The Novels and Letters of Jane Austen/Volume 11/Letters of Jane Austen, Part 1/Letters of 1805
1805
The thirty-third letter begins with an account of a visit to Eastwell Park, where lived George Hatton and his wife. Lady Elizabeth (née Murray). The two boys, George and Daniel, to whom reference is made, were the late Earl of Winchilsea (ninth earl, who succeeded his cousin in 1826), and his brother, who subsequently married Lady Louisa Greville (daughter of the Earl of Warwick), and was Rector of Great Weldon, Northamptonshire, and Chaplain to the Queen. Lady Gordon and Miss Anne Finch were the sisters of the owner of Eastwell Park, the former of whom married Sir Jenison William Gordon, K.C.B., and the latter died unmarried. Goodnestone Farm, to which the first letter was written, and from which Jane afterwards writes, is a comfortable house very near the great house, which has generally been inhabited as a dower house or by some younger member of the Bridges family, to whom it belongs. “Harriot” means Harriet Bridges, as this was the year before she married Mr. Moore. It will be noticed that Jane always has a good word for her when she speaks of her, which, considering the freedom of her general remarks upon her acquaintance, is a high testimony to character, which was doubtless deserved. It must be admitted that my beloved great-aunt was a careless speller. She invariably spells “niece” “neice” in these letters, and in that now before me she spells Lady Bridges’ name “Brydges” twice, which I note to remark that the Goodnestone family spell their name with an “i,” the Wootton family with a “y,” which makes a difference, though I cannot describe it in the same terms as Mr. Justice Haliburton (Sam Slick) once used to me in the House of Commons, when, having occasion to write his name, I asked him if I should spell it with one “l” or two. “Sir,” he replied, “on no account with more than one; there is an ‘l’ of a difference.” The Knatchbulls who are mentioned as having stayed at Godmersham at this time were Captain Charles Knatchbull, R.N., son of Wadham Knatchbull, Chancellor and Prebendary of Durham, who had married his cousin Frances, only daughter and heiress of Major Norton Knatchbull (youngest son of the fourth Hatch baronet), of Babington, Somersetshire, which place Captain Charles now possessed in right of his wife.
The Duke of Gloucester, whose death put off the Deal ball, was the brother of King George the Third, who died in his 62d year. At the time of his death he commanded a regiment of Guards, and was Warden and Keeper of the New Forest, Ranger of Windsor Forest and of Hampton Court Park, and Chancellor of Dublin University.
The Marianne mentioned in the thirty-fifth letter as being strikingly like “Catherine Bigg” was a younger daughter of Sir Brook and Lady Bridges (Fanny Fowler), who was an invalid and died unmarried in 1811.