1 From the dedicatory epistle: ‘To My Deare Ladie and Sister, The Countess of Pembroke’, p. 57

  2 Ibid.

  3 Book One, Ch. 13, concluding paragraph: ‘The lodge is of a yellow stone, built in the form of a star … ‘, p. 148.

  4 Dedicatory epistle, p. 57

  5 Book One, Ch. 4, p. 84

  6 Book One, Ch. 1, opening paragraph, p. 61

  7 Book One, Ch. 1, p. 64

  8 Book One, Ch. 1, p. 66

  9 Book One, Ch. 10, p. 120

  10 Book One, Ch. 2, pp. 69–70

  11 See Letter 24, pp. 51–2, in The Letters of Dorothy Osborne to William Temple, ed. G. C. Moore Smith (Clarendon Press, 1928). See also VW’s A Room of One’s Own (1929) where the passage concerned is quoted (Panther, 1977;pp. 60–1)

  12 See note 10 above

  13 Book Two, Ch. 11, p. 285

  14 Ibid.

  15 Book Three, Ch. 8, p. 472

  16 Book Two, Ch. 2, p. 222

  17 Book Two, Ch. 3, p. 233

  18 Book Two, Ch. 3, concluding paragraph, pp. 233–4

  19 Ibid., p. 234

  20 Book Two, Ch. 1, p. 216

  21 Book Two, Ch. 1, p. 217

  22 Book Two, Ch. 4, opening paragraph, p. 234

  23 Book Two, Ch. 4, p. 236

  24 Book Two, Ch. 11, p. 285

  25 Book Two, Ch. 12, p. 296; this is the verse dialogue by Basilius recording his meeting with Plangus, read by Zelmane, lines 10–16.

  26 Ibid., lines 22–30, pp. 296–7:

  ‘A shop of shame, a book where blots be rife

  This body is: this body so composed,

  As in itself to nourish mortal strife

  … … … … … … … . .

  Grief only makes his wretched state to see

  (Even like a top which nought but whipping moves)

  This man, this talking beast, this walking tree.’

  27 See ‘The Second Eclogues’: Geron. Philisides, spoken by Geron, lines 132–4, p. 423:

  ‘Cherish the hives of wisely painful bees;

  Let special care upon thy flock be stayed;

  Such active mind but seldom passion sees.’

  28 ‘The Second Eclogues’: Geron. Mastix, spoken by Mastix, lines 46–7, p. 425.

  29 Book One, conclusion, p. 2 I 2

  ‘ROBINSON CRUSOE’

  VW revised this essay from a review originally published in N&A, 6 February 1926, of The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe … Written by Himself With an introduction by Charles Whibley (Constable, 1925). When working on her revision she also used a facsimile of the first edition of Robinson Crusoe, 1719, edited by Austin Dobson (Elliot Stock, 1883). Allusions are here located in the edition by Angus Ross (Penguin, 1965).

  1 Sir Philip Sidney died in I 586.

  2 The pamphlet for which Defoe was pilloried and imprisoned, in 1703, was his celebrated exercise in irony The Shortest Way With Dissenters, 1702.

  3 Published 1722

  4 Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832); Jane Austen (1775–1817); Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866).

  5 Published 1895.

  6 Robinson Crusoe, p. 80

  7 Ibid., p. 122; the next sentence reads: ‘I saw abundance of parrots, and fain I would have caught one, if possible, to have kept it to be tame, and taught it to speak to me.’

  8 Ibid., p. 241

  9 Ibid., p. 46

  10 Ibid., p. 193

  11 Ibid.

  12 Ibid., p. 40; the context is: ‘Our ship making her course towards the Canary Islands, or rather between those islands and the African shore, was surprised in the grey of the morning by a Turkish rover of Sallee, who gave chase to us with all the sail she could make.’

  13 Ibid., p. 66

  14 Ibid., p. 157

  ‘DOROTHY OSBORNE’S “LETTERS”’

  This essay incorporates VW’s review of The Letters of Dorothy Osborne to William Temple, ed. G. C. Moore Smith (Clarendon Press, 1928), which first appeared, under the same title as the present essay, in the New Republic, 24 October 1928, and was reprinted in the TLS, 25 October 1928.

  1 See The Life and Letters of John Donne by Edmund Gosse (2 vols., Heinemann, 1899), vol. 1, p, 3, where inscrutability is given as one of several characteristics said to belong superlatively to Donne.

  2 Letter 17, p. 37 in Moore Smith’s edition.

  3 Evelina (1 778) by Fanny Burney; Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen.

  4 Letter 40, p. 90

  5 Letter 40, p. 91

  6 Letter 60, p. 153

  7 Sir Justinian Isham (1610–1674), MP for Northamptonshire after the Restoration; his first wife Jane, née Garrard, died in childbirth in 1638/9. The ‘Emperor’, as Dorothy Osborne also referred to him, was eventually remarried, in 1653, to Vere, daughter of Lord Leigh of Stoneleigh.

