Antiquaries in the Age of Romanticism: 1789-1851 - Queen Mary ...

Dawson Turner could set out the same sentiment in more earnest terms as, at the end of
his two-volume Tour he put down his pen:
Happy, if by my correspondence during this short tour, I have been able to impart to you a portion of the
gratification which I have myself experienced, while tracing the ancient history, and surveying the monuments of
that wonderful nation, who, issuing from the frozen regions of the north, here fixed the seat of their permanent
government, became powerful rivals of the sovereigns of France, saw Sicily and the fairest portion of Italy subject to
their sway, and, at the same time that they possessed themselves of our own island, by right of conquest, imported
amongst us their customs, their arts, and their institutions, and laid the basis of that happy constitution, under which
by the blessing of God, Britain is at this moment the pride and envy of the world! 87
According to this view of history any peculiarities of the French, their Corsican emperor or the
recent conflict need not disturb the harmony of ancient Anglo-Norman relations.
Francis Palgrave’s review dealt with four new books on Normandy, including the Abbé
de la Rue’s recent history of Caen. The twenty-five years after 1815 saw many more, some
devoted exclusively to architecture, others following the model of the topographical tour. Among
the most important, other than Turner’s and Britton’s which will be discussed in more detail,
were Eliza Stothard’s Letters Written During a Tour of Normandy (1820), 88 Thomas Frognall
Dibdin’s Bibliographical Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour of France and Germany (1821),
William Whewell’s Notes Written During an Architectural Tour in Picardy and Normandy
(1835) and Henry Gally Knight’s An Architectural Tour in Normandy (1836). Thomas Rickman,
who had accompanied Whewell, published his ‘Letters on the Ecclesiastical Architecture of
France’ as a paper in Archaeologia in 1834.
In general the literature divided along the same lines as its domestic counterparts with
Whewell and Rickman interested in facts and dates, Dibdin and Stothard more anecdotal and
atmospheric with the latter two appealing to a larger, more popular audience. The battle over
origins was carried on with Whewell determined to refute ‘Whittingham’ as he called him, on
87
Turner, Tour in Normandy, 2,p. 294.
88
Eliza was the widow of Charles who died in 1821 from a fall while making drawings of stained glass in the
church of Beer Ferrers in Devon. Her account of their tour of 1818 ranged beyond Normandy into Brittany.
127