Whereas it is reported that Mrs. Overing who keeps a Boarding School at Bethnal Green near Hackney, is leaving off; this is to give Notice that the said Report is false, if not Malicious. And that she continues to take sober young Gentlewomen to board and teach whatever is necessary to the Accomplishment of that sex.
The second one reads,
Mrs. Elizabeth Tutchin continues to keep her school at Highgate, notwithstanding Reports to the contrary. Where young Gentlewomen may be soberly Educated, and taught all sorts of Learning fit for young Gentlewomen.[378]
In The Levellers a dialogue between two young ladies, we have an account of the education given at most of these schools. One of the young ladies says:
You know my father was a tradesman, and lived very well by his traffick; and I, being beautiful, he thought nature had already given me part of my portion, and therefore he would add a liberal education, that I might be a complete gentlewoman; away he sent me to the boarding school; there I learned to dance and sing; to play on the bass viol, virginals, spinet, and guitar. I learned to make wax work, japan, paint upon glass, to raise paste, make sweetmeats, sauces, and everything that was genteel and fashionable.[379]
One element here indicated seems to have held a fairly permanent place, and that is some trifling form of hand-work. A book published in 1671 gives a hint as to the nature of this work. It is entitled Four hundred new sorts of Birds, Beasts, Flowers, Fruits, Fish, Flyes, Worms, Landskips, Ovals, and Histories, etc. Lively coloured for all sorts of Gentlewomen and School-Mistresses Works. Many of the kinds of work with which women attempted to get rid of their leisure were apparently taught in the schools. All sorts of needlework seem to have been included in the necessary subjects. The interest in samplers is shown by a reference in The Tatler, April 19, 1709, to an "excellent discourse" by "Mrs. Arabella Manly, School-Mistress at Hackney," entitled An Essay on the Invention of Samplers, communicated by Mrs. Judith Bagford with an account of her Collections for the same.[380]
In 1714 a "Venerable Correspondent" wrote to The Spectator that in her day young women "Worked Beds, Chairs, and Hangings," and urged The Spectator to recommend a renewal of these activities. The humorous response is hardly an exaggerated statement of the great pieces of work undertaken by the women of the seventeenth century:
What a delightful Entertainment must it be to the Fair Sex, whom their native Modesty, and the Tenderness of Men towards them, exempts from Publick Business, to pass their hours in imitating Fruits and Flowers, and transplanting all the Beauties of Nature into their own Dress, or raising a new Creation in their Closets and Apartments. How pleasing is the Amusement of walking among the Shades and Groves planted by themselves, in surveying Heroes slain by their Needle, or little Cupids which they have brought into the World without Pain.
This is, methinks, the most proper way wherein a Lady can shew a fine Genius, and I cannot forbear wishing, that several Writers of that Sex had chosen to apply themselves rather to Tapestry than Rhime. Your Pastoral Poetesses may vent their Fancy in Rural Landskips, and place despairing Shepherds under silken Willows, or drown them in a Stream of Mohair.... How memorable would that Matron be, who should have it Inscribed upon her Monument, "That she wrought out the whole Bible in Tapestry, and died in a good old Age, after having covered three hundred Yards of Wall in the Mansion-House."[381]
In the eighteenth century embroidery and tapestry are still an occupation, but other and less tedious works partially supplant them. Pope's Grotto was not an isolated curiosity. The Spectator suggests the part women were taking in the manufacture of grottoes: