The Gentleman's Daughter (63 page)

5
L. Colley,
In Defiance of Oligarchy: The Tory Party, 1714–60
(Cambridge, 1982), pp. 100, 129–30.

6
B. J. Harris, ‘Women and Politics in Early Tudor England’,
HJ
, 33 (1990), pp. 259–81; L. Barroll, ‘The Court of the First Stuart Queen’, in L. Levy Peck (ed.),
The Mental World of the Jacobean Court
(Cambridge, 1991), pp. 191–208; L. Colley, ‘Things That Are Worth Naming',
London Review of Books
, 21 Nov. 1991; Jalland,
Women, Marriage and Politics
; M. Pugh,
The Tories and the People, 1880–1935
(Oxford, 1985).

7
Haltunnen,
Confidence Men and Painted Women
, pp. 92–123, and Kasson,
Rudeness and Civility
, pp. 173–81.

8
Dallet Hemphill, ‘Men, Women and Visiting' (unpub.), pp. 2–3. She continues:
‘Rather than an aspect of a private female sphere we are talking about either a female public sphere, if one adopts a broad definition of “the public sphere”, or, at the least, a female social sphere, an intermediate sphere where both sexes could interact in a quasi-public, quasi-private fashion. Historians have long been aware of the ways in which northern white middle-class women stretched their domestic sphere into the public domain in the ante-bellum era through associational and reform activity. Perhaps we also need to recognize the ways in which they pulled public functions into their so-called private domain by acknowledging the existence of this intermediate social sphere.’ (p. 10). For similar doubts about the usefulness of the /files/05/05/53/f050553/public/private model, see K. V. Hanson, A
Very Social Time: Crafting Community in Ante-bellum New England
(Berkeley, 1996).

9
D. F. Bond (ed.),
Spectator
(Oxford, 1965), 1, p. 44.

10
On the potential space for female debate, see Klein, ‘Gender, Conversation and the Public Sphere’, pp. 111–12, and the slightly less expansive Copley, ‘Commerce, Conversation and Politeness’. For contrasting assessments of Addison and Steele, see Hunt, ‘Wife Beating’; Shevelow,
Women and Print Culture, passim
, and Blanchard, ‘Richard Steele and the Status of Women’, pp. 325–55.

11
D. Goodman,
The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment
(Ithaca, 1994), pp. 5–11, 53–89, 123–4; id., ‘Public Sphere and Private Life’.

12
For an exceptionally lucid account of changing advice on manners, see Childs, ‘Prescriptions for Manners’ (D.Phil, thesis), pp. 45–130. But see also the informative J. E. Mason,
Gentlefolk in the Making: Studies in the History of English Courtesy Literature and Related Topics, from 1531–1774
(Philadelphia, Pa., 1935). More specific is L. Klein,
Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultural Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century England
(Cambridge, 1994). For the reception and application of English conduct literature in America, see R. L. Bushman,
The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities
(New York, 1993).

13
Childs, ‘Prescriptions for Manners’ (D.Phil. thesis), pp. 143–287, and Mason,
Gentlefolk
(see n. 12 above), pp. 253–90.

14
LRO, DDB Ac 7886/125 (
c.
1746), R. Parker, Alkincoats to E. Parker. On secrecy and the elite family, see Pollock, ‘Living on the Stage of the World’.

15
See
Gentleman's Magazine
, 67 (1797), pt 2, p. 612: ‘[John Parker] from his education, rank, and habits of life, was well known and much respected in the circles of the polite and noble, on account of his great hilarity, benevolence and generosity, not to mention the hereditary characteristic of Browsholme – a boundless hospitality.’ Consider also Edward Parker's obituary in
Gentleman's Magazine
, 65 (1795), pt 1, p. 82.

16
WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St 6/1/50 (n.d.), loose sheet, M. Warde to M. Warde.

17
See, for example, LRO, DDB/81/35 (1779), f. 275.

18
See LRO, DDB/81/25 (1775), f. 10; LRO, DDB/81/29 (1776), fos. 33–4; and LRO, DDB/81/35 (1779), fos. 75, 214.

19
LRO, DDB/81/17 (1772), f. 73.

20
LRO, DDB/72/321 (2 June 1773), J. Parker, London, to T. Parker, Alkincoats. In a similar manner, John Parker recommended a Mr Sheridan to his acquaintance in 1778: LRO, DDB/81/33B (1778), f. 57.

21
LRO, DDB/81/20 (1773), f. 72.

22
LRO, DDB/72/305 (10 June 1775), E. Shackleton, Alkincoats, to R. Parker, London.

23
LRO, DDB/81/13 (1771), f. 77.

24
LRO, DDB/81/35 (1779), f. 47; LRO, DDB/81/32 (1777), f. 99.

25
WYCRO, Bradford, Sp St 6/1/50 (16 Aug. 1745), M. Clayton to M. Stanhope; HL, HM 31201 Anna Larpent's Diary, 1, 1790–95, f. 20.

