 19th Century

Graves at Kensal Green Cemetery

Loretta reports:

At some point early in my career, someone informed me that women did not attend funerals in early 19th century England. However, while researching funerals recently, I learned that there was disagreement on the matter.

The Gentleman and Lady's Book of Politeness and Propriety of Deportment of 1833 (a French work translated into English) offers this:

***

When we lose any one of our family, we should give intelligence of it to all persons who have had relations of business or friendship with the deceased. This letter of announcement usually contains an invitation to assist at the service and burial.

On receiving this invitation, we should go to the house of the deceased, and follow the body as far as the church. We are excused from accompanying it to the burying-ground, unless it be a relation, a friend, or a superior…

At an interment or funeral service, the members of the family are entitled to the first places; they are nearest to the coffin, whether in the procession, or in the church. The nearest relations go in a full mourning dress. It is not customary at Paris for women to follow the procession; and, nowhere do they go quite to the grave, unless they are of a low class. A widower or a widow, a father or mother, are not present at the interment, or funeral service of those whom they have lost. The first are presumed not to be able to support the afflicting ceremony; the second ought not to show this mark of deference.

The Gentleman’s Quarterly Review of August 1836 takes a different view. Regarding the Rev. W. Greswell’s Commentary on the Order for the Burial of the Dead, the reviewer has this to say:

We hope the hints relative to the nonattendance of females of the higher classes at funerals, will produce its due effect; it is a direct avoidance of a great Christian duty, which too often arises from selfish and effeminate motives of indulgence. Mr. Greswell ought, however, to have considered that if the females do not attend the funeral of their departed relatives, like the male mourners, yet they bear a far greater share previously in their attendance on the sick and dying ; and show a tenderness and firmness that the other sex cannot always boast: thus they are often incapacitated by distress, added to watchfulness, weariness, and even sickness, from attention to these last duties. This is a sound and legitimate cause of absence; but it is the only one.

*Originally published in France.
Photograph Photo copyright © 2017 Walter M. Henritze III
Clicking on the image will enlarge it.

Mourning in the 1880s: U.S. vs Great Britain

Sargent, Mrs. Adrian Iselin 1888

Loretta reports:

Having recently viewed the famous widow-dancing scene in Gone with the Wind, and encountered a late Victorian widow in a novel, I wondered how different mourning rituals were in the U.S. and Great Britain.

Obviously, things changed from Scarlett O’Hara’s time. The clipping from American Encyclopedia of Practical Knowledge 1886 tells us there aren’t any hard and fast rules, while the one from Manners and Rules of Good Society (England 1888) is quite specific. My own copy of Manners and Rules of Good Society for 1911 shows a loosening of the late Victorian rules, but things still aren’t as casual as in the U.S., and one can imagine some of the older generation frowning at younger widows who shorten their mourning period to less than 18 months.

U.S. Mourning 1886

England Mourning 1888

Image: John Singer Sargent, Mrs. Adrian Iselin 1888, courtesy National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC, via Wikipedia.


Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

Tricky Surnames & How to Pronounce Them

Lawrence, Lord Granville Leveson-Gower

Loretta reports:

The first time I saw this image, in a book, I was quite impressed. The first time I saw the portrait in person, at the Yale Center for British Art, I swooned. His stance and attitude, if not his face, have inspired more than one of my historical romance heroes (and he’s appeared in my blogs before).  And yes, you can judge the book by the cover. He was quite the ladies’ man, and aspects of his life have also made their way into my stories.

Today, though, I want to talk about his name (again): Leveson-Gower is not pronounced the way it looks. The correct pronunciation, according to Whitaker’s Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage of 1936 (and other guides) is LEWSON-GORR. Some books use Gore and others use Gor, and my 1985 edition of the A& C Black Titles & Forms of Address has it Lōō-son-Gaw, but it's never Gow-er and Leveson is never Lev-e-son. Wikipedia spends some time explaining the “counter-intuitive pronunciation.” This is merely one example of the way titles, surnames, place names, and other proper nouns can trip us up.

