their own wedding, the gentleman wore a dress sword, and the lady was armed with a fan of nearly equal dimensions.  Addison observes that ‘women are armed with fans, as men with swords, and sometimes do more execution with them.’  The graceful carriage of each weapon was considered a test of high breeding.  The clownish man was in danger of being tripped up by his sword getting between his legs: the fan held clumsily looked more of a burden than an ornament; while in the hands of an adept

it could be made to speak a language of its own. {35}  It was not everyone who felt qualified to make this public exhibition, and I have been told that those ladies who intended to dance minuets, used to distinguish themselves from others by wearing a particular kind of lappet on their head-dress.  I have heard also of another curious proof of the respect in which this dance was held.  Gloves immaculately clean were considered requisite for its due performance, while gloves a little soiled were thought good enough for a country dance; and accordingly some prudent ladies provided themselves with two pairs for their several purposes.  The minuet expired with the last century: but long after it had ceased to be danced publicly it was taught to boys and girls, in order to give them a graceful carriage.

Hornpipes, cotillons, and reels, were occasionally danced; but the chief occupation of the evening was the interminable country dance, in which all could join.  This dance presented a great show of enjoyment, but it was not without its peculiar troubles.  The ladies and gentlemen were ranged apart from each other in opposite rows, so that the

facilities for flirtation, or interesting intercourse, were not so great as might have been desired by both parties.  Much heart-burning and discontent sometimes arose as to who should stand above whom, and especially as to who was entitled to the high privilege of calling and leading off the first dance: and no little indignation was felt at the lower end of the room when any of the leading couples retired prematurely from their duties, and did not condescend to dance up and down the whole set.  We may rejoice that these causes of irritation no longer exist; and that if such feelings as jealousy, rivalry, and discontent ever touch celestial bosoms in the modern ball-room they must arise from different and more recondite sources.

I am tempted to add a little about the difference of personal habits.  It may be asserted as a general truth, that less was left to the charge and discretion of servants, and more was done, or superintended, by the masters and mistresses.  With regard to the mistresses, it is, I believe, generally understood, that at the time to which I refer, a hundred years ago, they took a personal part in the higher branches of cookery, as well as in the concoction of home-made wines, and distilling of herbs for domestic medicines, which are nearly allied to the same art.  Ladies did not disdain to spin the thread of which the household linen was woven.  Some ladies liked to wash with their own hands their choice china after breakfast or tea.  In one of my earliest child’s

books, a little girl, the daughter of a gentleman, is taught by her mother to make her own bed before leaving her chamber.  It was not so much that they had not servants to do all these things for them, as that they took an interest in such occupations.  And it must be borne in mind how many sources of interest enjoyed by this generation were then closed, or very scantily opened to ladies.  A very small minority of them cared much for literature or science.  Music was not a very common, and drawing was a still rarer, accomplishment; needlework, in some form or other, was their chief sedentary employment.

But I doubt whether the rising generation are equally aware how much gentlemen also did for themselves in those times, and whether some things that I can mention will not be a surprise to them.  Two homely proverbs were held in higher estimation in my early days than they are now—’The master’s eye makes the horse fat;’ and, ‘If you would be well served, serve yourself.’  Some gentlemen took pleasure in being their own gardeners, performing all the scientific, and some of the manual, work themselves.  Well-dressed young men of my acquaintance, who had their coat from a London tailor, would always brush their evening suit themselves, rather than entrust it to the carelessness of a rough servant, and to the risks of dirt and grease in the kitchen; for in those days servants’ halls were not common in the houses of the clergy

and the smaller country gentry.  It was quite natural that Catherine Morland should have contrasted the magnificence of the offices at Northanger Abbey with the few shapeless pantries in her father’s parsonage.  A young man who expected to have his things packed or unpacked for him by a servant, when he travelled, would have been thought exceptionally fine, or exceptionally lazy.  When my uncle undertook to teach me to shoot, his first lesson was how to clean my own gun.  It was thought meritorious on the evening of a hunting day, to turn out after dinner, lanthorn in hand, and visit the stable, to ascertain that the horse had been well cared for.  This was of the more importance, because, previous to the introduction of clipping, about the year 1820, it was a difficult and tedious work to make a long-coated hunter dry and comfortable, and was often very imperfectly done.  Of course, such things were not practised by those who had gamekeepers, and stud-grooms, and plenty of well-trained servants; but they were practised by many who were unequivocally gentlemen, and whose grandsons, occupying the same position in life, may perhaps be astonished at being told that ‘such things were.’

I have drawn pictures for which my own experience, or what I heard from others in my youth, have supplied the materials.  Of course, they cannot be universally applicable.  Such details varied in various circles, and were changed very gradually;

nor can I pretend to tell how much of what I have said is descriptive of the family life at Steventon in Jane Austen’s youth.  I am sure that the ladies there had nothing to do with the mysteries of the stew-pot or the preserving-pan; but it is probable that their way of life differed a little from ours, and would have appeared to us more homely.  It may be that useful articles, which would not now be produced in drawing-rooms, were hemmed, and marked, and darned in the old-fashioned parlour.  But all this concerned only the outer life; there was as much cultivation and refinement of mind as now, with probably more studied courtesy and ceremony of manner to visitors; whilst certainly in that family literary pursuits were not neglected.

I remember to have heard of only two little things different from modern customs.  One was, that on hunting mornings the young men usually took their hasty breakfast in the kitchen.  The early hour at which hounds then met may account for this; and probably the custom began, if it did not end, when they were boys; for they hunted at an early age, in a scrambling sort of way, upon any pony or donkey that they could procure, or, in default of such luxuries, on foot.  I have been told that Sir Francis Austen, when seven years old, bought on his own account, it must be supposed with his father’s permission, a pony