the regular City man, who leaves Lloyd's at five o'clock, and drives
home to Hackney, Clapton, Stamford-hill, or elsewhere, can be said to
have any daily recreation beyond his dinner, it is his garden. He never
does anything to it with his own hands; but he takes great pride in it
notwithstanding; and if you are desirous of paying your addresses to the
youngest daughter, be sure to be in raptures with every flower and shrub
it contains. If your poverty of expression compel you to make any
distinction between the two, we would certainly recommend your bestowing
more admiration on his garden than his wine. He always takes a walk
round it, before he starts for town in the morning, and is particularly
anxious that the fish-pond should be kept specially neat. If you call on
him on Sunday in summer-time, about an hour before dinner, you will find
him sitting in an arm-chair, on the lawn behind the house, with a straw
hat on, reading a Sunday paper. A short distance from him you will most
likely observe a handsome paroquet in a large brass-wire cage; ten to one
but the two eldest girls are loitering in one of the side walks
accompanied by a couple of young gentlemen, who are holding parasols over
them--of course only to keep the sun off--while the younger children,
with the under nursery-maid, are strolling listlessly about, in the
shade. Beyond these occasions, his delight in his garden appears to
arise more from the consciousness of possession than actual enjoyment of
it. When he drives you down to dinner on a week-day, he is rather
fatigued with the occupations of the morning, and tolerably cross into
the bargain; but when the cloth is removed, and he has drank three or
four glasses of his favourite port, he orders the French windows of his
dining-room (which of course look into the garden) to be opened, and
throwing a silk handkerchief over his head, and leaning back in his
arm-chair, descants at considerable length upon its beauty, and the cost
of maintaining it. This is to impress you--who are a young friend of the
family--with a due sense of the excellence of the garden, and the wealth
of its owner; and when he has exhausted the subject, he goes to sleep.

There is another and a very different class of men, whose recreation is
their garden. An individual of this class, resides some short distance
from town--say in the Hampstead-road, or the Kilburn-road, or any other
road where the houses are small and neat, and