Manners and Rules of Good Society (1913 ed quoted below) offers some basic suggestions about pronouncing names, and a list of some most commonly mispronounced. I had room to post only a couple of pages, but you might want to take a look at the chapter. You may be surprised (Americans more than English readers, I suspect).

~~~

THERE are, perhaps, two reasons why various surnames are so frequently mispronounced, the one being unfamiliarity with the freak of fashion which governs the pronunciation of certain well-known names, the other ignorance, or want of education.

When sensitive persons hear a name pronounced differently from the way in which they have themselves but just pronounced it, and in a tone and manner strongly suggestive of correction, it is wounding to their amour propre.

As a rule, when persons are in doubt as to the correct pronunciation of any particular name, it would be best to avoid mentioning it, if possible, until their doubts are set at rest by someone better informed than themselves.

Names that have a fashionable or peculiar pronunciation, or are pronounced otherwise than as they are spelt, are but few, and names which it is possible wrongly to accent are also not very numerous; but it is surprising how often these names occur in the course of conversation.

...With regard to placing the accent on the wrong syllable in the pronunciation of names, it requires but little thought to avoid making this mistake, a popular error being that of placing the accent upon the last syllable of a name; whereas, in a name of two syllables, the accent should invariably be placed upon the first, and the second syllable should be as it were slightly abbreviated or slightly altered.

In names of three syllables the error usually consists in placing the accent upon the last syllable, whereas the accent should be placed upon the second syllable. There are occasional exceptions to this rule, and the few names given in this chapter, both as regards their pronunciation and accentuation, will serve as a useful guide in the pronunciation of uncommon names.—Manners and Rules of Good Society

Surname Pronunciation

Surname Pronunciation

Image: Sir Thomas Lawrence, Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, later first Earl Granville (betw 1804 and 1809), courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.


Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Feasts and Feats of Drinking

Midnight Modern Conversation ca 1732

Loretta reports:

Though Easter Tuesday comes rather later this year, I’m working with Hone’s date, since it seems equally applicable to all feast-days. I think, too, this offers a good example of phrases that sound modern, but actually have been around for a long time. Unlike so many other expressions, “hair of the dog” is as familiar to us as it was to Hone’s readers in 1826.  The OED traces it to the 16th century.

As to the “feats of potation”—given the level of drinking in Hone's time, one can only imagine what his ancestors might have consumed, to impress him so deeply.

Easter Tuesday

Image:
Unknown artist after William Hogarth, A Midnight Modern Conversation ca. 1732courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection Accession No. B1981.25.351

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Victorians Lose Their Luggage

Frith, The Railway Station 1866

Loretta reports:

Last time, I talked about penmanship. Today, I offer a look at letter-writing, another lost art. I was, as any nerdy history person would imagine, thrilled to find the Correct Guide to Letter Writing (4th ed, 1889), which covers letters for virtually all occasions, including a marriage proposal From a Widower with grown-up Daughters to a Young Lady (and acceptance and rejection letters for same);  a letter From a Young Man to his  Guardian, asking for an increased Allowance; one from From a Butler to his Master, giving Notice; and one From a Lady, promising to sing at an Afternoon Tea.

Lost Luggage Letters

The two letters displayed here, complaining about lost luggage, show that this phenomenon didn't begin with airline luggage.  I’ll bet anything there are Egyptian hieroglyphs and Roman tablets complaining about lost luggage. Some of those pictures carved on cave walls probably express some Neolithic ancient ancestor’s dismay about his misplaced mastodon skin.

Llangollen Station

Images
Llangollen station on the w:Llangollen Railway, a heritage line in north Wales. Photographed from the town bridge over the River Dee (Afon Ddyfrdwy), by Chris Mckenna, 2005, courtesy Wikipedia.

William Powell Frith, The Railway Station. Engraving by Francis Holl (after Frith) 1866, courtesy Wikipedia.
Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Guidance for the Gentler Sex 1835

Family Fashions May 1836

Loretta reports:

Other than asking whether attitudes have changed—a little, a lot, not at all?—or whether these precepts ought to apply to men as well, I leave the commenting to my gentle readers.

~~~

Female Temper. It is particularly necessary for girls to acquire command of their temper, because much of the effect of their powers of reasoning and of their wit, when they grow up, depend upon the gentleness and good humor with which they conduct themselves. A woman who would attempt to thunder with her tongue, would not find her eloquence increase her domestic happiness. We do not wish that women should implicitly yield their better judgment to their fathers and husbands, but let them support the cause of reason with all the graces of female gentleness.

A man, in a furious passion, is terrible to his enemies; but a woman, in a passion, is disgusting to her friends ; she loses all that respect due to her sex, and she has not masculine strength and courage to enforce any other kind of respect. These circumstances should be considered by those who advise that no difference should he made in the education of the two sexes.

The happiness and influence of woman, both as wives and mothers, and indeed, in every relation, so much depends on the temper, that it ought to he most carefully cultivated. We should not suffer girls to imagine that they can balance ill humor by some good quality or accomplishment; because, in fact, there is none which can supply the want of tenderness in the female sex.

