Rare Books

It’s All About the Bees! ~ A Lost Sheep Returns to Chawton House

/ BookLady Deb / 1 Comment

Thank you to Karen ievers for spotting this book on Bees, now safely back at Chawton House after a successful and not that expensive auction bidding adventure [auction was in German! – one musters through…]

It is in the 1818 GPL catalogue, so another Lost Sheep returns!

Title: A Treatise on the Management of Bees; wherein is contained The Natural History of those Insects; With the various Methods of cultivating them, both Antient and Modern, and the improved Treatment of them. To which are added, The Natural History of Wasps and Hornets, and the Means of destroying them. Illustrated with Copper-Plates. By Thomas Wildman.

Author: Wildman, Thomas (d. 1781)

Date Published: 1768. 1st edition.

Publisher: London:Printed for the Author, and sold by T. Cadell, opposite Catharine-Street, in the Strand.

Location: West case: column 1, shelf 6

In 1908 Catalogue: Yes

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The auction catalogue listed it as having the bookplate of Montagu George Knight of Chawton – and Karen’s eagle eyes spotted it for us. Emma at Chawton House has sent along a few pictures which will be added to the website soon:

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This is what the Royal Collection Trust has to say about Wildman’s book:

A Treatise on the Management of Bees is a manual on beekeeping and a natural history of bees, wasps and hornets by the English beekeeper Thomas Wildman. Published in 1768, the book offered new advice for the management of bees and demonstrated Wildman’s new design for hives. Wildman’s hive included a removable woven lid and a set of seven frames from which bees could build their honeycomb. He also advocated for the use of multiple skeps (domed baskets used for beehives) so that bees could freely move to a new skep once the old one was full, allowing for the easy retrieval of honey. These innovations removed the need to suffocate the colony prior to the harvesting of honey, allowing for the bees to survive for many years.

Modern hives follow similar principles to Wildman’s innovations, however, box hives, where the bees and their honeycomb can be easily observed for signs of disease, have replaced skeps in many areas.

Source: Royal Collection Trust: https://www.rct.uk/collection/1057028/a-treatise-of-the-management-of-bees-wherein-is-contained-the-natural-history-of

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There is not much on Wildman, but I find this little bit in a catalogue of bee books by Walker [Walker, Lt.-Col. H.J.O. Catalogue of Bee Books, Collected and Offered for Sale by Lt.-Col. H.J.O. Walker, Westholm Mains, Budleigh Salterton, Devon. West Yorkshire: Northern Bee Books, 1985.]:

“Thomas and Daniel Wildman, uncle and nephew, both achieved fame by trick performances with bees… Thomas, a Plymouth man, came to London in 1766…the journals of the day report his exploits… His treatise shows…an unusual knowledge of Continental bee-keeping…” (Walker, p. 78).

He also published A Treatise on the Culture of Peach Trees, Printed for the author, 1768: this is a an English translation of the highly respected Traite de la culture des pecher , first published in Paris in 1745 by de Combles

And it is always fun to run into unexpected and interesting book history: Benjamin Franklin was a subscriber to Wildman’s Bees!

[Now I confess to not scrolling through the list to find this – a grand pursuit if someone wants to read through all the subscribers here – no Austens noted but all sorts of worthies of the time are]: scroll down a few pages to the “Subscribers” list]

Wildman’s Bees at google books

I found the Franklin tidbit in this 2014 Guardian article on beekeepers [to include Sherlock Holmes of course]:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/jul/04/the-10-best-famous-beekeepers

And if you are into bees and beekeeping, this is a great summary of the history at Powerblanket, Wildman included.

Question is:

Did Edward Knight keep bees? We know his brother Charles was very much into natural history [more than his clerical duties it seems], but were bees kept at Godmersham or Chawton? Anyone know?

The Wildman skep
©2023 Reading with Austen blog

Charlotte Smith’s ‘Manon L’Escaut’ Now at the Chawton House Library

/ BookLady Deb / 1 Comment

Our happy Band of Sheep Finders went off track recently with helping in the acquisition of a rare copy of Charlotte Smith’s Manon L’Escaut – not a Lost Sheep from the Godmersham Park Library, but an important work not in the Chawton House library for early women writers – and it should be. So our generous group of donors [North American Friends of Chawton House and GLOSS] stepped up and contributed to bringing it to Chawton – here is curator Emma Yandle’s post from the CH website, and with hearty thanks to all those GLOSSians who helped put it on the shelves next to Smith’s other works.

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Chawton House has acquired a rare copy of Charlotte Smith’s (1749-1806) first novel, 
Manon L’Escaut: or, The Fatal Attachment

We are delighted to announce the acquisition of Manon L’Escaut: or, The Fatal Attachment. A French Story (London: Printed for T. Cadell in the Strand, 1786) for our historic books and manuscript collection.

This first – and only – edition of Charlotte Smith’s debut novel is exceptionally rare, with only two other copies listed in private collections in the UK. Following the success of her Elegiac Sonnets in 1784, Smith began her successful career as a novelist with Manon L’Escaut appearing at the end of the 1785 (the title-page listing the following year, as was customary).

Ostensibly a translation of Abbé Prévost’s 1731 novel of the same name, it was conceived by Smith for ‘some English friends who did not read the French’, leading her to ‘translate the whole; or’ – as she pointedly notes – ‘rather to write it anew in English.’[1]  Her wording is important for she substantially adapts the original story, changing the characterisations of the criminal Manon, and the hero, the Chevalier des Grieux, in an act of creative translation that rewards further study.[2]  It is by far her rarest work, likely due to charges of plagiarism levied by critic George Steevens, which had a terrible impact on sales. Smith declared that she would rather ‘withdraw the book than let Cadell [the publisher] suffer.’[3]

Smith is one of the most important woman writers of the Romantic period, who made substantial contributions to poetry and to the Gothic. Manon L’Escaut is an important work within Smith’s oeuvre, as the transition between her poetry and novel writing.

With this acquisition, Chawton House’s collection contains the complete set of Charlotte Smith’s novels in their first editions. We are grateful for the support of GLOSS (The Godmersham Lost Sheep Society) and individual donors to aid in this purchase.—

[1] ‘Translator’s Preface’ to the above work.
[2] See Terry Hale, ‘Translation in Distress: Cultural Misappropriation and the Construction of the Gothic’, in European Gothic: A Spirited Exchange 1760-1960, ed. By Avril Horner. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), pp.17-38.
[3] Catherine Dorset, ‘Charlotte Smith” in Walter Scott, Miscellaneous Prose Works, 6 vols (Edinburgh: Cadell, 1827), vol. iv, p.46

[Images from the catalogue of Stuart Bennett Rare Books, used with permission.] ]

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You can read about Charlotte Smith [Husband a gambler! 12 children! Debtor’s prison! Lawsuits!] in this Chawton House biography by Ruth Facer: https://chawtonhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Charlotte-Smith.pdf

A Bibliography of Smith’s works: [see the CH library catalogue for what they have in the collection]

  1.  Elegaic Sonnets and other Essays (London: J. Dodsley, 1784)
  2.  Manon Lascaut, or, The Fatal Attachment (trans.) from Abbé Prevost (London: T. Cadell, 1785) (later withdrawn)
  3.  The Romance of Real Life, a translation of selected tales from Gayot de  Pitaval’s Les Causes Celebres. 3 vols. (London: T. Cadell, 1787)
  4.  Emmeline, the Orphan of the Castle. 4 vols. (London: T. Cadell, 1788)
  5.  Ethelinde, or the Recluse of the Lake. 5 vols. (London: T. Cadell, 1789)
  6.  Celestina: A Novel. 4 vols. (London: T. Cadell, 1791)
  7.  Desmond: A Novel. 3 vols. (London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, 1792)
  8.  The Emigrants, a poem, in two books (London: T. Cadell, 1793)
  9. The Old Manor House: A Novel. 4 vols. (London: J. Bell, 1793)
  10. The Wanderings of Warwick, a sequel to The Old Manor House (London: J. Bell, 1794)
  11. The Banished Man: A Novel. 4 vols. (London: T. Cadell junior and W. Davies, 1794)
  12. Rural Walks: In Dialogues: Intended for the Use of Young Persons. 2 vols. (London: Cadell and Davies, 1795)
  13. Montalbert: A Novel. 3 vols. (London: Sampson Low, 1795)
  14. Rambles Farther: A Continuation of Rural Walks: In Dialogues Intended for the Use of Young Persons. 2 vols. (London: Cadell and Davies, 1796)
  15. Marchmont: a Novel. 4 vols. (London: Sampson Low, 1796)
  16. A Narrative of the loss of the Catharine, Venus and Piedmont Transports, and the Thomas, Golden Grove and Aeolus Merchant-ships near Weymouth, on Wednesday the 18th November last. Drawn up from information taken on the spot by Charlotte Smith, and published for the Benefit of an unfortunate Survivor from one of the Wrecks, and her infant child (London: Sampson Low, 1796)
  17. Elegiac sonnets, and other poems. Vol.II. (London: T. Cadell, junior, and W. Davies, 1797)
  18. Minor morals, interspersed with sketches of natural history, historical anecdotes, and original stories. 2 vols. (London: Sampson Low, 1798)
  19. The Young Philosopher: a Novel. 4 vols. (London: Cadell and Davies, 1798)
  20. What is she? A comedy, in five acts, as performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. (London: Longman and Rees, 1799)
  21. The Letters of a Solitary Wanderer: containing narratives of various description. Volumes 1-3 (London: Sampson Low, 1800-1)
  22. The Letters of a Solitary Wanderer. Volumes 4-5 (London: Longman and Rees, 1802)
  23. Conversations, Introducing Poetry; chiefly on subjects of natural history, for the use of children and young persons, with an engraved portrait of Charlotte Smith, by J. Conde. 2 vols. (London: J. Johnson, 1804)
  24. A History of England, from the Earliest Records, to the Peace of Amiens in a Series of Letters to a Young Lady at School. 3 vols. Volumes 1 and 2 by Charlotte Smith. (London: Richard Phillips, 1806)
  25. Beachy Head, Fables, and Other Poems (London J. Johnson, 1807)
  26. A Natural History of Birds, intended chiefly for young persons. 2 vols. (London: J. Johnson, 1807)
©2022, Reading with Austen Blog

Austen and Shakespeare: A Godmersham Lost Sheep Found at Home with Shakespeare

/ BookLady Deb / 2 Comments

It is always (to me!) an interesting story how a Lost Sheep gets found – or at least any book detective out there would so describe the thrill of locating a book considered lost to eternity in some auction sale or a the stacks of a library or in someone’s private collection. And such discoveries are often serendipitous – the right place, the right time, or a click of a keyboard and Oh Wow! Look at this!

One of our most exciting finds happened in such a way recently. Though I continue to search library catalogues of colleges and universities and institutions, knowing full well that the provenance of a Knight bookplate might not even be recorded, it is always sheer luck to stumble on one when doing something else entirely…so here’s the story:

One of my book groups was reading Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell (fabulous book if you have not read it…), and I was doing some research on the fact vs. fiction questions the book raises. And internet surfing brought me to various Shakespeare-related sites – the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust  a treasure trove of information and many images. My Reading with Austen hat is always on and realized I had never searched their library for the Knight bookplates (I search for Chawton, Godmersham, Montagu, Edward, Knight, etc. – and find often that Montagu is misspelled, or he is referred to as “Montagu George, Knight of Chawton,” etc. – these provenance errors complicate searching!) – and the miracle of online catalogue searching brought up a book in their collection with the MGK bookplate! A check in the Reading with Austen catalogue shows this exact title as listed in the 1818 Godmersham catalogue [the images from the SBT have just been added to the listing]: a book by Philip Miller titled The Gardeners Kalendar (1732).

[Here is the link to the SBT catalogue. ]

Eureka! Problem at the time was the SBT was closed, so I waited until they opened to request images – they were as excited as we were to find this Lost Sheep on their very own shelves. There is something comforting about a Jane Austen-related book finding itself at Shakespeare’s birthplace – even Jane (Shakespeare fan that she was) might appreciate this turn of events. We cannot have it back at Chawton House, but this is certainly the next best thing…a Lost Sheep found, and surrounded in Shakespeare no less!

Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

We appreciate very much the Library staff at the SBT copying all the images we need for the website. Here are the details with some information about the book and the author. Can we imagine Austen consulting this very Kalendar at various times during her gardening year?

Philip Miller. The gardeners kalendar, directing what works are necessary to be done every month, in the kitchen, fruit, and pleasure gardens, and in the conservatory. With An Account of the particular seasons for the Propagation and Use of all Sorts of Esculent Plants and Fruits proper for the Table, and of all Sorts of Flowers, Plants, and Trees, that flower in every Month. By Philip Miller, Gardener to the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries, at their Botanick Garden in Chelsea, and F. R. S.

London: printed for the author, and sold by C. Rivington, at the Bible and Crown, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, M.DCC.XXXII. [1732]

xv,[1],252,[4]p.,plate ; 8⁰.

With two final leaves of advertisements.
Montagu George Knight, 1844-1914, former owner.
Knight’s bookplate pasted inside front of book.

