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Sir,
I am a country gentleman, and enjoy an estate in Northamptonshire, which formerly
enabled its possessors to assume some degree of consequence in the country; but
which, for several generations, has been growing less, only because it has not grown
bigger. I mean, that though I have not yet been obliged to mortgage my land, or fell
my timber, its relative value is every day diminishing by the prodigious influx of
wealth, real and artificial, which for some time past has been pouring into this
kingdom. Hitherto, however, I have found my income equal to my wants. It has enabled
me to inhabit a good house in town for four months of the year, and to reside
amongst my tenants and neighbours for the remaining eight with credit and
hospitality. I am indeed myself so fond of the country, and so averse in my nature
to every thing of hurry and bustle, that, if I consulted only my own taste, I should
never feel a wish to leave the shelter of my own oaks in the dreariest season of the
year; but I looked upon our annual visit to London as a proper compliance
Once too, to recruit my wife's spirits after a tedious confinement from a lying-in,
we passed a season at Bath. In this manner, therefore, things went on very well in
the main, till of late my family have discovered that we lead a very dull kind of
life; and that it is impossible to exist with
It was soon discovered that my eldest daughter wanted bracing, and my wife had a
bilious complaint, against which our family physician declared that sea-bathing
would be particularly serviceable. Therefore, though it was my own private opinion
that my daughter's nerves might have been as well braced by morning rides upon the
Northamptonshire hills as by evening dances in the public rooms, and that my wife's
bile would have been greatly lessened by compliance with her husband, I acquiesced;
and preparations were made for our journey. These indeed were but slight, for the
chief gratification proposed in this scheme was, an entire freedom from care and
form. We should find every thing requisite in our lodgings; it was of no consequence
whether the rooms we should occupy for a few months in the summer were elegant or
not; the simplicity of a country life would be the more enjoyed by the little shifts
we should be put to; and all the necessaries would be provided in our lodgings. It
was not therefore till after we had taken them, that we discovered how far
ready-furnished lodg-
It is my misfortune that I can do nothing without all my little conveniences about
me; and in order to write a common letter I must have my study-table to lean my
elbows on in sedentary luxury; you will judge therefore how little I am able to
employ my leisure, when I tell you, that the only room they have been able to allot
for my use is so filled and crowded with my daughters' hat-boxes, bandboxes,
wig-boxes, &c., that I can scarcely move about in it, and am at this moment
My family used to be remarkable for regularity in their attendance on public worship; but that too here is numbered amongst the amusements of the place. Lady Huntingdon has a chapel, which sometimes attracts us; and when nothing promises us any particular entertainment, a tea-drinking at the Rooms, or a concert of what is called sacred music, is sufficient to draw us from a church where no one will remark either our absence or our presence. Thus we daily become more lax in our conduct, for what of the salutary restraint imposed upon us by the consciousness of being looked up to as an example by others.
In this manner, sir, has the season passed away. I spend a great deal of money, and
make no figure; I am in the country, and see nothing of country simplicity or
country occupations; I am in an obscure village, and yet cannot stir out without
more observers than if I were walking in St. James's Park; I am cooped up in less
room than my own dog-kennel, while my spacious halls are injured by standing empty;
and I am paying for tasteless unripe fruit, while my own choice wall-fruit is
rotting by bushels under the trees. -- In recompense for all this, we have the
satisfaction of knowing that we occupy the very rooms which my Lord -- had just
quitted; of picking up anecdotes, true or false, of people in high life; and of
seizing the ridicule of every character as they pass by us in the moving show-glass
of the place, -- a pastime which often affords us a good deal of mirth, but which, I
confess, I can never join in without reflecting that what is our amusement is theirs
likewise. As to the great ostensible object of our excursion, -- health; I am afraid
we cannot boast of much improvement. We have had a wet and cold summer; and these
houses, which are either old tenements vamped up, or new ones slightly run up for
the accommodation of bathers during the season, have more contrivances for letting
in the cooling breezes than for keeping them out, a circumstance which I should
presume sagacious physicians do not always at-
In answer to these complaints, I am told by the good company here that I have stayed
too long in the same air, and that now I ought to take a trip to the continent, and
spend the winter at Nice, which would complete the business. I am entirely of their
opinion, that it
Yours, &c.
HENRY HOMELOVE.