Mother & Daughter Fashions June 1836

Woman. It is in the middle rank of life that we behold woman in all her glory: not a doll to carry silk and jewels, a puppet to be dangled by coxcomb children, an idol for profane adoration; reverenced to-day, discarded to-morrow ; always jostled out of the true place which nature and society would assign her, by sensuality or contempt; admired but not respected; desired but not esteemed; ruled by fashion not affection ; imparted her weakness, not her constancy, to the sex she should exalt; the source and mirror of vanity.

We see her as a wife, partaking the cares and cheering the anxiety of the husband; dividing his labors by domestic diligence, spreading cheerfulness around her; for his sake, sharing the refinements of the world without being vain of them ; placing all her pride, all her joy, all her happiness, in the merited approbation of the man she honors and loves.

As a mother, we find her the affectionate, the ardent instructress of the children she has tended from their infancy; training them up to thought and virtue, to meditation and benevolence, addressing them as rational beings, and preparing them to be men and women in their turn.

—The Ladies' Companion, Volumes 3-4, 1835

Proper Dress for Gentlemen in 1838

Men's Fashion Paris 1838

Loretta reports:

I tried to cut this excerpt down to my preferred short post size. Unfortunately, unlike so much 19th century prose, this is fairly concise, as well as being enlightening on several points.

However ugly you may be, rest assured that there is some style of dress which will make you passable ...
If you have weak eyes, you should wear spectacles. If the defect be great, your glasses should be coloured. In such cases emulate the sky rather than the sea: green spectacles are an abomination—blue ones are respectable, and even distingué.
Almost every defect of face may be concealed by a judicious use and arrangement of hair. Take care, however, that your hair be not of one colour and your whiskers of another. If you wear a wig, let it be large enough to cover the whole of your red or white hair.
The style of dress for the street is of little consequence, so that it be in good taste. Very light-coloured coats are to be avoided, as well as any thing in strong contrast with the other parts of your dress. The effect of a frock coat is to conceal the height. If, therefore, you are beneath the ordinary stature, or much above it, you should affect frock coats on all occasions that etiquette permits.
In the dining-room, and the drawing-room, dress coats must be adopted, and of late boots are permitted; but shoes and silk stockings are in better taste.
Abroad, in public assemblies, in the church or the theatre, as well as in walking the street, you should always wear gloves. The greatest care should be taken that they fit well, and that they are scrupulously unsullied.
Before going to a ball or party it is not sufficient that you consult your mirror twenty times. You must be personally inspected by your servant or a friend. From want of this precaution, I once saw a gentleman enter a ball-room, attired with scrupulous elegance, but with one of his suspenders curling in graceful festoons about his feet. His glass could not show what was behind.
When we speak of excellence in dress we do not mean richness of clothing, nor manifested elaboration. Profusion of ornaments, rings, chains, &c. &c. are in bad taste. Faultless propriety, perfect harmony, and a refined simplicity,—these are the charms which always fascinate.
It is as great a sin to be finical in dress as to be negligent. A gentleman will always be well and tastefully dressed—choosing a sort of middle course between the extremes: avoiding foppery on the one hand, and carelessness on the other.
Upon this subject the ladies are the only infallible oracles. Apart from the perfection to which they must of necessity arrive, from devoting their entire existence to such considerations, they seem to be endued with an inexpressible tact, a sort of sixth sense, which reveals intuitively the proper distinctions. That your dress is approved by a man is nothing;—you cannot enjoy the high satisfaction of being perfectly comme il faut, until your performance has received the seal of a woman's approbation.

Paris fashion June 1838

—Etiquette for Gentlemen, with hints on the art of conversation, 1838

Images from Journal des Dames & des Modes, Costumes Parisiens, 1838. (Not a lot of men's 1830s fashion in any English publication I could find online.)

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

At a Police Office, 1828

Tom Getting the Best of a Charley

Loretta reports:

A gentleman, summoned by a friend who got caught in a police raid on a gambling establishment, recounts his first experience there. I’ve excerpted only the account of the “young sparks” who decided to copy one famous scene from Life in London and ended up experiencing another—a visit to Bow Street.

