Jane Austen

by Andrew Norman

  Next, she records that two other marriages had taken place:

  Edmund Arthur William Mortimer of Liverpool and Jane Austen of Steventon were married in this Church.

  This marriage was solemnised between us, Jack Smith & Jane Smith late Austen, in the presence of Jack Smith, Jane Smith.1

  It says a great deal about the forbearance and sense of humour of her father the Revd George Austen, that these entries were allowed to stand and were not expunged from the register.

  In December 1789 the 14-year-old Francis Austen, having completed his naval studies at Portsmouth’s Royal Naval College, sailed aboard the Royal Naval vessel HMS Perseverance for the East Indies. In 1791, when Francis became a midshipman, his 12-year-old brother Charles followed in his footsteps as a pupil at the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth. A glittering career awaited them: Francis became Admiral of the Fleet and Charles, Rear Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the East India and China Station.

  In that year, 1791, the Revd Austen’s uncle, Francis, died, leaving his nephew George the sum of £500. In December, Edward married Elizabeth Bridges and settled in a small house belonging to his wife’s family and situated at Rowling, about a mile from her family home of Goodnestone Park in Kent. (Edward was the first of Jane’s brothers to marry.)

  In March 1792 James became the second of Jane’s brothers to marry when he wedded Anne Mathew, daughter of General Edward Mathew, a former Governor of Granada. George Austen then made James his curate at Deane. Late in 1792 the Revd Tom Fowle, a former pupil of Jane’s father, became engaged to Jane’s sister Cassandra.

  France declared war on Great Britain and Holland on 1 February 1793. Henry had intended to become a clergyman but he now changed his plans; he postponed his ordination and instead, on 8 April, enlisted as a lieutenant in the Oxford Militia. In 1797 he became Captain and Adjutant.

  Thomas Knight II died in 1794. That September the 15-year-old Charles Austen left Portsmouth and joined HMS Daedalus as a midshipman. On 16 December, Jane’s 19th birthday, her father, recognising her talents as a writer, purchased a mahogany writing desk for her for the sum of 12s.

  On 3 May 1795 James’s wife Anne Mathew died. In the same month, Francis sailed as a newly commissioned officer aboard the ship Glory, conveying troops of the 3rd Regiment of Foot to the West Indies. Lord Craven, who was Colonel of the regiment, invited Tom Fowle – his kinsman and Cassandra’s fiancé – to accompany him on the voyage as his private chaplain. In the event Tom died of yellow fever at Santo Domingo in February 1797 and was buried at sea. In his will, he left Cassandra the sum of £1,000.

  Jane lived vicariously through her brothers; their adventures were her adventures, their joys her joys, their heartaches her heartaches. This was particularly true of her naval brothers Francis and Charles. Whether they were thousands of miles away in foreign ports or on the high seas, or just down the road in Portsmouth, it made no difference.

  In September 1796 Jane told Cassandra that Francis had received his appointment ‘on Board the Captn John Gore, commanded by the Triton….’ Note that here she had amusingly transposed the name of the ship – Triton – and the name of its captain – Gore. The Triton is described by Jane as ‘a new [type] 32 Frigate, just launched at Deptford. – Frank is much pleased with the prospect of having Capt. Gore under his command.’2 This is another joke by Jane, for Francis is as yet a mere lieutenant who will not be made a commander for another two years. Jane is concerned for Henry, and in the same month she writes:

  Henry leaves us to-morrow for [Great] Yarmouth [Norfolk], as he wishes very much to consult his physician there, on whom he has great reliance. He is better than he was when he first came, though still by no means well.3

  Notes

  1.­ David Nokes, Jane Austen: A Life (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997), p. 96.

  2.­ Letter from Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen, 18 September 1796.

  3.­ Letter from Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen, 1 September 1796.

