Volume 24, no 3, Winter 2011 - Jane Austen Society of North ...

the 2010s, but the constant themes of economic
travail and class interests through the ages rang
out.
Craig tied the political situation of the 1790’s
to the plot of Sense and Sensibility. Parliament’s
inertia was comparable to John Dashwood’s reaction
to (Whig) Fanny’s protest that he shouldn’t
“impoverish” himself just to feed the poor. Craig
pointed out that Austen’s Hampshire, like many
counties, had seen much enclosure of the common
land that the poor relied upon to feed themselves,
and noted that John Dashwood describes his land
Village meeting to discuss enclosure.
enclosure – and hence, his starvation of the poor –
while gorging himself at dinner.
Craig’s tour de force of tying Austen’s opinions
on economics to Sense and Sensibility came in
her description of how various “Johns” in Sense
and Sensibility, representing different aspects of
John Bull as the symbol of England, responded to
the crisis.
John Dashwood, from Sussex, represents a
typical Sussex landowner – Sussex had many enclosures
and 1 in 4 persons in Sussex qualified as a
pauper in the 1790. The poor taxes were diverted
to other government uses, and no private charities
existed to alleviate the distress of the poor.
John Willoughby is certainly a Whig – we
know he’s in opposition to Palmer in Parliament.
He was personally extravagant and paid no attention
to the problems of his tenants, and ignored the
financial plight of Eliza Williams after her seduction.
He would have thought helping the poor was
wasteful and immoral – and Somerset, the county
where Combe Magna was located, was an extraordinarily
difficult county in which to be poor during
the 1790’s.
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Sir John Middleton from Devon represents one
of the kindlier counties during this depression – it
had high poor taxes on the rich and few enclosures
so the poor had milk daily, unlike in Sussex. There
were plenty of private charities in Devon. Sir John
exemplifies the kindness of Devon by giving food
and cheap rent to his tenants – he is the example of
the good English squire during the crisis.
Colonel Brandon, from Dorset, who of course
doesn’t have a given first name, also exemplifies
the good squire as he goes to debtors’ prison to
help a servant, and finds his first love Eliza there in
her distress. Dorset was also a kindlier county for
the poor during the 1790’s.
What politicians did Austen support? Neither
the radical Whigs who refused taxation on their
business profits nor the radical Tories who enclosed
the common fields, both sets of radicals increasing
the burdens on the poor. She would have supported
the moderates in both parties who were trying to
find a way to ease the burdens of the depression –
Darcy is a good landowner taking care of his tenants,
and Mr. Knightley is the model squire who
has never enclosed the common lands near Donwell.
Given her picture of England, we can read
Mr. Palmer as a caricature of period politicians, and
can sympathize with Edward Ferrar’s reluctance to
enter the corrosive political area of the 1790’s.
A Look to Die For: Regency
Cosmetics and Esthetics
Report by Liz Cooper
On Thursday night before Vicky Hinshaw’s
fabulous talk on Regency weddings, Jinger Heath
examined the various methods, means and poisons
that women used to enhance their looks in Jane
Austen’s time. Heath is the founder of BeautiControl,
a direct sales skin care, spa and cosmetics company
which made her a knowledgeable and enthusiastic
speaker. One of the funny things she said at
the start of the talk was, “In Texas, the bigger the
hair, the closer to God.”
One of the ways women were evaluated on the
marriage market was by their complexion. In one of
his early conversations with Emma, Frank Churchill
says Jane Fairfax has, “A most deplorable want of
complexion.” At the end of the story when he is en-