“LET YOUR HOUSE AND GO ABROAD."

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How many thousands of families, living comfortably on some sweet spot of English ground, have had that sentence rung in their ears by their friends returned from the delights of foreign sojourn ! Why don't you see something of the world? What is there to prevent your living in France, Italy, or Germany, a few years, just as well as here? You have no business, no particular tie to bind you to England; nothing but what may be done just as well at a distance or by post; and here are your children getting to the educating age. Let your house and go abroad. There, you will fill your minds with all sorts of new ideas; you will live a new life, amongst all sorts of new people, things, and habits. You may see whatever is most wonder

ful and impressive in nature and in art. The Alps, the great ruins, the great cities of Europe, all are open to you. Rome, Paris, Naples, Vienna, all invite you to explore their treasures of art, their monuments of history, the life and pleasures of their society. The most beautiful vallies await your charmed eyes, the finest old forests lie expectant of your tread. The vineyards of the Rhine, the olive-gardens of Italy, the plains and mountains where great men have lived, and great deeds have been done,—will you not for once behold them? Will you not contemplate the miracles of ancient art in Rome and Florence, of modern art in Munich? All this you can do while your children acquire, for half the expense, those accomplishments which are so necessary, now-a-days, and which can only be had in perfection on the continent."

All this is true enough, and alluring enough, only-let those who listen to the voice of the charmer, when they "Let their house and go abroad,”—take care to let it through the hands of a regular agent. When once it is known that you are going to "let your house and go abroad," there is sure almost to start up some friend or acquaintance who is anxious to prevent your receiving any sort of disadvantage during your absence. He has little or nothing to do, and it

would be the greatest pleasure to him to take charge of any of your affairs. To receive and forward any parcels. To let and look after your house. Ah! good souls who would "let your house and go abroad," beware! Don't listen a moment to any such generous proffer; don't trust your property to any gratuitous goodness: send for an agent, the best known, and on the most sordid principle of security, put all your premises into his hands. If you listen to the generous offer, you are lost, you will come back to find your house dilapidated, if not burnt down; your hedges full of gaps; your garden eaten up by bullocks; your precious books and crockery, your pictures and your panes, full of fractures and abstractions, that will probably drive you, if not to hang yourself, to some equally desperate deed. Put your premises into the house-agent's hands; and then march. In the former case, your generous, gratuitously-acting friend, has taken as little security as care. The tenants he got were his friends, it was impossible to be rigid with them; he made no inventory-and got no damages. Behold the prosaic and unsentimental house-agent. He walks down to your house, pulls out his book, and jots down in it every item in and about your house, from the garret to the cellar, from the piece of statuary to the mouse

trap. He comes with his catalogue all drawn out in a neat firm hand, and reads over every article as you see yourself that the article is there. When you come back, if it be seven years hence, depend upon it you will have every article there, and uninjured, or you will have the full value of it. The worthy man has an interest to let your house, and to keep it let; your generous friend, as you shall soon see, has an interest of a different sort. The agent knows his own business, but he does not know whether your tenant be a great poet, a great orator, or a great philosopher; he has, therefore, no delicacy in treating with him, or calling on him to pay for a broken pot, or cracked pane. All he knows or cares is, that the gentleman pays or does not pay -keeps the house and furniture well or ill. Now let us tell a story, true to the letter, and well worth hearing.

There lived near me, some years ago, in the beautiful neighbourhood of Esher, a gentleman who wanted to "let his house and go abroad." This house was called a cottage, and a pretty cottage it was. It lay at the foot of a hill on which stood a pleasant and mile-long village, sheltered, retired, and uncommonly pleasant. There was every reason why this house should let well. It had every convenience that was

requisite for the comfort of a family;-ample accommodation for horses, carriage, cows, and poultry; a fine young orchard, an ample and most productive garden, a convenient paddock, and a fine meadow lying on a celebrated fishing-river, with right of fishing and boating upon it to the extent of seven miles. The whole of this was to be had for seventy pounds a-year, which the hay of the meadow alone never failed to pay. The country round is beautiful, and abounding with open lands, so that you may ride from the door of the house to the race-ground of Epsom, four miles off, over unenclosed country. For a person fond of riding, or solitary rambling, the neighbourhood possesses no ordinary attractions. On one hand, in the immediate neighbourhood of the house, you had a view over a finely-cultivated country, with St. George's woody and heathy hill, crowned with its dark crest of pines, stretching along at a few miles distance, and the towers of Windsor Castle showing themselves proudly some twelve miles off. Behind you lay the woods and pleasant grounds of Claremont; and to your left the brown common, with its hills and clumps of trees, which extended all beyond Claremont, and went stretching away towards Leatherhead. At the back of Claremont, stretched over this wild.