s and united
that at county elections whoever had their vote and interest was almost
certain of being elected.' The family still retains a badge of this
origin; for their livery is of that peculiar mixture of light blue and
white called Kentish gray, which forms the facings of the Kentish
militia.

Mr. George Austen had lost both his parents before he was nine years old.
He inherited no property from them; but was happy in having a kind uncle,
Mr. Francis Austen, a successful lawyer at Tunbridge, the ancestor of the
Austens of Kippington, who, though he had children of his own, yet made
liberal provision for his orphan nephew. The boy received a good
education at Tunbridge School, whence he obtained a scholarship, and
subsequently a fellowship, at St. John's College, Oxford. In 1764 he
came into possession of the two adjoining Rectories of Deane and
Steventon in Hampshire; the former purchased for him by his generous
uncle Francis, the latter given by his cousin Mr. Knight. This was no
very gross case of plurality, according to the ideas of that time, for
the two villages were little more than a mile apart, and their united
populations scarcely amounted to three hundred. In the same year he
married Cassandra, youngest daughter of the Rev. Thomas Leigh, of the
family of Leighs of Warwickshire, who, having been a fellow of All Souls,
held the College living of Harpsden, near Henley-upon-Thames. Mr. Thomas
Leigh was a younger brother of Dr. Theophilus Leigh, a personage well
known at Oxford in his day, and his day was not a short one, for he lived
to be ninety, and held the Mastership of Balliol College for above half a
century. He was a man more famous for his sayings than his doings,
overflowing with puns and witticisms and sharp retorts; but his most
serious joke was his practical one of living much longer than had been
expected or intended. He was a fellow of Corpus, and the story is that
the Balliol men, unable to agree in electing one of their own number to
the Mastership, chose him, partly under the idea that he was in weak
health and likely soon to cause another vacancy. It was afterwards said
that his long incumbency had been a judgment on the Society for having
elected an _Out-College Man_. {5} I imagine that the front of Balliol
towards Broad Street which has recently been pulled down must have been
built, or at least restored, while he was Master, for the Leigh arms were
placed under the cornice at th