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cahnLast post, we had (among other things) Danish kings and their favorites; Louis XIV and Philippe d'Orléans; reviews of a very shippy book about Katte, a bad Jacobite novel, and a great book about clothing; a fic about Émilie du Châtelet and Voltaire; and a review of a set of entertaining Youtube history videos about Frederick the Great.
Charles Hanbury-Williams: Man About Town (The Life, I)
Date: 2023-03-19 11:03 am (UTC)First of all, authorship to this book is credit to the EArl of Ilchester and Mrs. Langford-Brooke, which I took to meaning the Earl provided a great many of the papers and Mrs. L-B did the actual writing. The preface details the convoluted fate of H-W's papers, and how, among other events, earlier attempts to write is biography or publish a collection of his poetry failed, the later because Southey, the poet entrusted with the task, flat out refused because of changed morality. To which I say: Southey, you had it coming. Partly because of this, I presume, our author(s) are at pains to emphasize how Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams was a man of his time, alright, but not really a coarse Georgian, and would that he had lived in better times. Hence no syphilis, no non-straight verses (though his insinuating comments on Fritz and Hervey are kept intact), and of the het verses, nothing explicit.
This said, it's a biography that uses a lot of primary material - not just Hanbury's own papers but the national archives (which for example the mid 19th century Mitchell editor and publisher also used) for all the diplomatic dispatches, and in this regard, it's a treasure trove. Most of the footnotes go to primary sources. On the downside, it doesn't feel like the author(s) consulted many non-British sources - I mainly noticed Poniatowski's and Catherine's memoirs -, but not much else, and nothing German, despite H-W's work in Dresden, Berlin, Vienna, and of course all the Hannover stuff. And even of the British contemporaries, non-complimentary takes on H-W are dismissed in footnotes or in the final chapter with two sentences, like when we're told Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu didn't have a high opinion of him, but as she was friends with his wife, she wouldn't have. (Love the argument, as opposed to "she was on the other side of a feud you even quoted a poem of his from, wherein not only Hervey but she get direclty attacked, and oh, yes, she was friends with Hervey much more intensely - the Algarotti triangle not withstanding - than she was with his wife.) It very much feels like an authorized biography written centuries after the fact.
Charles the future envoy was born a younger son, like several folk we've encountered in salon before, only to have his older brothers die. (Though not all. One named Capel, who shows up in Mitchell's papers because Mitchell wonders whether to forward H-W's remaining luggage to him, survives.) The double name is the result of his father, John Hanbury, becoming bff with very rich and childless Charles Williams. (Hanbury then settled the majority of the Williams legacy on his fourth son Charles.) His mother also had a nice dowery, and all in all the Hanbury clan was well-off landed gentry, wihich is important because as we've seen, being an envoy is expensive. Young Charles has a typical childhood and youth, he goes to Eton, he makes the Grand Tour (nothing of his impressions survive), he gets into Whig circles, he makes a respectable match and marries, Lady Frances Coningsby, youngest daughter of Thomas C, Earl of Coningsy. (Her Dad was an admirer of Sarah "the Favourite" Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, and proposed to Sarah after Marlborough's death. While his proposal got rejected, the Marlborough connection was maintained and helpful to young Charles.) Charles runs for parliament and wins Stephen Fox as his sponsor. Now, the Fox brothers, as mentioned elsewhere, were incredibly important in Hervey's life - he first crushed on Henry, got gently rebuffed but maintained as a friend, and then fell big time for Stephen -, so I was somewhat amazed this is never mentioned because H-W also becomes friends with both brothers. (And shortly before and after Hervey's death exchanges non complimentary remarks about him with Henry F. (Granted, the Foxes and Hervey had a fallout in his last year of life, but that association was so firm and lengthy before that it doesn't make them look good, which is possibly the reason why it doesn't come up in the book - after all, Ilchester is probably a descendant - "Earl of Ilchester" was Stephen Fox' eventual title.)
