Spinets

Tis the season for Christmas music to be on ad nauseum.  One song that I keep hearing recently is We Need a Little Christmas which contains a line about singing carols at the spinet.  So in the spirit of the season let's look at the beauty that is this lesser-known musical instrument.

Spinets are the harpsichord's less popular sister...well in terms of notoriety at least.  They sound just like a harpsichord but the difference lies in that, unlike their big sister, they only have one set of strings so are a little more simple (check out this video of my colleague playing a harpsichord if you're not quite sure what I mean). Spinets are also smaller and tend to be 'bentside,' meaning they are a bit triangular and fit conveniently against a wall.  They are basically the basically the upright piano to the harpsichord's grand.  Therefore, if you weren't raking in Mr Darcy's income, you may have still been able to afford a spinet so as your daughters could tick off 'music' on their accomplished young lady checklist.  Despite being slightly more middle-class (if you will) spinet craftsmen still created some glorious pieces; so without further ado, let's fill our eyes with them.

Bowie, Venetian Masquerades, and Designer Clothes

...What more could a girl want?  Louis Vuitton have taken a brash marketing move in directly targeting ME for their new campaign.

Does anyone else relate to the protagonist in this? Don't we all do this when we visit historic sites?

Quotables

"Lady Palmerston, you know, has always called you Sir Bashful Constant, as being in love with your own wife, and I assure you I feel very proud of this particularity."

-Lady Elliot in a letter to her husband, Sir George Elliot, April 1789

Forbidden feathers

On June 1, 1785 Eliza Sheridan wrote of a visit to the theatre where, as usual, eyes were mostly on those off the stage:

'The King, Queen, and the Three Princesses with two of the younger childred occupied two Boxes fronting the Orchestra. The Duchess of Devonshire and all the women of Fashion in a gallery near them...With regard to the company the Women appeared to disadvantage as being forbid Hats and Feathers they had almost uniformly put on the most disfiguring head-dress I ever saw — A Mob of a most immense size, simply illustrated with blue or yellow ribbons — this over friz'd Heads and sallow complexions had a very bad effect — a few with fair skins and clear brown hair bore the disguise tollerably.'