Austen, and others, who all easily excelled her in literary achievement. It was this sense of refinement that prompted Miss Burney's words when she heard that henceforth the banns of marriage were to be published in church on the three Sundays preceding the event: "A public wedding. Oh, what a gauntlet for any woman of delicacy to run!"
Many a clandestine marriage still took place, and elopement with an heiress was very common. Indeed, fortune played as large a part as heretofore in the marriages of the eighteenth century, as may be gleaned from the current advertisements of the day. In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1781: "Married, the Revd. Mr. Roger Waina, of York, about twenty-six years of age, to a Lincolnshire lady upwards of eighty, with whom he is to have £8,000 in money, £300 per annum, and a coach and four during life only." A Liverpool doctor takes to wife "an agreeable young lady of eighteen years of age, with a very genteel fortune"; a Kendal Colonel is wedded to "an agreeable young lady with a fortune of £14,000," while "an eminent hosier marries Miss Betty Newby, a genteel lady with £900." But change was dawning even in these delicate matters, and a
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