Note 94 — Chapter VI · SERVANTS.

The quantity of servants in vogue at that time, especially of male servants, seems to us to be excessive, but when we look how useful they were, apart from their menial duties, as guards, and assistants when the carriage stuck in a deep rut when travelling, and remember that the old feudal system of having retainers about one for show was then only moribund (it is not yet dead), their number is accounted for. First on the list stands my lord's page, who wore his livery, although of more costly material than that worn by the footman. He served his apprenticeship as 'a little foot page,' but it was always understood that, afterwards, his rise in life should be looked to by his patron. It was very much the same relation that existed between knight and squire. How he accompanied his lord on state occasions is shown in one of the illustrations of carriages. Steele speaks disparagingly of the lad's position.[94] 'I know a Man of good Sense who put his Son to a Blacksmith, tho' an Offer was made him of his being received a Page to a Man of Quality.'