This book has the least common of the MGK bookplates:

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Philip Miller (1691-1771) was the most well-known of the horticultural writers of the eighteenth-century. He began in London as a florist, grower of ornamental shrubs, and garden designer. It was all the doing of Sir Hans Sloane, who became landlord of the land in Chelsea in 1712 that had been leased to the Society of Apothecaries for their physic garden. In 1722 Sloane transferred it permanently to the Society and recommended that Miller be appointed head gardener – he held this position until shortly before his death in 1771. The Chelsea Physic Garden developed under Miller’s hand into the most richly stocked of any mid-18th century garden, his work there the basis of Miller’s several gardening publications.  [You can read about its history here: https://www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk/about/history/ ]. It was “largely through [Miller’s] skill as a grower and propagator and his extensive correspondence, the Chelsea botanic garden belonging to the Society of Apothecaries of London became famous throughout Europe and the North American colonies for its wealth of plants, which was continuously enriched by new introductions, notably from the West Indies, Mexico, eastern North America, and Europe.”1

Miller is most known for his The Gardener’s and Florists Dictionary or a Complete System of Horticulture (1724) and The Gardener’s Dictionary containing the Methods of Cultivating and Improving the Kitchen Fruit and Flower Garden, which first appeared in 1731 in a folio and went through eight revised editions in his lifetime. There is much information on Miller’s use of the classifications of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and John Ray, rather than those of Carl Linnaeus – but he later embraced the Linnaeus nomenclature in his Dictionary of 1768. But I shall avoid this discussion and send you to the resources below if you have any interest in botanical history and the naming of plants.

Since this is September, here’s a page sample for what you should be doing in your Kitchen Garden [this is from the 1737 4th ed. at HathiTrust] – it’s all about your cauliflower – there are succeeding entries for work to be done in the Fruit Garden, the Flower Garden, the Pleasure Garden, and the Greenhouse and Stove. You shall be very busy!

You can see the complete text of The Gardeners Kalendar here:

the 1732 1st edition at Google Books: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Gardiners_Kalendar_Directing_what_Wo/O5xgAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

and the 1737 4th edition at HathiTrust:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101037690227&view=1up&seq=11

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One interesting bit is that it was Philip Miller who sent the first long-strand cotton seeds, which he had developed, to the new British colony of Georgia in 1733. They were first planted on Sea Island, off the coast of Georgia, and hence derived the name of the finest cotton, Sea Island Cotton. [There is inconsistent information on this – you can read the Stephens article cited below for a full account.] But this adds to the whole picture of Miller’s hand in propagation not only in England but also in the colonies – and we all know that cultivation of cotton sustained one part of the Triangular Trade and perpetuated the slave trade and system of slavery in order to produce and transport to England as much of this cotton product as possible. This too is another story – but all things connect as anyone trying to research the simplest thing knows – a Godmersham book found at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, written by a man who had a hand in the development of cotton in the colonies which sustained the slave trade, which then of course leads us to Mansfield Park…and really what was Jane Austen’s “dead silence” all about…

What a digression!

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Though Miller’s most well-known books (noted above), available in many editions through the years, are not listed in the 1818 catalogue, there is one other Philip Miller book in the Godmersham collection, also in the 1908 Chawton library, and this is still a Lost Sheep:

Figures Of the most Beautiful, Useful, and Uncommon Plants described in The Gardeners Dictionary, exhibited on Three Hundred Copper Plates, Accurately Engraven after Drawings taken from Nature. With The Characters of their Flowers and Seed-Vessels, Drawn when they were in their greatest Perfection. To which are added, Their Descriptions, and an Account of the Classes to which they belong, according to Ray’s, Tournefort’s, and Linnæus’s Method of Classing them. By Philip Miller, F.R.S. Member of the Botanic Academy at Florence, and Gardener to the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries at their Botanic Garden at Chelsea. In Two Volumes.

London: Printed for the Author; And Sold by John Rivington in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, A. Millar, H. Woodfall, J. Whiston and B. White, J. Hinton, G. Hawkins, R. Baldwin, J. Richardson, W. Johnston, S. Crowder, P. Davey and B. Law, T. Caslon, and R. and J. Dodsley, 1760.

According to a Sotheby’s sale catalogue, the 300 plates of various plants were drawn by Richard Lancake and two of the leading botanical artists and engravers of the period, Georg Dionysius Ehret and Johann Sebastian Miller (formerly Müller). The work was published by subscription in 50 monthly parts, with each part containing 6 plates, between 25 March 1755 and 30 June 1760. Two later editions were published in 1771 and 1809. It sold in 2017 for £12,500 and there are several currently online listed from $14,000 to $37,000 – but alas and sigh, none of them mention an MGK bookplate, and we can expect if this copy ever does show up, it will be far beyond our pocketbook.

You can see a full text (1771 ed.) of this gorgeous book here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015063465242&view=1up&seq=5&skin=2021

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And again, our hearty thanks to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust for 1.) having this book on their shelves; and 2.) their generosity in providing the images for the website. One more Lost Sheep found is a very comforting thing, and I suppose we have Maggie O’Farrell and her Hamnet to thank for this whole book detective episode!

Resources:

1. See “Miller, Philip” in the Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography.

Other resources on Miller:

Hazel Le Rougetel, “Gardener Extraordinary; Philip Miller of Chelsea, 1691–1771.” Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society 96 (1971): 556–63.

_____. The Chelsea Gardener, Phililp Miller 1691-1771. London: Natural History Museum, 1990.

W. T. Steam, “Philip Miller and the Plants from the Chelsea Physic Garden Presented to the Royal Society of London, 1723–1796.” Botanical Society of Edinburgh Transactions 41 (1972): 293–307.

S. G. Stephens. “The Origin of Sea Island Cotton.” Agricultural History 50.2 (1976): 391-99.

©2021, Reading with Austen blog

Reading in the Godmersham Library: Jane Austen’s Nephew Charles Bridges Knight ~ Part VI

/ BookLady Deb / 3 Comments

So, I begin this final post on Charles Knight’s diaries with a book mentioned in an earlier diary that Hazel just found – In Diary 6, November 7, 1833, Charles writes:

‘read to Henry the Memoirs of Dalrymple’.

Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland. From the Dissolution of the last Parliament of Charles II. Until the Sea-battle off La Hogue. By Sir John Dalrymple, Bart. The second edition. Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, in the Strand: and A. Kincaid and J. Bell, and J. Balfour, Edinburgh, 1771-88.

This 3 volume set is found in the GPL catalogue and was listed in the 1908 catalogue, but is alas! A LOST SHEEP.

According to Wikipedia, “Sir John Dalrymple of Cousland, 4th Baronet (1726 – 26 February 1810) was a Scottish advocate, judge, chemist and author. He is best known for his Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland from the dissolution of the last parliament of Charles II until the sea battle of La Hogue, first published in 1771. A new edition of 1790 carried on to the capture of the French and Spanish navies at Vigo. The Dalrymples formed a dynasty among the legal profession in Scotland. Although a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment and a friend of persons like David Hume and Adam Smith, Dalrymple’s writings were rather unappreciated and he has been described as an irritating member of the Edinburgh literati.” [love this!]

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Now on to the last of the Diaries, numbers 13, 14, and 15. These three diaries are dated January 1837 through March 1851. None of the books mentioned will be in the Godmersham Library catalogue, and as Hazel notes:

“Attached are Charles’ diary entries which mention books or reading. They are numbered 13, 14 and 15 on the cover. There is no 12, but it isn’t missing – the dates continue more or less uninterrupted from Diary 11. The final diary ends in March 1851. There must be other diaries out there – I cannot believe that he just stopped. The references to books are few and far between over these years. He belongs to a book club, but fails to specify the texts bought in from Varty’s or his response to them. Neither does he reveal the titles of books read on visits to his parishioners (I think I found one.)  Frequent trips back to Godmersham are disappointingly unrecorded, beyond the date he leaves and returns to Chawton.”

 

Diary marked number 13, January 30th 1837 – September 25th 1837; January 1841 to November 9th 1844:

No evidence of reading, but:

1844: ‘Thursday Feby 8. I spent most of the day with Adela. Willis came about cleaning the pictures.’

‘Friday ... I was with Adela looking over old pictures.’

[Charles is at Chawton, Adela is Edward II’s 2nd wife and mother of Montagu! (who did care very much about the books, even if his father didn’t!)]. I have asked Chawton House is there is any knowledge of a Willis – a servant, either man or woman – a check into local census records of the time mention no one with that name…] – a picture of Adela is forthcoming. Reading Hazel’s newest book – see below – you learn more about Adela. I love this image of she and Charles looking over old pictures…]

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Diary marked number 14, November 10th 1844 to July 31st 1847:

1845 ‘Saturday June 28 … Read Eothen.’  [he continues reading Monday June 30th]

Alexander William Kinglake. Eothen; or Traces of travel brought home from the East. London: J Ollivier, 1844.

Eothen title page – 2nd edition (all I could find)

 

Kinglake – 1863 portrait by Harriet M. Haviland (National Portrait Gallery)

 

Alexander Kinglake (1809–1891) was an English travel writer and historian. Eothen was originally published anonymously and very popular, and tells of his travels in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. He is most known for his The Invasion of the Crimea: Its Origin, and an Account of its Progress down to the Death of Lord Raglan, in 8 volumes, published from 1863 to 1887 by Blackwood, Edinburgh. This book is listed in the 1908 catalogue (under Crimea) with an incorrect publication date; and all 8 volumes are still in the Knight Collection, but nothing on Eothen.

 

You can read a recent edition with an introduction here.

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‘Monday August 25 … Dined at Wigrams & met some Heathcotes; and sang. I took an old book full of songs from the Gt House – which was of use.’

So, what this is anybody’s guess! No knowing if they were religious songs or something more light-hearted. There is listed in the Knight Collection a book titled Divine Songs, by Isaac Watts – no mention of this either in the GPL 1818 or Chawton 1908 catalogues, but it was published in 1715 as Divine Songs Attempted in Easy Language for the Use of Children (also known as Divine and Moral Songs for Children, a collection of didactic, moralistic poetry for children that for the next 150 years remained one of the most popular of children’s books and went into many editions. It looks like something that might have been / should have been in the GPL, and something Charles would have been familiar with, and likely used so much it wasn’t on the shelf during the cataloguing process – but I am completely digressing / guessing here!

Divine Songs – title page – British Library

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‘Wednesday Nov 5. I walked to Alton … Looked in at Mrs Faithfull to leave Sumner’s exposition of the Gospels, which I mean to read there.’

‘Drew a little to make a beginning, copying from a beginner’s book of the childrens (Edward’s children). Read some French grammar.’

We discussed a different book by Sumner in Part III of these Diary posts :

A Series of sermons on the Christian faith and character, by John Bird Sumner. London, 1823.  Not in the GPL. But is in 1908 and the Knight Collection.

This one now mentioned is A Practical Exposition of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, in the form of lectures … By J. B. Sumner. London : J. Hatchard & Son, 1831. The 1834 edition of this is listed in 1908 and remains in the Knight Collection, so likely what Charles is referring to.

 

John Bird Sumner, 1780-1862, was a bishop in the Church of England and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1848-62. He wrote numerous treatises on religion, and while none are in the GPL catalogue, several are listed in the 1908 and remain in the Knight Collection.

 

 

Portrait of Sumner attributed to Eden Upton Eddis – Wikipedia

Don’t know to what children’s book he is referring, but interesting that he has taken up drawing, and continuing with his French.

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‘Tuesday Nov 11 …. Read at Mrs Faithfull’s at half past ten, one of Sumner’s lectures on St Matthew [see above] to her & Sally Howard.’

‘Friday Nov 27 … I wrote to desire Roake & Varty to send Crawley the Bishops charge & Wigram’s sermon.’ (His friend Crawley from his days at Trinity College Cambridge, who now lives in Wales).

See Diaries Part V for information on Roake & Varty, publishers and booksellers that Charles frequently purchased from:  https://readingwithaustenblog.com/2020/04/22/reading-in-the-godmersham-library-jane-austens-nephew-charles-bridges-knight-part-v/

Wigram’s Sermon refers to this:

Art. II.—“A Sermon, preached June 11, 1827, before the Corporation of the Trinity House.” By the Rev. Joseph Cotton Wigram, A. M. Curate of St. James’, Westminster. London: Rivingtons. 1827.

It appears in The Christian Remembrancer; or, The Churchman’s Biblical, Ecclesiastical and Literary Miscellany: Volume 10.  January 1, 1828.

The “Bishop’s Charge” likely refers to this:

The Bishop’s Charge, not as it was, but as it should have been. By a Protestant. [Charles James Blomfield]. London, 1843.

Neither is in 1908 or in the Knight Collection.

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‘1846 Jany 1 ... I wrote to Roake & Varty [for more books] & Jarvis & Jones’ [see below]

‘Thursday Feby 5 … I staid in all the afternoon reading Walpole’s memoirs.’

‘Saturday Feby 8 … I read a good deal of Walpole’s memoirs of Geo. 3d —’

Horace Walpole. Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third ... Edited, with notes, by Sir D. Le Marchant. Horace Walpole. London, 1845.

These Memoirs were published in 4 volumes. The listing in both the 1908 catalogue (under George III!) and the Knight Collection list only two volumes.

