| This blog explores social attitudes in Jane Austen's time, discusses her novels, reviews forgotten 18th century novels, and throws some occasional shade at the modern academy. The introductory post is here. My "six simple questions for academics" post is here. Spoilers abound in my discussion of these forgotten novels, and I discuss 18th-century attitudes which I do not necessarily endorse. |
CMP# 257 Kicked out of Cambridge, or, art imitates life--an episode from Andrew Stuart
ChatGPT illlustration This is my fifth blog post about Mary Ann Hanway’s Andrew Stuart, or the Northern Wanderer (1800). I wanted to share an interesting episode in this forgotten novel because it echoes an event in the life of Percy Bysshe Shelley and it ties into the War of Ideas which raged in England the 1790s after the French Revolution.
First, to understand the context: in those days, students and tutors at Cambridge and Oxford had to be Protestant Christians (No Jews or Catholics, thanks) and they had to explicitly subscribe to the 39 Articles, a list of doctrines of the Anglican Church.
I previously discussed the 39 Articles a few years ago, when discussing whether Jane Austen was critiquing the Anglican Church with her portrait of Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice.
All right. In the story, our hero Andrew is listening to the extended backstory of his new friend, John Carter, who was enrolled in Cambridge intending to become a clergyman. Carter is the son of a poor but virtuous clergyman and as such, he’s looked down upon by the more posh and wealthy students, such as Lord Buford. I've trimmed this excerpt down because John Carter is pretty long-winded. Mind you, if you're on a six-months long voyage to India, I suppose it doesn't matter how long it takes to tell a backstory. Take it away, John!...
First, to understand the context: in those days, students and tutors at Cambridge and Oxford had to be Protestant Christians (No Jews or Catholics, thanks) and they had to explicitly subscribe to the 39 Articles, a list of doctrines of the Anglican Church.
I previously discussed the 39 Articles a few years ago, when discussing whether Jane Austen was critiquing the Anglican Church with her portrait of Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice.
All right. In the story, our hero Andrew is listening to the extended backstory of his new friend, John Carter, who was enrolled in Cambridge intending to become a clergyman. Carter is the son of a poor but virtuous clergyman and as such, he’s looked down upon by the more posh and wealthy students, such as Lord Buford. I've trimmed this excerpt down because John Carter is pretty long-winded. Mind you, if you're on a six-months long voyage to India, I suppose it doesn't matter how long it takes to tell a backstory. Take it away, John!...
ChatGPT illustration Young, idealistic and ardent
“My ardent, active imagination could never be brought to plod on in the dull uniformity of College study; agree to all its usages, adhere to all the tenets, because my inert predecessors had invariably done so for past centuries, without dispute or comment! I was propelled to both; oaths I thought sacred things, my conscience forbade my taking them as a mere matter of form… These being my sentiments, in a conversation with my tutor, I had the temerity to [say] that it was repugnant to my ideas to profess an implicit belief in the Thirty-nine Articles.
“Shocked at my impiety, the good man started from his easy chair, paced the room in much agitation, vowed that he could not sit in the society of a sceptic, a Deist, whose race of atrocity must finally terminate in downright Atheism! With this anathema he left me, and wrote immediately to… my father…
[Alerted to the fracas], a set of young men, of higher pretensions, and better fortunes than myself… thought it a species of insolence in the offspring of the poor Rector of Hartlebury, to dare dispute and have an opinion of his own… [T]he Honourable Mr. Burford, with three more young men selected for his purpose, entered my room, saying they were come to bring me a treatise just published… and they wished to have my opinion upon the subject. My vanity being flattered by this appeal to my judgment, I fell at once into the snare laid to entrap me, and ruin my future prospects.
“My ardent, active imagination could never be brought to plod on in the dull uniformity of College study; agree to all its usages, adhere to all the tenets, because my inert predecessors had invariably done so for past centuries, without dispute or comment! I was propelled to both; oaths I thought sacred things, my conscience forbade my taking them as a mere matter of form… These being my sentiments, in a conversation with my tutor, I had the temerity to [say] that it was repugnant to my ideas to profess an implicit belief in the Thirty-nine Articles.
“Shocked at my impiety, the good man started from his easy chair, paced the room in much agitation, vowed that he could not sit in the society of a sceptic, a Deist, whose race of atrocity must finally terminate in downright Atheism! With this anathema he left me, and wrote immediately to… my father…
[Alerted to the fracas], a set of young men, of higher pretensions, and better fortunes than myself… thought it a species of insolence in the offspring of the poor Rector of Hartlebury, to dare dispute and have an opinion of his own… [T]he Honourable Mr. Burford, with three more young men selected for his purpose, entered my room, saying they were come to bring me a treatise just published… and they wished to have my opinion upon the subject. My vanity being flattered by this appeal to my judgment, I fell at once into the snare laid to entrap me, and ruin my future prospects.
| “[The book] was wrote with great energy, force, spirit, and subtlety of reasoning; but the doctrines it contained were of the most pernicious nature, its tenets decidedly Atheistical. In pointed language, it ridiculed… the fear of death… that marriage was but a political institution, of no consequence but to cement property; that children could owe no duty, or feel any affection for parents, who forced them into a miserable existence against their consent; that we were mere creatures of matter and motion, which, from its subtle nature, could never be stationary; of course, when the active principle, which we denominate soul, ceased… it would instantaneously occupy another… “My opponents pretended to justify many of his axioms, to draw me out to answer them, hoping I should be led, by their seeming approbation, to sign my own condemnation! | Kicked out of college |
“I felt a just indignation against the promulgation of such abominable doctrines, so artfully wove in the web of sophistry, to enmesh the incautious and the weak in the subtle mazes of Atheistical delusion; doctrines calculated to rend asunder those links that cement society, and unite us to our species—the sacred bonds of Hymen, the softened affection that exists between parent and child, the varied and delightful ties of confiding friendship and mutual esteem! Execrable reasoning! that would snatch from our grasp all the joys of this life, preclude the aggrieved bosom from the only real comfort in mental sorrow and bodily sufferings—a religious hope and confidence in the Creator of the universe, who has promised to those who seek him truly, joy everlasting…”
"Impious" Into the flames! Out of the college!
Carter tosses the offensive book into the fire, but he was tricked by Burford and his associates. They wrapped a Bible in a different cover, which is the book he tossed (gasp!), so they went to the 18th century equivalent of Dean Wermer and accused Carter of burning a Bible. The authorities took the word of the posh students over Carter, and he was expelled.
Although the circumstances are different, it is interesting to note that eleven years after Andrew Stuart was published, Percy Bysshe Shelley was expelled from Oxford for publishing a pamphlet promoting atheism. Or technically, he was expelled for refusing to confirm that he wrote the pamphlet, when everyone knew that he had.
ChatGPT helped me by transcribing the pages of this long excerpt and also informed me that there is another notable example of someone being expelled from Cambridge. In 1793, that is, before Andrew Stuart was published, a man named William Frend was kicked out of his position as a Fellow (a tutor) because of a pamphlet he wrote which criticized aspects of the government as well as the established church. It seems probable that the well-publicized expulsion of Frend provided the inspiration for Hanway's fictional episode in Andrew Stuart.
Both Frend and Shelley had a choice between shutting up and going along to get along, or saying what they really thought. They both faced serious social and career consequences as a result. Frend wrote and published several tracts about his trial and his appeal from his expulsion. When he lived in London, he moved in the same circles as reformers such as William Godwin, John Thelwall, and other progressives, whose views exposed them to the risk of being convicted of sedition. For Shelley, the expulsion from university was one action in a chain of behaviours which led him deeper and deeper into financial difficulties and personal drama.
Carter tosses the offensive book into the fire, but he was tricked by Burford and his associates. They wrapped a Bible in a different cover, which is the book he tossed (gasp!), so they went to the 18th century equivalent of Dean Wermer and accused Carter of burning a Bible. The authorities took the word of the posh students over Carter, and he was expelled.
Although the circumstances are different, it is interesting to note that eleven years after Andrew Stuart was published, Percy Bysshe Shelley was expelled from Oxford for publishing a pamphlet promoting atheism. Or technically, he was expelled for refusing to confirm that he wrote the pamphlet, when everyone knew that he had.
ChatGPT helped me by transcribing the pages of this long excerpt and also informed me that there is another notable example of someone being expelled from Cambridge. In 1793, that is, before Andrew Stuart was published, a man named William Frend was kicked out of his position as a Fellow (a tutor) because of a pamphlet he wrote which criticized aspects of the government as well as the established church. It seems probable that the well-publicized expulsion of Frend provided the inspiration for Hanway's fictional episode in Andrew Stuart.
Both Frend and Shelley had a choice between shutting up and going along to get along, or saying what they really thought. They both faced serious social and career consequences as a result. Frend wrote and published several tracts about his trial and his appeal from his expulsion. When he lived in London, he moved in the same circles as reformers such as William Godwin, John Thelwall, and other progressives, whose views exposed them to the risk of being convicted of sedition. For Shelley, the expulsion from university was one action in a chain of behaviours which led him deeper and deeper into financial difficulties and personal drama.
