John Hobart Caunter

John Hobart Caunter (c. 1793 or 21 July 1794[lower-alpha 1] – 14 November 1851), was an English cleric and writer. Serving briefly in India as a cadet, he entered the Church and was for 19 years the Incumbent Minister of Portland Chapel (later St. Paul's) in Marylebone, London. He wrote chiefly on Biblical subjects and on India, his best-known work being a collection of tales, The Romance of History. India (1836).

John Hobart Caunter
Born(1794-07-21)21 July 1794
Dittisham, Devon, Kingdom of Great Britain
Died14 November 1851(1851-11-14) (aged 57)
Marylebone, Middlesex, United Kingdom
NationalityBritish
SpouseMatilda Killick (1st), Caroline Bartlett (2nd)

Life

John Hobart was born at the rectory of Dittisham, a village in South Devon where his maternal grandfather John Hutchings was the rector.[1] Hobart's family were Devonshire gentry; he was the second son of George Caunter of Staverton and Harriett Georgina, née Hutchings, of Dittisham. His father went to the East when his son was one year old[2] and became acting superintendent of Prince of Wales Island - today Penang, Malaysia. His wife soon joined him (and died there in childbirth about 1800),[3] while Hobart stayed in England. His middle (and primary) name came from his godfather, Lord Hobart.[4]

Caunter was educated at the Royal College, Jersey. He was then sent to the East India Company Military Seminary which in 1809 had opened in Addiscombe, Surrey, and went to India as a cadet to the 34th Foot.[5][6] On his way there he took up a short residence at British-controlled Madeira in 1810.[7] He probably arrived in India in the latter part of 1811, his commission as ensign being dated 25 October of that year. He resigned from the Bombay establishment of the East India Company on 21 January 1814 and sailed back to England, stopping in Mauritius.[8][9][10] While a minor he wrote poems that were collected in The Cadet, published in London in 1814; in the preface he cautions that the title poem paints India "in no very flattering colours". He goes on to state in the third person that he left England "chiefly induced by the dear idea of meeting a father, whom, since the earliest period of infancy, he had but once seen : — shortly after his arrival he heard of his death : — he discovered, much to his disappointment, nothing on the Continent of Asia to interest him".[11]

Matriculating at Peterhouse College, Cambridge in 1817, Caunter obtained the degree of Bachelor of Divinity in 1828.[12] He was ordained a deacon in York in 1824 and a priest in London in 1827, becoming Perpetual Curate of St Paul's Chapel, Foley Place, Marylebone (1825–44) and of Portland Chapel (later St Paul's) (1836–43).[13] He was, according to his entry in Alumni Cantabrigienses, "[w]ell-known in London as the fashionable preacher of his day." From 1844 to 1846 he was Rector of Hailsham, Sussex, but he resigned this rectorate "having made a bad exchange" and being "overwhelmed with dilapidations".[14] From 1846 to 1848 he had a lease on the proprietary chapel, St. James Episcopal, at Kennington. In this period he suffered from ill health.[15] From 1848 until his death (in Marylebone, where he kept a residence) he served as Curate at Prittlewell, Essex.

Caunter was Domestic Chaplain to the Earl of Thanet.[16][17] He bore arms Barry of six, or and gules, thirteen bezants counter-changed 3, 2, 3, 2, 3. His crest was a naked arm erect, couped at the elbow holding a branch ppr. His motto was "Quam non torret hyems" (As much as winter does not scorch).[18][19]

Works

Caunter's obituary in The Annual Register notes that he "had considerable literary reputation".[20] A brief obituary in Harper's Magazine stated: "Eighteen years ago this gentleman's appearances in the world of ephemeral literature were frequent—and fairly successful."[21] Caunter was on intimate terms with authors such as Mrs. Caroline Norton, with whom he edited The Court Magazine and Belle Assemblée,[22] Basil Hall, John Galt and others.[23] He was especially prolific in the 1830s, writing fiction and non-fiction on a variety of subjects in a range of genres. He contributed reviews, stories and serials to such general-interest magazines as The Athenaeum and The Gentleman's Magazine.[24]

His play, St. Leon: A Drama. In Three Acts (1835), is a dramatisation of William Godwin's 1799 Gothic novel St. Leon.[25] Caunter's own novel, The Fellow Commoner (1836), first appeared partially as a serial in The Court Magazine under the title 'Remarkable escapes of a predestinated rogue'.[26] It is a picaresque novel with Christian theology mixed in about James (Jemmy) Dillon, a London youth from a dysfunctional background who is orphaned and is taught by an elderly protectress to believe that he is predestined to heaven. Dillon embarks on a career as a wandering thief, and a gipsy girl from an equally dysfunctional background, Phœbe Burrows, becomes his romantic interest. A German translation, Der Spiessgesell, was published in 1837 and an American edition in 1840.