Charles' early career is standard and nothing spectacular, his maiden speech in the House of C'ommons doesn'tmake much of an impression (and it's not left to us), and while he makes good connections - in addition to the Foxes, there's Horatio Walpole, brother of PM Sir Robert Walpole and uncle to Horace the writer - but really seems to have put most of his energy into literature, like writing a satire about Fritz of Wales on the occasion of the infamous birth of FoW's first child with Augusta being wisked away so that Caroline and G2 aren't present at the birth, and writing any number of verses. (Going by the ones quoted, they're mediocre, so he and Fritz are on the same level there.) One example, written when Stephen Fox, who married a thirteen years old child bride but thankfully didn't consumate the marriage or live with her for the next four years, after said four years did move in with her, may suffice - it was in celebration of the bride/wife: "Dear Betty, come, give me sweet kisses/ For sweeter no girl ever gave/ But why in the midst of our blisses/ Do you ask how many I have?/ I'm not to be stinted in pleasure/ Then prithee, dear Betty, be kind/ For as I love thee beyond measure,/ To numbers I'Ll not be confined."
He meets the guy who becomes his best friend, Thomas Wimmington, and with all the rethoric spend of how this was his friend of friends and soulmate and what note, I wonder whether Wimmington was a bit more if the authors didn't want to spare our feelings. At any event, Wimmington's death is what ultimately pushes H-W into his envoy career later. But first Charles is a young man about town, and our authors are at pains to emphasize he was NOT a member of the Hellfire Club and did not participate in its orgies, he was a member of the Society of Dilettanti, which was a slightly more respectable frat boy union and future office holder network. He falls in love with Peg Woffington, the great actress of the day, but while accepting his suit she's also lovers with David Garrick, most famous actor of the day, and this leads to the anecdote where a jealous H-W accuses her of having seen Garrick only this morning, when she told him she hadn't seen Garrick for eons. Replies Peg: "And is not that an age ago?"
We've now reached the early 1740s, and the contortion of "don't say syphilis!" re: H-W's impending marital breakup is so great that I must quote:
In June, 1742, Hanbury-Williams again retired to Bath. Up to that time he and Lady Frances had been together in Albermarle Street, but this proved to be their final separation; though they appear to have remained on good terms until the end of July. (...) In September Lady Frances left Albermalre Street for the house of her aunt, Lady Kildare; but, as far as can be ascertained, she then intended to return to her husband for the sake of the children. A few days later, however, Hanbury-Williams made a false step. In one of his letters he put forward, or was understood to put forward, an allegation which his wife pronounced unforgivable. Henry fox and Dr. Oldfield, who was attending Lady frances at the time, did their best to patch up matters, but in vain. Lady Frances went so far as to decline any interview whatsoever with her erring spouse.
On November 15, Horace Walpole wrote to Mann, 'Hanbury-Williams is very ill at Bath, and his wife fin the same way in private lodgings in the City.' But by that time the terms of the final separation had been practically fixed by their lawyers. Lady Frances insisted on the custody of the girls, and threatened a 'public exposure' on a hint they might be taken from her. 'If you would prevent the utter ruin of our children,' she wrote, 'entrust me with the care of posession of them, in what manner you please. ' On these lines the final settlement was reached. Lady Frances, of course, retianiend her own money; and Hanbury-Williams made her an allowance for the maintenance of their daughters.
Reading between the lines: not only did he infect her with syphilis, he asked whether she couldn't have contracted it from someone else and infected him instead. Not that you'd know it based on this book, which emphasizes the marriage was doomed from the start since they were just too different, and that they're both at fault.
Re: the children - two daughters. H-W was actually a fond father, who tried to stay involved with his daughters' lives much as possible (and annoyed his wife by backing them every time, like when the younger, Charlotte, read the Fielding novel Tom Jones which her mother disapproved of). When the older got engaged to the Earl of Essex, a very good match in terms of social standing and money, H-W upon meeting the young man on the later's Grand Tour was criticial because the guy didn't mention his daughter enough to him, and said he'd rather marry his daughter to a parson than an Earl as long as the parson really loved her. In general, he's at his best with young people he can play a fun mentor role for (hello Poniatowski and Catherine).
