Social life in England, 1750-1850Foakes-Jackson, F. J. (Frederick John)
History
Social life in England, 1750-1850
Foakes-Jackson, F. J. (Frederick John)
England -- Social life and customs -- 18th century; England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
had been carefully filed by his mother; and I have seen the sketches
he made (he was no mean artist) to illustrate the novel, with notes
made by himself in his 77th year. He died in 1877. Upon the whole, I
am convinced that, though he made some serious mistakes, especially
about Margaret’s age and marriage, he believed that he was writing
a perfectly true account of her. The subject seemed to me of such
interest to students of literary problems that I had the hardihood to
submit it as a prelection to that respectable body the Council of the
Senate of the University of Cambridge (England) under the title of
“St. Luke as a Modern Author” (Cambridge: Heffer and Sons). If some of
that august body considered the introduction of this romance in humble
life as an illustration of a serious subject an impertinence, I can
only tender my apologies. In America it has been suggested by many
theological professors that “Margaret Catchpole” has a real bearing
on the question of the composition of the Acts of the Apostles, and
may prove a clue to that thorny problem, as well as to others which
can be illustrated by the use of illiterate materials for literary
purposes. Margaret’s letters from Australia, despite the fact that she
had been totally uneducated as a girl, are wonderfully interesting,
and the naturalness of her style renders them far more readable than
the polished periods which her biographer has put into her published
letters.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] The lecture was delivered March, 1916.
[12] This seems impossible from what is known of the Crabbe family.
(See Huchon’s “George Crabbe.”) The poet had no brother who could have
taught Laud.
[13] An example of Mr. Cobbold’s local knowledge and the skill with
which he weaves it into his story is seen in the fact that he makes the
Barrys the sons of a farmer who first used crag shells for manure. In a
Suffolk gazetteer, about 1855, I discovered that this had really been
done at Levington, but in 1712, a generation or so before the Barrys
could have appeared.
[14] The case of horse stealing tried in Lancashire in 1791 was a
peculiarly hard one. A young lady of good family was condemned to
transportation for mounting a stranger’s horse, having been dared to do
so by a friend. She was only fourteen years of age! She was apparently
sent to Australia rather as a passenger than a convict; and married the
captain of the ship.
[15] See Appendix on the literary problem of Mr. Cobbold’s novel.
[16] Mr. Cobbold in a private document says that Colson derived
his knowledge of the names of demons from Glanvil’s _Sadducismus
Triumphatus_. I looked over the book and found no names of demons.
[17] I have been privileged to see kitchens in old houses in New
England, which must have been used in very much the same way as Mr.
Tovell’s. The house now preserved by the Colonial Dames at Quincy is a
good example.
LECTURE IV
GUNNING’S “REMINISCENCES OF CAMBRIDGE”
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