How to Create the Perfect Wife (52 page)

107
   
the “watry mirror” of Stowe Pool:
Barnard, p. 67.

107
   
The “villa, rising near the lake”:
AS, “Lichfield, an elegy, written May 1781,” in Seward (1810), p. 89.

107
   
In Shaw’s play
Pygmalion: The quotes are from Shaw, pp. 29, 33, 34 and 38.

108
   
“without a protectress”:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, p. 240.

109
   
he should teach her “everything he knows”:
Rousseau (1960), pp. 156–57.

110
   
Even Edgeworth thought that this relaxed:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, pp. 234–35 and 231–32.

110
   
“Every stranger, who came well recommended”:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, p. 232.

111
   a
“whole cluster of Beaux”:
AS to Mary Powys, April 25, 1770, SJBM, 2001.76.1.

111
   
regarded as something of a social climber: Walpole
described Canon Seward as a social climber. Hopkins, p. 63.

111
   
Sabrina was “received at the palace”:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, pp. 234–35.

111
   
From the start Anna Seward was fascinated by the “even ful story”:
Seward (1804), p. 19.

112
   
She was a “beauteous girl”:
Seward (1804), p. 26.

112
   
“Mr. Day looked the philosopher”:
Seward (1804), pp. 13–16.

112
   
A portrait of Day:
It is difficult to date Wright’s portrait of Day precisely. Anna Seward states that it was painted in 1770. Seward (1804), pp. 14–15. Wright’s account book gives no date for the portrait, but it is included in a list of others painted in 1771 and 1772. Joseph Wright, Account Book, Heinz Archive and Library, NPG. More information on Wright and his portrait of Day is from Nicolson, Benedict,
Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Light (2
vols., London; New York, 1968); Egerton, Judy,
Wright of Derby
(London, 1990); Barker, Elizabeth E., “Documents Relating to Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–97),” in
Walpole Society Journal,
71 (2009), pp. 1–181. My thanks to Elizabeth Barker for her help. The first portrait, initially owned by Edgeworth, is currently in the National Portrait Gallery; the second portrait, previously owned by the Strutt family, is now in Manchester Art Gallery. My thanks to both galleries for advice. Seward states that the book in Day’s hand is open at the oration of “that virtuous patron in the senate, against the grant of ship-money”—a reference to Sir Algernon Sidney opposing Charles II—but no writing can be discerned in the actual paintings. It seems more likely the book was
Émile.

114
   
Day was “a rigid moralist”:
Seward (1804), pp. 24–25 and 13.

114
   
Since Honora, the usual target for her affections:
AS referred to Honora’s return from Bath, in autumn 1770, in a letter in 1786. AS to Mary Powys, June 25, 1786, Seward (1811), vol. 1, pp. 156–57.

114
   
When Rousseau’s novel Julie,
or The New Héloïse: AS to Dorothy Sykes, December 10, 1775, SJBM, 2001.72.8. Honora attended a school run by the Latuffière couple who moved to Lichfield in 1766 before uprooting for Derby in 1775.

114
   
When
Émile
appeared, Anna read:
AS to Henry Cary, May 29, 1789, Seward (1811), vol. 1, p. 282. Seward described to Cary how her views had changed since reading
Émile
20 years earlier.

114
   
On Day’s repeated trips to the palace:
Seward (1804), pp. 24–25.

115
   
Seward described the contract Day signed with Bicknell:
Seward (1804), pp. 26–27.

115
   
Darwin was devastated:
King-Hele (2007), pp. 42–43; and King-Hele (1999), p. 91. Mary Darwin was buried on July 4, 1770: Parish register, The Close, Lichfield 1744–97, LRO.

116
   
John Saville had arrived in Lichfield from Ely:
Hopkins, pp. 105–12; Barnard, pp. 74–76 and passim. The Lichfield parish register gives Saville’s age as 67 when he was buried in 1803, suggesting that he was born c. 1736; Mary Saville was buried in 1817, aged 80, suggesting she was born c. 1737. Their eldest daughter Elizabeth was buried in 1839, aged 84, suggesting she was born c. 1755–56. She married on November 25, 1777, with her father’s consent, meaning that she was then under 21, and was therefore born after late 1756. In other words she was probably born at the end of 1756. Burials register, The Close, Lichfield 1744–97, LRO; marriage register, The Close, Lichfield, November 25, 1777.

117
   
Following one musical soirée in 1764:
AS to “Emma,” in Seward (1810), vol. 1, p. cvi.

117
   
“the vilest of Women”:
AS to Dorothy Sykes, May 1773, SJBM, 2001.72.1.

118
   
“He cannot be my husband”:
AS to Dorothy Sykes, May 1773, SJBM, 2001.72.1.

118
   
fifteen love poems:
AS, Seward (1810), vol. 1, pp. 25–64.

