Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print General Editors: Professor Anne K. Mellor and Professor Clifford Siskin Editorial Board: Isobel Armstrong, Birkbeck & IES; John Bender, Stanford; Alan Bewell, Toronto; Peter de Bolla, Cambridge; Robert Miles, Victoria; Claudia L. Johnson, Princeton; Saree Makdisi, UCLA; Felicity Nussbaum, UCLA; Mary Poovey, NYU; Janet Todd, Cambridge Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print will fea- ture work that does not fit comfortably within established boundaries— whether between periods or between disciplines. Uniquely, it will combine efforts to engage the power and materiality of print with explorations of gender, race, and class. By attending as well to intersections of literature with the visual arts, medicine, law, and science, the series will enable a l arge- scale rethinking of the origins of modernity. Titles include: Melanie Bigold WOMEN OF LETTERS, MANUSCRIPT CIRCULATION, AND PRINT AFTERLIVES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Elizabeth Rowe, Catharine Cockburn, and Elizabeth Carter Katey Castellano THE ECOLOGY OF BRITISH ROMANTIC CONSERVATISM, 1790– 1837 Noah Comet ROMANTIC HELLENISM AND WOMEN WRITERS Ildiko Csengei SYMPATHY, SENSIBILITY AND THE LITERATURE OF FEELING IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Alexander Dick ROMANTICISM AND THE GOLD STANDARD Money, Literature, and Economic Debate in Britain 1 790– 1830 Elizabeth Eger BLUESTOCKINGS Women of Reason from Enlightenment to Romanticism Ina Ferris and Paul Keen (editors) BOOKISH HISTORIES Books, Literature, and Commercial Modernity, 1700– 1900 John Gardner POETRY AND POPULAR PROTEST Peterloo, Cato Street and the Queen Caroline Controversy George C. Grinnell THE AGE OF HYPOCHONDRIA Interpreting Romantic Health and Illness Anthony S. Jarrells BRITAIN’S BLOODLESS REVOLUTIONS 1688 and the Romantic Reform of Literature Emrys Jones FRIENDSHIP AND ALLEGIANCE IN EIGHTEENTH- CENTURY LITERATURE The Politics of Private Virtue in the Age of Walpole Jacqueline M. Labbe WRITING ROMANTICISM Charlotte Smith and William Wordsworth, 1 784– 1807 April London LITERARY HISTORY WRITING, 1 770– 1820 Robert Miles ROMANTIC MISFITS Robert Morrison and Daniel Sanjiv Roberts (editors) ROMANTICISM AND BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE ‘An Unprecedented Phenomenon’ Catherine Packham EIGHTEENTH- CENTURY VITALISM Bodies, Culture, Politics Nicola Parsons READING GOSSIP IN EARLY EIGHTEENTH- CENTURY ENGLAND Murray G.H. Pittock MATERIAL CULTURE AND SEDITION, 1688– 1760 Treacherous Objects, Secret Places Jessica Richard THE ROMANCE OF GAMBLING IN THE EIGHTEENTH- CENTURY BRITISH NOVEL Andrew Rudd SYMPATHY AND INDIA IN BRITISH LITERATURE, 1770– 1830 Sharon Ruston CREATING ROMANTICISM Case Studies in the Literature, Science and Medicine of the 1790s Erik Simpson LITERARY MINSTRELSY, 1 770– 1830 Minstrels and Improvisers in British, Irish and American Literature Anne H. Stevens BRITISH HISTORICAL FICTION BEFORE SCOTT David Stewart ROMANTIC MAGAZINES AND METROPOLITAN LITERARY CULTURE Rebecca Tierney- Hynes NOVEL MINDS Philosophers and Romance Readers, 1 680– 1740 P. Westover NECROMANTICISM Travelling to Meet the Dead, 1 750– 1860 Esther Wohlgemut ROMANTIC COSMOPOLITANISM Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print Series Standing Order ISBN 978– 1– 4039– 3408–6 hardback 978– 1– 4039– 3409– 3 paperback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a stand- ing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England The Ecology of British Romantic Conservatism, 1790– 1837 Katey Castellano Associate Professor, James Madison University, USA Palgrave macmillan © Katey Castellano 2013 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-35419-8 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 –1 0 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-46992-5 ISBN 978-1-137-35420-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137354204 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India. Contents List of Figures vi Acknowledgements vii List of Abbreviations ix Introduction: Conservatism and the Intergenerational Imagination 1 Part I Imagination 1 Intergenerational Imagination in Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France 15 2 “Their graves are green”: Conservation in Wordsworth’s Epitaphic Ballads 37 Part II Habitation 3 Thomas Bewick’s A History of British Birds and the Politics of the Miniature 65 4 Conservation or Catastrophe: Reflexive Regionalism in Maria Edgeworth’s Irish Tales 91 5 Subsistence as Resistance: William Cobbett’s Food Politics 113 6 Anthropomorphism and the