Caunter's voluminous religious writings include a two-volume commentary on the first five books of the Bible from a poetic perspective (The Poetry of the Pentateuch, 1839) and an annotated edition of the Bible (1840). Caunter's Familiar Lectures to Children (1835), his abridgement of Lectures to Children (1834) by the American theologian John Todd, appeared in a Dutch translation between 1835 and 1839, which was characterised by its publisher as a "very popular work for children".[27]

Writings on India

Caunter became best known for The Romance of History. India, which first appeared in three volumes in 1836. It was part of a series, The Romance of History, in which different writers offered tales of adventure and romance set - besides India - in England, France, Spain and Italy. Caunter's work consists of 15 romanticised retellings of episodes from the early Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent. Each story is preceded by a historical summary.[28][29] The book served as the basis for Aitihasik Upanyas (1857) by the Bengal writer Bhudev Mukhopadhyay, which consists of a story, 'Saphal svapna', based closely on Caunter's story 'The Traveller's Dream', as well as the first historical novel written in Bengal, Anguriya Binimay, based on Caunter's story 'The Mahratta Chief'.[30][31] Another Bengal writer, Krishna Kamal Bhattacharya, borrowed from Caunter's story 'The Pariah' for his novel Durakankher Britha Bhraman (1858).[32]

Between 1834 and 1840 a luxury leather-bound series of seven volumes appeared, The Oriental Annual, or Scenes in India, some of the volumes being titled The Oriental Annual - Lives of the Moghul Emperors, Eastern Legendary Tales and Oriental Romances and Caunter's and Daniell's Oriental Annual or scenes in India. It purported to be an account by Caunter of his travels in India with the painter and printmaker William Daniell (1769-1837), with engravings on the basis of drawings and pictures made by Daniell for the first five volumes and, for the final two, engravings by Thomas Bacon, F.S.A, from drawings by other artists.[33] Volumes from this series were presented to Princess Victoria of Kent, the later Queen Victoria, by her mother in 1834, 1835 an 1836 and are currently in the collection of Kensington Palace.[34][35][36] A French translation in three volumes by P.J. Auguste Urbain appeared from 1834 to 1836.[37]

A number of 20th-century commentators have established that Caunter did not actually accompany Daniell on his travels. The latter had been in India from 1786 to 1794, travelling with his uncle Thomas Daniell; they had worked on a series of prints and William had kept a detailed diary. Caunter was not born until the year the Daniells returned to England. The Calcutta Historical Society wrote in 1923: "... Caunter's account of his alleged wanderings ... is based in the primary degree upon notes and other information furnished by William Daniell himself."[38] In 1962 the Smithsonian Institution noted: "Caunter, a friend of William Daniell, compiled these partly fictitious narratives from Daniell's Journal and oral recollections, adding impressions based on his own experiences in India."[39][lower-alpha 2]

Critical views

On The Romance of History. India, The Asiatic Journal wrote: "We think Mr. Caunter might have been more happy in his selections; nevertheless, there is in these volumes abundant food for those who love to indulge their fancy in the day-dreams of historical romance, and to whom the gorgeous apparatus of Asiatic courts ... [has] more attractions than the sober, mechanical movements of European society."[41] The Court Magazine in its review spoke of "tales of stirring interest, and written with great power."[42]

B. Sprague Allen in his article 'William Godwin and the Stage' (1920) considered Caunter's stage adaptation of Godwin's novel St. Leon to be a failure: "Caunter, in dramatizing Godwin's novel, has stripped it of its humanitarian significance. All that he retains are the melodramatic elements, the familiar features of a sensational Gothic romance."[43]

