CHAMBER-HORSE
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Having just read Jane Austen's lately-published Sanditon may I be allowed to correct a mistake on p. 81, where " chamber-house " has been substituted for " chamber- horse " ? This old-fashioned piece of furniture consisted of a high square seat, with strong springs under it, and was intended to give old people, no longer able to ride, the kind of exercise• they had been accustomed to. I remember well the chamber-horse in my grandmother's house at Exeter on which we children delighted to mount, and jump ourselves up and down. Probably it had been bought by my grand- father, Thomas Heberden, Canon of Exeter Cathedral, who died in 1843, in his ninetieth year. He had been a rider till late in life. It may have been recommended by his father, Dr. Heberden, the well-known physician of the eighteenth century, described by Cowper in his poem, Retirement," as " Virtuous and faithful Heberden, whose skill Attempts no task it cannot well fulfil Gives melancholy up to Nature's care And sends the patient into purer air."
I hope it may interest some of Jane Austen's admirers to learn what she meant by a chamber-horse.—I am, Sir, &c., MARY B. HEBERDEN.
6 South Parks Road, Oxford.
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