Horace Walpole (1717-1797) Horace Walpole portrait:  by Rosalba Carriera, c. 1741

The Jarvis & Jones  must refer to an outdoor clothing outfitter, as in Diary Vol 5,  Monday February 11, 1833, Charles writes: ‘I received a velveteen shooting jacket from Jarvis & Jones.” Charles was an avid outdoorsman, not something all that clear in these posts about his (mostly) religious reading. If you want to know more about the importance of proper shooting attire and the “velveteen shooting jacket,” here is all you need to know via the The Sportsman from 1859.

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‘Monday Feby 9 ... I wrote to Mrs Lefroy & sent her a book by Edwd to B Stoke, who went to meet the express train. It was a manuscript of Aunt Janes from FCK.’

‘Lady Susan’ Manuscript – Morgan Library

Well, this is VERY exciting! Charles is writing this in February 1846. It is believed this was the manuscript of Lady Susan – Cassandra Austen had bequeathed it to her niece Fanny Knight Knatchbull on her death in March 1845 – so here it is being delivered to Mrs. Lefroy, who would be his cousin Anna Lefroy (daughter of James Austen)  – exciting indeed!

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Tuesday Feby 19 … Went to the book sale at Wigram’s … I bought some books for myself, and some for Edwd.’

‘Saturday Feby 28 … I sent a box of books to Bain to be bound.’ (They are returned to him on April 17th.)

So I find this: the bookbinder Bain might be this – still in existence!:

 

Bell & Bain, founded on 4th April 1831 by James Bell and Andrew Bain, is one of the oldest established printing companies still in existence in UK. In 1891, the firm was made a limited company, under the title Bell & Bain Ltd.

I had no luck with Wigram’s as a bookseller or publisher … unless he is referring to Joseph C. Wigram, mentioned above – Wigram was the  Archdeacon of Winchester and Bishop of Rochester and wrote on religious topics including a work on the management of Sunday Schools. In August 1845 (see above) Charles writes of dining at Wigrams and meeting some Heathcotes – Deirdre Le Faye includes both in her biographical index to the Letters – so could this just be a reference to a friend selling some of their books?

*********

‘Monday May 18 ... I finished the Crescent & the cross.’

Eliot Warburton. The Crescent and the Cross, Or, Romance and Realities of Eastern Travel. London: Henry Colburn, 1845.

Warburton, was an Irish traveler and novelist, born near Tullamore, Ireland. This book was an account of his travels in 1843 in Greece, Turkey, Syria, Palestine and Egypt – I mentioned above the Kinglake book Eothen – they appeared at nearly the same time and shows the public’s ongoing interest in such travels. The fact that Charles read both accounts is telling. Warburton’s book was a huge success and went into 18 editions! It is however, neither in the 1908 nor the Knight Collection.

And just to give another nod to Horace Walpole, Warburton wrote the Memoirs of Horace Walpole and His Contemporaries (London: Colburn, 1852).

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1847: ‘April 22 … read Roscoe’s life of Lorenzo de ‘ Medici & got thro’ the preface & part of the 1st chapter.’

Roscoe – Title page, Vol 2 of 3rd ed, 1797 – HathiTrust

William Roscoe. The Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici called the magnificent. I-II. London: Printed by J. M’Creery and Sold by J. Edwards, 1795.

There are several editions of this work, so not sure which Charles is reading as it is not listed in either catalogue – first edition was published in 1795 in 2 volumes.

Portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici, 15th century,
Agnolo Bronzino and workshop (Wikipedia)

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‘Thursday May 13 … Wrote for some books to Varty.’ [Charles was a boon for the independent bookshop!]

‘June 8 … Sarah Ewens began to be educated by me today as candidate for a pupil teacher; we began Mrs Markham’s History of England.’

Mrs. Markham (i.e. Elizabeth Penrose). A History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans to the End of the Reign of George III. (1823).

Elizabeth Penrose (1780 – 1837), known by her pseudonym Mrs. Markham, was an English writer, mostly of histories and stories for children. Her History of England, first published in 1823, went through many editions, with the title changing with the addition of the reigning monarchs after George III. We cannot know which edition Charles was using for teaching Sarah Ewens.

Philip de Laszlo. Sketch for ‘Dame Emily Penrose – wikipedia

[An additional bit on Penrose is that her granddaughter was Dame Emily Penrose, DBE (1858 – 1942) – she was Principal of three early women’s university colleges in the UK: Somerville College, Oxford University from 1907 until 1926, the Principal of Royal Holloway College from 1898 until 1907, and the Principal of Bedford College from 1893 until 1897.]

 

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 Diary 15:  August 1st 1847 to March 24th 1851

1848: ‘Monday Oct 17 … Wrote to Varty for some stationery & books for the school.’

‘Sunday Oct 22 ... Had the pupil teachers at 5 to read Secker’s lectures.’ (And the following Sunday.)

Secker Lectures – from Reading with Austen website

Thomas Secker appeared in Part IV: this was in the GPL and remains in the Knight Collection:

Lectures on the Catechism of the Church of England: with A Discourse on Confirmation. By Thomas Secker, LL.D. Late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Published from the Original Manuscripts By Beilby Porteus, D.D. and George Stinton, D.D. His Grace’s Chaplains. London, 1769.

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1849: ‘Thursday April 5 … I went to Alton & ordered Burke’s landed gentry & Williams’s laws relating to the clergy.’

There are so many editions of Burke’s landed gentry – it has its own wikipedia page!

Since he is ordering this in 1849, it might be the edition of 1843-49 titled:

 

A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, a companion to the Baronetage and Knightage. By John Burke and John Bernard Burke.     London: H. Colburn, 1845-1848.

No editions are listed in either catalogue. The Knight Collection has only this book by Bernard Burke: Encyclopaedia of Heraldry: or General Armory [later titled General Armory, which is how it is listed in the Knight Collection – first published in 1884 under this title.]

 

 

For Williams, I find this:

David Williams. The laws relating to the clergy; being a practical guide to the clerical profession in the legal and canonical discharge of their various duties. London: Printed for Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, 1813 and a 2nd ed in 1822.

The Knight Collection has a book titled: The Duties and Rights of the Clergy – this could refer to Edward Stillingfleet’s Ecclesiastical cases relating to the duties and rights of the parochial clergy stated and resolved according to the principles of conscience and law / by the Right Reverend Father in God, Edward, Lord Bishop of Worcester. London: Printed by J.H. for Henry Mortlock.., 1698.

There are other titles by Edward Stillingfleet in the GPL catalogue, but not this one – need to have a better look at the complete title in the Knight Collection.

****************

‘April 18 … Preparations for lending Library.’ (In Alton. Charles suggested setting it up.)

‘April 19th ... arranged the lending Library books and tracts.’

‘April 22 … Gave G. Ewens some books to cover for the lending Library.’

Well, hooray for Charles! I need to research more to see if the existing library in Alton, located on Vicarage Hill, is actually the very one that Charles Knight started in the community.

Alton Library, Vicarage Hill (Wikipedia)

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1850: ‘Feb 11. Monday … Began to read “Daily steps toward Heaven.” God grant they may really lead me there.’

[I hope you are now there too Charles!]

I find this:

 

Daily steps toward Heaven, or practical thoughts on the Gospel history, and especially on the life and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, for every day of the year, according to the Christian seasons, with titles and characters of Christ, and a harmony of the four Gospels. London, Park, 1850. 2nd ed. By A. H. Dyke Acland, afterwards Troyte. Earliestr edition I find is 1849. This title page is from 1860.

 

 

 

‘July 22. Monday. Called on Mrs Hedges. Lent her Mant’s book about the state of the blessed.’

Se, there are a few options here:

The Souls of the Blessed. By Bishop Mant. London: Edwards and Hughes, 1844. Series: Tracts for Englishmen, 6; Pamphlets, v. 1, no. 26.

 

The Happiness of the Blessed considered as to the particulars of their state; their recognition of each other in that state; and its difference of degrees. … To which are added Musings on the Church and her Services [in verse]. By Richard Mant, successively Bishop of Killaloe, and of Down, Connor and Dromore. London, 1833.

[my underlines – Charles’ words are “the state of the blessed” so likely he is referring to this book]

This book is not in either catalogue or the Knight Collection.

But I like this one the best, though I don’t think even Charles could have imagined this one in 1850, because it was not published until 1869!

Henry Alford. The State of the Blessed Dead.  This was one of 4 discourses delivered in Canterbury Cathedral during Advent in 1868, and appeared in the “Pulpit Analyst” in 1869.

*************

So we will leave Charles with his reading and his writing here. There are no more diaries, at least none have yet been found. Charles lived until 1867, and it would be odd that from 1851 until his death he would have stopped journaling – we can only hope more will be located.

As a final parting, here is an example of Charles’ diary writing, making our little peak into his life all the more personal, and with thanks again to Hazel for sharing this:

Extract from Charles Knight’s diary for 1834

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If you want to learn more about Charles Bridges Knight, Hazel has just published her new book The Other Knight Boys: Jane Austen’s Dispossessed Nephews (Uppercross Press, 2020). You will learn much about Charles, as well as all of his brothers: Edward, George, Henry, William, and John. It is a compelling tale of Jane Austen’s brother Edward’s male children. I have enjoyed reading along with Charles (well some of the time!) – I hope you have too. It has been a grand entry into the Godmersham Park Library and later the library at Chawton House as we continue the search for the LOST SHEEP – help us if you can!

 

 

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Links to the previous five posts on Charles’ diaries, with again, sincere thanks to Hazel Jones for sharing all the diary entries about Charles in the Godmersham Library.

-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part I
-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part II
-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part III
-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part IV
-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part V

©2020 Reading with Austen Blog

Reading in the Godmersham Library: Jane Austen’s Nephew Charles Bridges Knight ~ Part V

/ BookLady Deb / 2 Comments

There’s been a gap of over seven months (!) since the last posting on Charles’ reading at Godmersham –  so I’ll repeat some of the introductory material to refresh your memory.  I again offer hearty thanks to Austen scholar Hazel Jones for sharing this with us as she mines Charles’ diaries – and please see below about information on her just published work The Other Knight Boys, wherein we learn not just more about Charles Bridges Knight, but all his brothers as well!

The Reading with Austen website focuses on the contents of the Godmersham Park Library as noted in the 1818 catalogue of the collection. We know that Jane Austen read and rested in this library because her letters tell us so, and the RwA website has brought this long-ago library back to colorful life. So it is a very interesting treasure to stumble upon other mentions of this library. The scholar Hazel Jones* has been very generous in sharing her research into the diaries of Austen’s nephew Charles Bridges Austen (later Knight), who also spent time in this very library. In doing the research for her new book on Edward Austen Knight’s sons, Hazel’s reading (and transcribing) Charles Bridge’s diaries (which are housed at Jane Austen’s House Museum ), she finds numerous references to the titles he is reading.

Charles Bridges was born March 11, 1803 at Godmersham Park in Kent, the 8th child of Jane Austen’s brother Edward Knight and Elizabeth Bridges. He was a commoner at Winchester* from 1816-1820, attended Trinity College, Cambridge and was ordained in 1828. He was the curate of West Worldham in Hampshire and rector of Chawton from 1837-1867. He died unmarried on October 13, 1867, aged 64 years. He is buried in the graveyard at the St. Nicholas Churchyard in Chawton (Section B: Row 2. 70 ).

 

You can read the other parts here that tell of Charles’ reading while living at Godmersham:

-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part I
-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part II
-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part III
-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part IV

***************

We continue now with Diary 11, dated  November 2nd 1837 – January 28th 1840 

Hazel notes: There is very little of interest in this diary concerning books. Charles is largely obsessed with detailing symptoms of the gout, various remedies and ‘lowering’ diets.

1. ‘Sunday Nov 5 … Received cookery garden and cellar books from Alton.’

These books are not identified by title, so we can only assume Charles has ordered books from the local bookseller in Alton about cookery, gardening, and cellar (root cellar? wine cellar?) books – these would have been his own books and not part of the Godmersham library – but nice to know he is reading something other than religious tomes!

2. ‘Monday Nov 6 ... ‘Sent by Gale for some books.’

 

No information, though I do find a printer / bookseller imprint for a Gale, Curtis and Fenner out of London – they printed and sold books on sporting as well as religion, but mostly around the 1810s – so this may be an offshoot of that original firm. There is also a later Gale bookseller in London. Here is a title page from their book on sporting.

 

 

 

3. ‘Tuesday Dec 5 … I wrote to Johnson about the furniture, & to Roche about some books.’ / and ‘Monday March 26 … Wrote to Roche & Varty for some books.’ / and ‘Saturday April 7 … I found a parcel of books arrived for me from Roche & Varty.’

So I was able to find references to Varty in WorldCat, and with the help of Peter Sabor, we find that “Roche” actually refers to “Roake” –

Roake & Varty were publishers and booksellers / stationers in London from about 1829-1842. They published a number of political, religious, and educational books – so Charles could have been either buying and reading for his own edification or, as Hazel suggests, purchasing books for the Chawton and Alton schools. He mentions supplying the teachers with various texts. [According to Hazel, Charles apparently was in the habit of turning up in the classrooms unannounced to examine the pupils! Every teacher’s nightmare!…] There are no Roake & Varty books at GPL, but here is a title page of one such published by them:

On the laws and liberties of Englishmen: Britons ever shall be free! 1831
(from Internet Archive)

***********

4. ‘Friday April 20 … I bought today Edward’s Gibbon, at three guineas and a half.’

Ok, so the interesting thing here is that Charles seems to have BOUGHT the Gibbon from his brother Edward! Edward SOLD it to him?? OR Edward is Gibbon’s first name, so did he just mean Edward Gibbon, no possessive? Or, is he just completely confused about author and title? He later mentions “Gibbon’s decline and fall” so we know he is talking about The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, first published 1776 and succeeding volumes through 1789, and many re-printings. It is not listed in the GPL.

Title page from 2nd ed volume I: Heritage Auctions

The only Gibbon book at Godmersham was this, his first published work: Essai sur l’étude de la literature (1761) and a LOST SHEEP:

[Image: Gallica.bnf.fr]

Edward Gibbon, by Henry Walton – wikipedia

[Aside: Human interest story (i.e. gossip): While living in Switzerland as a young man, Gibbon met the love of his life: Suzanne Curchod, the daughter of the pastor of Crassy. Their romance was thwarted by family on both sides – but Curchod went on to marry Louis XVI’s finance minister Jacques Necker – their daughter became Madame de Staël.]

You can read all about Jane Austen and de Staël at this virtual exhibition tour at Chawton House from 2017: “Fickle Fortunes: Jane Austen and Germaine de Staël”

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5. ‘Sunday April 22 … I came home soon after 5 and read till 7 when I dined — at 1/2 past 9 I read the first chapter of Anderson’s Expositions of the Epistle to the Romans, to the servants, meaning to go on with it every Sunday.’

Robert Anderson. A practical exposition of St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans. London: J. Hatchard and Son, 1833. [also an appendix was published in 1837]

[Image: Internet Archive]

Not in the GPL – so one wonders where DID Charles’ own books go??

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6. ‘Monday June 11 ... Today I have been silly enough to subscribe to a publication going about of the lives of eminent Englishmen.’

Charles must mean this: Lives of eminent and illustrious Englishmen, from Alfred the Great to the latest times, on an original plan. George Godfrey Cunningham. Glasgow, A. Fullarton & Co., 1834-42.

Not in the GPL – but it is good to know that Charles had a moment of “silliness”! It was originally published in 16 parts (then into 8 volumes).

[Image: Internet Archive]

7. ‘Wednesday June 13 ... I read some of Waddingtons History of the church & some of Johnson’s Life by Boswell … I have generally passed the time in reading the above books, besides the Bible’. (Hazel notes: He finds time for reading over a period when he is laid up with the gout.) – Not in the GPL, but here is a title page [from HathiTrust]:

History of the church, from the earliest ages to the reformation, by George Waddington / Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.  London: Baldwin & Cradock, etc…, 1830-1833.

 

Boswell’s Life of Johnson was covered in this post on Samuel Johnson in the GPL: this is a LOST SHEEP, however, and therefore worth repeating…

 

 

 

8. ‘Monday July 23 … I began to read Gibbon’s decline and fall today.’

See above for details: he bought it on April 20, started it July 23 – Charles, like all of us, must have had a piled-high TBR stack!

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9. 1839 ‘Thursday (Feb 7th) I began this morning reading to the servants before prayers, instead of having prayers only. I began Slade’s psalms …’

Slade is mentioned in Part IV of Charles’s reading:  James Slade wrote a few works on the Psalms, a number of them after the diary date of 1839. There is nothing in the GPL: but maybe this was what he was reading to the servants (did Charles always “practice” on the servants I wonder?)

An Explanation of the Psalms as read in the Liturgy of the Church. By the Rev. James Slade, Canon of Chester. London, 1832. [ title page from MW Books on abebooks] 

10. ‘Friday March 8 … The rest of the day I passed in reading Abercrombie’s Intellectual powers, which I finished; & began his moral feelings.’

We have two works mentioned here, neither in the GPL catalogue:

In 1830, John Abercrombie published his Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers and the Investigation of Truth. Edinburgh / London, 1830. We don’t know what edition Charles had, but here is a title page from the 5th edition of 1835 [HathiTrust].

This was followed with The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings in 1833, published by John Murray (Jane Austen’s own publisher!)

John Abercrombie (1780-1844) was a Scottish physician and philosopher, known for his medical treatises. These two works of philosophy were widely popular at the time of their publication and were variously reprinted in Britain and the United States.

John Abercrombie – ( c) Wellcome Library; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Though these books are not in the 1818 GPL catalogue, it gives me an opportunity to tell of two books by a different John Abercrombie that were at Godmersham, but are now LOST SHEEP.

This John Abercrombie (1720-1806) was a Scottish horticulturist who wrote a number of books on gardening, and was as a young man employed at the Royal Gardens at Kew, and at Leicester House. 

Kew Gardens – William Marlow, 1763 – MetMuseum

John Abercrombie. The propagation and botanical arrangements of plants and trees, useful and ornamental, proper for cultivation in every department of gardening; nurseries, plantations and agriculture. …etc. [a very long title!]. London, 1784.

The Universal Gardener And Botanist; or, a General Dictionary of Gardening and Botany. Exhibiting in Botanical Arrangement, according to the Linnæan System,…. Etc, etc.,[another very long title!].  By Thomas Mawe and John  Abercrombie. London, 1778.

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And finally, the last entry for Diary 11:

11. ‘Tuesday March 19 … I began reading Thicas’s history of the French revolution, which Edward lent me.’

I can find nothing on this exactly, but perhaps it is a mistake on Charles’s part or illegible, because I do find this (it is not in the 1818 catalogue):

Adolphe Thiers, circa 1830 – wikipedia

Histoire de la Révolution française, by Adolphe Thiers (could this be the “thicas” ?) The first two volumes appeared in 1823, the last two (of ten) in 1827. It was the first major history of the French Revolution in French and won Thiers a seat as the second-youngest elected member of the Academie Française. He was the second elected President of France, and the first President of the French Third Republic.

 

There are other books in the 1818 catalogue about the French Revolution, as well as a number of books in French– so if Edward lent it to Charles around 1839, where did it come from if not the Godmersham or Chawton libraries? It is not listed in the 1908 catalogue either.  Did Charles never return the set to Edward?  And, is it clear that Charles spoke / read French?

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This book on the French Revolution is listed in the GPL catalogue and is in the Knight Collection, and has the Montagu George Knight bookplate:

Archibald Alison. History of Europe during the French Revolution. Embracing the period from the Assembly of the Notables, in M.DCC.LXXXIX., to the establishment of the Directory, in M.DCC.XCV. By Archibald Alison. London / Edinburgh, 1833-1842.

[Images from the Reading with Austen website]

So many unanswered questions to ponder…

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There is one more post in this series about Charles’ Godmersham reading, which I shall prepare shortly. In the meantime, you can learn more about Charles and his brothers in Hazel Jones’ just published The Other Knight Boys: Jane Austen’s Dispossessed Nephews – watch this space for an upcoming interview with Hazel – I highly recommend the book, so many interesting tales of the children Jane Austen knew and played with, and the various directions their lives took them. You can purchase it here at Jane Austen Books.

 

Stay tuned for Part IV…

©2020 Reading with Austen Blog

You Are Invited! ~ “Reading with Austen” Launch Party at McGill University

/ BookLady Deb / Leave a comment

Reading with Austen:
The Digital Recreation of an
Eighteenth-Century Library

Tuesday, September 24, 2019
5:30 – 7:30 pm
Rare Books and Special Collections, McLennan Library

Join Peter Sabor and Catherine Nygren for the launch of the Burney Centre’s new
website, Reading with Austen (www.readingwithausten.com), a digital recreation of
the Library of Godmersham Park, the home of Jane Austen’s wealthy brother Edward
Austen Knight. Learn about the library as Austen herself saw it with each book in its
exact shelf location and photographs of the very books she handled. Enjoy a display of
RBSC’s copies of the same editions of books that Austen read, and of one book that
was on the shelves of the Library itself. Wine and cheese reception to follow.

Please RSVP at mcgill.ca/burneycentre/

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For more information, please click here:  https://www.mcgill.ca/library-friends/channels/event/launch-reading-austen-digital-recreation-eighteenth-century-library-299250

Event sponsored by: ROAAr (Rare & Special Collections, Osler, Art, and Archives at the McGill Library) ; Burney Centre;  Dept of English, McGill University

c2019 Reading with Austen Blog

Reading in the Godmersham Library: Jane Austen’s Nephew Charles Bridges Knight ~ Part IV

/ BookLady Deb / 6 Comments

Since there is a bit of a gap since my last posting in late April on these diaries of Charles Bridges Knight, I’ll repeat some of the introductory material to refresh your memory. As we continue to see what Charles was reading in the Godmersham Park Library, I again offer hearty thanks to Austen scholar Hazel Jones for sharing this with us as she mines Charles’ diaries: 

The Reading with Austen website focuses on the contents of the Godmersham Park Library as noted in the 1818 catalogue of the collection. We know that Jane Austen read and rested in this library because her letters tell us so, and the RwA website has brought this long-ago library back to colorful life. So it is a very interesting treasure to stumble upon other mentions of this library. The scholar Hazel Jones* has been very generous in sharing her research into the diaries of Austen’s nephew Charles Bridges Austen (later Knight), who also spent time in this very library. Ms. Jones is writing a book on Edward Austen Knight’s sons, and in reading (and transcribing) Charles Bridge’s diaries (which are housed at Jane Austen’s House Museum ), she finds numerous references to the titles he is reading.

Charles Bridges was born March 11, 1803 at Godmersham Park in Kent, the 8th child of Jane Austen’s brother Edward Knight and Elizabeth Bridges. He was a commoner at Winchester* from 1816-1820, attended Trinity College, Cambridge and was ordained in 1828. He was the curate of West Worldham in Hampshire and rector of Chawton from 1837-1867. He died unmarried on October 13, 1867, aged 64 years. He is buried in the graveyard at the St. Nicholas Churchyard in Chawton (Section B: Row 2. 70 ).

 

You can read the other parts here that tell of Charles’ reading while living at Godmersham:

-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part I
-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part II
-Charles Bridges Knight at GPL Part III

We continue now with Diary 10, dated January 19 1836 – January 27th 1837: 

‘Jany 24 … I read some of Kidd on my return home.’

John KIdd – Wellcome

John Kidd (1775-1851), a physician, chemist and geologist, is considered the first of the “scriptural geologists.” His On The Adaptation of External Nature to the Physical Condition of Man, was volume II of the “Bridgewarter Treatises,” a collection of 8 volumes by various scientists and theologians that began publication in 1833. The GPL housed only volume 1, 2, and 4 – by Thomas Chalmers, John Kidd and Charles Bell respectively.

Not in the Library at Chawton House, so all three of these volumes are Lost Sheep.

*****

‘Jany 25 … I rose at 1/2 past 7 and read german till breakfast time. After that I sat in the Hall and read Burnet till one o’clock, a good long patch. It is an interesting book I think. It was very well in those days to have texts & restraints against popery, when the papists were a strong party, a popish King was on the throne, and the protestant interest all over Europe was threatened.’ (He then launches into a sermon on Christian conduct and principles.)

It is interesting here to have some actual commentary from Charles!

There are several books by a Burnet in the GPL, four by Gilbert Burnet, and two by Thomas Burnet.

Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury -WP

Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715): I surmise Charles is referring to either of these two titles – the Bishop Burnet’s Travels has a reference to a discussion of Popery:

  1. Bishop Burnet’s travels through France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland: Describing their Religion, Learning, Government, Customs, Natural History, Trade, &c. And illustrated with curious Observations on the Buildings, Paintings, Antiquities, and other Curiosities in Art and Nature. With a Detection of the Frauds and Folly of Popery and Superstition in some flagrant Instances, also Characters of several eminent Persons, and many other memorable Things worthy the Attention of the Curious. Written by the Bishop to the Honourable Robert Boyle. To which is added, an Appendix, containing Remarks on Switzerland and Italy, by a Person of Quality, and communicated to the Author. A Table of Contents and a Character of the Bishop and his Writings. London, 1750.

However, if you note Charles’ entry for March 26 below:

‘March 26 … I finished Burnets times, which has lasted me all the winter, & given me much instructive information and interest. I like the book very much, & am sure the author must have been a very good and wise & sociable man.’

He is referring to this:

  1. Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time. Vol. I. From the Restoration of King Charles II. to the Settlement of King William and Queen Mary at the Revolution: To which is prefix’d A Summary Recapitulation of Affairs in Church and State from King James I. to the Restoration in the Year 1660. London, 1724, 1734.

Both of these Burnet titles are in the 1818 GPL catalogue and are extant in the Knight Collection at CH. They also both have the Thomas Knight bookplate.

*****

Samuel Horsley -Wikipedia

‘Jany 26 … I tried my luck at a sermon on the marriage supper … but could make nothing of it, and therefore read one and then another of Horsleys … After dinner I read some of Kidd, which I do not think much of – it seems very much got up I think.’

Well, so much for Kidd! –

We discussed Samuel Horsley in Part III – he wrote a number of tracts, sermons, and treatises, and Charles notes he was reading more than just this one title that is listed in the 1818 catalogue:

Letters from the Archdeacon of Saint Albans, in reply to Dr. Priestley. With an appendix, containing Short Strictures on Dr. Priestley’s Letters by an unknown Hand. London, 1784. This is at Chawton.

*****

‘Jany 30 … I read some of the articles of faith of the reformed french church, contained in a french testament, with prayers and psalms set to tunes & offices at the back of it, printed in 1668.’

