The Regency Redingote

<body> <a href="">The Regency Redingote</a><ul><li><a href=http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34967>The Orrery — The Regency Solar System in Miniature</a><br>Though I have not yet read a Regency novel in which an orrery has been introduced, these complex and often exquisite objects were very popular during that decade. Many cultured gentlemen, or gentlemen with pretensions to culture, would have had an orrery on display in their library or book room, often alongside a terrestrial globe, usually paired with a celestial globe. <br> <br> A brief history of the orrery and some personal recollections of these elegant devices ... <br> <br> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34967">[READ MORE]</a> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/item/34967"> [COMMENT]</a><br><br></li><li><a href=http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34905>Of Mazes and Labyrinths</a><br>The garden maze has made numerous appearances in a plethora of Regency novels. Often it is the setting for a clandestine romantic tryst or sometimes it is the secret meeting place for the villain and his or her henchman. But regardless of its use, the Regency garden maze was the end of a long tradition of mazes and labyrinths dating back to that very first one, at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knossos" target="_blank">Palace of Knossos</a>, designed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daedalus" target="_blank">Daedalus</a>, in which <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theseus" target="_blank">Theseus</a> vanquished the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minotaur" target="_blank">Minotaur</a>. <br> <br> A brief tracing of the path of the labyrinth and the maze from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crete" target="_blank">Crete</a> to the English Regency pleasure garden ... <br> <br> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34905">[READ MORE]</a> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/item/34905"> [1 COMMENT]</a><br><br></li><li><a href=http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34885>Regency England Had No Planet Uranus</a><br>Which is not to say that the celestial body we know today as Uranus had not been discovered by 1811. In point of fact it had, thirty years before the Prince of Wales became Regent, by a German-born composer working as the director of the orchestra of Bath, England. But this new planet was not called <i>Uranus</i> in Regency England, though that name, among others, was used on the Continent. <br> <br> The seventh planet, its name(s) and its discoverer ... <br> <br> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34885">[READ MORE]</a> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/item/34885"> [COMMENT]</a><br><br></li><li><a href=http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34884>Minutes Didn't Matter in the Regency</a><br>Really! Hardly anyone in the Regency cared about minutes. Nor had anyone, anywhere, cared about these small measurements of time, throughout all of time, until just a few short years after the death of George IV, the erstwhile Prince Regent. Since then, nearly everyone pays attention to the minutes. <br> <br> A brief summary of the measurement of time, what that meant for denizens of the Regency, and when and why the minute became important. <br> <br> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34884">[READ MORE]</a> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/item/34884"> [2 COMMENTS]</a><br><br></li><li><a href=http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34714>A Pen Knife was not always a "Pocket-Knife"</a><br>The pocket-knife which we know today has its roots in the pen knife, or scribal knife, of the Middle Ages. But not only did those early knives not fold, few of them would safely or conveniently fit in a pocket, even in their protective leather sheaths. For centuries, people of lesser means might only have one knife, which they used for everything, including mending the nibs of their quill pens, while the wealthy, or professional scribes, would have specially-made pen or quill knives to be used for only that purpose. <br> <br> By the Regency, most people owned a pen knife, and many of those knives did fold. They could therefore be safely carried in pockets or reticules. But there were also other knives which looked very like pen knives, but served different purposes. A bit about pen and other specialty folding knives of the Regency ... <br> <br> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34714">[READ MORE]</a> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/item/34714"> [COMMENT]</a><br><br></li><li><a href=http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34684>The Iron Duke was not at Waterloo</a><br>There is no doubt that Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, was in command of the allied army during that gruelingly hellish day. But at that time, he had yet to be dubbed the "Iron Duke." In fact, that epithet was given to him many years later, long after the Regency was over. <br> <br> There are a number different stories about how the Iron Duke acquired his sobriquet. In addition, there were other noble military men who had been called Iron Duke, long before Wellington was born. <br> <br><a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34684">[READ MORE]</a> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/item/34684"> [3 COMMENTS]</a><br><br></li><li><a href=http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34668>The Regency:   "So long, Long S"</a><br>As with many other curious things which have been chronicled here, the decade of the Regency saw the last lingering use of the Long S, at least in print. Most people continued to use it in those documents which they wrote by hand, regardless of its demise on the printed page. <br> <br> The Long S, what it was, its origins, its rules of usage and how it passed into history ... almost. <br> <br> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34668">[READ MORE]</a> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/item/34668"> [COMMENT]</a><br><br></li><li><a href=http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34650>Claude Glasses and Mirrors</a><br><div align="center"> <font face="Garamond,Palatino,serif,serif" size="+1"> <i> At leisure, then, I viewed, from day to day,<br> The spectacles within doors, — birds and beasts<br> Of every nature, and strange plants convened<br> From every clime; and, next, those sights that ape<br> The absolute presence of reality,<br> Expressing, as in mirror, sea and land,<br> And what earth is, and what she has to show.<br> </i> </font> </div> <br> <br> <div align="right"> <font face="Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif,serif" size="1"> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordsworth" target="_blank">William Wordsworth</a> <br> <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prelude" target="_blank">The Prelude</a></i> <br> </font> <font face="Garamond,Palatino,serif,serif" size="-2"> 1805 <br> Book 7, Lines 245 -251<br> </font> </div> <br> <br> The "mirror" to which Wordsworth refers was the Claude mirror, an optical device used by many artists and devotees of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picturesque" target="_blank">picturesque</a> during the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism" target="_blank">Romantic period</a>, which includes the decade of the Regency. <br> <br> Wordsworth did not approve of the use of either the Claude mirror or the Claude glass, both of which rendered views of the natural world in a manner he considered unnatural. But both of these devices had been popular in the later part of the eighteenth century and continued to be so in the first decades of the nineteenth century. <br> <br> So just what are Claude glasses and mirrors? <br> <br> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34650">[READ MORE]</a> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/item/34650"> [COMMENT]</a><br><br></li><li><a href=http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34649>Mouth-to-Mouth Banned in the Regency</a><br>Perhaps abandoned is a more appropriate description of the fate of this live-saving practice by the medical community in the early years of the Regency. <br> <br> Surely I must be mistaken, as mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, that which the English call mouth-to-mouth ventilation, was not known until the mid-twentieth century? Sadly, there is no mistake. How this happened ... <br> <br> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34649">[READ MORE]</a> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/item/34649"> [COMMENT]</a><br><br></li><li><a href=http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34648>Bookish Animals</a><br>This is rather off topic, in terms of the Regency, but not if you love books, as I do. I spend a lot of time with books, and have found a whole zoo of animals which makes working with books more convenient, as well as charmingly whimsical. <br> <br> If you are a book lover, or know one for whom you are seeking a special gift, then perhaps one of these bookish little critters might be just the thing. <br> <br> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=34648">[READ MORE]</a> <a href="http://quikonnex.com/channel/item/34648"> [2 COMMENTS]</a><br><br></li></ul> </body>