  7

  Further Adventures of Eliza:­ Her Influence on Jane

  Eliza’s letter to Phylly, dated 9 April 1787, indicates that she is continuing to enjoy the high life. In just one day, for example, she had spent the evening at the Duchess of Cumberland’s (wife of King George III’s younger brother) and progressed ‘from thence to Almacks [Assembly Rooms where balls of the most exclusive kind were held] where I staid till five in the morning … & am yet alive to tell You of it.’ She added:

  I have been for some Time past the greatest Rake imaginable & really wonder how such a meagre creature as I am can support so much fatigue …1

  That November, Eliza writes to Phylly in anticipation of a seasonal visit to Steventon Rectory:

  You know we have long projected acting this Christmas in Hampshire & this scheme would go on a vast deal better would You lend your assistance … Indeed My Dear Cousin your Compliance will highly oblige me & your declining my proposal as cruelly mortify me … I assure You we shall have a most brilliant party & a great deal of amusement, The House full of Company & frequent balls …

  Here, Eliza is referring to the amateur theatricals which the younger generation of Austens were accustomed to holding at Steventon, usually in the great barn. In the event, Phylly declines the invitation.2

  The theatricals duly went ahead in the Revd Austen’s barn which was fitted up, according to Phylly, ‘quite like a theatre’. All the ‘young folks’ took their part, the plays chosen being Which is the Man? and Bon Ton. ‘The Countess [Eliza] is Lady Bob Lardoon in the former and Miss Tittup in the latter’.3

  In the play Bon Ton, or High Life Above Stairs: A Farce by English actor, theatre manager and playwright David Garrick, Miss Tittup says:

  We went out of England, a very awkward, regular, good English family; but half a year in France, and a winter passed in the warmer climate of Italy, have ripened our minds to every ease, dissipation, and pleasure.

  Surely this is an indication that Eliza had a hand in the choosing of it. As regards Which is the Man?, Phylly appears to be confused because Lady Bob [Bab] Lardoon features in a different play by English soldier and dramatist John Burgoyne entitled The Maid of the Oaks, or A Fête Champêtre, which is described as ‘a cheerful little comedy of country life’.

  On 22 July 1788 it was Phylly’s turn to meet her cousins Cassandra and Jane for the first time. This was on the occasion of the latter’s visit to their great-uncle Francis Austen at his home in Kent. Cassandra, said Phylly, ‘bore a most striking resemblance of me in features, complexion & manners’. However, her comments about Jane were not complimentary. Jane was, said Phylly:

  not at all pretty & very prim, unlike a girl of twelve … the more I see of Cassandra the more I admire [her] – Jane is whimsical & affected.4

  Eliza, Hastings and Philadelphia spent the winter of 1788–89 in Paris. However, in the spring of 1789, with the summoning of the Estates General (which became the National Assembly), the French Revolution began. They therefore returned to London.

  On 7 January 1791 Eliza wrote to Phylly from Margate, where she had taken her son who was not in good health. Here, she speaks of ‘the great Benefit Hastings has received & still reaps from Sea bathing’:

  I had fixed on going to London by the end of this Month, but to shew You how much I am attached to my maternal duties, on being told by one of the faculty whose Skill I have much opinion of that one month’s bathing at this time of the Year was more efficacious than six at any other & that consequently my little Boy would receive the utmost benefit from my prolonging my stay here beyond the time proposed, like a most exemplary parent I resolved undergoing the fascinating delights of the great City for one month longer and consequently have determined on not visiting the Metropolis till ye 28th of Febry. Was this not heroic?5

  These scintillatingly witty lines could easily have tripped off the pen of Jane herself, for both ladies were able to write about serious matters in a light-hearted, even flippant way. This begs the q
uestion, did Jane model herself on the older Eliza in this respect?

  On 26 February 1792 Philadelphia died. On 21 September of that year, when Eliza was staying with the Austens, France abolished its monarchy. The following day was declared the first day of the first year of the new French Republic. This was to have grave implications for Eliza’s husband, as will soon be seen.

