Aunt. Yes, I say, she was, and spent her time in better Learning than ever you did. Not in reading of Fights and Battels of Dwarfs and Giants; but in writing out receipts for Broths, Possets, Caudles and Surfeit Waters, as became a good Country Gentlewoman.[23]
But, if girls could not learn pastry-making at home, or wanted a higher class of education therein, there were the forerunners of our 'Schools of Cookery' in the shape of 'Pastry Schools,' where the professor demonstrated. Here is one of them. 'To all Young Ladies at Edw. Kidder's Pastry School in little Lincoln's Inn Fields, are taught all Sorts of Pastry and Cookery, Dutch hollow works, and Butter Works, on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays in the Afternoon, and on the same days, in the Morning, at his School in Norris Street in St. James's Market, and at his School in St. Martin's Le Grand, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in the Afternoon. And at his School at St. Mary Overies Dock, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesday mornings from 9 to 12.'
But one branch of a girl's education seems never to have been neglected—her dancing. Steele says,[24] 'When a girl is safely brought from her nurse, before she is capable of forming one simple notion of anything in life, she is delivered to the hands of her dancing master, and with a collar round her neck, the pretty wild thing is taught a fantastical gravity of behaviour, and forced to a particular way of holding her head, heaving her breast, and moving with her whole body; and all this under pain of never having a husband, if she steps, looks or moves awry.'
He gives a humorous description of the dancing master:[25] 'There was Colonel Jumper's Lady, a Colonel of the Train Bands, that has a great Interest in her Parish; she recommends Mr. Trott for the prettiest Master in Town, that no Man teaches a Jigg like him, that she has seen him rise Six or Seven Capers together with the greatest Ease imaginable, and that his Scholars twist themselves more ways than the Scholars of any Master in Town; besides there is Madam Prim, the Alderman's Lady, recommends a Master of her Own Name, but she declares he is not of their Family, yet a very extraordinary Man in his Way; for, besides a very soft Air he has in Dancing, he gives them a particular Behaviour at a Tea-Table, and in presenting their Snuff Box: to twirl, flip or flirt a Fan, and how to place Patches to the best advantage, either for Fat or Lean, Long or Oval Faces.
Indeed, dancing was much thought of as an accomplishment, and more will be said of it in its place among the social habits of the time. One book alone, 'The Dancing Master' for 1713, 15th ed., contains 358 different figures and tunes for country dances. It got to be a fine art, and books were written on 'Chorography' and 'Orchesography,' illustrated with wonderful and most perplexing diagrams. A contemporary sketch of a dancing academy is interesting. It is by Budgell.[26] 'I am a Man in Years, and by an honest Industry in the World have acquired enough to give my Children a liberal Education, tho' I was an utter Stranger to it myself. My eldest Daughter, a Girl of Sixteen, has for some time past been under the Tuition of Monsieur Rigadoon, a Dancing Master in the City; and I was prevailed upon by her and her Mother to go last Night to one of his Balls. I must own to you, Sir, that having never been at any such Place before, I was very much pleased and surprized with that Part of his Entertainment which he called French Dancing. There were several young Men and Women, whose limbs seemed to have no other Motion but purely what the Musick gave them. After this Part was over, they began a Diversion which they call Country Dancing, and wherein there were also some things not disagreeable, and divers Emblematical Figures, compos'd, as I guess, by Wise Men for the Instruction of Youth.
'Amongst the rest, I observed one, which I think they call[27] Hunt the Squirrel, in which while the Woman flies, the Man pursues her; but as soon as she turns, he runs away, and she is obliged to follow.
'The Moral of this Dance does, I think, very aptly recommend Modesty and Discretion to the Female Sex.
'But as the best Institutions are liable to Corruptions, so, Sir, I must acquaint you, that very great Abuses are crept into this Entertainment. I was Amazed to see my Girl handed by, and handing young Fellows with so much Familiarity; and I could not have thought it had been in the Child. They very often made use of a most impudent and lascivious Step called Setting, which I know not how to describe to you, but by telling you that it is the very reverse of Back to Back. At last an impudent young Dog bid the Fiddlers play a Dance called Mol Patley,[28] and after having made two or three Capers, ran to his Partner, locked his Arms in hers, and whisked her round Cleverly above Ground in such manner that I, who sat upon one of the lowest Benches, saw further above her Shoe than I can think fit to acquaint you with. I could no longer endure these Enormities; wherefore, just as my Girl was going to be made a Whirligig, I ran in, seized on the Child, and carried her home.'
Poor Budgell! what would have been his feelings could he have but seen a galop, or a valse à deux temps?
We may now consider the girl's education complete, and, as she may be 'sweet seventeen' or so, she naturally would be, if either pretty or witty, 'a TOAST' among her male friends. This peculiar institution has its rise in Queen Anne's time, and is aptly described[29] as 'a new name found out by the Wits, to make a lady have the same effect, as burridge in the glass when a man is drinking.' Pope, even, could hardly make it out.