Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron

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MR. WORDSWORTH OR SIR WALTER SCOTT SHOULD NEVER struggle, as I do, to describe Spring in Chawton: the delight of slipping on one’s bonnet, in the fresh, new hour before breakfast, and securing about one’s shoulders the faded pelisse of jaconet that has served one so nobly for countless Aprils past; of walking alone into the morning, as birdsong and tugging breezes swell about one’s head; of the catch in one’s throat at the glimpse of a fox, hurrying home to her kits waiting curled and warm in the den beneath the Park’s great oaks. Spring — in all its rains and clinging mud, its sharp green scents fullblown on the nose, and a newborn foal in the pasture below the Great House!

And in this glorious season, too, a splendid change has come upon the little Hampshire village I call my own — for my elder brother, the rich and distinguished Mr. Edward Austen Knight, as he and all his numerous progeny must now stile themselves, having acceded to his benefactor’s surname as well as his estates in Kent and Hampshire — has descended in state upon Chawton Great House, with his full retinue of trusted servants, under-gardeners, grooms, coachmen, and what I am pleased to call Edward’s Harem: a hopeful clutch of motherless daughters, most too young to marry and still at home.

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