Hours of Idleness

Abstract

No person is exposed to ridicule till he has deserved it, and if the noble lord had not published his Hours of Idleness, no human being would have guessed the quantity of time he had spent doing nothing. (The Satirist, 1807) At first sight life would appear to have been very pleasant for middle- and upper-class young people around 1800 - so long as the proceeds from tenants, trade, investment and slavery kept flowing in.1 But boredom was an ever-present enemy, and the popularity with both sexes of the craze for decorating furniture, print rooms, albums and screens is hardly surprising. Printsellers such as Rudolph Ackermann were kept busy supplying everything from decorative borders to caricature prints. In Pride and Prejudice Mr Bingley exclaims: 'It is amazing to me [...] how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished [...]. They all paint tables, cover skreens, and net purses.'2 Beau Brummell whiled away his exile in France making a six-panel screen (now lost). His biographer, Captain Jesse, describes how the picture of Byron on the screen, surrounded by flowers, had a wasp at his throat. As Jesse comments, this 'was base ingratitude on the part of Brummell, for the noble lord spoke of and would have pasted him with more charitable feeling'.3 And Byron himself, of course, owned a four-panel screen celebrating pugilism and the theatre, which was rescued by John Murray when Byron's effects were being sold in 1816, and can now be seen at Newstead Abbey. For the past two years I have been studying a small, double-sided firescreen (in a private collection) displaying a collection of scraps, poems, songs and riddles. It was made by Elizabeth Pigot who, as Byronists will know, lived in Southwell, near Nottingham, with her three brothers and their widowed mother. The family was related to several comfortably-off neighbouring families including the Bechers, Lowes and Leacrofts. In 1803 the life of this small market town was suddenly enlivened by the arrival of new neighbours, renting the recently built Burgage Manor - Mrs Catherine Byron, the fifteen-year-old Byron and their pet dogs. Readers of this journal will recall that Byron's relations with his mother were so stormy that he often sought refuge across Burgage Green at the Pigot home. Although Elizabeth was six years older, there is evidence in Byron's letters of a blossoming friendship. In August 1804 he wrote to thank her for copying bookplates with his family coat of arms and urged her to knit a watch ribbon and purse for him. In 1805 John Pigot and Byron took leading parts in the Southwell amateur theatrical productions of Richard Cumberland's The Wheel of Fortune and John Allingham's The Weathercock. Byron wrote a witty prologue and flirted with Miss Pigot's cousin, Julia Leacroft. Elizabeth had quickly discovered Byron's talent for writing poetry. They exchanged verses. She made fair copies of his poems, correcting his spelling and punctuation and encouraged him to publish them during summer 1806 as Fugitive Pieces. Elizabeth was proud of this friendship and happy to share her memories in later life with Thomas Moore and John Murray. Megan Boyes, in her invaluable book Love Without Wings, says Elizabeth regretted having 'cut up original manuscripts in Byron's own handwriting' and sending off the fragments to collectors.4 She never married and stayed in Southwell until her death in 1866. The screen consists of two double-sided, glazed panels, each 24 inches square. It is in remarkably good condition, despite water and light damage. At first sight it presents a random collection of poetry, riddles, music manuscript, quirky caricatures and watercolour sketches. Hand-coloured shells, moths and butterflies are scattered around. In the centre of one panel there is a pastoral scene. The other three each feature a 'fancy' picture by Francis Wheatley: The Rustic Lovers, The Industrious Cottager Mending Cabbage Nets and an untitled one showing a boy stealing washing from a sleeping laundress. …