Simultanously to having his marriage explode, H-W bitches with the Foxes about Hervey. He writes to Henry: As for the poem you sent me, I will take my oath 'tis Lord Hervey's. 'Tis too plain, both from the unpoetick thoughts and bad versification and the quaint antitheses, but above all from the many quotations out of Appian and Dion Cassius, books that he is very fond of and that hardly anybody else ever looks into. And he sends Henry Fox a Hervey character portrait he's written:
I now come to the fifth character of the administration. He was second son of the Earl of Bristol, and while his oldest brother was yet alive married Mrs. Mary Lepell, Maid of Honour to the Princess of Wales.
The beginning of his life was spent in attending his father at Newmarket and his mother at the gaming-table. And very young in life, he was reputed a good jokey, and good gamester at all games of skill. He was excessively handsome, but so effeminately affected that it brought even his sex into question. He lived a great wihle among women, whose ill play at Quadrille made him ample amends for the badness of their conversation; for he every year cleared considerable sums at that game.
When he was first chose into Parliament he attended ill. When he did, it was always in favour of the court, but still with an absolute ignorance of business; and his health proving bad he left England for some time. Upon his return he resolved to apply himself to Parliamentary Affairs, and spoke often and with applause, in the House of Commons, mostly written speeches, laboured, full of terms and flowers. He now began to be taken notice of. Assiduity and parts he had, but no judgment. Having been in as many ridiculous scrapes, and attempted two as impossible things as ever man did, he longed to get into a court, for there his talents lay. The key of Vice-Chamberlain was given him, and as he thought to govern immediately, he began with attempting the management of the Queen and the P of W. at the same time, though they were at that time, to every person's eyes at court, ecept his, almost declared enemies. How that came out, the P of W' s inveterate personal enmity to him everr since very plainly evinces. Pherhaps that contributed to fix him better with the Queen. Perhaps he persuaded her to think it was in her cause he fell. HOwever, sometimes well, sometimes ill, he continued to have constant access to and conversation with her until her death. Tis certain the King never loved him or liked him. He about the time or a little before of having the Gold Key began to be an author.
To give you now his character, I must do it freely, and own, I think he ahas fewer mabilities and more disagreeable ein him than most people. And to begin, he never, I believe, opened his heart to any body on earht t horoughly; and in all the friendships he ver went into, seemed to me to design they should be subservient to his fiews, his interests, his pleasures. He inisted upon knowing your thoughts, and yet constantly showed, nay declared, you should not know his. He always knew, or pretended he knew, something mor ethan he would communicate; and you were to follow his dictates without being informed of his reason. (...) He affected to be learned, which he was not. What he knew he had got lately, and that was confined to a very few books. He was fond of writing verse, but wanted thought and even versification. His poems were ill imagined and worse turned. He succeeded better at prose. But in polticks, though thoroughly well informed and helped by facts, yet his style was so strained, so affected, so full of antithesis, that it tired. His thoughts were overdressed, and his want of argument ill supplied by an unmeaning tangle of words. HIs conversation was turned to ridicule, and it was his fort. He laughed well at his enemies, and as well at his friends. He would mick well, and that helped out his descriptions very much.
As with his Fritz rant, there are some good points buried here, like the fact it should have been clear to Hervey he could be Caroline's confidant or that of Fritz of Wales, but not of both at the same time, But by and large, I detect a lot of personal envy here. (Having read examples of Hervey's verses, like H-W's own, they're okay, not immortal. But the "he never tells his true thoughts to anyone" is bewildering if you'r read his love letters to Stephen Fox and Algarotti, which of course H-W had not, but his correspondant might have. And I note that as with his Wilhelmine description, H-W does the 18th century thing of gatekeeping out "fake geeks", who aren't really learned, they just pretend to be, he, of course, can detect the really learned. He's been in Eton!