  On 16 July 1792 Eliza wrote to Phylly concerning a ‘little Accident’ which she had recently suffered:

  I was attacked with a very violent fever & such a pain in my Head that I never have felt in my Life which for three Days & Nights nearly distracted me, at the end of this period a most violent eruption made its appearance and my Physician declared I had got the Small Pox. This I assured him could not be the case for I had had it, in short My Dear Friend for I would not quite tire you out with my dismal Story, my Disorder at length proved to be the Chicken Pox but which I had so severely that those about me all gave the comfortable assurance that I must be marked & completely frightful for the rest of my Days. This prediction however has not been exactly verified, at least I am not much more frightful than I was before, for the only trace now left of my Malady is one single mark in my forehead which as you may suppose does not make any violent alteration in my appearance.6

  Here, Eliza is gently mocking the medical profession and Jane herself would also make sport of that profession in her forthcoming novels. Again, Eliza’s writing is very reminiscent of that of Jane. It is not, of course, suggested that Jane was privy to her cousin’s letters to Phylly; only that Jane may have derived inspiration either from Eliza’s correspondence to her family, or from the latter’s sparkling wit and repartee.

  On 26 October 1792 Eliza wrote to Phylly from Steventon and remarked on the change which she had observed in the Austen sisters:

  Cassandra & Jane are both very much grown (The latter is now taller than myself) and greatly improved as well in Manners as in Person both of which are now much more formed than when You saw them. They are I think equally sensible, and both so to a degree seldom met with, but my Heart gives the preference to Jane, whose kind partiality to me, indeed requires a return of the same nature.7

  Like Jane, Eliza loved a ball. Unfortunately, however, she had been forced to miss ‘a Club Ball at Basingstoke [held by the Hants Club whose members were a group of gentlemen from that town] and a private one in the neighbourhood [having] been confined to my Bed with a feverish Attack’. Nevertheless, she hoped to attend another ball on 4 November.8

  On 21 January 1793 the French king, Louis XVI, was sent to the guillotine. (A few months later, on 16 October, his queen, Marie Antoinette, suffered the same fate). The French Republic declared war on Britain and Holland on 1 February. Like all French aristocrats, the Comte de Feuillide was now in mortal danger. When he attempted to bribe an official whom he hoped would look favourably upon his friend the Marquise de Marboeuf – who was then on trial for conspiring against the Republic – the Comte himself was put on trial. The outcome was that de Feuillide was condemned to death and guillotined, together with the Marquise, on 22 February 1794.

  To return to Jane’s Juvenilia, in it she did not neglect the subjects of love and marriage upon which, despite her inexperience in these matters, she wrote amusingly. First, she addresses the question as to what qualities a person might desire in a prospective partner. In Jack and Alice Mr Johnson suggests to Charles Adams, the owner of a large estate, that the latter might like to marry his daughter Alice. The response is in the negative:

  Your Daughter Sir, is neither sufficiently beautiful, sufficiently amiable, sufficiently witty, nor sufficiently rich for me – I expect nothing more in my wife than my wife will find in me – Perfection.

  And what are the chances of meeting with such a partner? When Adams tells his cook Susan that his future wife, ‘whoever she might be, must possess, Youth, Beauty, Birth, Wit, Merit, & Money’, Susan declares that she has:

  many a time … endeavoured to reason him out of his resolution & to convince him of the improbability of his ever meeting with such a lady …

  But she confesses that her arguments ‘have had no effect & he continues as firm in his determination as ever’.

  Money and property loomed large when the choice of partner was being considered, and this theme was a favourite of Jane’s in her later novels. When, in The Three Sisters, Mary asks Sophie, ‘How should you like to marry Mr Watts?’, the response is:

  Who is there but must rejoice to marry a man of three thousand a year (who keeps a postchaise & pair, with silver Harness, a boot before & a window to look out at behind)?

  Jane, despite her youth, is aware of how easy it is, despite all preconditions, to fall in love with someone at first sight. In the fifth letter of Love and Freindship, Laura describes how she was suddenly and profoundly affected by the arrival of a stranger at her cottage. He was:

  the most beauteous and amiable Youth I had ever beheld. No sooner did I first behold him, than I felt that on him the happiness or Misery of my future Life must depend.

  In the fifth letter of A Collection of Letters, a young lady receives a letter from Musgrove, cousin of Lady Scudamore, who declares:

  It is a month today since I first beheld my lovely Henrietta … Never shall I forget the moment when her Beauties first broke on my sight – no time as you well know can erase it from my Memory.