The Poetry of the Pentateuch (1939), in which Caunter argues that specific principles of prosody and poetic construction are at work in the Hebrew of the Pentateuch, was praised in a review by Chambers' Edinburgh Journal: "Mr Caunter ... [leaves] nothing further to be wished for with respect to grave critical commentary, while, at the same time, the well-known charms of the author's style ... render the work an acceptable one to the mere lover of elegant literature."[44] The Monthly Chronicle considered Caunter's study to display "an extent of erudition and a severe refinement of taste, which have rarely been equalled by any writer within the memory of the living generation."[45]

Caunter's most substantial poetic work is The Island Bride. In Six Cantos (1830), a tragic poem in 397 Spenserian stanzas about the tragic fate of two lovers on an island in the Indian Ocean. According to the author's preface, the poem's groundwork was provided by an encounter he had on arriving in Mauritius on his way back to England from India: "there was an old man, with silvery locks, residing on a small estate a few miles distant from the town of Port Louis, who was an object of universal sympathy, having become deranged in consequence of the loss of an only daughter."[46] Literary historian David Hill Radcliffe of Virginia Tech sees influences from Campbell, Byron, Milton, Shakespeare and Southey, and calls the work "stuffed-owl poetry of the highest order; readers with the pertinacity necessary to reach the last canto will encounter truly wonderful things." Critics at the time of publication wrote: "if he has not equalled a poem which ranks among the first in the English language, he has at least done that which ought to establish his reputation" (Morning Post, 15 April 1830); "A little romantic tale, with few incidents, and those chiefly of the domestic kind, but abundance of gentle sentiment and charming scenery" (Monthly Magazine, June 1830); "The work before us has a touching interest in its plot, and, generally speaking, a smoothness and sweetness of versification ... Its faults are — too much diffuseness, too great an amplitude of description, too frequent an intrusion of weak similes and prosaic lines ... and a vein of moralizing" (La Belle Assemblee, July 1830).[47]

Caunter's writings at times drew widely divergent critical responses, with The Literary Gazette decrying his An Inquiry into the History and Character of Rahab (1850) as an "Injurious literal interpretation of Scripture" ("the reverend author appears to have fallen desperately in love with "Rahab, the Harlot" of Scripture; and she has led him a pretty dance"), whereas The Christian Witness, and Church Members' Magazine called it "a mass of good reading, calculated to interest, instruct, and edify" and stated: "The work throughout displays vigorous thinking, clothed in adequate expression."[48][49]

Family

John Hobart Caunter married a widow, Matilda Killick née Crowther (c.1772-1838), in London in 1815.[50][51] She was originally from Devon; her mother was a Caunter.[52] After her death he married Caroline Bartlett (c.1819-1902) in London in 1845.[53] Three children were born from this second marriage. After Caunter's death a public subscription was opened for the relief of his widow and children;[54] Caroline remarried ten years later and died in Australia.[55][56]

Caunter's older brother, George Henry Caunter (1791-1843), was an early musical critic and wrote in some of the same periodicals as Hobart.[57] Among Hobart's other siblings was a younger brother, Richard McDonald Caunter (1798-1879), who was also a minister in the Church of England and wrote Attila, a Tragedy; and Other Poems (1832).[58]

Bibliography

Several of John Hobart Caunter's works were (initially) published anonymously.

Poetry

Play

Prose fiction
  • The Romance of History. India (stories, 3 vols.) (London: Edward Churton, 1836). Republished in a single volume by Frederick Warne & Co., both in the Chandos Classics under its original title and under the title Legendary and Romantic Tales of Indian History (London)
  • The Fellow Commoner (novel, 3 vols.) (London: Edward Churton, 1836). Republished in two vols. as The Fellow Commoner: or Remarkable Escapes of a Predestinated Rogue (Philadelphia: E.L. Carey & A. Hart, 1838); translated into German as Der Spiessgesell (Leipzig: Theodor Fischer, 1837)

Non-fiction

Notes
  1. While the 'Dictionary of National Biography' gives 21 July 1794 as the date of birth, the parish record has a baptism date of 29 June 1793 (Ancestry.com. England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014).
  2. Author Maurice Shellim concurred in 1970: "It is evident that William Daniell supplied the material for the narrative and that Caunter altered it so that it would appear that he was with the artists on their travels."[40]

