sleeping apartment upstairs, were all _tabooed_ ground, and made use of
on great and solemn occasions only--such as rent-days, and an occasional
visit with which Mr. Tovell was honoured by a neighbouring peer. At all
other times the family and their visitors lived entirely in the
old-fashioned kitchen along with the servants. My great-uncle occupied
an armchair, or, in attacks of gout, a couch on one side of a large open
chimney.... At a very early hour in the morning the alarum called the
maids, and their mistress also; and if the former were tardy, a louder
alarum, and more formidable, was heard chiding their delay--not that
scolding was peculiar to any occasion; it regularly ran on through all
the day, like bells on harness, inspiriting the work, whether it were
done well or ill." In the annotated volume of the son's memoir which
belonged to Edward FitzGerald, the writer added the following detail as
to his great-aunt's temper and methods:--"A wench whom Mrs. Tovell had
pursued with something weightier than invective--a ladle, I
think--whimpered out 'If an angel from Hiv'n were to come mawther'"
(Suffolk for _girl_) "'to missus, she wouldn't give no satisfaction.'"

George Crabbe the younger, who gives this graphic account of the
_ménage_ at Parham, was naturally anxious to claim for his mother, who
so long formed one of this queer household, a degree of refinement
superior to that of her surroundings. After describing the daily
dinner-party in the kitchen--master, mistress, servants, with an
occasional "travelling rat-catcher or tinker"--he skilfully points out
that his mother's feelings must have resembled those of the
boarding-school miss in his father's "Widow's Tale" when subjected to a
like experience:--

"But when the men beside their station took,
The maidens with them, and with these the cook;