Well, he could have been reading anything…there are a number of French titles in the catalogue, though I do not find anything dated 1668. We are impressed with Charles’ abilities to read in German and French…

*****

‘Feby 2 … I rose at 7 and read some Slade’s psalms.’

James Slade-unknown artist – Bolton Library and Museum – WP

James Slade (1783-1860):  In 1813 Slade became the rector of Teversham and in 1817 the vicar of Bolton-le-Moors, where he remained for nearly 40 years.

He is most known for these two titles which went into a number of editions; neither is listed in GPL catalogue, but worth the mention nonetheless. They may have been in Charles’ own collection.

  1. Twenty-one prayers, composed from the psalms, for the sick and afflicted : to which are added various other forms of prayer for the same purpose, with a few hints and directions for the use of the younger clergy. London: Rivington, 1828.
  1. An Explanation of the Psalms as read in the Liturgy of the Church. By the Rev. James Slade. London, 1832.

*****

‘Feby 6 … After dinner I finished Kidd, & began Bell.’

This refers to the citation above, the 4th volume in the “Bridgewater Treatises” along with John Kidd. This volume is by Charles Bell (1774-1842) and titled: The Hand: Its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evincing Design. London, 1833. This, as noted, is a Lost Sheep.

 

Bell was a noted  “Scottish surgeon, anatomist, physiologist, neurologist, artist, and philosophical theologian. He is noted for discovering the difference between sensory nerves and motor nerves in the spinal cord. He is also noted for describing Bell’s palsy” [wikipedia].

This work he wrote as part of the eight the “Bridgewater Treatises” on the hand, is full of pictures where he compares “hands” of different organisms ranging from human hands, chimpanzee paws, and fish feelers. After the first few chapters, Bell orients his treatise around the significance of the hand and its importance in its use in anatomy. He emphasizes that the hand is as important as the eye in the field of surgery and that it must be trained” [wikipedia].

This work may have done much to feed Charles’ abiding interest in natural history…. we can only wish he had commented more on it.

*****

‘Feby 7 … I read some of Bell at different times today, & a part of a sermon of Barrows.’

See Part I for another reference to Barrow. I find nothing re: sermons in the 1818 catalogue; there is only this title: The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of H. M. S. Bounty: its causes and consequences.

Issac Barrow, by Mary Beale

But I do find an Isaac Barrow (1630-1677), “an English Christian theologian and mathematician who is generally given credit for his early role in the development of infinitesimal calculus; in particular, for the discovery of the fundamental theorem of calculus” [Wikipedia]. He is most known for his sermons, of which he published a number, such as Several Sermons against Evil-Speaking [London, 1678]. Charles is likely referring to him, though there are no works in the GPL catalogue… but you can read, if you are so inclined to follow Charles’ reading path, many of Barrow’s sermons online here: https://biblehub.com/sermons/authors/barrow.htm

Mary Beale, self-portrait, c1675

[Totally an aside here, with nothing to do with Charles or his reading, or even the GPL, but interesting to note that this portrait of Isaac Barrow was painted by Mary Beale (1633-1677), one of most famous and successful female portrait painters of the 17th century… always good to give a nod to the Ladies, with all these overly-wigged men weighing down these posts…!] This self-portrait is in the collection of the St. Edmundsbury Museums.

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Hazel notes here after the Feb 7 diary entry : Repeat reading of Burnet, Bell, and Kidd throughout the month and beyond, the latter even though he claims to have finished it on Feb 6th.

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‘Feby 21 … I rose at 1/2 past 7 and read a bit of Hermas s Shepherd before breakfast. I don’t know much about its authenticity, but it was at any rate I suppose written quite in the earliest age of Christianity and is on that account very interesting.’

In the 1818 catalogue, I find the following:

The Genuine Epistles of the Apostolical Fathers, S. Barnabas, S. Ignatius, S. Clement, S. Polycarp. The Shepherd of Hermas, and the Martyrdoms of St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp, Written by those who were present at their Sufferings. Being, together with the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, a compleat Collection of the most Primative Antiquity for about CL Years after Christ. Translated and Publish’d, with a large Preliminary Discourse Relating to the several Treatises here put together. By the Right Reverend Father in God, William, Lord Bishop of Lincoln. The Second Edition, Corrected.  By William Wake. London: 1710.

This is a Lost Sheep.

William Wake (1657-1737) was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1716 until his death in 1737; he authored numerous treatises, two of which are in the GPL, the one above and this:

The Principles of the Christian Religion Explained: In a Brief Commentary upon the Church-Catechism. By the most Reverend Father in God, William, Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury. The Fifth Edition Corrected. London, 1731.  This also a Lost Sheep.

The Shepherd of Hermas was an early Christian work of the 2nd century – it comprises five visions, twelve mandates, and ten parables, uses allegory to tell its tale, and calls on the faithful to repent of the sins that have harmed the Church. You can read the full text in translation here: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/shepherd.html

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 ‘March 8 … Read some Exodus and Hall’s contemplations. I mostly read a contemplation of Hall’s now if I have time, & there happens to be  a suitable one to my morning’s chapter … I read every evening before I go to bed a chapter in the NT in Greek, & refer to Macknight. This whim is about a week old.’

Neither of these authors is listed in the 1818 GPL catalogue, but Charles is likely referring to these two titles:

Joseph Hall (1628) – WP

  1. Joseph Hall (1574-1656), an English Bishop, satirist and moralist. Contemplations on the Historical Passages of the Old and New Testaments published in 1614.
  1. James MacKnight (1721-1800) wrote several works on the New Testament, any of which Charles might be referring to: Harmony of the Four Gospels (1756), The Truth of the Gospel History Shewed (1763), and A New Literal Translation from the Original, of the Apostle Paul’s First and Second Epistle to the Thessalonians (1787).

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‘March 15 … Before dinner I read some of Secker on Popery’. (Also on the 16th, 17th, 20th, 21st)

Thomas Secker (1693-1768), the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1758-1768, has two works listed in the 1818 GPL, and both are in the Knight Collection, and both have the less common oblong Montagu George Knight bookplate:

  1. Lectures on the Catechism of the Church of England: with A Discourse on Confirmation. By Thomas Secker, LL.D. Late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Published from the Original Manuscripts By Beilby Porteus, D.D. and George Stinton, D.D. His Grace’s Chaplains. London, 1769. “Five Sermons against Popery” can be found in this work.

  2. Sermons on Several Subjects    , By Thomas Secker, LL.D. Late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Published from the original Manuscripts, By Beilby Porteus D.D. and George Stinton D.D. His Grace’s Chaplains. London, 1770.This title has Edward’s signature and “Godmersham Park” on the front free endpaper as you see above.

Painting of Thomas Secker, after Joshua Reynolds, in the collection at Lambeth Palace

‘March 23 … After breakfast I spent some time looking into various books in the library to find something about the 10 tribes of Israel that were taken away by Shalmaneser when he took Samaria & destroyed the Kingdom of Israel.’

Well, this could be any number of books on the history of the OT, etc.!

The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (825 B.C.) -Bible History Online

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‘March 26 … I finished Burnets times, which has lasted me all the winter, & given me much instructive information and interest. I like the book very much, & am sure the author must have been a very good and wise & sociable man.’  [See above]

‘April 1 … finished Jebb & Knox’s correspondence. I had great pleasure in reading that book, and have learnt a great deal from it.’ [see Part III on these letters]

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‘April 2 … After breakfast read Epictetus’s moral maxims in my french & german grammar. I think of doing the same in Greek with Mrs Carter’s help.’

For his Mrs. Carter reference, Charles is referring to this title:

All the Works of Epictetus, Which are now Extant; consisting of His Discourses, preserved by Arrian, In Four Books, The Enchiridion, and Fragments. Translated from the Original Greek, By Elizabeth Carter. With An Introduction, and Notes, by the Translator. London, 1758.

There are two copies listed in the 1818 catalogue and both are extant in the Knight Collection. What interests us GLOSSers even further is that both Thomas Knight Sr. and his son Thomas Knight Jr. are listed as subscribers, and perhaps the reason there are two copies in the collection.

Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806) was a poet and translator and part of the Bluestocking Circle founded by Elizabeth Montagu. She is most known for this translation of Epictetus.

epictetus-all-1758_-Carter-RwA

Elizabeth Carter as Minerva, goddess of wisdom, by John Fayram (1735-1741), NPG [Wikipedia]

Carter was well-known enough in her time to be one of the women depicted in Richard Samuel’s “Portraits in the Characters of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo” (1775) – she is on the far left, though exact identification of each of the portraits has always been unsubstantiated. Carter said herself to Elizabeth Montagu, “by the mere testimony of my own eyes, I cannot very exactly tell which is you, and which is I, and which is any body else.”

Portraits in the Characters of the Muses (1775) – Richard Samuel

Carter’s poetry was well-regarded, and though Charles does not mention reading her poems, there is a 1st edition copy of her 1762 Poems on Several Occasions listed in the 1818 catalogue. This IS a Lost Sheep, so we add it to our list.

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‘March 4 (he means April) … Read some Exodus. Epictetus after breakfast: & german with Louisa  … I finished B White’s tract on Popery …’

Though this title is not in the 1818 catalogue, Charles was reading Joseph Blanco White’s The Poor Man’s Preservative against Popery: addressed to the lower classes of Great Britain and Ireland. London, 1825.

White (1775-1841), born José María Blanco y Crespo, was a Spanish theologian and poet (and obviously the long-lost ancestor of Alan Cumming…?  sorry, I couldn’t resist this totally irrelevant aside – I think even Charles would have been amazed at the resemblance!).

J B White
Alan Cumming

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‘April 7 … After breakfast read Epictetus in the library … I did some more Epictetus after lunch … I read a little of Pascals thoughts.’ [See Part III for Pascal’s Thoughts]

‘April 8 … I read Knox’s letter on Christian preaching before dinner, & liked it very much: it will bear many readings.’ [See Part III on Knox]

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‘April 9 … I rose soon after 7 & read as usual 2 of Slade’s psalms, a chapter in Exodus, writing remarks, & some of Hall’s contemplations.’ [See above]

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Here are a few of Charles’ rare comments on the Godmersham Library itself:

‘June 16 … Louisa & I began to put the Library to rights.’ [Louisa (1804-1889) was Charles’ younger sister].

‘June 17 … I put some of the Library to rights.’

‘June 20 … I finished looking over the Library books by the catalogue.’

[Peter Sabor and Hazel both wonder two things: what sort of mess did he and Louisa leave the library in?? Recall his comment in Part III when he writes of “Rice & I play[ing] at Rackets in the Library…..”

And two, if these comments about “putting the Library to rights” and his reference to the catalogue are any indication that Charles may be one of the hands that crossed out and / or added titles to the catalogue – it appears however after analyzing the various handwritings that this is not the case – more detective work is needed…]

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‘June 23 … Began Campan’s Marie Antoinette.’

Marie Antoinette (1783) – Le Brun – The Met

[This portrait of Antoinette is also painted by a woman, Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun, a prominent  French portrait artist of the late 18th century.]

Jeanne Louise Henriette Genet Campan. Memoirs of the private life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and Navarre. To which are added, recollections, sketches, and anecdotes, illustrative of the reigns of Louis XIV. Louis XV. And Louis XVI. By Madame Campan, First Lady of the bed-chamber to the Queen. Third Edition. In two volumes. London, 1824. French text.

Jeanne Louise Henriette Genet Campan (1786) – Joseph Boze

Campan (1752-1822) “was a French educator, writer and lady-in-waiting, in the service of Marie Antoinette before and during the French Revolution” [Wikipedia]. These Memoirs were published posthumously in 1823, as was her De l’Education des Femmes (1824), in which she emphasized the importance of training young girls in domestic economy and all manner of housework.

This title is in the GPL catalogue and remains in the Knight Collection, so is not lost – and another work with Edward’s signature, as you see here.

Full text is available here (in English): https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100731949

I wish Charles had something to say about these Memoirs, but alas! he does not, and Hazel notes that there is no mention of books or reading until November. Perhaps the reading about Marie Antoinette put him off his religious reading diet?? The next diary offers us nothing about Marie Antoinette either…

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Notes from Hazel: there are another four diaries, but Diary 10 is the last one likely to be of interest as far as Charles’ reading at Godmersham is concerned. He has moved to Chawton Rectory by the beginning of Diary 11, which is dated Nov 1837 to Jan 1840.

Today’s post has added five Lost Sheep to our growing list of Books Wanted (you can view the list here). And though Charles has left Godmersham and moved to Chawton, we will continue with his comments on reading that are found in Diary 11 and then Diaries 13 – 15 dated 1837-1851 [apparently there is no Diary 12]. So stay tuned…

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*Hazel Jones is the author of Jane Austen & Marriage (Bloomsbury Continuum 2009, Uppercross Press 2017), Celebrating Pride & Prejudice (co-authored with Maggie Lane, Lansdown 2012), Jane Austen’s Journeys (Hale 2014) and is currently writing a book on Jane Austen’s Knight nephews. She was a tutor in the Department of Lifelong Learning at Exeter University until 2005 and continues to teach residential courses on aspects of Jane Austen’s writing, life and times. She is the membership secretary and a co-founder of the UK Jane Austen Society, South West Branch.