H-W is a big, and life long Alexander Pope fan (I suspect he was the one responsible for Catherine having read Pope, which she did as she quotes him in her letter to her Hamburg pal about Heinrich - English poets aren't exactly on the teaching schedule for a Prussian princess), and so of course he sides with Pope against Lady Mary and Hervey in their bitter fallout:
At length Pope conquers: Hervey, Wortley yield,
And nameless numbers cover all the field:
Just so of old, or Roman story lies
Domitian triumph'd o'er a host of flies.
Re: Charles Hanbury-Williams: Man About Town (The Life, I)
Date: 2023-03-24 10:06 pm (UTC)Lol. This is kind of an...inverse No True Scotsman fallacy?
(Going by the ones quoted, they're mediocre, so he and Fritz are on the same level there.)
Hee!
It very much feels like an authorized biography written centuries after the fact.
Indeed. I notice it still generated a 7-part write-up! :D I'm glad I turned it up and that you read it for us.
with all the rethoric spend of how this was his friend of friends and soulmate and what note, I wonder whether Wimmington was a bit more if the authors didn't want to spare our feelings
The author of the libertinism paper I linked you to agrees! "However, it is unclear from the evidence whether or not Williams’s love for Winnington ever became physical." I was also pleased to see the Hephaestion and Alexander article we read was linked!
Not that you'd know it based on this book, which emphasizes the marriage was doomed from the start since they were just too different, and that they're both at fault.
In general, he's at his best with young people he can play a fun mentor role for (hello Poniatowski and Catherine).
That's a really interesting character trait!
But the "he never tells his true thoughts to anyone" is bewildering if you'r read his love letters to Stephen Fox and Algarotti, which of course H-W had not, but his correspondant might have.
H-W: He never tells his true thoughts to meeee!
H-W does the 18th century thing of gatekeeping out "fake geeks", who aren't really learned, they just pretend to be, he, of course, can detect the really learned. He's been in Eton!
Haha. Does not surprise me that an Eton graduate is a snob.
Re: Charles Hanbury-Williams: Man About Town (The Life, I)
Date: 2023-03-25 03:11 pm (UTC)Lots of original documents included will do that to me. :) And I still have to write No.8, H-W's description of the execution of two Jacobite lords.
H-W: He never tells his true thoughts to meeee!
LOL. Well, here's a new bit that didn't make the hagiographic cut which I just found in this essay:
There is also some secondhand evidence about Hervey's homosexuality in a somewhat cryptic letter written by Charles Hanbury Williams to Henry Fox shortly after Hervey's death: "Upon my word Lord Hervey has left Winnington a very handsome legacy & I suppose he'll enter into possession immediately – I suppose Lord Lincoln won't push at him any more. If he does, Hervey will certainly appear backward to him. Poor Fitzwilliams!" Lord Lincoln was famed among his friends for possessing a large penis, and using it well. The Earl Fitzwilliam was so frightened at his marriage that it had to be postponed for a day. Thomas Winnington MP, great friend of the Fox brothers, inherited a legacy from Hervey. Williams' own underlinings provide the clue for the following interpretation: Winnington now has an inheritance of his own and need not submit to the large penis ("handsome legacy") of Lord Lincoln; but if Lincoln persists in trying to bugger ("push at") Winnington, Hervey (as symbol of the inheritance he left Winnington) will appear to bend over and present his arse ("backwards") for Lincoln's desires. Or something along those lines; there are too many clever nudges and winks here for us to quite make sense of it all, but we can see easily enough that Williams is suggesting, by means of italicized puns, that Hervey liked to be buggered.
