THE PROJECTOR. N° 61.

"Vide enim quibus hominibus aures sint deditæ meæ. Occasionem mirificam, si qui nunc dum hi apud me sunt, emere de me fundum Formianum velit."

CIC. Epist. ad. Atticum, II. 14.

September 1806.

"TO THE AUTHOR OF THE PROJECTOR.

66 SIR,

"I

TAKE the liberty to address this, rather long, letter to you, because in one of your early papers (N° XVIII.) you seemed to have some knowledge of the subject of my complaint, and made some remarks which I am fully prepared to confirm by my experience. Yet, Sir, as you have not very fully entered into the miseries of keeping a country-house, and of having a reputation for hospitality, and perhaps may not be acquainted with all the inconveniences of large property and good character, I shall attempt to supply your deficiency by a faithful history of my unfortunate case.

may

be done

"After mentioning, which very briefly, that I am a tradesman of London, and, from having carried on a successful business for many years, am what the world calls a warm man, you will not wonder that I have for some time been in possession of a countryhouse. This appendage of mercantile state was not, however, altogether the consequence of my riches or my inclination; for I am decidedly of the opinion which you expressed in the paper above-mentioned, that London is the only place for retirement, and not the most pernicious place in England for health; both which I am ready to assert under my hand. The truth is, that the female part of my family, who have long considered me as a goodnatured, well-meaning man, but rather ignorant of the world, insisted, by many cogent reasons, that, without a country-house, I should want one of the proofs by which my neighbours supported their credit and consequence, and one of the means by which health was defended against the fatigues of business, and the air of London. They likewise insinuated that I might, when I pleased, enjoy that retirement and domestic quiet about which I often spoke with rapture, but which the frequency of sudden calls and constant noise rendered imprac

ticable in the vicinity of Fenchurch-street. They represented the nuisance of hackneycoaches as an increasing evil, and the rumbling noise of carts as no longer supportable by any common set of nerves. The cries of hucksters in the day, and the bawling of watchmen in the night, were enumerated among the most intolerable of grievances; and the former was said to be frequently attended with a misfortune which my wife and daughters assured me was the greatest of all afflictions; namely, that of not being able to hear one's own voice.

"Induced by these arguments, with which men of my temper and in my situation know it is much easier to agree than to contend, and having a hope that the scheme might eventually secure to myself and family one or two days per week, of calm retreat from the cares and pleasures of life, and consequently many opportunities for those reflections which bring a man to the true state of his affairs, I determined to comply with the wishes of my family, and the custom of trade. Such are the revolutions of rural property in the vicinity of the metropolis, that I had not long to wait for what I wanted. I soon purchased a tolerably spaeious house (by courtesy of the hammer called a villa) which I shall not describe, because you

will find all its furniture, requisites, pleasuregarden, kitchen-garden, fish-pond, paddocks, offices attached and detached, beautiful walks, spreading lawn, &c. &c. fully depicted in any of the advertisements for villas, in the morning papers. It may suffice to say that I was so lucky as to give ample satisfaction to those who urged me to the purchase, and whose comfort I had principally in view; and as I meant it for a place of retirement, I was not very anxious to know whether it met with the approbation of those whom I did not wish to see it. I cannot help remarking, however, that it owed. many of its superior beauties to the eloquence of the auctioneer. Although it neither abutted on the church, nor was squeezed into an alley, I have known houses rather farther removed from the high-road. I have known gardens rather more productive of the choicest fruits, and I can remember ponds that yielded a much greater quantity of fish. This, however, is a digression; and you are now to suppose me seated in my retirement, and enjoying the pleasures of solitude and undisturbed reflection.

"For the reasons already assigned, I did not think it necessary to announce my villa in form; but many weeks had not elapsed before it was whispered on 'Change, and confidently

believed, that Mr. PLACID had purchased a villa; and it was at the same time declared to be one of the prettiest things of the kind about town.' Some recollected it being built by JACK DASH, whose assignees sold it for little more than the price of the materials: others remembered having visited it in my immediate predecessor's time; and all agreed that for a man of my hospitable and social turn, it was one of the cleverest things in the world,' for, besides other advantages, I could, upon a pinch, make up six or seven beds, and I had famous stabling for eight or ten horses.'

"All this, for some time, I listened to with the feelings which a man has when he is advised by another to do what he thinks himself best qualified to do without any advice, and I began to foresee that I should not be long master of my own actions; yet when my friends shewed themselves so well acquainted with my house as to compliment me on beauties and advantages which I had not been able to discover, I could do no less, in common courtesy, than to hope that I might have the honour of exhibiting it to them; and as to my particular friends, I certainly was very serious in requesting their occasional visits, and had a real pleasure in expecting them.