Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SIT, v.t.

1. To keep the seat upon. He sits a horse well. [This phrase is elliptical.]
2. To sit me down, to sit him down, to sit them down, equivalent to I seated myself, &c. are familiar phrases used by good writers, though deviations from strict propriety. They sat them down to weep. Milton.
3. “The court was sat,” an expression of Addison, is a gross impropriety.