380 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



every one was intimately known, only asked enough guests to make themselves 

 thoroughly comfortable over the cards. Much the same alteration was observable 

 at Court. Instead of select and small drawing-rooms once a week, the custom of 

 three or four huge and ill-regulated gatherings each season began ; Parliament met 

 as late as four in the afternoon, which was the hour that used to mark not only 

 dinner but cessation of all business ; the change was great to dinner between seven 

 and eight of an evening, and most of the entertainment done by candlelight. 



Even more striking were the parallel developments Lady Susan observes in 

 manners and in language. Rudeness and carelessness became the fashion, perhaps 

 because duelling grew rarer as the nineteenth century grew older. " Every man, 

 tradesman or farmer, is Esquire, and every prentice girl a young lady. . . There 

 are fewer ladies good horsewomen owing to their driving much in open carriages, 

 which make them greater rovers about the kingdom than formerly." New phrases 

 came in, too, which showed exactly the reverse tendency, the " delicacy " which 

 Swift satirised when he made his famous definition of a "nice" man. "No one," 

 says Lady Susan, "can say ' breeding,' or ' with child,' or 'lying-in.' ' In the family 

 way' and 'confinement' have taken their place. ' Cholic ' and ' bowells ' are 

 exploded words. ' Stomach ' signifies everything . . . . ' Fair Cyprians ' and 

 ' tender ' or ' interesting connexions ' have succeeded to ' women on the town ' and 

 ' kept mistresses." Virtue, in fact, might be pretty much the same ; but character 

 was certainly "much less attended to." 



Lady Susan may have looked with toleration at some lady-charioteers of Brighton, 

 Mrs. Sergison, coming in at full-speed from Cuckfield, or Miss Elliott driving a team 

 of spanking greys out of the gates of Brighton Place. But what her opinions could 

 have been concerning Letty Lade we can only faintly surmise, and it may be doubted 

 whether even her admiration for a smart horsewoman would have led her to forgive 

 the fascinating Miss Alicia Meynell, who, as Mrs. Thornton, rode two famous 

 matches in 1804 and 1805, and is celebrated by contemporary poetry in the following 

 laudatory stanza : 



" With spirits like fire see her mount the gay prad, 

 And the cheers and the smiles make her heart light and glad. 

 Mrs. Thornton's the fav'rite through thick and through thin, 

 And the swells and the jockeys all bet that she'll win." 



On the first occasion, on the 25th of August, at York, she rode Colonel 

 Thornton's chestnut Vinagrillo (aged) against Mr. Flint's Brown Tkornvillc, by 