  8 Letter 6, p. 15

  9 Henry Molle (1597–1658), Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, author of light verse and prose ‘characters’, was distantly related to the Osborne family.

  10 Letter 30, pp. 66–7

  11 Lady Dorothy Sidney (Waller’s ‘Sacharissa’), widow of the Earl of Sunderland (d. 1643), married in 1652 plain Robert Smith, Esq., of Bounds Park, Tonbridge, whose titular inadequacy was made good by the award of a baronetcy after the Restoration.

  12 Letter 6, p. 16

  13 Letter 24, p. 52

  14 Both quotations come from Letter 59, pp. 150 and 151. Dorothy Osborne’s mother, also Dorothy (d. 1650 or 1651), youngest daughter of Sir John Danvers, endured many trials, tribulations and shifts of circumstance during the Civil War and this no doubt did much to temper her estimate of human nature.

  15 Letter 21, p. 43

  16 Letter 41, p. 95

  17 Letter 45, p. 110

  18 Both quotations come from Letter 53, p. 128

  19 Letter 62, p. 158

  20 Letter 47, p. 118. The letter was written in December 1653; in the following April Lady Anne Blunt or Blount, daughter of the Earl of Newport, aetat 17, petitioned the Protector, asserting that she had not in fact contracted marriage with one William Blount, a recusant Papist. (The unfortunate Lady Anne encountered a similar difficulty in 1664/5 in connection with Thomas Porter, the future Restoration dramatist.)

  21 Letter 43, p. 100; Lady Isabella Rich was married to Sir James Thynne.

  22 Letter 48, p. 119. The passage, which refers to Dorothy Osborne’s cousin Elizabeth Franklin, née Cheke, reads: ‘… but I do not envy her, may she long enjoy it, and I, an early, and a quiet grave, free from the trouble of this busy world, where all with passion pursue their interests at their Neighbours Charges, where nobody is pleased but somebody complains ont, and where tis impossible to be without giving and receiving injuries.’

  23 The source of this information has escaped detection.

  24 Letter 54, p. 131

  25 From Swift’s ‘Ode Occasioned by Sir William Temple’s Late Illness and Recovery. Written December 1693’; see lines 41–2:

  ‘Mild Dorothea, peaceful, wise and great,

  Trembling beheld the doubtful hand of fate;’

  ‘SWIFT’S “JOURNAL TO STELLA”’

  VW revised this essay from that originally published in the TLS, 24 September 1925. Quotations from the journal are here located in the Everyman Edition of 1924, ed. J. K. Moorhead with an Introduction by Sir Walter Scott, used by VW when making her revision.

  1 Letter x, 30 November 1710, p. 60

  2 Letter VIII, 3 November 1710, p. 43

  3 Letter XXVII, 29 July 1711, p. 205

  4 Letter XIX, 3 April 1711, p. 141

  5 Letter XXVII, 2 7 July 17 11, p. 204; Patty Rolt: a cousin of Swift’s who later became Mrs Lancelot.

  6 William Harrison (1685–1713), poet, diplomatist and sometime ‘Tatler’, a protégé of Swift.

  7 Letter LIX, 14 February 1712–13, p. 408

  8 Letter LV, 15 November 1712, p. 374

  9 Letter LVII, 18 December 1712, concluding paragraph, p. 391

  10 Letter LVIII, 14 January 1712/13, p. 396

  11 Letter XIV, 22 January 1710/11, pp. 101–2

  12 See ‘On the Death of Mrs Johnson [Stella]’ in vol. IX of Sir Walter Scott’s edition of The Works of Jonathan Swift, 1814; (2nd edn, 1824, pp. 283–4).

  13 See Swift’s poem ‘Stella at Woodpark’, dated 1723:

  ‘A supper worthy of herself,

  Five nothings in five plates of delf.’

  14 See ‘On the Death of Mrs Johnson’ in Works, vol. IX; (2nd edn, 1824, p. 289).

  15 Ibid., p. 289

  16 Ibid., p. 284

  17 Journal: Letter XXXII, 22 October 1711, p. 253

  18 Letter XIX, 5 April 1711, p. 143

  19 Letter XXVIII, 25 August 1711, p. 2 1 9

  20 Letter XXIII, 23 May 1711, p. 172

  21 Letter VIII, 8 November 1710, p. 47

  22 Letter XVII, 26 February 1710/11, p. I 22

  23 Esther Vanhomrigh to Swift, Dublin 1714; see Works, vol. XIX; (2nd edn, 1824 p. 337).

  24 Ibid.

  25 Ibid.

  26 Esther Vanhomrigh to Swift, Dublin 1714; op. cit., p. 338

  27 ‘On the Death of Mrs Johnson’, opening paragraph.

