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264 courtier who annoyed her, but Queen Anne's manners were not of the best She would sit and gnaw the end of her fan when bored with her subjects; she would frequently over-eat herself, though warned of the consequences. Etiquette-books of the period warn people not to wipe their knife and fork on the tablecloth, but rather on the newly-invented napkin or Doiley, made by a linen-draper of that name, as also to abstain from picking their teeth with their forks. But if these were the manners and customs of our ancestors at home, they were behaving with all the old strength and courage of their stalwart forefathers abroad. Queen Anne's soldiers and Queen Anne's sailors are famous to-day, and such victories as Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet had not been seen since the days of Henry V. England was rising to her position as the leading commercial country of her day, while in the world of letters she was no whit behind. It was a period of energy, wit, and genius, an age of vast enterprise crowned with success, in the midst of which "it is half ludicrous, half pathetic to turn to the central figure of all, Anne Stuart, a fat, placid, middle-aged woman, full of infirmities, with little about her of the