Many London
tradesmen, after making their thousands and their tens of thousands,
feel pride in still continuing to live like plain men of business;
but from the moment a Dublin tradesman of this style has made a few
hundreds, he sets up his gig, and then his head is in his carriage, and
not in his business; and when he has made a few thousands, he buys or
builds a country-house--and then, and thenceforward, his head, heart,
and soul are in his country-house, and only his body in the shop with
his customers.
Whilst he is making money, his wife, or rather his lady, is spending
twice as much out of town as he makes in it. At the word country-house,
let no one figure to himself a snug little box, like that in which a
WARM London citizen, after long years of toil, indulges himself, one day
out of seven, in repose--enjoying from his gazabo the smell of the dust,
and the view of passing coaches on the London road. No: these Hibernian
villas are on a much more magnificent scale; some of them formerly
belonged to Irish members of Parliament, who are at a distance from
their country-seats. After the Union these were bought by citizens and
tradesmen, who spoiled, by the mixture of their own fancies, what had
originally been designed by men of good taste.
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