ent. Your house was not built for
nothing--it was no easy thing to get the painters out--the furnishing
thereof was no trifle--the feu-duty is really unreasonable--and taxes
are taxes still, notwithstanding the principles of free trade, and the
universal prosperity of the country. Servants are wasteful, and their
wages absurd--and the whole style of living, with long-necked bottles,
most extravagant. But still we do not object to your establishment--far
from it, we admire it much; nor is there a single house in town where we
make ourselves more agreeable to a late hour, or that we leave with a
greater quantity of wine of a good quality under our girdle. Few things
would give us more temporary uneasiness, than to hear of any
embarrassment in your money concerns. We are not people to forget good
fare, we assure you; and long and far may all shapes of sorrow keep
aloof from the hospitable board, whether illuminated by gas, oil, or
mutton.

But what we were going to say is this--that the head of such a house
ought not to live, when ruralising, in a Cottage. He ought to be
consistent. Nothing so beautiful as consistency. What then is so absurd
as to cram yourself, your wife, your numerous progeny, and your scarcely
less numerous menials, into a concern called a Cottage? The ordinary
heat of a baker's oven is very few degrees above that of a brown study,
during the month of July, in a substantial, low-roofed Cottage. Then the
smell of the kitchen! How it aggravates the sultry closeness! A strange,
compounded, inexplicable smell of animal, vegetable, and mineral matter.
It is at the worst during the latter part of the forenoon, when
everything has been got into preparation for cookery. There is then
nothing savoury about the smell--it is dull, dead--almost catacombish. A
small back-kitchen has it in its power to destroy the sweetness of any
Cottage. Add a scullery, and the three are omnipotent. Of the eternal
clashing of pots, pans, plates, trenchers, and general crockery, we now
say nothing; indeed, the sound somewhat relieves the smell, and the ear
comes occasionally in to the aid of the nose. Such noises are windfalls;
but not so the scolding of cook and butler--at first low and tetchy,
with pauses--then sharp, but still interrupted--by-and-by, loud and
ready in reply--finally a discordant gabble of vulgar fury, like maniacs
quarrelling in Bedlam. Hear it you must--you and all the strangers. To
explain it away is impossible