unction, paragraphs in the newspapers, setting
forth that, "after the marriage of Miss
Arabella Constantia Tanner, daughter of Hyde
Tanner, Esq., of the firm of Bender, Cooter,
and Tanner, of Lombard Street, to the
Honourable Captain Casey, son of Lord
Latitat, the happy couple partook of a
magnificent déjeûner at the elegant residence of
the bride's father in Hyde Park Gardens;" or
else it is, that "last evening the Earl and
Countess of Hammersmith and Ladies Barnes
(2), Sir John Bobcherry, Pillary Pacha, &c.,
&c., honoured Sir Styles and Lady Springer
with their company to dinner at their
distinguished residence in Eaton Place." I can
always imagine tall footmen, magnificent and
awful in plush and embroidery, lolling at the
doors of elegant and distinguished residences.
I don't think I can be very far wrong. I
reside, myself, over a milk-shop, and I know
that to be neither an elegant nor a
distinguished residence; but are there not both
elegance and distinction in the stately
Belgrave Square, and the lofty Westbourne
Grove?

Coming, in the pursuit of this superficial
examination of "Houses to Let," I stop
puzzled at the word "House," simple, unadulterated,
unaccompanied with eulogy, or
explanatory prefix. I have my theory about it,
though it may be but a lame one. The lone,
silent "House" must be one like that
celebrated one at the corner of Stamford
Street, Blackfriars, which, with its two
companions, everybody has seen, and nobody
knows the history of—a house unlet, unletable,
yet always to let. Now, a house agent
having any bowels or conscience whatsoever,
could not call this a desirable house, nor a
convenient house, nor an elegant house. So,
being too good a man of business to call it an
ill-favoured house, a dirty house, and a
villanous house, as it is, he calls it a "House."
A house it is, sure enough, just as a horse,
albeit spavined, wind-galled, glandered,
staggered, lame, blown, a kicker and a roarer, is a
horse still. But what a horse, and what a house!

A "Genteel House" seemeth to me different
to a genteel residence. The latter's employ I
have elsewhere hinted at; the former I take to
be situate somewhere in Gower Street, Keppel
Street, or Guildford Street, or in some of those
mysterious thoroughfares you are always
getting into when you don't want them, and
never can find when you do. In the genteel
house, I should think, two maiden ladies
must have lived—sisters probably; say, the
Miss Twills, whose father was Twills of Saint
Mary-Axe, sugar-baker; and whose brother,
Mr. Twills, in partnership with Mr. Squills,
can be found in Montague Place, Bedford
Square, where the two carry on a genteel
business as surgeons and apothecaries. The
Miss Twills kept a one-horse fly (not one of
your rakish-looking broughams, be it
understood), with a corpulent horse (serious of
disposition, and given to eating plum-cake when
he could get it), and a mild-looking coachman,
who carried a hymn-book in his pocket. One
day, however, I surmise, Miss Jessy Twills,
the youngest and prettiest sister (she did not
mind owning to forty) married the Reverend
Felix Spanker, of Saint Blazer's Chapel, in
Milman Street. Miss Betsy Twills went to
live with her married sister (the two lead the
poor parson a terrible life between them, and
Felix is more irate in the pulpit against the
Pope than ever), and the genteel residence
took its place in the category of "Houses to
Let."

The "Detached House" bears its peculiar
characteristic on its front; it stands alone, and
nothing more can be said about it; but with
the "semi-detached house" there is a subtle
mystery, much to be marvelled at. Semi-
detached!  Have the party-walls between two
houses shrunk, or is there a bridge connecting
the two, as in Mr. Beckford's house in
Landsdown Crescent, Bath? A semi-detached
house may be a house with a field on one
side and a bone-boiling factory on the other.
Semi-detached may mean half-tumbling to
pieces. I must inquire into it.

The "mansion," the "residence," and the
"house," seem to indicate to me dwellings of
some considerable degree of importance and
extent; the "villa," the "cottage," and the
"lodge," seem to indicate smaller places of
abode, though perhaps equalling, if not
surpassing, their contemporaries in elegance,
gentility, distinction, convenience, desirableness,
substantiality, &c., &c. There is one
thing, however, certain about the villa—one
sound basis to go upon, which we do not
possess as regards the "house." The "house"
is ambiguously situated, it may be, in
Grosvenor Square, in Pall Mall, or in Brick
Lane, Spitalfields, or Crown Street, Seven
Dials; but the villa is necessarily suburban.
You could not call a house (however small it
might be) situated between a pie-shop and a
public-house, a "villa." A four-roomed house
in Fleet Street would be a novelty, and if you
were to call it a Gothic lodge, would be a
greater novelty still; while Covent Garden
Market, or Long Acre, would scarcely be the
locale for a cottage ornée, or an Italian villa.
I recognise cottages, villas, and lodges, with
the addition of "hermitages," "priories,"
"groves," "boxes," "retreats," &c., on all
suburban roads;—in Kensington, Hammersmith,
and Turnham Green; in Kingsland, Hackney,
and Dalston; in Highgate, Hampstead, and
Hornsey; in Camberwell, Peckham, and
Kennington; in Paddington, Kilburn, and
Cricklewood; their roads, approaches, and
environs, inclusive. And a fair proportion do
these suburbs contribute to the "Houses to
Let" in the Supplement of the Times.

The "villa standing in its own grounds,"
is generally suggestive to me of stockbrokers.
Great people are these stockbrokers
for villas; for driving mail-phaetons, or wide-
awake looking dog-carts; for giving capital