The essay writer seems to have missed out on Winnington being H-W's friend of friends, so my own interpretation upon reading this was more along the lines of "okay, if Winnington had a fling with Hervey, that explains everything, H-W really was personally jealous." Otoh, the essay writer unfortuntely includes several howlers in this essay that make me wonder about his accuracy. (Keyserlingk was gay and totally did it with Fritz in 1730 already, Peter Keith was "Jacobite exile Keith", Lord Hervey played it cool unlike Lady Mary who was openly emo in the Algarotti triangle (author, you even list Halsband's biography! He quotes Hervey's jealous letters! Hervey would have had every reason to play it cool, absolutely, since he was the clear winner, but those letters when the triangle starts are ravingly jealous and he only cools down later when Algarotti comes back for his second visit), Hervey and Fritz of Wales restored their friendship in 1736 and were back to spending the evenings together (WTF? No book I ever read has this one), Heinrich was the bishop of Magdeburg and made one of his boyfriends canon there (okay, that one is Mirabeau's fault, whom he quotes as a source - remember, Mirabeau before becoming an early idol in the French Revolution wrote a trashy tell all about his visit to the Prussian court which is anti Heinrich in particular - but Bishop of Magdeburg wtf? Methinks Mirabeau simply transposed a well known trope from French history - Philippe the Gay and his handing out abbeys to the Chevalier de Lorraine - to the Prussian present). And some more mistakes like that. But I'm assuming the direct quotes are real, at any rate, and so H-W really wrote this.
The same author has also put up some of Hervey's love letters to Stephen Fox, here. Choice quote: You are my Eau de Barbade, that intoxicates my spirits without vitiating my taste, and are so much superior to common draught in every particular that one need not blush for being drunk with you. At least I dont, and own I languish as much for want of the daily dose of you which I have been so long used to, as Lord Scarsdale can do for his three flasks of claret, and feel as sensible a decay of spirits in a transition to any other company, as he could do upon being reduced to water.
Re: Charles Hanbury-Williams: Man About Town (The Life, I)
Date: 2023-03-25 10:36 pm (UTC)I remember us discussing this a while back, because MacDonogh writes:
He may also have been a homosexual, which, given that he was sharing the prince’s bedroom, could have confirmed Frederick in certain ideas that were only then half-forming in his mind.
Which I initially took at face value and reported to salon, you questioned, and then I checked the footnote, which said, "Roger Peyrefitte, Voltaire et Frédéric II, 2 vols, Paris, 1992, 1, 70. It has to be said, however, that Peyrefitte is not particularly reliable, and assumes Frederick’s circle was exclusively homosexual from the beginning." And then when I googled Peyrefitte, I find he was known for engaging in pederastic affairs and defending pederasty, so...he may have an axe to grind about Keyserlingk/Fritz. :/
Oh, hey, "In Voltaire et Frédéric II he claimed that Voltaire had been the passive lover of Frederick the Great."
Hahaha, Fritz gets posthumous revenge for the memoirs that have him exclusively bottoming. :P
But yeah, I've yet to encounter a reliable source saying anything about Keyserlingk being gay. I wouldn't be surprised if Peyrefitte was your essayist's source. I'm not inclined to go looking for his book, even if he is dead and won't collect the money I spend. (I did eventually break down and buy the 1941 bio of FW by an American Nazi, because it's the farthest back I can trace the claim that Seckendorff smuggled books into Wusterhausen with fake covers, but alas, the Nazi guy doesn't give any citation, so so far that claim has dead ended. If anyone ever finds it, I would love to add it to my Peter Keith essay where I talk about Fritz and Peter sneaking books and reading at night.)
Peter Keith was "Jacobite exile Keith"
Alas, it is the fate of all lesser-known historical Keiths to be confused with James and George.
You are my Eau de Barbade, that intoxicates my spirits without vitiating my taste, and are so much superior to common draught in every particular that one need not blush for being drunk with you. At least I dont, and own I languish as much for want of the daily dose of you which I have been so long used to, as Lord Scarsdale can do for his three flasks of claret, and feel as sensible a decay of spirits in a transition to any other company, as he could do upon being reduced to water.
That is quite an analogy!