LIFE AT A POLICE OFFICE.
I was awakened a short time back by a note being delivered to me from a young friend of mine, telling me that he was in trouble—i.e., in St. Martin's watch-house—and requesting me to come down to Bow-street to be his bail, if need were; and, at all events, to give him my advice and assistance to get out of the scrape.  ...
This was the first time I had ever been at Bow-street, and the scene was sufficiently striking. The low ill-lighted room, with its dingy walls and barred windows, was a place well adapted to the figures of want, vice, and wretchedness with which it was filled.  ...
After [a young forger] were brought up three young sparks for a street row. They had been enacting the parts of Tom, Jerry, and Logic, and the scene had ended, as usual, in the watchhouse. One of them exhibited the marks of the prowess of the "Charlies" in a eye portentously swollen and blackened. The two others seemed to have undergone complete immersion in the kennel; the mud of which, being now dried on their clothes, gave their evening finery a most dilapidated aspect. It appeared that these young men had been vastly taken with the refined humour, brilliant wit, and gentlemanly knowledge of the world in the production called " Life in London;" and that they had determined to emulate the deeds of its triumvirate of worthies as soon as opportunity served. In pursuance of this exalted ambition, they had sallied forth the night before with the determination of having " a spree." Accordingly, in the Strand, they had overtaken a watchman, a feeble old man, who was instantly, in the most manly manner, floored by a broad-shouldered young fellow of six feet high. The prostrate Charley, however, incontinently sprang his rattle, which brought to his assistance a sufficient number of his brethren to lodge, after a desperate resistance, the Corinthian and his friends in the watch-house. And here it appeared that their-behaviour was by no means peaceable and resigned; indeed, the constable averred, that be was finally necessitated to consign them to the strong room for safety.

Tom & Jerry In Trouble After a Spree

"At length the morn and cool reflection came,"
and found our heroes " fully sated" with their manly and gentlemanly exploit, and still more so with its consequences. These, however, terminated only at Bow-street; for, besides large pecuniary remuneration to make to the persons whom they had assaulted, they underwent a most severe and well-deserved rebuke from the magistrate for their folly, brutality, and blackguardism.—Gentleman’s Pocket Magazine 1828

Friday Video: Top 10 Duels in History

Cruikshank, Duel

Loretta reports:

In Gentlemen’s Blood, author Barbara Holland says,

“There was much to like about the duel. It was a regulated way for one man to prevail over another when he felt the need to do so, and an improvement over the informal ambush, or sending out henchmen to break the enemy’s skull by night on the highway.”

In Samuel Johnson’s opinion dueling was “more justifiable than war in which thousands go forth without any personal quarrel.”

Our readers will hold varying opinions on the subject. Please feel free to explore the topic in the comments—that, or duels you’d have put in your Top 10 list, or maybe other movies with excellent dueling scenes?

Image: Cruikshank, The Point of Honor decided, or the Leaden argument of a Love affaire, from The English Spy, 1825

For [many] more of our blog posts on the subject, just type in “duel” in the search box.

Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

The Art of Listening

1835 French Fashions

Loretta reports:

It had seemed to me that listening had become a lost art, which I blamed, as one does so much else, on technology.

Then I came upon these pages in The Gentleman and Lady's Book of Politeness of 1833 (the English translation is the U.S. edition of a French etiquette manual).

Apparently, every generation needs to be reminded, and not everybody learns or cares to learn. While some of the rules in the book will seem to us very dated and even backward, this part at least strikes me as reasonable and kind, in the way etiquette is supposed to work.

Listening

 Fashion illustration for April 1835 courtesy Los Angeles Public Library, Casey Fashion Plates.
Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

The Accomplished Young Lady

Morning Dress 1813

Loretta reports:

I thought it would be interesting to compare William Hazlitt’s remarks about ladies' accomplishments with the exchange in Pride and Prejudice dealing with the topic.

The elegant manners of people of fashion have been objected to us to show the frivolity of external accomplishments, and the facility with which they are acquired. As to the last point we demur. There is no class of people who lead so laborious a life, or who take more pains to cultivate their minds as well as persons, than people of fashion. A young lady of quality, who has to devote so many hours a day to music, so many to dancing, so many to drawing, so many to French, Italian, &c. certainly does not pass her time in idleness; and these accomplishments are afterwards called into action by every kind of external or mental stimulus, by the excitements of pleasure, vanity, and interest. A Ministerial or Opposition Lord goes through more drudgery than half a dozen literary hacks; nor does a reviewer by profession read half the same number of productions as a modern fine lady is obliged to labour through.
—William Hazlitt, The Round Table Vol 1, 1817

Image:
Morning Dress, Ackermann’s Repository August 1813, courtesy Philadelphia Art Museum via Internet Archive. Text clippings from Pride and Prejudice online at Google Books.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Those American Goliaths [from the archives]

Gilbert Stuart, Dolley Madison 1804

Loretta reports:

Lieut. Francis Hall, an Englishman traveling in North America in 1816-1817, offers some fascinating observations of the young United States and its people. Dolley Madison, at left, was the president's lady at the time.

