The Chapel Hill weekly., 1962-11-25

NE FAGE AN Or - L u
ART ENGLAND. By Eliza
beth Burton. 1869. NeaV York:
Charles Scribner''s Sons. AS
PIP. $5.95.
By STEPHEN B. BAXTER
This is what used to be called
a woman's book, written for the
the general public. Is there real
ly a considerable number of
women left with enough leisure
to read, too intelligent for TV
or the popular magazines, and
not enough education to take
their history straight? There is
such a market in England, and
the publisher must think that
there is such a market here.
Miss Burton has written what
she calls a domestic history, and
in England the title in THE JA-
COBEANS AT HOME. 1t is a
better title than the one we get
here, because the author does not
discuss pageantry at all. Her
chief interest, apparently, is in
Seventeenth Century smells. Now
it is quite true that people did
not wash very often, particularly
during the colder months, before
the middle of the Eighteenth
Century. Down to about 1725 the
prudent hostess kept little pots
of incense burning in her draw
ing room to hide those doors
which could not be concealed by
many bowls of flowers. There
was very little plumbing. Al
though Charles II did have a
bath room, he had it taken out
so that his Treasury could have
more space and may have done
without baths for the last four
years of his life. The water
closet, which dates from the Six
teenth Century, was still very
rare. 1t was much more common
to have a commode or "cloSe
stool, but even this was such a
status symbol that it was fire.
quently kept in full view in the
middle of the best room in the
house. The Pepys family kept
theirs in their drawing room. 1t
was very fine, and undoubtedly
fully upholstered. Under such
circumstances most houses, and
most of their Inhabitants, were
pretty whiffy. Miss Burton du-
tifully records each possible
smell in fascinated detail.
Her horror does not extend to
mere dirt. She forgets to men,
tion the English habit of splitting
on the floor. In England floors
were covered with rusheS, either
loose or woven into mats, while
in Holland there were now rugs.
Englishmen visiting the Neither
lands would not notice the diff
ference. They continued to spit,
to the fury of their hosteSses. The
English did notice the cleanliness
of Dutch streets. AT home the
streets were so dirty (those COM
modes were emptied into the
street, that people had to wear
wooden overShoes, called pattens,
to keep out of the muck. In Hol-
land pattenS were not used be-
cause they were not needed. To-
day England is still filthy but
Holland has become almost as
bad, and the famous canals are
dark green. Often one sees light
bulbs or old sofa cushions float
ing in them.
In many respects the English
were far behind the Dutch. Nice
people in England did not eat
breakfast, but they made up for
it at dinner time with many diff
ferent roastS and many different
kinds of wine. AS late as Queen
Ame'S day one prominent adj
miral had such a good dinner that
he set the wrong course and
drove his whole fleet onto the
rocks. A pilot who dared to sug-
geSt that the course was wrong
was put in chains for his i'm
pertinence. We may hope that
the chains were removed before
the flagship sank. William Iii,
who had ben born and bred in
Holland, diSliked such hearty
eating and drinking. He stuck
firmly to potroast and beer, to
the disgust of the English nobil-
ity. Naturally, with such plebian
eating habits, the king became
most unpopular. Sometimes he
would try to make friends by
engaging in a drinking bout.
Since William was not accustom-
ed to much wine he did not do
very well, and when he got home
his men would have to carry the
sedan chair all the way upstairs
to the kings bedchamber. He
would never have made it on
foot.
On another occasion, William
iii tried to make himself popu-
lar by giving a series of gambling
parties at Kensington, which was
then we'll out Of town. London
was so unsafe that armed guards