Explanation: A polite country esquire shall make you as many bows in half an hour, as would serve a courtier for a week. There is infinitely more to do about place and precedence, in a meeting of justices’ wives, than in an assembly of duchess.

Answer: These sentences have been derived from the famous essay, “Rural Manners” which is written by Joseph Addison, The eminent essayist in 18th-century English literature. Addison here means to say that manners and fashions in behavior originate in the town and then are taken up by the villagers.

What has been discarded by the townspeople is easily taken by the countrymen. What manners and fashions are easily given up by them are taken up and followed for a long time by the villagers. A landed gentleman in the countryside would greet a visitor from town with excessive politeness to show that he is not an ill-mannered person. He would bow as many times in half an hour as courtier would in a whole week! At a meeting of the wives of judges, there is much more concern about rank and status! The concern about who is superior to whom is shown even at a gathering of duchess! Thus from these excesses of good manners, one can make out that they are not truly fashionable but really outdated politeness.

Actually, it is an interesting commentary on the existing situation at the time of Addison. The touch of Addisonian humor is unmistakable in the picture of the country squire bowing so many times.