  28 This is often quoted by biographers, as by Leslie Stephen in Swift (Macmillan, 1882), which VW read when preparing her original essay.

  ‘THE “SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY”’

  This essay was revised, but not very extensively, from that orginally published under the same title in the NYHT, 23 September 1928, which, in turn, was, reprinted in the same year as the Introduction to the World’s Classics Edition of Sterne’s A Sentimental journey Through France and Italy (1768). References here are to the edition by Graham Petrie (Penguin, 1967).

  1 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (1760, 1761–2, 1767).

  2 Mrs Eliza Draper (1744–78), wife of Daniel Draper of the East India Company, of ‘journal to Eliza’ fame.

  3 See the postscript to Sterne’s letter to Mr and Mrs James, 12 November 1767, in Letters of Laurence Sterne (Shakespeare Head Press, 1927), p. 174

  4 A Sentimental journey, vol. II, The Passport, Paris (Penguin, 1967), p. 92

  5 Ibid., vol. I, The Wig, p. 72

  6 Ibid., vol. I, The Translation, Paris, p. 79

  7 Samuel Richardson (1689–1761) and Henry Fielding (1707–54).

  8 A Sentimental Journey, vol. I, Paris, p. 71

  9 See Sterne’s letter to Lord Shelburne, 28 November 1767, in Letters of Laurence Sterne, pp. 176–7

  10 A Sentimental journey, vol. I, Montriul, conclusion, p. 60

  11 See Thackeray’s The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century. A series of lectures (Smith, Elder & Co., 1853), ‘Lecture the Sixth: Sterne and Goldsmith’, p. 291

  12 A Sentimental journey, vol. I, Montriul, p. 57

  13 Ibid., vol. I, The Letter (to Madame de L***), p. 70

  14 Ibid., vol. II, The Grace, p. 143

  15 Ibid., vol I, The Pulse, Paris, p. 73

  ‘LORD CHESTERFIELD’S LETTERS TO HIS SON’

  This essay incorporates ‘An English Aristocrat’, TLS, 8 March 1928 (reprinted as ‘Lord Chesterfield and the Graces’, New Republic, 2 I March I 928), a review of The Characters of Lord Chesterfield, ed. Charles Whibley (Peter Davies, 1927). VW used Lord Mahon’s five-volume edition of the Letters … (Lippincott, I 892) and references here are to that edition.

  1 For these opinions see Lord Mahon’s Preface, vol. I, p. xxxii

  2 Both quotations come from vol. I, p. 4, letter dated 1 November 1739

  3 Vol. I, p. 84, letter dated 9 October 1747

  4 Vol. I, p. 188, letter dated 5 September Old Style 1748

  5 There are several references to the sins of weltering in an easy chair, including one critical of those ‘too negligent and easy’ who ‘se vautrent dans leur fauteuil’ (vol. II, p. 165, letter dated 10 June OS 175I); see also vol. II, p. 169, 13 June OS 175I; and vol. II, p. 36I, 25 December 1753

  6 See ‘The Mistresses of George the First’ in ‘Lord Chesterfield’s Characters’, printed in Letters, vol. II, p. 458: ‘These standards of his Majesty’s taste made all those ladies who aspired to his favour, and who were near the statutable size, strain and swell themselves, like the frogs in the fable, to rival the bulk and dignity of the ox. Some succeeded, …’

  7 See ‘Mr Pulteney’, in ‘Lord Chesterfield’s Characters’, Letters, vol. II, p. 472

  8 Philip Stanhope, who died in 1768, predeceasing his father by five years, left a widow, Eugenia, and two sons.

  9 These very famous last words to his Lordship’s intimate friend and godson, Solomon Dayrolles (d. 1786), are quoted by Mahon in his Preface, vol. I, p. xxiv.

  ‘TWO PARSONS’

  ‘James Woodforde’, the first of these studies, partially reprints, with additional matter, VW’s review entitled ‘Life Itself, of The Diary of a Country Parson, vol. 3, by James Woodforde, ed. John Beresford (5 vols., OUP, 1924, 1926, 1927, 1929, 1931), which was originally published in the New Republic, 17 August 1927, and is reprinted in The Captain’s Death Bed (1950).

  The second study, ‘The Rev. John Skinner’ (turned down by the Yale Review in 1932), first appeared in CR 2. It is based on The journal of a Somerset Rector, ed. Howard Coombs and Rev. Arthur N. Bax Gohn Murray, 1930), and has been reprinted in an edition of the journal edited by Howard and Peter Coombs for Oxford University Press, 1971. Readers should not fail to consult the ‘trial run’ for this piece, as it proved to be, in III VW Diary, 29 December 1930.