The Elusive Keyserlingk
Date: 2023-03-26 01:50 pm (UTC)I mean, his wife and daughter aren't arguments against it - see plenty of gay married men who procreated throughout history - , but if there's no argument for other than "Fritz later was gay", I am immensely sceptical. Especially since Ziebura was able to provide actual quotes proof for the other governor, the one AW, Heinrich and Ferdinand got, being gay, and with Keyserlingk, I didn't see anything other than the early assumption that he was the impeding Big Favourite in 1740. But anyway, I suspect you're right, and this blogger comes by his mistakes honestly, see also his quoting Mirabeau about Heinrich, i.e. he did read up on the people, he just didn't read reliable sources. Though I still want to know who ever claimed Fritz of Wales and Hervey did reconcile.
Re: The Elusive Keyserlingk
Date: 2023-03-26 03:22 pm (UTC)Agreed on both counts.
But anyway, I suspect you're right, and this blogger comes by his mistakes honestly
Yeah, there's so much misinformation out there in respectable history books that I find it hard to fault people who put together websites, fanfics, or YouTube vids for trustingly repeating what they've read. Even I fell for the Keyserlingk claim! (And even if MacDonogh did say "may" in the main text, I blame him, because I don't see why he included it at all, and then hid in an endnote the information that this claim only comes from an assumption that Fritz's entire social circle was gay. Because WHY would you ever make an assumption like that? Unless you had an axe to grind and wanted to claim that all the boys you've been molesting aren't victims at all.)
Though I still want to know who ever claimed Fritz of Wales and Hervey did reconcile.
We could email the essayist and ask! His email is <rictor_norton@yahoo.co.uk>. He may not remember, of course, but he may.
Re: The Elusive Keyserlingk
Date: 2023-03-27 07:44 am (UTC)Agreed up to a point, the point being Sanssouci as a pink palace in the "Bad Gays" podcast, because that really takes seconds to google. :) Oh, and Stephen Fry going "there were PROTESTANT PRINCES in the HRE???" But yeah.
And even if MacDonogh did say "may" in the main text, I blame him, because I don't see why he included it at all, and then hid in an endnote the information that this claim only comes from an assumption that Fritz's entire social circle was gay. Because WHY would you ever make an assumption like that? Unless you had an axe to grind and wanted to claim that all the boys you've been molesting aren't victims at all.
+1 I guess he included it for sensationalism's sake, but he's not making a tumblr post, he's supposed to write a serious biography. Also:
an assumption that Fritz's entire social circle was gay
I mean, it's one thing to do this in fandom - assuming everyone is gay or bi as a default, fair enough - but again, for a biography you need to deliver more than "I want this to be true". Just for argument's sake, though, let's go through a bit Fritz' social circle:
- Algarotti: bi
- Brothers Keith: straight as far as we know. They both had mistresses, but no one, including Voltaire in his trashy pamphlet, ever insinuated they were, to quote Voltaire, "Potsdamites"
- Marquis d'Argens: straight as far as we know. Again, no insinuations to the contrary but various het affairs before he settles down with his ballet dancer
- La Mettrie: I have no idea
- Maupertuis: straight afawk. Various het affairs plus marriage, no gossip to the contrary
- CPE Bach: straight afawk, though since he's working for Fritz and a commoner I'm not sure whether he counts as "social circle"
- Darget: gets classified as a possible Fritz boyfriend because of the Palladion and Fritzian allusions in the letter, but did he ever banter back? Or said something towards anyone else? Not sure about marriage or no marriage, mistresses or not, boyfriends or not.
- Pöllnitz: straight
- Suhm: tender for Fritz in whichever fashion, but otherwise we don't know, other than he was married and had kids, which by itself, see above, not necessarily a proof against, though also not for
- Jordan: no idea, but since he was a clergyman, it would have been somewhat scandalous and would have provided the gossips with some satire material, surely?
- Rottembourg and Rothenburg: Mildred, you're the expert on these two
- Knobelsdorff: straight afawk, to the point where he's one of the few nobles to commit to an open relationship with a commoner
- Wartensleben the possible Manteuffel spy: no idea
...and that's just the most prominent ones, excluding good old Voltaire, and btw, like you I'm amused that Fritz got posthumous revenge re: the bottoming "accusation". So how you could go from there to "exclusively gay" in good faith, I have no idea.
