Common sense has been defined by Sir Egerton Brydges, “to mean nothing more than an uneducated judgement, arising from a plain and coarse understanding, exercised upon common concerns, and rendered effective rather by experience, than by any regular process of the intellectual powers. If this,” he adds, “be the proper meaning of that quality, we cannot wonder that books are little fitted for its cultivation.” Except that there was no coarseness in his nature, this would apply to Mr. Allison. He had been bred up with the notion that it behoved him to attend to his business, and that reading formed no part of it. Nevertheless he had acquired some liking for books by looking casually now and then over the leaves of those unfortunate volumes with which the shop was continually supplied for its daily consumption.
——Many a load of criticism,
Elaborate products of the midnight toil
Of Belgian brains,1
went there; and many a tome of old law, old physic, and old divinity; old history as well; books of which many were at all times rubbish; some, which though little better, would now sell for more shillings by the page than they then cost pence by the pound; and others, the real value of which is perhaps as little known now, as it was then. Such of these as in latter years caught his attention, he now and then rescued from the remorseless use to which they had been condemned. They made a curious assortment with his wife's books of devotion or amusement, wherewith she had sometimes beguiled, and sometimes soothed the weary hours of long and frequent illness. Among the former were Scott's “Christian Life,” Bishop Bayly's “Practice of Piety,” Bishop Taylor's “Holy Living and Dying,” Drelincourt on Death, with De Foe's lying story of Mrs. Veal's ghost as a puff preliminary, and the Night Thoughts. Among the latter were Cassandra, the Guardian and Spectator, Mrs. Rowe's Letters, Richardson's Novels and Pomfret's Poems.
1 AKENSIDE.
Mrs. Allison had been able to do little for her daughter of that little, which, if her state of health and spirits had permitted, she might have done; this, therefore, as well as the more active duties of the household, devolved upon Elizabeth, who was of a better constitution in mind as well as body. Elizabeth, before she went to reside with her brother, had acquired all the accomplishments which a domestic education in the country could in those days impart. Her book of receipts, culinary and medical, might have vied with the “Queen's Cabinet Unlocked.” The spelling indeed was such as ladies used in the reign of Queen Anne, and in the old time before her, when every one spelt as she thought fit; but it was written in a well-proportioned Italian hand, with fine down-strokes and broad up-ones, equally distinct and beautiful. Her speech was good Yorkshire, that is to say, good provincial English, not the worse for being provincial, and a little softened by five and twenty years residence in London. Some sisters, who in those days kept a boarding school of the first repute in one of the midland counties, used to say, when they spoke of an old pupil, “her went to school to we.” Miss Allison's language was not of this kind,—it savoured of rusticity, not of ignorance; and where it was peculiar, as in the metropolis, it gave a raciness to the conversation of an agreeable woman.
She had been well instructed in ornamental work as well as ornamental penmanship. Unlike most fashions, this had continued to be in fashion because it continued to be of use; though no doubt some of the varieties which Taylor the Water-Poet enumerates in his praise of the Needle, might have been then as little understood as now:
Tent-work, Raised-work, Laid-work, Prest-work, Net-work.
Most curious Pearl, or rare Italian Cut-work,
Fine Fern-stitch, Finny-stitch, New-stitch and Chain-stitch,
Brave Bred-stitch, Fisher-stitch, Irish-stitch and Queen-stitch,
The Spanish-stitch, Rosemary-stitch and Maw-stitch,
The smarting Whip-stitch, Back-stitch and the Cross-stitch.
All these are good, and these we must allow;
And these are every where in practice now.
There was a book published in the Water Poet's days, with the title of “School House for the Needle;” it consisted of two volumes in oblong quarto, that form being suited to its plates “of sundry sorts of patterns and examples;” and it contained a “Dialogue in Verse between Diligence and Sloth.” If Betsey Allison had studied in this “School House,” she could not have been a greater proficient with the needle than she became under her Aunt's teaching: nor would she have been more
——versed in the arts
Of pies, puddings and tarts,2
if she had gone through a course of practical lessons in one of the Pastry Schools which are common in Scotland, but were tried without success in London, about the middle of the last century. Deborah partook of these instructions at her father's desire. In all that related to the delicacies of a country table, she was glad to be instructed, because it enabled her to assist her friend; but it appeared strange to her that Mr. Bacon should wish her to learn ornamental work, for which she neither had, nor could foresee any use. But if the employment had been less agreeable than she found it in such company, she would never have disputed, nor questioned his will.