Abstract
Considering the importance that English people themselves attached to manners, it is surprising that the literature written to promote proper behaviour has remained, until recently, largely unstudied by serious scholars. Only the courtesy book managed to escape this traditional neglect. John Mason’s Gentlefolk in the Making (1935) provides a comprehensive account of English courtesy works during their extended heyday from Thomas Elyot’s The Governour (1531) to Lord Chesterfield’s Letters to His Son (1774). His study, although thorough, makes no attempt to place the courtesy literature discussed in a larger social context.1
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Notes
J. E. Mason, Gentlefolk in the Making 1531–1774 (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1935).
F. Whigham, Ambition and Privilege (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); M. Curtin, Propriety and Position: A Study of Victorian Manners (New York: Garland Publishing, 1987); and Curtin, ‘A Question of Manners: Status and Gender in Etiquette and Courtesy’, Journal of Modern History, LVII (September 1985) 395–423.
J. Hemlow, ‘Fanny Burney and the Courtesy Books’, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, LXV (1950) 732–61; and N. Armstrong, ‘The Rise of the Domestic Woman’, in N. Armstrong and L. Tennenhouse (eds), The Ideology of Conduct (New York: Methuen, 1987) pp. 96–141.
S. C. Woolsey (ed.), The Diary and Letters of Frances Burney, Madame D’Arblay, vol. I (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1880) p. 45.
In addition to Mason’s, Whigham’s and Curtin’s works on courtesy literature, see the following studies for discussions of gentlemanly values and education as reflected in courtesy books: S. Rothblatt, Tradition and Change in English Liberal Education and G. Brauer, The Education of a Gentleman (New York: Bookman Associates, 1959). Although the courtesy book is considered a mainly masculine literary form, there were, according to Curtin, a scattering of such works written
for women throughout the period. D. Bornstein, The Lady in the Tower: Medieval Courtesy Literature for Women (Hamden, CT: The Shoe String Press, 1983) recognises the existence of medieval and Renaissance courtesy literature for women, noting that all of it was written by men, excepting works by Christine de Pizan. See also Armstrong and Tennenhouse (eds), The Ideology of Conduct for studies of behavioural literature for women.
J. C. Collins, ‘Lord Chesterfield’s Letters’, in Essays and Studies (London: Macmillan, 1895) p. 230.
An exception was the literature written for courtiers during the period 1540–1640 — a period characterised, according to Whigham, by a surge of upward mobility into the elite. See Whigham, Ambition and Privilege.
P. Gay, ‘The Spectator as Actor’, Encounter, XXIX (December 1967) 29.
Concerning the eighteenth-century vogue of cosmopolitanism or universalism and its reflection in courtesy literature and notions of good breeding, see G. Brauer, ‘Good Breeding in the Eighteenth Century’, University of Texas Studies in English, XXXII (1953) 25–44. See also H. Aarsleff, The Study of Language in England, 1780–1860 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1967) for a discussion of the eighteenth-century bias in favour of universal laws and its persistent influence on the study of language up until the 1830s.
Curtin, ‘A Question of Manners’, p. 403. S. Rothblatt also stated: ‘The courtesy book lasted in England until 1780, after which it disappeared, or rather, changed into the etiquette book, less universal in tone and more specifically designed for a small coterie of “best people”’ (see Rothblatt, Tradition and Change, p. 60).
The first book to appear with etiquette in the title was The Fine Gentleman’s Etiquette (1776), a rhythmic rendition of Lord Chesterfield’s maxims. E. Aresty noted, ‘No one was better qualified than Chesterfield to escort etiquette into the English language, and its general spirit into manners’ (see E. Aresty, The Best Behavior (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970) p. 143).
C. J. Rawson, ‘Gentlemen and Dancing-Masters: Thoughts on Fielding, Chesterfield and the Genteel’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, I (December 1967) 139.
Chesterfield, fourth Earl of, Letters to His Son, vol. 1 (London: M. W. Dunne, 1901) p. 76. Chesterfield apologists including J. C. Collins and R. Coxon have argued that the absence of a moral dimension in the Letters should not be seen as a commentary on Chesterfield’s actual character. It should be viewed, instead, as a reflection of the very practical purpose underlying the advice. See Collins, ‘Lord Chesterfield’s Letters’, in Essays and Studies and R. Coxon, Chesterfield and His Critics (London: Routledge, 1925).
Reverend J. Trusler, Principles of Politeness, 4th ed. (London: J. Bell, 1775) and Reverend J. Trusler, A System of Etiquette, 2nd ed. (Bath: M. Gye, 1805) p. 23.
Brief Remarks on English Manners (London: printed for J. Booth, 1816) P. i.
Curtin, ‘A Question of Manners’, p. 407.
J. Austen, Mansfield Park (London: MacDonald, 1957; first pub. 1814) p. 88.
J. M. S. Tompkins, The Popular Novel in England 1770–1800 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961; first pub. 1932) p. 70.