Re: The Elusive Keyserlingk
Date: 2023-03-28 04:56 pm (UTC)Only on one, French Rottembourg, and I've never even been able to figure out if he was ever married or not! I have sources claiming both. I'm leaning toward "probably married," but if so, I can't even tell what her name was, because I have sources claiming "Eva Sophie nee Helmstat" and "Jeanne-Madelene d'Helmstat"!
And that, as we noted, doesn't reflect one way or the other on his sexuality. I've never actually been able to get much about his personal life, just his professional life.
Also, Rottembourg was *not* part of Fritz's social circle; he left for the last time before Fritz even turned 18, and before that, when they were conspiring, they were avoiding interacting directly and were using Knyphausen (Ariane's dad) as a go-between, so that FW didn't get suspicious (which apparently worked!). Again, relying on Lavisse here, and provisionally trusting him.
So how you could go from there to "exclusively gay" in good faith, I have no idea.
Yeah, seriously. Ugh, you're going to make me buy Peyrefitte and see what he says, aren't you. :P Maybe someday when my French is faster.
Re: The Elusive Keyserlingk
Date: 2023-03-26 03:41 pm (UTC)If Monsieur can do it, anyone can do it! :D
Re: The Elusive Keyserlingk
Date: 2023-03-26 03:43 pm (UTC)Re: The Elusive Keyserlingk
Date: 2023-03-27 07:47 am (UTC)Re: The Elusive Keyserlingk
Date: 2023-03-28 04:47 pm (UTC)Monsieur: Don't tell anyone about this!
300 years later
Us: *still laughing*
Re: The Elusive Keyserlingk
Date: 2023-04-02 08:50 pm (UTC)I love the SCIENCE idea!!
Re: Charles Hanbury-Williams: Man About Town (The Life, I)
Date: 2023-04-02 08:46 pm (UTC)ahahaha, yes it does :P
Reading between the lines: not only did he infect her with syphilis, he asked whether she couldn't have contracted it from someone else and infected him instead. Not that you'd know it based on this book, which emphasizes the marriage was doomed from the start since they were just too different, and that they're both at fault.
gaaaaah! Yeah, I would... never have got it based just on that.
And I note that as with his Wilhelmine description, H-W does the 18th century thing of gatekeeping out "fake geeks", who aren't really learned, they just pretend to be, he, of course, can detect the really learned. He's been in Eton!
lololol. With this and the Wilhelmine description put next to each other, there definitely seems to be a bit of bad feeling there to anyone who "claims" to be learned... :P
Re: Charles Hanbury-Williams: Man About Town (The Life, I)
Date: 2023-04-03 06:33 am (UTC)I mean, our authors do leave the tiny hint because they quote Henry Fox writing that H-W and his wife are very sick "in the same way", but that could have meant all kinds of things. (For all an unsuspecting person knows, they simply both had the flu.)
lololol. With this and the Wilhelmine description put next to each other, there definitely seems to be a bit of bad feeling there to anyone who "claims" to be learned... :P
H-W: Fake learned people were EVERYWHERE I WENT!
Like I said, all these quotes remind me of nothing so much as certain fanboys explaining that female fans aren't true geeks, they're just pretending to be.
Now, I have no idea how much or little Hervey and Wilhelmine actually read, but going by their surviving letters and books, they were on the upper scale of well educated 18th century people. Not on a Voltaire and/or Émilie level, but few people were, certainly not H-W. Now I'm assuming that Wilhelmine, like Fritz, read all the Greek and Latin classics in French translations, not in the original, while H-W did read Latin and Greek at school. (Not sure about Hervey, because while I might misrenember, I think he was alreaedy sickly as a child and thus got taught by schoolmasters instead of going to a school.) But she did read them, and was able to make the kind of nerdy jokes about the Appian way when in Italy for which you have to be firm in your Roman history to get.
=> Basically, H-W does that thing where if you dislike people, you look for reasons why even their acknowledged better qualities aren't really good