 

C2019 Reading with Austen blog

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Reading in the Godmersham Library: Jane Austen’s Nephew Charles Bridges Knight ~ Part III

/ BookLady Deb / 6 Comments

This is a continuation of recording the diaries of Charles Bridges Knight, son of Edward Knight, and his mentions of the books he is reading in the Godmersham Park Library. We thank Austen scholar Hazel Jones for so graciously sharing her finds with us. It very much brings this library to life as we imagine Charles sitting and reading there, much like his aunt Jane Austen would have done several years before. Some of his diary entries are about the Library itself – fires and warmth (or lack thereof), pictures, outside trees, etc., which brings us vividly back to Austen’s own comments of being there: “Mistress of all I survey…”

You will see that the majority of books he is reading are religious tracts, commentaries, sermons, and such (all but one are by old white men as you will see – I cannot resist the comment…) – Charles was ordained in 1828 and was the curate of West Worldham and later rector of Chawton. One might want to whisper the words of Anne Elliot into his ear (in reverse of her advice to Capt. Benwick): perhaps a little more poetry and literature and a little less didactic prose might be added to his reading diet – it may have also enlivened his sermons!

[I will add this so we do not too hastily align Charles with the idea he is a real-life Mr. Collins, picturing him quoting from Fordyce at every opportunity when in the company of young Ladies. Hazel tells me that Charles was, at the time of these diaries, doing clerical duties at the parish in Molash, a small village in Kent near Godmersham – he was busy at work preparing sermons and offering solace to parishioners, and he often stood in for the Revd. Richard Tylden at Chilham. As we can see from his reading material over these few years, he was certainly diligent in his duties. We will have to wait for Hazel’s book on all of Jane Austen’s nephews to be published (hopefully later this year) for more details – we shall find I think that Charles has a more interesting story than just these lists of religious and philosophical books!]

You can read the previous blog posts here:

A quick review of Charles: Charles Bridges was born March 11, 1803 at Godmersham Park in Kent, the 8th child of Jane Austen’s brother Edward Knight and Elizabeth Bridges. He was a commoner at Winchester* from 1816-1820, attended Trinity College, Cambridge and was ordained in 1828. He was the curate of West Worldham in Hampshire and rector of Chawton from 1837-1867. He died unmarried on October 13, 1867, aged 64 years. He is buried in the graveyard at the St. Nicholas Churchyard in Chawton (Section B: Row 2. 70 ).

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Listed here are the books in the GPL library that Charles mentions, beginning with his Diary no. 5, dated January 1, 1833 – April 30, 1833. Not all these books were in the 1818 catalogue, often being published after that date – please note where the books are in the 1818 catalogue and are Lost Sheep – we are constantly on the alert for these! 

‘January 1 (1833) … not going out much on account of the gout I have plenty of time to read all day. I read in the library until luncheon time, then take a ride, then read in my room till dinner …’

‘Thursday Feby 28 … Rice & I played at Rackets in the Library.’

Ok, now what is “Rackets” being played in the Library?? Defined on Wikipedia as follows:

Rackets court – Eglinton Castle

“Rackets or racquets is an indoor racket sport played in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, United States, and Canada. Historians generally assert that rackets began as an 18th-century pastime in London’s King’s Bench and Fleet debtors prisons. The prisoners modified the game of fives by using tennis rackets to speed up the action. They played against the prison wall, sometimes at a corner to add a sidewall to the game. Rackets then became popular outside the prison, played in alleys behind pubs. It spread to schools, first using school walls, and later with proper four-wall courts being specially constructed for the game. And later, specific indoor courts were built as shown here at Eglinton Castle in 1842.”

The idea of Charles playing against the walls of the library is a tad disconcerting! Would his father approve? Would Jane??

In Diary no. 6 (May – Nov 1833), Hazel tells us: “No mention of books or the library. Mainly hunting and fishing and generally slaughtering anything that moves.”

In Diary no. 8 (Oct 1834 – Oct 1835), we find Charles back at work on his reading:

‘Sunday March 8 … Read some of Hannah More’s correspondence;’ and again on ‘Monday March 9 … I read some of Hannah More’

Hannah More by Henry William Pickersgill, 1821

In the 1818 catalogue, there are three Hannah More (1745-1833)  titles:

– Strictures on the modern system of female education. With a view of the principles and conduct prevalent among women of rank and fortune. 9th ed. By Hannah More. In two volumes. London: Printed for T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, in the Strand, 1799. A Lost Sheep!

– Coelebs in search of a wife. Comprehending Observations on domestic habits and manners, religion and morals. The ninth edition. In two volumes. London: Printed for T. Cadell & W. Davies, in the Strand, 1809. In the Knight Collection, with the less common oblong Montagu George Knight bookplate:

– Florio: A Tale, For Fine Gentlemen and Fine Ladies: and, The Bas Bleu; or, Conversation: Two Poems. 1st ed. London: Printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand, 1786. A Lost Sheep!

Hannah More (1745 – 1833) was an English religious writer and philanthropist, a poet and a playwright, and an original member of the BlueStockings. She became more and more evangelical in her writings and campaigned actively against the slave trade.

Dr Syntax with a Blue Stocking Beauty – T. Rowlandson

Austen famously writes of More in a few letters to Cassandra:

You have by no means raised my curiosity after Caleb; – my disinclination for it before was affected, but now it is real; I do not like the Evangelicals. – Of course, I shall be delighted when I read it, like other people- but till I do, I dislike it. [Ltr. 66, 1809]

And in her next letter, Austen speaks on being corrected in the spelling of the title with the added Dipthong [sic]: “I am not at all ashamed about the name of the Novel… the knowledge of the truth does the book no service; – the only merit it could have was in the name of Caleb, which has an honest, unpretending sound; but in Coelebs, there is pedantry & affectation. – Is it written only to Classical Scholars?… [Ltr. 67, 1809]

And Austen later refers to More’ new book Practical Piety published in 1811. [Ltr. 74, 1811]

But Charles refers to More’s “correspondence,’ which I find to be first published in 1835: Memoirs of the life and correspondence of Mrs. Hannah More, by William Roberts, so this may have been added to the library just recently after its publication – OR he refers to another book entirely…

Back to Charles:

‘September 29 Tuesday … I read a chapter in the old & in the new testament as soon as I am dressed, & then some of Taylors holy living … At 1/2 past 8 I go to Henry & read to him the morning psalms, two chapters out of each testament, & some of Sherlock on Death. After breakfast I write a sermon or read for it, or read Burnets own times till between 11 & 12 … I want to read some French too, but have no time, & also Chillingworth, but have no time. I am also reading at odd times Le Bas s life of Wickliffe.’

‘Wednesday Sepr 30 … Began reading George’s Warsaw tour after dinner.’ (Brother George Thomas Knight)

‘Friday Oct 2 … I finished the preface to Bagster’s Bible, & am now going to begin Genesis. It is impossible to look at all the references, & I think it is a good plan to read with some particular object in view.’

So lots here:

– Taylor’s holy living: The only Taylor listed in the catalogue is The Worthy Communicant – but Taylor also published a work titled The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living (1650), not found in the catalogue. 

William Sherlock.

– Sherlock on Death:

William Sherlock: The 1818 catalogue lists several works by William Sherlock, including his A Practical Discourse concerning Death, published in London in 1751 (it was a very popular work, originally published in 1689). This is A Lost Sheep!

 

– Burnet’s times must refer to Gilbert Burnet’s Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Time. Vol. I. From the Restoration of King Charles II. to the Settlement of King William and Queen Mary at the Revolution: To which is prefix’d A Summary Recapitulation of Affairs in Church and State from King James I. to the Restoration in the Year 1660. London, 1724, 1734. Charles mentions reading this a number of times in his diaries – and happily we find this in the Knight Collection, with the older Thomas Knight bookplate:

– Chillingworth refers to Richard Chillingworth, The Religion of Protestants (1674) – see Part I for more information.

John Wycliffe at work

– Le Bas Life of Wickliffe is a book dilemma: Charles Webb Le Bas wrote The Life of Wiclif in 1832, not in the catalogue. William Gilpin wrote The Lives of John Wicliff, and the 1766 edition was in the GPL – and alas! A Lost Sheep! – but not the book Charles was reading….

 

– Bagster’s Bible: Samuel Bagster published his first Polyglot Bible in 1816; his Comprehensive Bible (see the next entry for Oct 3) was first published around 1829. Neither appears in Edward’s 1818 catalogue.


Diary no. 9 (Oct 3, 1835 – Jan 18, 1836)

Charles has a few comments on Bagster’s Bible:

‘Saturday Oct 3d 1835. I got up at 6. Read the first chapter in Genesis in Bagster’s Comprehensive Bible, referring to all the New Testament references, as I had determined, but found so many of them quite nihil ad rem [nothing to the point], only containing fanciful allusions to the text, that I resolved to give it up, and mean in future only to refer to such as relate to passages I don’t understand, or are of any particular interest.’ [So much for Bagster… ‘nothing to the point’  seems awfully harsh!]

‘Sunday Oct 4th … I finished Sherlock on Death to Henry for the 3d time. I wonder how long we shall go on reading it once a year.’ [goodness, this seems depressing!]

‘Thursday Oct 6th … I looked over an old journal to Naples in 1825 – 6, & mended a little my Kissingen journal – It is the fashion now to read these things, & Marianne & At Louisa have begun by George’s last Schwalbach tour …(family journals) … I read some of Burnets times.’ (Many other refs to the latter, including ‘like them very much’.)

‘Sunday Oct 11th … I wrote a list of chapters to be read by the sick, taken from Stonehouse’.

– Sir James Stonhouse (1716–1795) was an English physician and cleric – he published many treatises on religion, one of them Every Man’s Assistant and the Sick Man’s Friend, 1788 – to which Charles might be referring. It is not in the 1818 catalogue.

‘Monday Oct 12th … The Sycamore close to the Library was cut down today: I wish a great many more trees were moved; the house is too much shut in by them.’

‘Tuesday Oct 13 … read a good deal of Burnets’ times. What a disgraceful set of libertines the great men of Charles the 2ds time were! Even the churchmen seem to have had but little religion; as for the way of establishing episcopacy in Scotland, it was quite enough to disgust any reasonable man with the very name, & I should think must have left an impression that has not yet worn away. I sat in the hall and read, as I usually do now, the fire being lighted, & find it very comfortable.’

‘Wednesday Oct 14 … After breakfast I read the thoughts of Pascal for some time. I think them hard, & get on very slow, but like them, they are well argued I think.’

– Blaise Pascal: The only Pascal in the GPL is: Les provinciales ou les lettres ecrites par Louis de Montalte a un provincial de ses amis, et aux RR. PP. Jesuites. By Blaise Pascal. Cologne, 1738. A Lost Sheep!

But Charles is more than likely reading Pascal’s Pensées [Thoughts], incomplete at his death in 1662 and published in 1670. This is not in Edward’s catalogue.

Pascal was a renowned mathematician and Catholic theologian. He invented the first calculator, called the Pascaline, this one on exhibit at the Musee des Arts et Metiers, Paris:

[iamge: By Rama, CC BY-SA 3.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53246694%5D

‘Monday Oct 19 … began Benson’s Hulsean lectures 1820 for the 2d time … I saw the pictures hung up again in the library.’

– Christopher Benson, Hulsean lectures for 1820: Twenty discourses preached before the University of Cambridge in the year 1820 – and not in the catalogue.

Alexander the Great

 

‘Wednesday Oct 21 … I began Pastor William’s s life of Alexander the great for the 2d or 3d time, & probably shall not go on long with it.

– The Rev. John Williams’s The life and actions of Alexander the Great was published in 1829. It was not in the 1818 catalogue, but is in the 1908 catalogue of Chawton House library.

[Image: Andrew Dunn at Wikimedia commons ]

‘Thursday Oct 22 … ‘I consulted Hooker & Prideaux about the way of spending the Sabbath & the Jewish synagogues. I should think Echard’s eccles. history must be a useful book.’

– We mentioned Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity in Part I.

There are two works by Humphrey Prideaux in the 1818 catalogue; perhaps this is the one Charles was reading: The Old and New Testament connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations (1715–17). It is in the Knight Collection:

– Echard’s eccles. History is clearly this: 

Laurence Echard. A General Ecclesiastical History from the Nativity of our Blessed Saviour to The First Establishment of Christianity By Humane Laws, Under the Emperour Constantine the Great. Containing the Space of about 313 Years. With so much of the Jewish and Roman History as is Necessary and Convenient to illustrate the Work. To which is added, A Large Chronological Table of all the Roman and Ecclesiastical Affairs, included in the same Period of TIme. By Laurence Echard, A. M. Prebendary of Lincoln, and Chaplain to the Right Reverend James, Lord Bishop of that Diocese. London, 1702.

This work is listed in the 1818 catalogue and is in the Knight Collection, with the older Thomas Knight bookplate and this interesting cover: this Elizabeth Knight is the original cousin with the Knight name which was taken by Thomas Brodnax May in order to inherit the estate in Chawton. It was his son Thomas who adopted Jane Austen’s brother. For a full understanding of all these names see Chawton Manor and Its Owners; A Family History, by William Austen-Leigh and Montagu George Knight.

There are two other titles by Echard in the catalogue and both are extant in the Knight Collection.