References
  1. Philip Benton (1888). The History of Rochford Hundred, Vol. II. A. Harrington. p. 603. ISBN 9780951658710.
  2. A Late Resident in the East [John Hobart Caunter] (1814). The Cadet; A Poem, In Six Parts: Containing Remarks on British India. To Which Is Added, Egbert and Amelia; In Four Parts: With Other Poems (2 vols.). Robert Jennings.
  3. F. Lyde Caunter (1930). Caunter Family History. Solicitors' Law Stationery Society. p. 74.
  4. F. Lyde Caunter (1930). Caunter Family History. Solicitors' Law Stationery Society. p. 76.
  5. Philip Benton (1888). The History of Rochford Hundred, Vol. II. A. Harrington. p. 604. ISBN 9780951658710.
  6. Leslie Stephen (ed.) (1921–1922). Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  7. A Late Resident in the East [John Hobart Caunter] (1814). The Cadet; A Poem, In Six Parts: Containing Remarks on British India. To Which Is Added, Egbert and Amelia; In Four Parts: With Other Poems (2 vols.). Robert Jennings.
  8. N. S. Ramaswami (1979). Indian Monuments. Abhinav Publications.
  9. John Hobart Caunter (1830). The Island Bride. In Six Cantos. Edward Bull.
  10. "The Daniells in India". Bengal Past & Present. Calcutta: Calcutta Historical Society. January–June 1923.
  11. A Late Resident in the East [John Hobart Caunter] (1814). The Cadet; A Poem, In Six Parts: Containing Remarks on British India. To Which Is Added, Egbert and Amelia; In Four Parts: With Other Poems (2 vols.). Robert Jennings.
  12. David Hill Radcliffe. "Rev. John Hobart Caunter (1794-1851)". Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
  13. J.A. Venn (comp.) (1922–1954). Alumni Cantabrigienses. Cambridge University Press.
  14. Philip Benton (1888). The History of Rochford Hundred, Vol. II. A. Harrington. p. 604. ISBN 9780951658710.
  15. Philip Benton (1888). The History of Rochford Hundred, Vol. II. A. Harrington. p. 604. ISBN 9780951658710.
  16. Leslie Stephen (ed.) (1921–1922). Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  17. John Hobart Caunter (1839). The Poetry of the Pentateuch. E. Churton.
  18. F. Lyde Caunter (1930). Caunter Family History. Solicitors' Law Stationery Society. pp. 76–77.
  19. Fairbairn (1905). Book of Crests of the Families of Great Britain and Ireland. T.C. & E.C. Jack. p. 105.
  20. "Deaths. 1851". The Annual Register, or a view of the History and Politics of the Year 1852. London: F. & J. Rivington. 1853.
  21. "Literary Notices". Harper's New Monthly Magazine. Volume IV. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1852.
  22. Betty T. Bennett. The Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Volume II. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 165.
  23. Philip Benton (1888). The History of Rochford Hundred, Vol. II. A. Harrington. p. 605. ISBN 9780951658710.
  24. "The Curran Index". The Curran Index. The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals.
  25. John Hobart Caunter (1835). St. Leon: A Drama. In Three Acts. Edward Churton.
  26. Samuel Halkett and John Laing, M.A. (1882). A Dictionary of the Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature of Great Britain. William Paterson.
  27. B. Meijlink (ed.) (1839). Iets over de Genees- en Heelkracht van het Koude Water. J.F. Thieme.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  28. Leslie Stephen (ed.) (1921–1922). Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  29. John Hobart Caunter (1836). The Romance of History. India. Edward Churton.
  30. Sisir Kumar Das (1991). A History of Indian Literature 1800-1910. Western Impact: Indian Response. Sahitya Akademi. pp. 115–116.
  31. Dutta, Nilanjana (2009). "Scott of Bengal": Examining the European Legacy in the Historical Novels of Bankimchandra Chatterjee (PDF) (Thesis). Retrieved 27 December 2020.
  32. Dutta, Nilanjana (2009). "Scott of Bengal": Examining the European Legacy in the Historical Novels of Bankimchandra Chatterjee (PDF) (Thesis). Retrieved 27 December 2020.
  33. "The Daniells in India". Bengal Past & Present. Calcutta: Calcutta Historical Society. January–June 1923.
