Framley Parsonage (82 page)

– Byron,
Childe Harold
, I, lxxxvi.

1
(
p. 61
).
Mr Spurgeon
: Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–92), popular Baptist preacher in London.

2
(
p. 64
).
The labour we delight in physics pain: Macbeth
, II, iii, 48.

1
(
p. 66
).
Bedford Row
. Near Bloomsbury and hence unfashionable, as opposed to the highly fashionable Park Lane.

2
(
p. 66
).
disinclination
to a bishopric
: A reference to ‘nolo episcopari’, the formal reply supposed to be made to the offer of a bishopric: literally, ‘I do not wish to be made a bishop’.

1
(
p. 75
).
Amantium Irae Amoris Integratio
: ‘lovers’ quarrels are love’s renewal’, – Terence,
Andria
, 555.

1
(
p. 95
)
grammarians of the Latin language as exemplified at Eton school
: A reference to the
Eton Latin
Grammar, or an Introduction to the Latin Tongue
, the textbook universally used by the youngest learners, and which had run into at least forty editions by 1860.

1
(
p. 108
).
ten-pound note
: In Chapter 5 Fanny encloses two five-pound notes in her letter.

2
(
p. 109
).
Wardour Street
: The centre of the London trade in antiques and imitations.

3
, (p. III),
the poor gentleman they’ve put
into a statue
: Presumably Actaeon, who was torn apart by his hounds after seeing Diana bathing.

4
(
p. 116
).
The then Prime Minister
: Palmerston, who is later fictionalized as Lord Brock. The Governor-General of India who is mentioned was Lord Canning.

5
(
p. 117
).
throw in our shells against him
: To banish or ostracize. ‘Shell’ is a misinterpretation of the Greek ‘ostrakon’, which can mean oystershell,
but should be taken in its other sense of the fragment of pottery on which the name of the person to be banished would be written in the voting on an ostracism.

6
(
p. 117
).
despised charms
: The judgement of Paris preferred Venus to Juno and Minerva.

7
(
p. 117
).
Has not Greece as noble sons as him?;
Byron,
Childe Harold
, IV, x.

8
(
p. 117
).
too close an intimacy
: During a period of international
tension and fear of French invasion, Palmerston was defeated in a vote on the Conspiracy to Murder Bill in February 1858, because he was seen to favour Napoleon III, who was regarded as a threat to the peace of Europe, and suspected of having close links with the enemy Russia, ‘away in the East’, during as well as after the Crimean War.

9
(
p. 117
).
One does not like partridge every day
: The confessor
of Henry IV of France, who had preached a sermon to the king against adultery,
was given partridge every day, until he complained ‘Semper perdrix!’ (‘always partridge!’), whereupon the king pointed out that the confessor had himself preached against variety.

10
(
p. 118
).
The Manchester men
: John Bright and his Radical supporters.

11
(
p. 118
).
the high and dry gentlemen
: Nickname for the old
High Church party, as distinguished from the new Oxford Movement.

12
(
p. 118
).
war then going on
: The worst of the Indian Mutiny was over in 1858, though there were civilian risings in Bihar and Bengal while Trollope was writing in 1860. Meanwhile the peace of Europe was threatened by the events leading up to Garibaldi’s War of Liberation of Italy (1859), his defeat of the Kingdoms of Naples
and Sicily (1860), and the French annexation of Savoy.

13
(
p. 118
).
Vox populi vox Dei
: ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God’; Alcuin in a letter to Charlemagne, quoted by Walter Reynolds in a sermon preached before Edward III.

14
(
p. 118
).
Et tu, Brute!
: Alleged dying words of Julius Caesar.

15
(
p. 119
).
If ignorance be bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise
: Lord Boanerges misquotes Thomas
Gray’s ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College’, stanza X, which reads, ‘where ignorance is bliss,/’Tis folly to be wise.’