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‘Friday Oct 23 … Marked some texts on the Sabbath & looked in Bishop of Bristol’s Ch. history about it.’ – which must refer to:

Robert Gray: The Connection between the Sacred Writings and the Literature of Jewish and Heathen Authors, particularly that of the Classical Ages, Illustrated, principally with a view to evidence in confirmation of the truth of Revealed Religion. By Robert Gray, D. D. Prebendary of Durham and of Chichester, and Rector of Bishop Wearmouth. [Later the Bishop of Bristol], published in London in 1816 – in the 1818 catalogue and A Lost Sheep! You can read the 2nd edition here: https://archive.org/details/connectionsacred01grayuoft/page/n5

‘Sunday Oct 25th … after dinner dipped into White’s Selborne – but it is impossible to read in a party, & if one goes into one’s own room, it ends always in a nap.’

– Charles is Funny! (who knew!) – he is here talking about Gilbert White’s The natural history and antiquities of Selborne, in the county of Southampton: with engravings, and an appendix. London, 1789 – This 1st edition is in the catalogue and A Lost Sheep!

Gilbert White House

 Austen would have been familiar with White, his work and his home  – it was not far from her in Steventon and later Chawton. You can visit his house and gardens here. (Gilbert White died in 1793 and left his home to his nephew John White).

[Austen mentions Selborne a few times in her letters – this one dated May 31, 1811 (Ltr. 74 to her sister) speaks of Anna [Lefroy, her niece] going to visit Selborne  on the Tuesday: “Poor Anna is also suffering from her cold which is worse today, but as she has no sore throat I hope it may spend itself by Tuesday … She desires her best love to Fanny, & will answer her letter before she leaves Chawton, & engages to send her a particular account of the Selbourn [sic] day.”]

‘Saturday Oct 30th … Read to Henry – a sermon of Porteous.’

– Charles unfortunately doesn’t tell us which sermon, but this is the book: Sermons on Several Subjects. By the Right Reverend Beilby Porteus, D. D. Bishop of Chester. By Porteus, Beilby. London, 1783, 1794 – is in the GPL catalogue and is still in the Knight Collection.

Beilby Porteus (1731 – 1809) was a chaplain to King George III, and the Bishop of Chester and later Bishop of London – he is mostly known for being at the forefront of the abolitionist movement.

‘Sunday Nov 1st … We began the Apocrypha a day or two ago, & read 3 or 4 chapters of the 1st book of Esdras – we have skipped the rest & today began the 2d book.’

Wednesday Nov 4th … I read Blanco White’s Evidence agst catholicism till dinner time.’

– Joseph Blanco White. Practical and Internal Evidence Against Catholicism, With Occasional Strictures on Mr. Butler’s Book of the Roman Catholic Church; In Six Letters. Roman Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland. Joseph Blanco White, 1825 – this is not in the 1818 catalogue.

‘Thursday Nov 5th … read 2 of Horsley’s sermons on the coming of our Saviour.’

‘Saturday Nov 7th … finished Horsley’s sermons on the Sabbath, read one of Sharp‘s on the same subject.’

Samuel Horsley

Charles could be referring to:

– Samuel Horsley. Letters from the Archdeacon of Saint Albans, in reply to Dr. Priestley. With an appendix, containing Short Strictures on Dr. Priestley’s Letters by an unknown Hand. London, 1784. – which is in the 1818 catalogue and remains in the Knight Collection. But Horsley, the Bishop of Rochester, wrote a number of tracts, sermons, and treatises, and Charles may have been reading a different book…

– Sharp? – there is a Samuel Sharp in the catalogue (and in the Knight Collection): Letters from Italy, describing the Customs and Manners of that Country, In the Years 1765, and 1766. To which is Annexed, An Admonition to Gentlemen who pass the Alps, in their Tour through Italy. By Samuel Sharp, Esq. The Third Edition. London, 1767 – but this is unlikely the book with a sermon on the Sabbath…

‘Monday Nov 9th … began Sumner’s sermons on Ctian faith & practice for the 2d time … after dinner I dipped into Pope’s essay on man which is always lying about – it is a very fine piece I think. I am overwhelmed with books just now, that I am reading or want to read – this happens now & then, & on the other hand I am sometimes at a loss what to read. This comes I think of not having a regular course of reading marked out.’ [Note from Hazel: Mr. Knightley needs a word].

– Nothing by Sumner in the 1818 catalogue, but I do find this in searching: A series of sermons on the Christian faith and character, by John Bird Sumner. London, 1823. There are also a number of other Sumner titles extant in the Knight Collection

– Alexander Pope. The Works of Alexander Pope Esq. In Nine Volumes Complete. London, 1751. We can assume this set of nine volumes was what was “always lying about” the GP Library… It is in the catalogue and is extant in the Knight Collection.

‘Wednesday Nov 11th … I read Jebb & Knox before dinner.’

– Jebb and Knox must refer to the Thirty years’ correspondence between John Jebb and Alexander Knox, published in 1834 (compiled by James Forster). Both John Jebb and Alexander Knox were Irish theologians and writers, and mostly known today for this collection of their letters. It is not in the 1818 catalogue.

[Peter Sabor, the creator of the Reading with Austen website, and also a Frances Burney scholar and Director of the Burney Centre at McGill, tells me that Burney had an interesting connection with this very same duo Jebb and Knox:  the elderly Mme d’Arblay (Burney) met John Jebb, corresponded with him, and gave him a copy of her Memoirs of Doctor Burney. Jebb appears both in the final volumes of Journals and Letters of Mme d’Arblay, ed. Joyce Hemlow, and in Sabor’s own Additional Journals and Letters of Frances Burney, vol. II, that published last year. I will find these citations and do another post on Burney – she is after all also in the GPL 1818 catalogue – only The Wanderer however, which is interesting in itself – we know that Austen not only read and admired Burney, she also was a subscriber to her Camilla, along with Edward’s adoptive mother Catherine Knight].

[But I digress… see how one thing leads to another?? how in one post there are the seeds for at least 20 more…]

‘Friday Nov 13 … The stove that was in the Billiard room is moved into the library, & was lighted today for the first time: I think it will give more heat than the other did, but is not half enough to warm so large a room with so many outside walls windows & draughts of air.’

[In a letter dated September 23-24, 1813 [Ltr. 89], Austen is visiting Godmersham and she writes Cassandra: “We live in the Library except at Meals & have a fire every Eveng.”]

‘Saturday Nov 14 … read part of Knox’s letter on preaching … I read some of Pope’s essay on Man, & some of a book on the antiquity of the Irish nation, proving that a great grandson of Jephet called Partholan was the first known invader of it …’ [Hazel: This book belongs to Lord George Hill].

The earliest surviving reference to Partholón is in the Historia Brittonum, a 9th-century British-Latin compilation attributed to Nennius. Partholon was the first colonist of Ireland by way of Greece. He is now considered just a character in medieval Irish Christian pseudo-history, probably an invention of the Christian writers.

One wonders what book Charles was getting his information from – there is a book on the history of Ireland in the catalogue, but alas! don’t know if this is what Charles is reading:

John O’Driscol. The History of Ireland. 2 vols. London, 1827. There is a chapter on “Ancient State of Ireland” – but a quick search does not bring up anything on Partholon … We care about this title however, because it is  A Lost Sheep!

‘Monday December 28 … read one of Wartons Deathbed scenes, which I liked very much …’

– Warton, John. Death-bed scenes and pastoral conversations. London: John Murray, 1830.

This is exciting to see referenced in Charles’s diaries because this was found and returned to Chawton by our famed GLOSS book detectives! – and although it is not in the 1818 catalogue, it is in the 1908 Chawton catalogue and has the Montagu George Knight bookplate.

 

‘Wednesday Dec 30 … We are reading Scougal’s Life of God in the soul of man, & like it.’) … (‘One of the best books I ever read’ he reports on completing Scougal). I read a little of Stanley on birds in the evening.’

– Henry Scougal. The Life of God in the Soul of Man: or, the Nature and Excellency of the Christian Religion. With Nine other Discourses on important Subjects. By Henry Scougal, A. M. and S. T. P. The Second Edition. To which is Added, A Sermon Preached at his Funeral, by G. G. D. D. London, 1735.

You can read more on Scougal and a summary of his book here. This is in the GPL catalogue and in the Knight Collection: and lots of writing in these volumes – done by Charles?? one can wonder! (Love this “Amen!!!)


Stanley on birds must refer to Edward Stanley’s A Familiar History of Birds: Their Nature, Habits, and Instincts. First published in 1835, this is not in the catalogue and may have been Charles’s own personal copy.

I’ll finish with these two last jottings in Charles’s Diary no. 9:

‘Jany 2d (1836) I read some of D Israelis curiosities of literature before dinner.’

– Isaac D’Israeli. Curiosities of literature. 7th ed, corrected. In five volumes.  London: John Murray, 1823. Vols. 3-5 are in the Knight Collection (not yet on the RwA website).

Finally a little lighter reading for Charles! The “Curiosities” is a collection of anecdotes about historical persons and events, unusual books, and the habits of book-collectors. It was very popular and remained in print through many editions. D’Israeli’s other claim to fame is that he was the father of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.

‘Jany 10 … contrived to spin out my toilet with a little of Nelson’s devotions till 9 our breakfast hour.’

– Nelson, Robert. The Practice of True Devotion, In Relation to the End, as well as the Means of Religion; With an Office for the Holy Communion. By Robert Nelson, Esqr; 14th ed. To which is added The Character of the Author. London, 1758.

This is in the 1818 catalogue but is not in the collection, so we end with A Lost Sheep!

 *****

More to come with Charles’s Diaries … another long list, so stay tuned. And with many thanks again to Hazel Jones for all these library references.

c2019 Reading with Austen blog

Reading in the Godmersham Library: Jane Austen’s Nephew Charles Bridges Knight ~ Part II

/ BookLady Deb / 5 Comments

To continue where we left off in the last post on the reading of Charles Bridges Knight, I repeat here the introduction for the background:

The Reading with Austen website focuses on the contents of the Godmersham Park library as noted in the 1818 catalogue of the collection. We know that Jane Austen read and rested in this library because her letters tell us so, and the RwA website has brought this long-ago library back to colorful life. So it is so very interesting a treasure to stumble upon other mentions of this library. The scholar Hazel Jones [HJ]* has been very generous in sharing her research into the diaries of Austen’s nephew Charles Bridges Austen (later Knight), who also spent time in this very library. Ms. Jones is writing a book on Edward Austen Knight’s sons, and in reading (and transcribing) Charles Bridge’s diaries (which are housed at Jane Austen’s House Museum ), she finds numerous references to his titles he is reading in the library.

Charles Bridges was born March 11, 1803 at Godmersham Park in Kent, the 8th child of Jane Austen’s brother Edward Knight and Elizabeth Bridges. He was a commoner at Winchester* from 1816-1820, attended Trinity College, Cambridge and was ordained in 1828. He was the curate of West Worldham in Hampshire and rector of Chawton from 1837-1867. He died unmarried on October 13, 1867, aged 64 years. He is buried in the graveyard at the St. Nicholas Churchyard in Chawton (Section B: Row 2. 70 ).

****

Here are the books in the library that Charles mentions, continuing in his dairy marked number 2. As noted before, not all these books were in the 1818 catalogue, often being published after that date, and therefore not part of the RwA project. But I list them just the same, as it shows the continuing depth and use of the library in succeeding years, as well as Charles’s reading habits and often humorous commentary. We must also consider that Charles had his own copies of books and why they do not appear in either the 1818 or 1908 catalogues.

  1. Basil Hall. Travels in America, 1829, etc..

Tuesday March 6. … Read Captn Hall’s memoirs of his early life & thought it very entertaining & instructive. A very good present for a young mind or any youngster just beginning life. He says it is a difficult thing to write a good journal which is very true. People are too apt to write down mere matters of fact such as the height of a mountain the proportions of a temple the beauty of a climate, all which things remain the same, whilst they say nothing of their prevailing feelings and particular trains of thought & pursuit.’

Basil Hall has a few publications, all in the 1818 catalogue (though some are dated after 1818):

  • Hall. Travels – RwA

    Travels in North America in the years 1827 and 1828. By Captain Basil Hall, Royal Navy. In three volumes. Second Edition. Edinburgh: 1830. In the Knight Collection

  • Extracts from a journal, written on the coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico, in the years 1820, 1821, 1822. By Captain Basil Hall, Royal Navy, author of a voyage to Loo Choo. In two volumes. Printed for Archibald Constable and Co. Edinburgh; and Hurst, Robinson, and Co. London, 1824. In the Knight Collection

 Saturday March 10. … Finish’d Hall’s fragments & like them much.’ – must refer to this:

  • Fragments of Voyages and Travels, including anecdotes of a naval life: chiefly for the use of young persons. By Captain Basil Hall, R.N. F.R.S. In Three Volumes., Edinburgh; Whittaker, Treacher, & Co. London, 1831. A Lost Sheep!
  • Fragments of Voyages and Travels. By Captain Basil Hall, R.N. F.R.S. Second Series. In Three Volumes. Robert Cadell, Edinburgh; Whittaker, Treacher, & Co. London, 1832. A Lost Sheep!