Throughout this study, I shall refer to all late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century middle-class works on manners which emphasise the moral implications of manners and behaviour as ‘conduct books’, though some were written in the form of letters of advice.
Letters from Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, to Mrs. Montagu, 1755–1800, vol. II (London: F. C. and J. Rivington, 1817) pp. 245–6.
On the rise and influence of Evangelicalism, see D. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989); I. Bradley, The Call to Seriousness; F. K. Brown, Fathers of the Victorians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961); and D. Rosman, Evangelicals and Culture (London: Croom Helm, 1984).
Conduct books reveal that the terms ‘class’, ‘classes’, ‘rank’, and ‘ranks’ were used interchangeably, even in the late eighteenth century. Writers of both conduct and etiquette books clearly conceived of their society as being three-tiered. Whether using ‘class’ or ‘rank’, they categorised social groups as upper, middle and lower. Although the use of the terms ‘class’ and ‘classes’ became more common in the nineteenth century, it did not replace more traditional social designations such as ‘ranks’. A mid-nineteenth-century etiquette book noted, ‘A journey to the lakes or to some one of the various fashionable watering places is often chosen by those who are placed in the middle ranks of society.’ The same work revealed, ‘The tea-table is the common rendevous of the middle classes of society’ (see Etiquette of Love, Courtship and Marriage (Halifax: Milner & Sowerby, 1859) pp. 109 and 140).
See Chapter 1, note 3. In view of the distinction noted above between the conception of manners in courtesy and conduct books, the works for women which Hemlow discussed fall into the category of conduct books, though she terms them ‘courtesy books’.
J. Cole (ed.), Memoirs of Mrs. Chapone (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1839) p. 40; T. Gisborne, An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex, 8th ed. (London: Cadell and Davies, 1810) advertisement section; and Etiquette for Gentlemen: With Hints on the Art of Conversation, 13th ed. (London: Tilt and Bogue, 1841), advertisement section for Tilt’s Miniature Classics appearing at the end of the book. On the subject of workers’ wages in relation to book prices see R. Altick, The English Common Reader (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957) pp. 51 and 275–6.
W. Cobbett, Advice to Young Men, and Incidentally to Young Women, in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life (London: A. Cobbett, 1837) pp. 2 and 119.
Hemlow, ‘Fanny Bumey and the Courtesy Books’, p. 733.
W. Roberts, The Portraiture of a Christian Gentleman (London: J. A. Hessey, 1829) p. 63.
Mrs J. Sandford, Female Improvement, vol. I (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman, 1836) advertisement.
The English Gentlewoman (London: Colbum, 1845) p. 20.
S. Ellis, Prevention Better than Cure (London: Fisher, 1847) p. 306.
The Athenaeum (1830) p. 815.
R. B. Sheridan, The Rivals in J. Bettenbender (ed.), Three English Comedies (New York: Dell, 1966; first pub. 1775) pp. 124–5.
See Hemlow, ‘Fanny Burney and the Courtesy Books’.
‘Society’ here refers specifically to the London-based, fashionable, upper-class Society as opposed to the larger society. The concept and term will be discussed more fully at the end of Chapter 1.
Burney, Evelina, p. 72.
See the letter to the editor in G. Packwood’s Packwood’s Whim (London: sold by the author, 1796).
Aresty, The Best Behavior, p. 13.
The term is not in either the 1755 or 1785 edition of Johnson’s Dictionary but it did appear in J. Walker’s A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary (London: T. Cadell, 1791). After the definition Walker noted, ‘This word crept into use some years after Johnson wrote his Dictionary, nor have I found it in any other I have consulted. I have ventured, however, to insert it here, as it seems to be established; and as it is more specific than ceremonial, it is certainly of use.’
Mrs E. Bonhote, The Parental Monitor, vol. I (London: W. Lane, 1788) p. 117.
Ilchester, Earl of (ed.), Elizabeth, Lady Holland to Her Son, 1821–1845 (London: J. Murray, 1946) p. 141.
Puckler-Muskau, Tour in England, Ireland, and France, 1828–1829, vol. III (London: E. Wilson, 1832) p. 108.
A computer search of the Eighteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue of all works printed in English between 1700 and 1800 showed this title to be the only one containing the word ‘etiquette’.
Reverend J. Trusler, A System of Etiquette (Bath: W. Meyler, 1804) and Curtin, ‘A Question of Manners’, p. 411.
Captain O. Sabertash, ‘The Sliding Scale of Manners’, Fraser’s Magazine, XXIX (1844) p. 586.
Etiquette for Iadies: Or, the Principles of True Politeness (Halifax: Milner and Sowerby, 1852) dedication.
