Douglas Chambers. The Reinvention of the World: English Writing, 1650–1750. (Writing in History.) London: Arnold; distributed by St. Martin's Press, New York, N.Y. 1996. Pp. x, 218. 16.95 paper. ISBN 0-340-58478-5. - Volume 29 Issue 2
Judging from repetitious appearances of her marital arms in the painted line-endings, the Psalter-Hours John Rylands Library Latin MS 117 probably belonged to Jeanne of Flanders (c.1272–1333), daughter of Count Robert III of Flanders and in 1288 second wife to Enguerrand IV of Coucy. Yet the line-endings also contain some 1,800 diminutive painted escutcheons, many of which refer to other members of the local nobility active during the 1280s. This study, based on an exhaustive survey of the total heraldic and codicological evidence, suggests that the majority of the extant Psalter predated the Hours and that the two parts were combined after the 1288 marriage. The ‘completed’ manuscript bears witness to major events that unfolded in and around the Coucy barony over the course of the decade. It suggests a complex relationship between Jeanne of Flanders and a lesser member of the local nobility, a certain Marien of Moÿ, who may have served as her attendant.
Clarendon and the Rhetoric of Historical Form is the first major evaluation from a literary point of view of the writings of Edward Hyde, the first Earl of Clarendon and the most important English historiographer of the seventeenth century.
The Antagonisms and Affinities of Johnson and Gibbon MARTINE WATSON BROWNLEY On both personal and intellectual grounds, the relationship be tween Samuel Johnson and Edward Gibbon has usually been por trayed in terms of contrasts and antagonisms. From the outside, in respect to appearance and manners, the younger Colman's recollec tions of an evening spent with the two men when he was a boy of thir teen remain the most striking summation: On the day I first sat down with Johnson, in his rusty brown, and his black worsteads, Gibbon was placed opposite to me in a suit of flower'd velvet, with a bag and sword. Each had his measured phra seology, and Johnson's famous parallel, between Dryden and Pope, might be loosely parodied, in reference to himself and Gibbon.— Johnson's style was grand, and Gibbon's elegant; the stateliness of the former was sometimes pedantick, and the polish of the latter was occasionally finical. Johnson march'd to kettle-drums and trumpets; Gibbon moved to flutes and haut-boys; Johnson hew'd passages through the Alps, while Gibbon leveil'd walks through parks and gardens. Maul'd as I had been by Johnson [who had been rude to Colman when introduced], Gibbon pour'd balm upon my bruises, by condescending, once or twice, in the course of the eve ning, to talk with me;—the great historian was light and playful, suiting his matter to the capacity of the boy. . . .1 From Boswell on, commentators have tended to see the exterior con trasts between the two men as emblematic of deeper intellectual an 183 184 / BROWNLEY tagonisms, particularly relying on some of Johnson's more reductive remarks about history and others' assessments of these ("There is but a shallow stream of thought in history," for example, and "General history had little of his regard"2). Recently, however, John A. Vance has corrected certain oversimplified dichotomies in this area by show ing in detail the many similarities in the attitudes of the two toward Gibbon's chosen field.3 One way of approaching the minds and charac ters of these two complex men is to take a closer look at some of the contrasts and comparisons that can be drawn between them. Under lying similarities beneath the personal differences and other deeper contrasts beyond certain affinities in their intellectual stances can il lumine some of the strengths and weaknesses of both Gibbon and Johnson as men and as thinkers. Johnson's and Gibbon's habits differed as radically as their appear ances. Gibbon, rigidly punctual, rose early every morning; Johnson, chronically lax about adhering to a schedule, found it difficult to get up at all. The affected French mannerisms favored by Gibbon contrasted with Johnson's doggedly English brusqueness. Their ap proaches toward social conversation succinctly highlight the differ ences in their attitudes and behavior. Johnson's abilities in fiery and brutally direct intellectual exchanges, and his love of them, are too well known to require comment. In contrast, Gibbon is often thought of as disliking conversation, largely because of Boswell's depictions of him in the Life. But Gibbon actually enjoyed talking with others, as long as it was on his own terms; he insisted that he sought conversa tion "always . . . with a view to amusement rather than informa tion."4 His contemporaries' complaints—"He appears rather inditing to an amanuensis than holding conversation"; "There was no inter change of ideas, for no one had a chance of replying"5—reveal how he dominated groups in which he was the most important person. In conversation, as in life generally, Johnson, aggressively asserting his powers, overwhelmed by force at close range; Gibbon, cautious and retiring, maintained his position by engaging only at a discrete dis tance. These contrasting modes were strategies evolved to fulfill the same purposes: to protect the self and to control the responses of other people. Similarly, many of the disparities in behavior between the two can be seen as individual adjustments which each made to personal experiences and circumstances which were in important ways markedly similar. Uneasy family relationships, youthful physical disabilities, and so cial awkwardness and ineptness were among the factors...
Over a long and productive writing career dating from the early 1960s, Margaret Drabble has been best known for novels that trace the lives of her generation of educated women and the different challenges that these women faced as they matured. Drabble is a distinguished contemporary woman of letters; in addition to her 17 novels, she has also produced biography, literary criticism and scholarship, journalistic commentary, and other fictional and non‐fictional prose.
Assessing the relationships between Johnson’s attitudes toward history and historical writing and British historiographical conditions during the first half of the eighteenth century can offer useful perspectives on his sometimes contradictory views. For Johnson, many of the problems in contemporary British historiography, ranging from the ubiquity of inadequate compilations to the strikingly overt politicization of all historical writing at the time, involved questions of authorial control. To enlarge the truncated narratives and expand the scope of the kinds of histories Johnson saw being written by his contemporaries, he turned to forms of social and cultural history, along with parahistorical genres such as memoir and biography, in order to engage the increased readership for historical writing during the period. Although Johnson’s thought characteristically generalizes, his negativity about historical writing can often be understood in more specific terms, as reactions to the contemporary situation in British historiography.
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