Emma - Jane Austen [234]
3. haunting the Abbey: The phrase emphasizes the ironic inclusion of the Gothic motif of an abbey.
4. waltz: Although the waltz had reached Britain in 1812, it was not yet socially acceptable. Mrs Weston plays a ‘Waltz Country Dance’, while the dancers move in a traditional set (Piggott, pp. 92–3).
CHAPTER IX
1. ‘one voice and two ladies’: Compare, Twelfth Night, V, i. 225.
2. baked apples came home: Baked in the ovens of the local bakery.
CHAPTER X
1. deedily: With earnest industry, probably a local dialect word.
2. Broadwood: Since John Broadwood died in1812, the comment may suggest that Emma takes place prior to this date, but Broadwood’s son, James, had been a partner in the firm since 1795 so the hint is inconclusive.
3. Cramer: Johann Baptist Cramer (1771–1858), German-born but London-based, a prolific composer, pianist and teacher, who helped to popularize Beethoven’s sonatas in London.
4. Irish melodies: Probably those of Thomas Moore. The 1st and 2nd numbers were published in 1808, the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th in 1810, 1811, 1813 and 1815 (M. J. Macmanus, First Editions of ThomasMoore (Dublin, 1934)). The ‘new set’ does not, therefore, fix the date of the story.
5. ‘Robin Adair’: The song appears in the first volume of the Irish Melodies under the title ‘Eileen Aroon’ (see Piggott, pp. 100–101). It was popular in Gaelic Scotland and Ireland in the eighteenth century. See also Peter Alexander, ‘“Robin Adair” as a musical clue in Jane Austen’s Emma’, R. E. S., ns 39 (1988), 84–6.
CHAPTER XI
1. rights of men and women: Ironic reference to ideas promoted by Thomas Paine (The Rights of Man) and Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Men, and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman), in the radical debate of the early 1790s, inspired by the French Revolution.
CHAPTER XIV
1. garden of England: A term used for various counties, especially Kent, but Bradbrook notes George Mason’s admiration for Surrey as the ‘school of landscape’ in his An Essay on Design in Gardening (London, 1795), p. 143 (Bradbrook, p. 61).
2. barouche-landau: A recently designed carriage for four, with the roof collapsible at both ends to enable maximum viewing and fresh air for the passengers.
3. King’s-Weston: The fine seat of Lord Clifford, built by Vanbrugh and enjoying beautiful views across the Bristol Channel. Nearby Blaise Castle also attracted visitors, such as the Thorpes in Northanger Abbey. See M. Lane, Jane Austen’s England, pp. 112–14.
4. Mr. E.: Mrs Elton’s vulgarity is frequently emphasized by her inappropriate modes of address.
5. cara sposo: Chapman corrects thisto‘caro sposo’ (dear bridegroom), but Mrs Elton uses the term three times and, in the 1816 text, each is in a different form, presumably to emphasize her ignorance of Italian. Her source may be literary: ‘caro sposo’ appeared in F. Brooke’s Lady Julia Mandeville (London, 1763); F. Burney’s Cecilia (London, 1782); and J. West’s Letters to a Young Lady (London, 1801) (see Moler, p. 178; Bradbrook, p. 49; E.E. Duncan-Jones, ‘Notes on Jane Austen’, Notes and Queries 196 (1951), 14–16). Pat Rogers suggests that the phrase was most fashionable in the 1770s and 1780s, so Mrs Elton’s attempt at fashionable slang is ‘badly out of date’, ‘Caro Sposo: Mrs Elton, Burneys, Thrales, and Noels’, R.E.S., ns 45, no. 177 (1994), 70–75. On the use of foreign phrases in conversation, see Austen’s letter to Cassandra, 26 May 1801, ‘She has an idea of your being remarkably lively; therefore get ready the proper selection of adverbs, & due scraps of Italian and French’ (Letters, p. 90).
6. Knightley: Although men referred to each other by surname, Mrs Elton’s usage is inappropriate.
CHAPTER XV
1. ‘Full many …’: From Thomas Gray’s ‘Elegy written in a Country Churchyard’, ll. 55–6. Chapman suggests that the misquotation (‘fragrance’ should read ‘sweetness’) is unintentional, since the same mistake occurs in Northanger Abbey, but it is nevertheless appropriate to Mrs Elton and emphasized by her reference to ‘sweet Jane