William Frend (1757 – 1841) Freedom of thought
The fictional John Carter in Andrew Stuart rejected atheism and he specifically rejected and strongly denounced the kind of arguments that Shelley would be making in real life. Carter also blames French philosophers such as Diderot and Voltaire for poisoning the minds of the people with their atheistical delusions. Hanway makes it clear that her character John is a devout Christian and a firm moralist, not some deranged atheist. John would not attest to doctrines he did not believe. The book does not mention which of the 39 Articles he objected to, or what his reservations were.
The real-life Frend rejected major portions of Christian doctrine, including the Trinity, but remained a Deist. He left the Anglican church and became a Unitarian.
This was not the end of the drama for Frend. In London, he made the acquaintance of an aspiring poet and writer, Mary Hays, who fell in love with him. He appears in fictional form in her Jacobin novel The Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796), which I discuss in the next post.
One other thing: Carter’s description of the "pernicious" book given him by Lord Buford points to the influence of the Epicureans, as described by the Roman poet Lucretius, in his poem On the Nature of Things. The Epicureans argued that there was no such thing as heavenly intercession. Imagine there’s no heaven, no hell below us, above us only sky. They conceived of atoms thousands of years before atoms were first spied through a microscope. We are stardust.
Hanway paints Carter as a person of intellectual integrity who is a defender of traditional values but who reserves the right to think for himself. Presenting a sympathetic character who criticized the liturgy of the Anglican church did harm Hanway’s reputation as an anti-Jacobin and an upholder of the Establishment. She did not have to paint her characters in pure shades of black and white, nor pass some absolute purity test. However, most of her critiques are directed towards people who do not honorably fulfill their functions in society. I suggest that this is also what Jane Austen does.
The European Magazine was very pleased with Hanway’s satiric critiques of society. “The character of Engross, a country lawyer’s clerk, who, though a course of successful villainy, at last gets a seat in the House of Commons—the description of a Minister’s behaviour at his levees—and the complete triumph of true Religion and sound policy over the new philosophy and new order of things—do honour to the talents and to the truly patriotic principles of Mrs. Hanway.”
Previous post: The moral panic over novels Next post: Memoirs of Emma Courtney
The fictional John Carter in Andrew Stuart rejected atheism and he specifically rejected and strongly denounced the kind of arguments that Shelley would be making in real life. Carter also blames French philosophers such as Diderot and Voltaire for poisoning the minds of the people with their atheistical delusions. Hanway makes it clear that her character John is a devout Christian and a firm moralist, not some deranged atheist. John would not attest to doctrines he did not believe. The book does not mention which of the 39 Articles he objected to, or what his reservations were.
The real-life Frend rejected major portions of Christian doctrine, including the Trinity, but remained a Deist. He left the Anglican church and became a Unitarian.
This was not the end of the drama for Frend. In London, he made the acquaintance of an aspiring poet and writer, Mary Hays, who fell in love with him. He appears in fictional form in her Jacobin novel The Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796), which I discuss in the next post.
One other thing: Carter’s description of the "pernicious" book given him by Lord Buford points to the influence of the Epicureans, as described by the Roman poet Lucretius, in his poem On the Nature of Things. The Epicureans argued that there was no such thing as heavenly intercession. Imagine there’s no heaven, no hell below us, above us only sky. They conceived of atoms thousands of years before atoms were first spied through a microscope. We are stardust.
Hanway paints Carter as a person of intellectual integrity who is a defender of traditional values but who reserves the right to think for himself. Presenting a sympathetic character who criticized the liturgy of the Anglican church did harm Hanway’s reputation as an anti-Jacobin and an upholder of the Establishment. She did not have to paint her characters in pure shades of black and white, nor pass some absolute purity test. However, most of her critiques are directed towards people who do not honorably fulfill their functions in society. I suggest that this is also what Jane Austen does.
The European Magazine was very pleased with Hanway’s satiric critiques of society. “The character of Engross, a country lawyer’s clerk, who, though a course of successful villainy, at last gets a seat in the House of Commons—the description of a Minister’s behaviour at his levees—and the complete triumph of true Religion and sound policy over the new philosophy and new order of things—do honour to the talents and to the truly patriotic principles of Mrs. Hanway.”
Previous post: The moral panic over novels Next post: Memoirs of Emma Courtney
| Frend, William. Peace and Union recommended to the associated bodies of Republicans and Anti-Republicans. Croft, 1798. Frend put his name on the title page of his pamphlet. Shelley published his atheist pamphlet anonymously, Greenblatt, Stephen. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. W. W. Norton, 2012. This Pulitzer prize-winning book describes the discovery of a copy of On the Nature of Things in a monastery by an early and ardent classical scholar during the Middle Ages, and its subsequent influence on Reformation thought. It's always sobering to read about the times when people were burned alive at the stake for challenging religious orthodoxy. People are still kicked out of universities or shouted down today by (chiefly left-wing) thugs for espousing modern heresies, of course. |
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