16
(
p. 119
).
What tho’ I trace…all I knew
: Aria from Handel’s oratorio
Solomon
.

17
(
p. 122
).
a camel to go through the eye of a needle
: Matthew xix, 24.

1
(
p. 126
).
The German student… bargain with the devil
: Faustus.

2
(
p. 130
).
himself in bonds under Philistian
yoke
: Milton,
Samson Agonistes
, 42.

1
(
p. 136
).
cannot get into the Petty Bag Office… at his option
: Competitive examinations for entry to the Civil Service were introduced after the Northcote-Trevelyan Report on the
Organization of the Permanent Civil Service
(1853), and were strongly opposed by Trollope.

2
(
p. 139
).
et vera incessu patuit Dea
: ‘and the true goddess was evident in
her step’ – Virgil,
Aeneid
, I, 405.

3
(
p. 142
).
horses’ shoes cocked
: Having edges turned down and sharpened to provide a grip in frost.

1
(
p. 154
).
an excellent thing in woman: Lear
, V, iii, 272–3.

2
(
p. 160
).
he ‘dreamt that he dwelt in marble halls’
: ‘I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls’ was a very popular song from
The Bohemian Girl
(1843), with music by M. W. Balfe and words
by Alfred (‘Poet’) Bunn.

3
(
p. 160
). Culpepper’s other song has not been identified.

1
(
p. 181
).
Cake and ale… and ginger…hot in the mouth: Twelfth Night
, II, iii, 109–12.

2
(
p. 186
).
Doddington… Stanhope
: Reputedly the two richest livings in the country, worth £8,000 and £4,000 a year respectively, and both the subject of scandal since the incumbent of the former was a dandy, while
Henry Phillpotts had proposed to retain the latter after his appointment as Bishop of Exeter in 1830.

3
(
p. 186
).
only five the next
: The incomes of Church dignitaries were rationalized when positions fell vacant following the Ecclesiastical Duties and Revenues Act of 1840.

1
(
p. 214
).
Exeter Hall
: The building in the Strand where missionary societies held their meetings.

2
(
p. 214
).
a certain terrible prelate in the Midland counties
: Unidentified. The only ‘terrible prelate’ of the day with such views was Henry Phillpotts of Exeter.

3
(
p. 217
).
carnifer
: Nonce-word from ‘carniferous’ and meaning ‘meat-bearer’; cf. conifer.

1
(
p. 226
).
Greek… with the present of a prebendal stall in his hands
: A submerged quotation from Virgil’s
Aeneid
, II, 49: ‘Timeo Danaos
et dona ferentes’ (‘I fear the Greeks even when they bear gifts’).

2
(
p. 229
).
the Prime Minister’s ideas on Indian Reform
: In February 1858 Palmerston had introduced a bill to transfer civil and military control of India from the East India Company to the Crown.

3
(
p. 229
).
The last great appointment… the cabinet
: The Marquess of Clanricarde, whose appointment hastened Palmerston’s downfall.

4
(
p. 231
).
from such a sharp and waspish word as No to pluck the sting
: Sir Henry Taylor,
Philip Van Artevelde
(1834), Part One, I, ii, 23–4.

1
(
p. 234
).
a praiseworthy spoiling of the Amalekites
: When God commands Saul, ‘go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not’, ‘spoiling’ is not ‘praiseworthy’, and Saul offends by letting the Israelites take
spoil and prisoners – 1 Samuel xv.

2
(
p. 240
).
consideration
: The correct term for the value received by the acceptor of a bill. Mark has twice accepted a ‘bill of accommodation’ drawn by Sowerby: that is ‘a bill accepted… without value by the acceptor… to
accommodate
the drawer, or some other party; i.e. that the party accommodated may raise money upon it, or otherwise make use of it’ –
(Byles
on Bills of Exchange
, 24th edn, 1979, pp. 221–2). But Mark might now be thought to have signed a promissory note in exchange for the221–2). But Mark might now be thought to have signed a promissory note in exchange for the prebendal stall. prebendal stall.