  References are located by date of diary entry.

  I ‘James Woodforde’

  1 3January 1789

  2 4 August 1784

  3 25 September 1771

  4 28 May 1774

  5 16 September 1775

  6 11 July 1765; the passage reads: ‘A terrible accident happened whilst we were at dinner, which many of us went to see the Body; viz. a Poor Boy was dragged and killed by a Horse about half a mile from us on the Ilchester Road. The boy was about fourteen years old. I hope to God the Poor Boy is happy. There was no bone broken, neither was his skull fractured, but he is dead. We all came home singing, and I thank God well.’

  7 9 May 1768

  8 3 June 1769

  9 28 March 1782

  10 9 September 1778

  11 7 November 1783

  12 5 April 1793; VW omits the concluding sentence: ‘Poor old Mr Cary died this afternoon.’

  13 19 January 1793

  II ‘The Rev. John Skinner’

  1 3 August 1822

  2 For the infirm pauper, James Evans, and his helpless state, see the entry for 6 November 1823.

  3 18 November 1823

  4 See journal, ed. Coombs and Bax, Preface, p. xviii

  5 21 August 1824

  6 9 October 1831

  7 17 November 1832

  8 18 November 1832

  ‘DR BURNEY’S EVENING PARTY’

  This essay was first published in NYHT, 21 and 28 July 1929, and was reprinted in Life and Letters, September 1929. VW’s reading included The Diary and Letters of Madame d’Arblay, 1778–1840, ed. Charlotte Barrett (7 vols., Henry Colburn, 2nd edn, 1854); Memoirs of Doctor Burney (3 vols., Edward Moxon, 1832); and The Early Diary of Frances Burney 1768–1778, ed. Annie Raine Ellis (2 vols., G. Bell, 1889).

  1 Early Diary, vol. 1, p. 13

  2 ‘The wig is wet’ meant in Burney family parlance ‘it can’t be helped’; for the derivation of this see Early Diary, vol. 2, p. 252 and fn; also Memoirs of Dr Burney, vol. 2, pp. 170–1

  3 See Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, by Hester Lynch Piozzi (T. Cadell, 1786), p. 141, paraphrased.

  4 Memoirs, vol. I, pp. 23o-2

  5 Early Diary, vol. 2, p. 70

  6 Ibid., vol. I, p. 304

  7 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 28

  8 For this account of the silver-sided soprano Signora Lucrezia Agujari (known also as ‘La Bastardini’ or ‘La Bastadella’) see Early Diary, vol. 2, p. 2; see also Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 31–2

  9 James Bruce (1730–94), traveller and explorer who sought unsuccessfully the source of the Nile in Abyssinia. This account, by Joseph Craddock, the friend of Dyer and of Garrick, comes from a footnote in the Early Diary, vol. 2, p. 14; it should read’… complaint which could not well be accounted for; when …’

  10 Samuel Crisp (d. 1783), sometime dramatist and recluse – he was the author of ‘Virginia’ for which Garrick wrote prologue and epilogue. The appellation ‘Daddy’ had been given him by Dr Burney in his own youth.

  11 Early Diary, vol. I, p. 261, Mr Crisp in a letter to Fanny Burney. What he actually wrote was: ‘I sadly want to know about Mr Greville and his motions; … have you seen him lately?’

  12 For this account of the absurd Richard Fulke Greville (c. 1717-c. 1806), ‘the descendant of the friend of Sir Philip Sidney’, see Memoirs, vol. 1, pp. 24–5. (See also note 18 below.)

  13 Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 30

  14 Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 46:‘fogrum; a term which he [Greville] adopted for whatever speech, action, or mode of conduct, he disdainfully believed to be beneath the high ton to which he considered himself to be born and bred.’

  15 Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 44

  16 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 43; this is a paraphrase.

  17 Frances Macartney, Mrs Greville (d. 1789); her poem ‘A Prayer for Indifference’ was first published in The Edinburgh Chronicle, 19 April 1759 It begins: ‘Oft I’ve implor’d the Gods in vain,/ And pray’d till I’ve been weary;’ (see The Oxford Book of Eighteenth-Century Verse chosen by David Nichol Smith, 1926). For the passage upon which this account is based see Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 103·

  18 Memoirs, vol. 2, p, 112 : ‘“Maxims, Characters, and Reflections, Moral, Serious and Entertaining”; a tide that seemed to announce that England, in its turn, was now to produce, in a man of family and fashion, a La Bruyére, or a La Rochefoucault. And Mr Greville, in fact, waited for a similar fame with dignity Greville’s book was published in 1756 by J. and R. Tonson; he also published, in 1790, Reflection, a poem in four cantos.