Basil Hall – wikipedia

A side note: Capt. Basil Hall was on the HMS Endymion, as was Jane Austen’s brother Charles Austen – one wonders if they were ever on the ship at the same time, as their dates do coincide! [I shall look into this further…]

*****

  1. Frances Milton Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans 1832.

Frances Trollope

‘Saturday April 28. … George & I are anxious to go to America since reading Mrs Trollope & Capn Hall, but my father will not stand the money.’ (Ibid.)

Trollope’s very successful (and very controversial – she was not overly kind to the budding country, nor was Capt. Hall) Domestic Manners is not in the 1818 catalogue nor do I see it in the 1908 – the most interesting bit here is that Edward Austen would not send his son off to America… and also that the book was in the Godmersham library shortly after it was published in order for Charles to read it before his April 28 journal entry.

*****

 ‘Tuesday. July 10. … I have spent the time generally in reading making sermons till breakfast, and have been out mostly the rest of the day, but most times have sat & read in the library a little sometimes an hour or more before luncheon. My studies have been chiefly sermonizing, Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity book 5 about preaching, Chillingworth’s and a book about altering many things in the Church of England, written I think about 1740, or rather earlier; some parts seem good, but much carried too far.’

6.  Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity:


The Works Of that Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. Richard Hooker, in Eight Books of Ecclesiastical Polity, Compleated out of his own Manuscripts. Printed for Robert Scot, Thomas Basset, John Wright and Richard Chiswel, 1682. In the Knight Collection

What is interesting in this copy is that the Montagu George Knight bookplate is the least commonly seen:

Hooker – MGK bookplate

a larger close-up view: this bookplate was the first one done by Charles Sherborn in 1900

7.  Chillingworth, Richard: The Religion of Protestants (1674)

by; after Francis Kyte; Unknown artist. print,c1724 – wikipedia

The Religion of Protestants A Safeway to Salvation. Or, An Answer to a Book Entituled Mercy and Truth, or, Charity maintain’d by Catholiques: Which pretends to prove the Contrary. TO which is Added The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy. As also, IX. Sermons, The First Preached before His Majesty King Charles the First, the other Eight upon special and eminent Occasions. By William Chillingworth Master of Arts of the University of Oxford. The Fourth Edition. Printed by Andrew Clark, for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul’s Church-yard, 1674. In the Knight Collection

******

8.  Ross Cox. Adventures on the Columbia River (1831)

‘Saturday (11 August omitted). Tired. I read on the library sofa Ross Con (?).’

and later on Monday August 13th Charles writes in the beginning of his Diary number 3:

 ‘Monday August 13th … read & finished Ross Cox’.

This title was initially indecipherable, but further sleuthing on Ms. Jones’s part tuned up a second reference to Ross Cox, so we know Charles was referring to Cox’s Adventures on the Columbia River (Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, London, 1831).

According to Wikipedia, Cox’s Adventures  is one of the most important documents relating to the later history of the North West Company. Several geographic features in Canada, including Ross Cox Creek and Mount Ross Cox are named after him.

Not in the Knight Collection or in the 1818 catalogue, so not officially a Lost Sheep.

*****

We are now into his Diary number 3, dated from August 13, 1832 – December 18, 1832.

9.  George Montagu, Ornithological Dictionary (1802).

‘Thursday Sepr 29 …[‘ checks on the identity of a wagtail in ‘Montague’s Ornithological Dictionary.’]

Here the reference is to George Montagu, Ornithological Dictionary, or Alphabetical Synopsis of British Birds. London: 1802. This work is not in the 1818 catalogue or in the Knight Collection…

 

 

 

10. ‘Monday Ocr 8 … I read in the morning before breakfast, & for an hour or more afterwards. Hooker is a great book.’

[referring again to Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity – see above]

11. George Nugent. Memorials of John Hampden (1832)

‘Friday Oct 26 … I began to read L—Nugents Memoirs of Hampden.’

The reference here is to [Lord] George Nugent’s Memorials of John Hampden (1832), not in the 1818 catalogue or in the Knight Collection.

12. ‘Wednesday Decr 12 … I generally read in the library as soon as I am drest.’ (A comment on his winter regime.)

**********

Charles Knight’s  grave – St. Nicholas Churchyard in Chawton

Stay tuned for more references of Charles Bridges Austen’s reading habits. I do think it worth noting that along with his interest in the Church and its laws and traditions, he obviously has a love of travel and adventure – a shame he never came to America to explore on his own.

And thank you Hazel for sending all these diary entries to me and to Peter Sabor with help identifying some of the books.

Hazel Jones is the author of Jane Austen & Marriage (Bloomsbury Continuum 2009, Uppercross Press 2017), Celebrating Pride & Prejudice (co-authored with Maggie Lane, Lansdown 2012), Jane Austen’s Journeys (Hale 2014) and is currently writing a book on Jane Austen’s Knight nephews. She was a tutor in the Department of Lifelong Learning at Exeter University until 2005 and continues to teach residential courses on aspects of Jane Austen’s writing, life and times. She is the membership secretary and a co-founder of the UK Jane Austen Society, South West Branch.

**Winchester College, a boarding school for boys founded in 1382, had 70 scholars and 16 “Quiristers” (choristers). The statutes provided for ten “noble Commoners,” paying guests of the Headmaster, and later had up to 130 such boarders [Wikipedia].

Sources:
1. Austen, Jane. Jane Austen’s Letters. 4th ed. Ed. Deirdre Le Faye. Oxford, 2011.
2. Find a Grave (information by Brodnax Moore):  https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/108100107/charles-bridges-knight
3. Reading with Austen website: http://www.readingwithausten.com/index.html

c2019, Reading with Austen blog

Reading in the Godmersham Library: Jane Austen’s Nephew Charles Bridges Knight ~ Part I

/ BookLady Deb / 6 Comments

Godmersham Park, 1826

The Reading with Austen website focuses on the contents of the Godmersham Park library as noted in the 1818 catalogue of the collection. We know that Jane Austen read and rested in this library because her letters tell us so, and the RwA website has brought this long-ago library back to colorful life. So it is a very interesting treasure to stumble upon other mentions of this library. The scholar Hazel Jones [HJ]* has been very generous in sharing her research into the diaries of Austen’s nephew Charles Bridges Austen (later Knight), who also spent time in this very library. Ms. Jones is writing a book on Edward Austen Knight’s sons, and in reading (and transcribing) Charles Bridge’s diaries (which are housed at Jane Austen’s House Museum ), she finds numerous references to the titles he is reading.

Charles-Bridges Knight

 

Charles Bridges was born March 11, 1803 at Godmersham Park in Kent, the 8th child of Jane Austen’s brother Edward Knight and Elizabeth Bridges. He was a commoner at Winchester* from 1816-1820, attended Trinity College, Cambridge and was ordained in 1828. He was the curate of West Worldham in Hampshire and rector of Chawton from 1837-1867. He died unmarried on October 13, 1867, aged 64 years. He is buried in the graveyard at the St. Nicholas Churchyard in Chawton (Section B: Row 2. 70 ).

***

Listed here are the books in the library that Charles mentions, beginning with his diary entry for February 17, 1832. Not all these books were in the 1818 catalogue, often being published after that date, and therefore not part of the RwA project. But I list them just the same, as it shows the continuing depth and use of the library in succeeding years, as well as Charles’s reading habits and often humorous commentary. We must also consider that Charles had his own copies of books and why they do not appear in either the 1818 or 1908 catalogues.

  1. Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia libri tres:

Friday Feby. 17. … In the morning I examined the Greenfinch. It differed from Willoughby’s (Charles’ spelling) description in having no white on the belly but all greenish yellow, inclining to white just by the vent. Its four outmost tail feathers on each side were black about a third from the top yellow below, the underside the same only the colours more dusky. Examined the wind[jammer?] or Kestrel, but not much for the feathers round the mouth were covered over with little insects, not distinguishable but thro’ a microscope. Less than Willughby’s — ‘ (CHWJA:JAH409.1) (Diary marked number 2, January 22, 1832 – August 10, 1832)

[HJ notes: Charles was a keen amateur naturalist and often shot small birds and mammals, as well as game, in order to dissect them and record his findings.]

The book is a Lost Sheep:

Willughby, Francis. The Ornithology of Francis Willughby of Middleton in the County of Warwick Esq; Fellow of the Royal Society. In Three Books. Wherein All the Birds Hitherto Known, Being reduced into a Method sutable [sic] to their Natures, are accurately described. The Descriptions illustrated by most Elegant Figures, nearly resembling the live Birds, Engraven in LCCVIII Copper Plates. Translated into English, and enlarged with many Additions throughout the whole Work: To which are added, Three Considerable Discourses, I. Of the Art of Fowling: With a Description of several Nets in two large Copper Plates. II. Of the Ordering of Singing Birds. III. Of Falconry. By John Ray, Fellow of the Royal Society. [Epigraph on title page]. London: Printed by A.C. for John Martyn, Printer to the Royal Society, at the Bell in St. Pauls Church-Yard, 1678.


***
2. ‘Butler’s Analogy Sermon on the creed’ etc:

Sunday March 11. My birthday 29 years old. I ought to make better use of my time, & hope to spend this year more profitably than the preceding … I should like to get up at six dress & read the Bible till 1/2 past 7, then sermonize for two hours every other day, on the alternate days read Butler’s Analogy Sermon on the creed or some other doctrinal work. From ten till 1/2 past 11 Horace’s satires or some other classic, alternate days some scripture history; till past one natural history. Before bed time read a sermon or some practical work of divinity. Any intermediate time reviews or some other modern light reading. Then the history of England & modern Geography in which I am sadly deficient ought to come in … I read part of Barrow’s sermon on the Gunpowder Treason. (Ibid.)

[HJ notes: He is distracted from this very worthy list by a flock of birds in the high trees at the end of the lawn. What a pity he does not specify which room he is occupying.]

The book is in the Knight Collection with the Thomas Knight bookplate.


Butler, Joseph. The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature. To which are added Two brief Dissertations: I. Of Personal Identity. II. Of the Nature of Virtue. By Joseph Butler, LL. D. Rector of Stanhope, in the Bishoprick of Durham. [Epigraph on title page]. London: Printed for James, John and Paul Knapton, at the Crown in Ludgate Street, 1736.

***


Horace’s satires are is also in the 1818 library collection and so Charles may have continued with his consciously-plotted daily plan of study. The “Satires” are part of a 4-volume edition of the works of Horace:

A Poetical Translation of the Works of Horace: with the Original Text, and Critical Notes collected from his best Latin and French Commentators. By the Revd Mr. Philip Francis, Rector of Skeyton in Norfolk. In Four Volumes. The Fourth Edition, Revised and Corrected. London: Printed for A. Millar, at Buchanan’s Head, opposite to Katharine-Street, in the Strand, 1750.

These volumes all contain Thomas Knight’s signature but have the MGK armorial bookplate – they are extant in the Knight Collection.

 

[My note: the reference to “Barrow’s sermon on the Gunpowder Treason” brings nothing up in the collection. There is a John Barrow, The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of H. M. S. Bounty (1831) in the catalogue, but nothing re: the Gunpowder plot. A search finds a Thomas Wilson, A Sermon on the Gunpowder Treason from 1679, but this is not in the 1818 catalogue. Perhaps Charles was confusing two books he was reading about English history…]

***

  1. Chesterfield’s Letters:

April 11. … I have lately been reading Chesterfield’s letters. I think they contain very good rules for good manners, such as must be good for every one who would follow them, that is the spirit of them generally, but there is a great want of warmth, in fact no feeling in them: they are written by a cold hearted man of the world, who would make his son very polished graceful & genteel, very learned, and rather moral, whether religious or no he does not seem to care. He would recommend him to court [someone’s?] acquaintance because he is rich and likely to be of consequence.'(Ibid.)

The book is in the Knight Collection; it has the less-common MGK oblong bookplate:

Chesterfield, by William Hoare

 

 

Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of (1694-1773). Letters written by the late Right Honourable Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, to his son, Philip Stanhope, Esq; Late Envoy Extraordinary at the court of Dresden: together with several other pieces on various subjects. Published by Mrs. Eugenia Stanhope, from the originals in her possession. In four volumes. The second edition. London: Printed for J. Dodsley in Pall-Mall, 1774.

 

***

Stay tuned for Part II as we continue with Charles’s reading … Thank you Hazel for sharing these with us!

***

 

*Hazel Jones is the author of Jane Austen & Marriage (Bloomsbury Continuum 2009, Uppercross Press 2017), Celebrating Pride & Prejudice (co-authored with Maggie Lane, Lansdown 2012), Jane Austen’s Journeys (Hale 2014) and is currently writing a book on Jane Austen’s Knight nephews. She was a tutor in the Department of Lifelong Learning at Exeter University until 2005 and continues to teach residential courses on aspects of Jane Austen’s writing, life and times. She is the membership secretary and a co-founder of the UK Jane Austen Society, South West Branch.

**Winchester College, a boarding school for boys founded in 1382, had 70 scholars and 16 “Quiristers” (choristers). The statutes provided for ten “noble Commoners,” paying guests of the Headmaster, and later had up to 130 such boarders [Wikipedia].

Sources:
1. Austen, Jane. Jane Austen’s Letters. 4th ed. Ed. Deirdre Le Faye. Oxford, 2011.
2. Find a Grave (information by Brodnax Moore):  https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/108100107/charles-bridges-knight
3. Reading with Austen website: http://www.readingwithausten.com/index.html

c2019, Reading with Austen blog