1
(
p. 248
).
not altogether successfully: Cornhill
and subsequent editions read ‘unsuccessfully’, even though Trollope specifically
requested George Smith in a letter of 6 June 1860 to restore the original ‘as first printed –
i.e. “not
altogether successfully”’– the reading of the manuscript. The mistake, which was perpetuated, seems to have occurred between the first and second stage of proofs for the July instalment. Trollope’s letter continues, ‘I don’t know whether you will understand the point with reference to the paper
duties’
(Letters
, vol. 1, p. 106). Gladstone’s measure to abolish the paper duties as part of a shift from indirect to direct taxation, received its third reading in the Commons on 8 May 1860, but a constitutional embarrassment arose when a Tory majority of the Lords, led by Derby, though constitutionally unable to reverse a Commons decision on taxation, succeeded in delaying the measure by six
months. This reference is one of a number of106). Gladstone’s measure to abolish the paper duties as part of a shift from indirect to direct taxation, received its third reading in the Commons on 8 May 1860, but a constitutional embarrassment arose when a Tory majority of the Lords, led by Derby, though constitutionally unable to reverse a Commons decision on taxation, succeeded in delaying the
measure by six months. This reference is one of a number of instances in instances in
Framley Parsonage
, and in this chapter in particular, when Trollope is writing simultaneously about 1858 and 1860. Gladstone is ‘that quaint tinkering Vulcan’, but the other mythological references seem to have no significance beyond showing that the ‘Olympians’ are in power.

2
(
p. 250
).
Renovated in a Medea’s
cauldron
: The sorceress Medea could rejuvenate the old by boiling them in her cauldron.

3
(
p. 253
).
Sir Cresswell Cresswell
: First judge in ordinary at the Divorce Court, which was created in 1858.

1
(
p. 262
).
She never told her love… damask cheek: Twelfth Night
, II, iv, 109–11.

2
(
p. 265
). I
also know a hawk from a heron: Hamlet
, II, ii, 373–5: ‘I know a hawk from a handsaw’.

1
(
p. 268
).
Greek Delectus
: A selection of passages from various Greek authors for translation, e.g. F. E. J. Valpy,
Second Greek Delectus, or New Analecta Minora
(1828).

1
(
p. 275
).
The Triumph of the Giants
: There are no particularly close parallels between Greek mythology and Trollope’s mock-heroic treatment of party politics in this chapter, nor does he distinguish between
the Giants and the Titans.

2
(
p. 275
).
a certain great man first introduced the idea
: The ‘great man’ is usually identified as the Duke of Wellington, who expressed such sentiments when opposing Parliamentary reform in 1831–2, and the mention of ‘late years’ refers to the chronic difficulties experienced in forming a stable ministry during the 1850s.

3
(
p. 277
).
Sidonia and Lord De Terrier
.
Sidonia is a character in Disraeli’s
Conings by
(1844), and hence Disraeli himself, while Lord De Terrier, who stands for Derby, derives, like Lord Brock, from the image of parliamentary politics as badger-baiting in Trollope’s
The Three Clerks
(1857).

4
(
p. 279
).
like bees round a sounding cymbal
: See Virgil,
Georgics
, IV, 64.

5
(
p. 279
).
envy, malice, and all uncharitableness… picking and
stealing, evil speaking, lying, and slandering
: Echoes of the Litany and the Catechism respectively.

6
(
p. 281
).
Bishop of Beverley he should be called
: A measure to create a new diocese was before Parliament on 16 March 1860. The ‘Bishop of Beverley’ was an earlier Trollopian invention in
The Warden
, where the name may be an ironic glance at R. M. Beverley, a dissenting pamphleteer, who took
up the subject of high dignitaries’ incomes in the 1830s.

7
(
p. 282
).
before the grouse should begin to crow
: Parliament rises before the grouse-shooting starts on 12 August.