s at
the few specimens still remaining of coach-building in the last century,
it strikes one that the chief object of the builders must have been to
combine the greatest possible weight with the least possible amount of
accommodation.

The family lived in close intimacy with two cousins, Edward and Jane
Cooper, the children of Mrs. Austen's eldest sister, and Dr. Cooper, the
vicar of Sonning, near Reading. The Coopers lived for some years at
Bath, which seems to have been much frequented in those days by clergymen
retiring from work. I believe that Cassandra and Jane sometimes visited
them there, and that Jane thus acquired the intimate knowledge of the
topography and customs of Bath, which enabled her to write 'Northanger
Abbey' long before she resided there herself. After the death of their
own parents, the two young Coopers paid long visits at Steventon. Edward
Cooper did not live undistinguished. When an undergraduate at Oxford, he
gained the prize for Latin hexameters on 'Hortus Anglicus' in 1791; and
in later life he was known by a work on prophecy, called 'The Crisis,'
and other religious publications, especially for several volumes of
Sermons, much preached in many pulpits in my youth. Jane Cooper was
married from her uncle's house at Steventon, to Captain, afterwards Sir
Thomas Williams, under whom Charles Austen served in several ships. She
was a dear friend of her namesake, but was fated to become a cause of
great sorrow to her, for a few years after the marriage she was suddenly
killed by an accident to her carriage.

There was another cousin closely associated with them at Steventon, who
must have introduced greater variety into the family circle. This was
the daughter of Mr. Austen's only sister, Mrs. Hancock. This cousin had
been educated in Paris, and married to a Count de Feuillade, of whom I
know little more than that he perished by the guillotine during the
French Revolution. Perhaps his chief offence was his rank; but it was
said that the charge of 'incivism,' under which he suffered, rested on
the fact of his having laid down some arable land into pasture--a sure
sign of his intention to embarrass the Republican Government by producing
a famine! His wife escaped through dangers and difficulties to England,
was received for some time into her uncle's family, and finally married
her cousin Henry Austen. During the short peace of Amiens, she and her
second husband went to France, in the ho