The President, or rather his lady, holds drawing-room weekly, during the sitting of Congress. He takes by the hand those who are presented to him; shaking hands being discovered in America to be more rational and manly than kissing them. For the rest, it is much as such things are every where, chatting, and tea, compliments and ices, a little music, (some scandal, I suppose, among the ladies,) and to bed. Nothing in these assemblies more attracted my notice, than the extraordinary stature of most of the western members; the room seemed filled with giants, among whom, moderately sized men crept like pigmies. I know not well, to what the difference may be attributed, but the surprising growth of the inhabitants of the Western states is matter of astonishment to those of the Eastern, and of the coast line generally. This phenomenon, which is certainly a considerable stumbling-block to the Abbé Raynal's theory, may probably be resolved into the operation of three positive causes, and one negative, namely, plentiful but simple food, a healthy climate, constant exercise in the open air, and the absence of mental irritation. In a more advanced stage of society, luxurious and sedentary habits produce in the rich that enfeeblement of vitality, which scanty food, and laborious or unwholesome occupations bring upon the poor. The only persons to be compared with these Goliahs of the West, were six Indian chiefs from Georgia, Chactaws or Chickasaws, who having come to Washington on public business, were presented at Mrs. Madison's drawing-room.

They had a still greater appearance of muscular power than the Americans; and while looking on them, I comprehended the prowess of those ancient knights, whose single might held an army in check, "and made all Troy retire."

—Lieut. Francis Hall, "Washington," from Travels in Canada, and the United States, in 1816 and 1817, courtesy Library of Congress.

Images: Gilbert Stuart, Dolley Madison 1804, courtesy Wikipedia; George Caitlin, “Three Celebrated Ball Players—Choctaw, Sioux, and Ojibbeway,” 1861, National Gallery of Art, Paul Mellon Collection [my photograph of the painting].

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Miseries of Human Life [from the archives]

Cruikshank, The Headache, 1819

Loretta reports:

James Beresford’s The Miseries of Human Life, which first appeared in 1806, is still funny.  I own the Past Times 1995 adaptation, whose cover bears the Cruikshank illustration, "The Head ache," shown at left, and from whose spine a ball & chain dangles.  This version drops the numerous Latin phrases of the original, as well as the dialogue form—a style popular in the late 18th and early 19th C, which modern readers may find a bit arch and artificial.  Yet I’d suggest you try the original anyway, because it’s full of funny little bits, and many of its miseries apply today as well as then.

MISERIES PERSONAL, EXISTENTIAL AND OF THE BODY
The horror of contriving how to adjust one’s legs and arms at the age of nineteen in a drawing room.

MISERIES OF TRAVELLING
In speeding through towns and turnpikes, the nervous habits and desperate manoeuvres to which you are perpetually driven, to avoid gratifying successive shoals of children, in their eager wishes and strenuous endeavours to be run over.

MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE
Sitting down alone in a large party upon a sofa that makes an equivocal noise.

MISERIES OF FASHIONABLE LIFE
Being a lady of a certain age, throwing yourself into your carriage at daybreak, after some long and fatiguing orgy, finding yourself face to face with your gentleman escort, with the killing consciousness that the beams of the rising sun, by pointing at certain derangements in the composition of your countenance, are gradually rectifying a few chronological errors in your own history, into which you had been leading him an hour before.

Cruikshank, Cat-sitting 1808

MISERIES DOMESTIC
Squatting plump on an unsuspected cat in your chair.

Being serenaded at your window, all night long, by the tender war-whoop of two cats, performed with demoniacal variations and professional enthusiasm.

MISERIES OF THE TABLE
Slipping your knife suddenly and violently from off a bone, its edge first shrieking across the plate (so as to make you hated by yourself and the whole company), and then driving the plate before it, and lodging all its contents—meat, gravy, melted butter, vegetables, &c., &c., partly on your own breeches, partly on the cloth, partly on the floor, but principally on the lap of a charming girl who sits by you, and to whom you had been diligently endeavoring to recommend yourself as a suitor.

While swallowing a raspberry, discovering by its taste that you have been so unhappy as to occasion the death of a harmless insect!

Thomas Rowlandson and George Cruikshank, among others, illustrated various editions of the book.

Images: Cruikshan, The Headache (1819) courtesy Wikipedia; Cruikshank, Cat-sitting  (1808) courtesy of The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.