  To some people there are more important things to worry about than love and matrimony. In Sir William Mountague, for example, Jane describes how Sir William, at the age of about 17, inherits from his father Sir Henry, ‘an ancient House & a Park well stocked with Deer’. Shortly afterwards he falls in love with three young ladies at the same time, and as he does not know which one he prefers, he leaves the county and retires to a small village ‘in the hope of finding a shelter from the Pain of Love’. Here, he meets ‘a young Widow of Quality’ who consents to become his wife. However, when she names the date of the wedding as 1 September (the beginning of the game-bird shooting season), Sir William, being a fine shot, ‘could not support the idea of losing such a Day, even for a good Cause’. The result is that the wedding is cancelled, but Sir William has the consolation of knowing, ‘that he should have been much more grieved by the loss of the 1st of September …’

  Jane is not averse to poking fun at the matrimonial state. For example, in Frederic & Elfrida, Charlotte enters into a matrimonial engagement with two gentlemen at the same time; in The Adventures of Mr Harley, Harley, having been absent from England for half a year, finds himself in a stagecoach travelling to Hogsworth Green, ‘the seat of Emma’. In the stagecoach with him are ‘a man without a Hat, Another with two, An old maid & a young Wife [of] about 17 with fine dark Eyes & an elegant Shape’. It was then that Harley remembers that this latter person was ‘his Emma [whom] he had married … a few weeks before he left England’.

  Even in her twenties Jane continued to write amusingly about love and marriage – in fact, she was to do so all her life, both in her novels and in her letters. On 5 September 1796, for instance, she beseeches Cassandra to:

  Give my Love to Mary Harrison [of Andover; a one-time lady friend of Jane’s brother James], & tell her I wish whenever she is attached to a young Man, some respectable Dr Marchmont may keep them apart for five Volumes.

  (Dr Marchmont is a fictitious character in Frances (‘Fanny’) Burney’s novel Camilla, or A Picture of Youth, who interfered in the relationship between Camilla and her young gentleman friend).

  On 15 and 16 of the same month, Jane writes to Cassandra skittishly:

  Mr Children’s two sons [of Tonbridge, Kent] are both going to be married, John & George. They are to have one wife between them; a Miss Holwell, who belongs to the Black Hole at Calcutta. [This, of course, is a pun by Jane on the word ‘hole’.]9

  It is impossible for the independent observer not to find similarities, both of style and of content, in the works of Jane Austen and her cousin Eliza. In both are to be found scintillating wit,
together with a readiness to ridicule antiquated traditions, conventions or views. And just as Eliza has the refreshing ability to make a joke at her own expense, so Jane does likewise, albeit vicariously through the characters of her novels. All this is set against a background of literary knowledge. (Eliza, like Jane, was well versed in poetry, quoting, for example, in her letters to Phylly, from Alexander Pope and Matthew Prior. She was also familiar with the plays of Shakespeare and the operas of Mozart).10

  One may imagine Eliza at Steventon, sharing Jane’s sense of humour and acting as a catalyst by giving Jane the confidence to write uninhibitedly about situations which she found to be interesting, amusing or absurd. Indeed, it may not be too much of an exaggeration to say that Jane modelled herself, to some extent in her writing, on Eliza.

  It appears that Eliza not only had a profound effect on Jane, but also on her brothers James and Henry, both of whom are alleged to have fallen in love with her. But when Henry proposed to her in 1795, she refused him.

  Notes

  1.­ Le Faye, Jane Austen’s ‘Outlandish Cousin’, p. 76.

  2.­ Ibid., pp. 81–2.

  3.­ Ibid., pp. 80–1.

  4.­ Ibid., pp. 86–7.

  5.­ Ibid., pp. 97–8.

  6.­ Ibid., p. 114.

  7.­ Ibid., p. 116.

  8.­ Ibid., p. 119.

  9.­ Letter from Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen, 16 September 1796.

  10.­ Le Faye, Jane Austen’s ‘Outlandish Cousin’, p. 62.