  34. "The Oriental annual ; or scenes in India / by the Rev. Hobart Caunter ; [illustrated by] William Daniell". The Royal Collection Trust. The Royal Collection Trust.
  35. "The Oriental annual ; or scenes in India / by the Rev. Hobart Caunter ; [illustrated by] William Daniell". The Royal Collection Trust. The Royal Collection Trust.
  36. "The Oriental annual ; lives of the Moghul emperors / by the Rev. Hobart Caunter ; [illustrated by] William Daniell". The Royal Collection Trust. The Royal Collection Trust.
  37. John Hobart Caunter (1834–1836). Tableaux pittoresques de l'Inde. Fd. Bellizard & Cie.CS1 maint: date format (link)
  38. "Bengal Past & Present". Bengal Past & Present Vol.25. Calcutta: Calcutta Historical Society. January–June 1923.
  39. "The Daniells in India". The Daniells in India, Issue 11. India: Smithsonian Institution. Traveling Exhibition Service. 1962.
  40. The Daniells in India and The Waterfall at Papanasam. The Statesman Ltd. 1970. pp. 48–49.
  41. "Mr. Caunter's "Romance of Indian History."". Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British and Foreign India, China, and Australasia. Vol. XIX. London: Wm. H. Allen and Co. January–April 1836.
  42. "Romance of History. India. By the Rev. Hobart Caunter, B.D. 3 vols. Churton". The Court Magazine. Vol. VIII. London: Edward Churton. January–June 1836.
  43. "William Godwin and the Stage". Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, Volume 35, Issue 3. 1920. p. 363.
  44. "The Poetry of the Pentateuch". Chambers' Edinburgh Journal. Volume VIII. Numbers CCCLXV. to CCCCXVI. W. S. Orr and Co. 1840. p. 197.
  45. "The last "books" of summer". The Monthly Chronicle; a National Journal of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art. Vol. IV. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans. July–December 1839. p. 282.
  46. John Hobart Caunter (1830). The Island Bride. In Six Cantos. Edward Bull.
  47. David Hill Radcliffe. "The Island Bride. In Six Cantos. By The Rev. Hobart Caunter, B.D." Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
  48. "Injurious literal interpretation of Scripture". The Literary Gazette and Journal of the Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c. London. 29 June 1850.
  49. "An Inquiry into the History and Character of Rahab". The Christian Witness, and Church Members' Magazine, Volume VII. London: John Snow. 1850.
  50. Westminster, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935. City of Westminster Archives Centre; London, England; Westminster Church of England Parish Registers; Reference: STC/PR/5/13
  51. London Metropolitan Archives; London, England; Reference Number: p89/mry1/185
  52. England, Births and Christenings, 1538-1975. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013.
  53. London Metropolitan Archives; London, England; Reference Number: p90/pan1/087
  54. "Rev. John Hobart Caunter". The Gentleman's Magazine. London: William Pickering; John Bowyer Nichols and Son. June 1852.
  55. Ancestry.com. London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1932 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
  56. Ancestry.com. Australia, Death Index, 1787-1985 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
  57. "Obituary". The Gentleman's Magazine. London: William Pickering; John Bowyer Nichols and Son. 1843.
  58. J.A. Venn (comp.) (1922–1954). Alumni Cantabrigienses. Cambridge University Press.
  59. T.J. Carty (2000). A Dictionary of Literary Pseudonyms in the English Language. Routledge. p. 344. ISBN 9781579582098.
  60. Philip Benton (1888). The History of Rochford Hundred, Vol. II. A. Harrington. p. 605. ISBN 9780951658710.
  61. Philip Benton (1888). The History of Rochford Hundred, Vol. II. A. Harrington. p. 605. ISBN 9780951658710.
  62. "A Bard's tribute to The Queen / by Rev. John Hobart Caunter". The Royal Collection Trust. The Royal Collection Trust.
  63. T.J. Carty (2000). A Dictionary of Literary Pseudonyms in the English Language. Routledge. p. 344. ISBN 9781579582098.
  64. Philip Benton (1888). The History of Rochford Hundred, Vol. II. A. Harrington. p. 605. ISBN 9780951658710.
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