Critique of Liberal Rights in John Clare’s Enclosure Elegies 141 Epilogue 163 Notes 169 Bibliography 197 Index 211 v List of Figures 3.1 “The Newcastle Arms on a Boundary Stone,” engraving for the title page of the History of British Birds: Land Birds (1797). Courtesy of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania 75 3.2 “Winnowing Corn in a Farmyard,” engraving from the introduction to History of British Birds: Land Birds (1797). Courtesy of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania 77 3.3 “The Beggar and his Dog at the Rich Man’s Gate,” tailpiece engraving from History of British Birds: Water Birds (1804). Courtesy of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania 81 3.4 Tailpiece engraving from History of British Birds: Water Birds (1804). Courtesy of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania 88 vi Acknowledgements Many people and institutions have provided assistance and encour- agement during the development and writing of this book. My interest in Romantic conservatism began during my graduate studies at Duke University. I owe a great debt to my dissertation advisor, Thomas Pfau, who challenged me to pursue my intellectual interests in conserva- tism. Thanks are also due to Rob Mitchell, who encouraged my early ideas about the environmental implications of conservatism. Other faculty and fellow students at Duke supported my work and sharpened my thinking: Monique Allewaert, Ian Baucom, Max Brzezinski, Nihad Farooq, Cara Hersh, and Susan Thorne. My dissertation focused on the aesthetics of Romantic conservatism. This book is a new project that was written during my years at James Madison University, where colleagues supported my research by reading chapter drafts and offer- ing encouragement and knowledgeable guidance: Dabney Bankert, Dawn Goode, Laura Lewis, Chris Morris, Mark Parker, and Siân White have my gratitude. Thanks are also due to the generous community of scholars at the North American Society for the Study of Romanticism and the International Conference on Romanticism, where I presented drafts of several chapters. In particular I am indebted to the intellectual generosity and acumen of Ron Broglio, David L. Clark, David Collings, Allison Dushane, Elizabeth Fay, Michael Gamer, Noah Heringman, Scott Hess, Kevin Hutchings, Nick Mason, and Scott McEathron. Ghislaine McDayter, John Rickard, and Harold Schweizer offered insightful suggestions after a presentation at Bucknell University. For their guidance in shaping the book, I thank the editors of Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Cultures of Print, Anne Mellor and Clifford Siskin. The detailed, thoughtful suggestions of the anonymous reviewers made this a more coherent, carefully argued book. Many thanks are also due to commissioning editor Ben Doyle and his assistant Sophie Ainscough for their patient direction through the publishing process. John Pollack, Lynne Farrington, and Elton Torres at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania assisted with my research. The engravings from Thomas Bewick’s History of British Birds appear in this book due vii viii Acknowledgements to their assistance and kind permission. Research materials were also provided by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University, and the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. I am most grateful to the librarians at James Madison University’s Carrier Library, who tire- lessly facilitated my access to research materials. Without the support of Pete Bsumek, I would have been unable to complete this project; his criticism of the chapters sharpened the arguments, and the inter- generational optimism that stirs his activism inspires me. Portions of the material in the introduction and first and second chapters originally appeared in “Romantic Conservation in Burke, Wordsworth, and Wendell Berry,” SubStance #125, 40.2 (2011): 7 3– 91. © 2011 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Excerpts are reproduced courtesy of University of Wisconsin Press. List of Abbreviations A Edgeworth, The Absentee BB1 Bewick, History of British Birds: Land Birds, vol. 1 BB2 Bewick, History of British Birds: Water Birds, vol. 2 BH Clare, By Himself CE Cobbett, Cottage Economy CR Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent E Edgeworth, Ennui HQ Bewick, History of Quadrupeds LB Wordsworth and Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads M Bewick, Memoir O Edgeworth, Ormond PW Wordsworth, Prose Works R Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France SW Hazlitt, Selected Writing TPR Paine, The Paine Reader ix