Jane Austen and Her Times

by G. E. Mitton

Mansfield Park was finished in the same year, and came out under the auspices of Mr. Egerton in 1814, though the second edition was transferred to Mr. Murray. Before the publication of Emma, Jane had begun to be known in spite of the anonymity of her title-pages. The only bit of public recognition she ever personally received was accorded to her while she was in London, and must be told in the account of her London experiences.

CHAPTER XVI IN LONDON

During the years when she lived at Chawton, Jane stayed pretty frequently in London, generally with her brother Henry. She was with him in 1811, when he was in Sloane Street, going daily to the bank in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, in which he was a partner.

Mr. Austen-Leigh says of Henry Austen, “He was a very entertaining companion, but had perhaps less steadiness of purpose, certainly less success in life, than his brothers.”

Jane was evidently very fond of Henry, and fully appreciated his ready sympathy and interest in her affairs. In speaking of her young nephew George Knight, she says: “George’s enquiries were endless, and his eagerness in everything reminds me often of his uncle Henry.”

Henry was at this time married to his cousin Eliza, widow of the Count de Feuillade, who has already been mentioned, and Eliza was evidently vivacious and fond of society, so her sister-in-law had by no means a dull time when staying with her. But how different were Jane’s visits to London, unknown, and certainly without any idea of the fame that was to attend her later, to those of her forerunners and contemporaries who had been “discovered,” and who on the very slightest grounds were fêted and adored. The company of Mrs. Austen’s friends, a little shopping, an occasional visit to the play, these were the details which filled up the daily routine of Jane’s visit. She made the acquaintance of many of her sister-in-law’s French friends, and enjoyed a large musical party given by her, where, “including everybody we were sixty-six,” and where “the music was extremely good harp, pianoforte, and singing,” and the “house was not clear till twelve.”

It is not difficult to reconstruct the London that she knew. Rocque’s splendid map of the middle of the eighteenth century gives us a basis to go upon, though houses had been rapidly built since it was made. Even at Rocque’s date, London reached to Hyde Park Corner, and the district we call Mayfair was one of the smartest parts of the town. St. George’s Hospital stood at the corner as at present, and a line of houses bordered the road running past it, but beyond this, over Belgravia, were open fields called the Five Fields crossed by the rambling Westbourne stream, and traversed by paths.

Sloane Street itself had been planned in 1780, and was called after the famous Sir Hans Sloane, whose collection formed the nucleus of the British Museum. It was therefore comparatively new in Jane’s time. To the south, near the river, there were a good many houses at Chelsea, that is to say south of King’s Road, and Chelsea Hospital of course stood as at present. Next to it, where is now the strip of garden open to the public, and lined by Bridge Road, stood the waste site and ruins of the famous Ranelagh Rotunda, which had been in its time the scene of so much gaiety; only a few years previous to Jane’s visit to Sloane Street it had been demolished and the fittings sold.

Vauxhall, however, the great rival of Ranelagh, was still popular, and continued, with gradually waning patronage, until after the middle of the nineteenth century. It does not appear that Jane ever went there, however.

As for Knightsbridge, if we imagine all the great modern buildings such as Sloane Court and the Barracks done away with, and picture a long unpaved road stretching away into fields and open country westward, with a few small houses of the brick box type on both sides, we get some idea of the district. Sloane Street was then in fact quite the end of London; not long before it had been dangerous to travel to the outlying village of Chelsea without protection at night, and it was not until another fourteen years had passed that the Five Fields were laid out for building.