Although women’s authority and opportunities to participate in ‘Society’ increased dramatically in the nineteenth century, Curtin’s view of etiquette books as a primarily feminine literary form must be qualified. A survey of thirty different etiquette books published between 1804 and 1881 showed that five were aimed specifically at gentlemen, six at ladies, three at gentlemen and ladies and the rest at no specific audience. Of the fourteen books for which the authors’ sex was evident by the actual name or generic pen-title, twelve were written by men and two by women. Furthermore, the male author (G. W. M. Reynolds) of ‘Etiquette for the Millions’, a seventeen part series appearing in The London Journal (1845), directed nine-tenths of his advice to men. I would like to thank Michael Shirley for making me aware of Reynolds’s writings on etiquette.
Court Etiquette (London: C. Mitchell, 1849) preface.
Thus, one etiquette book noted, ‘To write a treatise on etiquette is to be condemned everlastingly to the region of tailors, ladies-maids, and parvenus’. See Court Etiquette (London, 1849) p. 10. See also A. Hayward,
‘Codes of Manners and Etiquette’, Quarterly Review, LIX (October 1837) 396 and Curtin, Propriety and Position, 46–52.
Etiquette for All (Glasgow: G. Watson, 1861) p. 64.
Etiquette for Gentlemen, 13th ed., preface.
Etiquette of Courtship and Marriage (London: D. Bogue, 1844) p. v.
H. F. Mellers, Hints for the Improvement of the Manners and Appearance of Both Sexes; With Details of the Etiquette of Polished Society (London: Dean and Munday, n. d.) p. 12.
See Curtin, Propriety and Position, pp. 172–93 and ‘A Question of Manners’.
A. Freeling, The Pocket Book of Etiquette (Liverpool: H. Lacey, 1837) p. 21.
Ibid., p. 16.
W. Day, Hints on Etiquette and the Usages of Society, 7th ed. (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman, 1836) p. 19.
G. W. M. Reynolds, ‘Etiquette for the Millions’, The London Journal (1845) 184. Although etiquette was subject to the vagaries of fashion and the books themselves usually appeared in multiple editions, comparisons between editions of early etiquette books in particular often indicate few changes in substance.
This increasing emphasis in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries on particular circumstances as opposed to universal laws was evident in the rise of the novel and the discipline of philology as well. See I. Watt, The Rise of the Novel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960) and Aarsleff, The Study of Language.
Gentleman’s Magazine, XXV (1755) 492.
The following discussion of these two factors is based on Curtin, ‘A Question of Manners’ and L. Davidoff, The Best Circles (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1973).
On the increasing size, power and self-consciousness of the middle class in the early industrial period see, in particular, Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 1987.
R. Doyle, Manners and Customs of ye Englyshe, vol. II (London: Bradbury & Evans, 1849), ‘A Partie of Sportsmen Ovt a Shvtynge’.
See A. Parreaux, Daily Life in England in the Reign of George III (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1969) p. 99, for comments on London’s hierarchical layout. Concerning residential architecture see J. Laver, ‘Homes and Habits’, in E. Barker (ed.), The Character of England (London: Oxford University Press, 1947) pp. 462–80.
Flora Tristan’s London Journal, trans. D. Palmer and G. Princetl (London: G. Prior, 1980; first pub. 1840) p. 151.
Day, Hints on Etiquette, 7th ed., p. 55.
J. Butcher, Instructions in Etiquette, 3rd ed. (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1847) p. 40.
J. V. Beckett notes that the peerage, whose size had remained roughly unchanged from 1720 to 1780, gained 166 members between 1780 and 1832. Concerning arms-bearing carriages, he reveals that their number grew from 14 000 in 1812 to 24 000 in 1841. Beckett, The Aristocracy in England, pp. 30 and 35.
For a discussion of the landed elite’s defensive reaction in the late eighteenth century to newly enriched gentry and businessmen, see Mandler, Aristocratic Government in the Age of Reform, 1830–1852 and G. Newman, The Rise of English Nationalism 1740–1830 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987) pp. 21–48.
For a discussion of etiquette as a distancing mechanism at court, see N. Elias, The Court Society, trans. E. Jephcott (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983; first pub. 1969).
H. Smith, ‘How to be a Gentleman’, New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, XI (November 1824) 465.
Aresty, The Best Behavior, p. 175.
Definition quoted in Davidoff, The Best Circles, p. 103, n. 5. Davidoff indicated that this definition did not emerge until the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
A. E. Douglas, The Etiquette of Fashionable Life (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1849) p. 24.
‘The Book of Gentility’, in Miscellanies 1832–1836 (London: W. Kidd) p. 18.
Sir E. Bulwer-Lytton, Pelham (Leipzig: B. Tauchnitz, 1842; first pub. 1826) p. 14.
Curtin, ‘A Question of Manners’, p. 422. Emphasis is in the original.
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© 1994 Marjorie Morgan
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Morgan, M. (1994). Courtesy, Conduct and Etiquette: An Overview. In: Manners, Morals and Class in England, 1774–1858. Studies in Modern History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230379541_2
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