Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

Most money was in the hands of merchants and
professionals. New ports, new frontiers, new ventures,
all provided English businessmen with immense opportunity
to make money. Money was venture capital, investment,
power, but it was not a bottom line on a bank account.
It was not cash in the pocket. Pocket money, spending
money was not yet en vogue, as shops and shopping were
still in their infancy. Money made men rich; but, for
purposes other than business, money held little reward.
Money was, however, the first step to real power, for it
could buy land. 2
One of the Civil War's outcomes was the formation of
the Tory and Whig parties, which would change the
structure of the House of Commons, endowing it with its
recognizably modern features. Sitting for election to
the House of Commons in the eighteenth century meant that
a man must be a landowner or have a title. Eventually,
having both was the best solution. The king often
conferred titles in order to influence crucial votes,
2 Two legal authorities are vital to the foundation of this study.
Eileen Spring has written widely and wisely about the effects of
strict settlement in families from the 1500s to the 1800s, and John
Habbakuk has done the same, though well before Spring. Of the
literary critics who are now making inroads into the influence of
economics and law on eighteenth-century literature, Sandra Sherman,
April London, Nancy Armstrong and Susan Greenfield are important for
highlighting economic influences and gender issues in the early
novel.