26
See Nash's ‘Rules to be observed at Bath’, of 1742, in Goldsmith,
Richard Nash
, pp. 31–3. See also WYCRO, Bradford Sp St 6/1/50 (6 June 1742), M. Warde, Squerries, to M. Warde, Hooton Pagnell: ‘every day was employed in receiving or making visits, an
Intrusion I was rather sorry for … as a ceremonious visit sometimes interrupted us in schemes we had rather pursued en famille, as confining us to the house and fixing the tea table in the drawing room, which we had rather proposed following into a wood …’

27
See LRO, DDB/72/132 (16 May 1754), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/101 (n.d.), A. Pellet, London, to E. Parker, Alkincoats. For a fascinating comparison with an earlier period, read Whayman's account of John Verney's laxity in making wedding visits in 1680 and the corresponding resentment of his relatives, in her ‘Sociability and Power’ (Ph.D. thesis), pp. 276–324. Parallel arguments for later eighteenth-century America about rituals of inclusion and exclusion can be found in Bushman,
Refinement of America
(see n. 12 above), pp. 49–52.

28
LRO, DDB/72/310 (16 March 1777), E. Shackleton, Alkincoats, to R. Parker, London.

29
Kin were predominant in the social life of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey, Norfolk, in the sixteenth century and very close kin in that of Ralph Josselin in the seventeenth century: Macfarlane,
Ralph Josselin
, pp. 153–60, and personal communication from A. Hassell Smith.

30
LRO, DDB//81/39 (1781), f. 101.

31
LRO, DDB/81/37 (1780), fos. 187, 263.

32
It is widely recognized that mealtimes were in flux over the course of the eighteenth century. For a rather quaint, but well-illustrated discussion of eating habits, see Hole,
English Home Life
, pp. 108–13. A more socially specific account can be found in Cruikshank and Burton,
Life in the Georgian City
, pp. 27–45. All that can be said with confidence of gastronomic habits in the North, is that breakfast was taken early to mid-morning, dinner mid- to late afternoon and supper late evening. The advancement of the polite dinner hour was acknowledged by Elizabeth Shackleton when she talked of eating dinner ‘at the fashionable hour four o'clock’, and this was the time chosen by Thomas and Betty Parker for their celebration dinners, see LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 94.

33
See Cruikshank and Burton,
Georgian City
, pp. 40–43.

34
LRO, DDB/81/37 (1780), f. 35.

35
See above, pp. 168–9; Shammas, ‘Domestic Environment’.

36
B. Kowaleski-Wallace, ‘Women, China and Consumer Culture in Eighteenth-Century England’,
Eighteenth-Century Studies
, 29 (1995–6), p. 165. See also id., ‘Tea, Gender and Domesticity’.

37
LRO, DDB/81/35 (1779), f. 135.

38
LRO, DDB/81/22 (1774), f. 29; LRO, DDB/81/31 (1777), f. 44; LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 103.

39
These phrases are taken in sequence from LRO, DDB/72/445 and 127 (1754–55), J. Scrimshire, Pontefract, to E. Parker, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/220 (12 Jan. 1769), W. Ramsden, Charterhouse, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats; LRO, DDB/72/115 and 167 (24 Jan. 1757), A. Pellet, London, to E. Parker later Shackleton, Alkincoats.

40
LRO, DDB/72/225 (25 July 1769), W. Ramsden, London, to E. Shackleton, Alkincoats. Criticisms of female visiting can be found in a letter ‘To a Very Young Lady on Her Marriage’ by Dr Swift, in
New Letter Writer
, p. 60; and
Gentleman's Magazine
, 6 (1736), p. 390. A bubbling account of a female gathering over a singing tea kettle and the morning paper is reproduced in R. Lonsdale (ed.),
Eighteenth-Century Women Poets
(Oxford, 1990), pp. 425–6. John Brown linked tea drinking and defamation in 1708, see Ashton,
Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne
, 1, pp. 95–6. For a brief, but suggestive gloss on the complaint literature, see Childs, ‘Prescriptions for Manners’ (D.Phil, thesis), pp. 255–7.

41
LPL, MS 8752 (1776), 7 July; LPL, MS 8753 (1778), 1 May; LPL, MS 8754 (1779), 2 June.

42
LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), fos. 250 and 208; LRO, DDB/81/35 (1779), fos. 235a, 236, 239, 240, 277–9.

43
See respectively, LRO, DDB/81/26 (1775), f. 96, and LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 143.

44
LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 191; LRO, DDB/81/39 (1781), f. 182. See also f. 23: ‘I sent to let my own dear Tom know how ill I was. He said he expected Company to dine with him, but if he co'd make it convenient to him he wo'd come some time this day here for 1/2 an hour. Bad work. He came after dinner was rather sly did not take much notice of me. He did stay tea.’