118
   
It was not long before rumors began:
King-Hele (1999), p. 96; King-Hele (2007), p. 140n.

118
   
Darwin’s grandson, the future naturalist Charles Darwin, would even suggest:
King-Hele (1999), p. 105. Charles Darwin suggested that his grandfather fathered a girl baptized Lucy Swift on July 29, 1771, i.e., she was conceived in late 1770.

119
   
When Samuel Johnson made his “annual ramble”:
Samuel Johnson to Hester Thrale, July 7, 11 and 14, 1770, in Johnson, vol. 1, pp. 344–45. Johnson stayed in Lichfield between July 2 and 18.

120
   
“Harden their bodies”; “When reason begins to frighten them”:
Rousseau (2010), pp. 173 and 192.

120
   
Richard Warburton-Lytton, Day’s friend:
Bulwer, (1883), vol. 1, p. 20.

120
   
the surgeon John Hunter curtly demanded of one father:
Ottley, Drewry,
The Life of John Hunter, FRS,
in
The Works of John Hunter,
ed. Palmer, James (4 vols., London, 1834), vol. 1, p. 29.

121
   
Behind the closed doors of Stowe:
Details of these trials in varying descriptions are from Seward (1804), pp. 29–30; Rev. Richard George Robinson quoted in Hopkins, p. 148; Anon (1819), p. 155; and Schimmelpenninck, p. 10. Although AS states that Day dropped wax on Sabrina’s arms, Schimmelpenninck said it was her back and arms. There is no trace of the letter from Robinson cited in Hopkins.

122
   
He had even suggested accustoming children to loud noises by firing pistols:
Rousseau (2010), p. 192. Many thanks to Mick Crumplin for his advice on eighteenth-century pistols.

123
   
“I always discouraged every appearance of indolence & finery”:
TD to SS, May 4, 1783, ERO, D/DBa C13. This letter was probably a draft as it contains various crossings-out and amendments.

124
   
she was petrified of horses:
Rev. Richard George Robinson quoted in Hopkins, p. 148.

125
   
“I never thought I had a right to sacrifice another being”:
TD to SS, May 4, 1783, ERO, D/DBa C13.

125
   
Dates and details of early Lunar Society:
Uglow; Robinson; Schofield.

125
   
At one point he would reject an offer from Boulton:
TD to Matthew Boulton, October 29, 1780, Soho archives: Boulton Papers, MS 3782/12/81/104.

126
   
Or as Boulton would delicately put it:
Matthew Boulton to Matthew Robinson Boulton (his son), October 26, 1789, Soho archives: Boulton Papers, MS 3782/12/57/37.

126
   
Day lent significant sums to Small, Keir and Boulton:
Day lent £400 to Small, which the doctor passed on to a friend, and £3,000 to Boulton to help weather his extensive losses following the credit collapse in 1772. He lent an unknown sum to Keir, according to Rowland. TD to Matthew Boulton, March 17, 1775, Soho archives: Boulton Papers MS 3782/12/81/84; Schofield, p. 53; Rowland, p. 100.

126
   
The Lunar men would exchange views on education as their children grew:
King-Hele (1999), p. 83; Uglow, p. 124. King-Hele suggests that in Wright’s painting, ED is the figure in profile on the left foreground and the boy behind him is his son Erasmus, then 8, while the boy on the right holding the cage is his son Charles, 9. Sukey Wedgwood and Maria Edgeworth both stayed with Day.

126
   
Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck would certainly be:
Mary Anne Schimmelpen-ninck (née Galton),
Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck,
ed. Christiana A. Hankin (London, 1860), p. 31.

127
   
He had just bought a lease:
Moilliet and Smith; Moilliet, A.; Uglow, pp. 155–62; Smith, Barbara M. D., “Keir, James (1735–1820),”
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(Oxford University Press, 2004) online edition, accessed April 14, 2008. For more on Keir’s glassmaking business and glass manufacture generally in eighteenth-century Staffordshire see Timmins, Samuel, “James Keir, FRS, 1735–1820,” in
Transactions, Excursions and Report for the Year 1898, Birmingham and Midland Institute Archaeological Section,
24, no. 74 (1899), pp. 1–5. The Stourbridge area boasted numerous glasshouses, which had first been established by French Protestant refugees in the seventeenth century. The glasshouse that Keir took over had been operating since that period.

127
   
“some Lichfield
fair”
:
JK to ED, August 20, 1766, cited in Moilliet, A., p. 48.

127
   
“Nothing surely can be more absurd”:
Keir, pp. 20–28.

127
   
True to his name, Dr. Small:
Lane, Joan, “Small, William (1734–1775),”
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(Oxford University Press, 2004), online edition, accessed April 14, 2008.

128
   
the doctor held “paramount” influence over Day:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 1, p. 331.

128
   
Small tried to persuade Day to abandon his Pygmalion project:
Keir, p. 31.