When one looks 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.
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