45
LRO, DDB/81/22 (1774), f. 47. Thereafter, she refused to attend dinners where he was invited and once, coming upon him by surprise, called him a low-life rascal and threatened to spit in his face! See LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 89.

46
LRO, DDB/81/13 (1771), f. 59; LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 40.

47
Goldsmith,
Richard Nash
, p. 24. The absurdities of an undue ceremoniousness were often remarked on. Praise for a pleasing ease and gentility of behaviour contrasted with an affected formality can be found in the London journal of the Quaker Betty Fothergill in 1769: Brophy,
Women's Lives
, p. 119.

48
LRO, DDB/81/37 (1780), fos. 18, 23, 122; LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 184.

49
LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 198. On the loquacious gentleman as a comic trope, see Staves, ‘Secrets of Genteel Identity’.

50
Childs, ‘Prescriptions for Manners’ (D.Phil. thesis), p. 220.

51
LRO, DDB/81/35 (1779), f. 37.

52
LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 91.

53
LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 173.

54
LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 2; LRO, DDB/81/22 (1774), f. 77.

55
LRO, DDB/81/22 (1774), fos. 115, 117.

56
LRO, DDB/81/13 (1771), f. 75.

57
LRO, DDB/81/22 (1774), f. 67; LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 180.

58
LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), f. 142; LRO, DDB/81/20 (1773), f. 83.

59
LRO, DDB/81/20 (1773), f. 26.

60
LRO, DDB/81/37 (1780), fos. 187–8.

61
See Childs, ‘Prescriptions for Manners’ (D.Phil. thesis), p. 198.

62
LRO, DDB/81/37 (1780), f. 17.

63
LRO, DDB/81/37 (1780), f. 134.

64
LRO, DDB/81/39 (1781), fos. 174, 175.

65
LRO, DDB/81/33A (1778), fos. 120–21; LRO, DDB/81/17 (1772), f. 87; LRO, DDB/81/20 (1773), fos. 21 and 4; LRO, DDB/81/22 (1774), f. 37. She also despaired that ‘his ways that of his family are Brutal’: DDB//81/39 (1781), f. 175.

66
That anxiety about dishonest performance was always inherent in politeness is the argument of Carter, ‘Mollies, Fops and Men of Feeling’ (D.Phil. thesis), chap. 8. Childs elucidates the way that the early eighteenth-century concept of ‘good breeding’ became associated with outer manners at the expense of inner civility, leading to its replacement by the term ‘politeness’, ‘Prescriptions for Manners’ (D.Phil. thesis), pp. 120–28. Mason also documents the Augustan concern to achieve heart-felt civility rather than an empty formality,
Gentlefolk in the Making
, p. 263. A Republican critique of polite superficiality can be found in Bushman,
Refinement of America
(see n. 12 above), pp. 181–203. Kasson and Haltunnen both discuss American courtesy writers' uneasy attempts to distinguish false etiquette from a true feeling courtesy in the nineteenth century, Haltunnen,
Confidence Men
, pp. 92–123 and Kasson,
Rudeness and Civility
, pp. 173–81. Novelists also distinguished between ‘the politeness of manner, formed by the habits of high life’ and ‘that which springs spontaneously from benevolence of mind.’ See Burney,
The Wanderer
, p. 134.

67
Lord Chesterfield's Letters to His Son
(1774; Oxford, 1992), p. 49.

68
Collier, a
Short View of the Immorality
, p. 7. This, of course, was part and parcel of his attack on the smuttiness of the stage. Why then, he continues, ‘Do the Women leave all the regards to Decency and Conscience behind them when they come to the
Play-House?’

69
Thompson, ‘Patrician Society’, p. 389.

70
LRO, DDGR C3 (6 Sept. 1774), R. Greene, Calcutta, to P. Greene, Slyne. By contrast, Lyndal Roper is persuaded that masculine excess is not simply destructive, arguing of male drinking and whoring in sixteenth-century Germany that as much as the councils railed against violence, they also needed to sustain it in case of war: ‘Blood and Codpieces: Masculinity in the Early Modern German Town’, in id.,
Oedipus and the Devil
, pp. 107–24.

71
Westhauser, ‘Friendship and Family’.

72
LPL, MS 8754 (1779), 24 Jan.

73
Quoted in Brophy,
Women's Lives
, pp. 178–9.

74
On their wide circulation, see Klein, ‘Politeness for Plebes’,
passim
.

75
Hall,
Miss Weeton's Journal
,
I
, pp. 177, 135–6, 217. She also asked her brother to jot down any rules of etiquette that she might have overlooked, sought out a pamphlet on the art of carving and showed awareness of the subtle distinction between a real invitation and an empty compliment. See pp. 212 and 111.