soil and the habitual industry of the people, had accumulated a substantial volume of public and private wealth. Ripe conditions readily begot the temptation to build more ambitiously and means were not lacking to gratify the inclination to spend. From the beginning of the Georgian period onward, houses were planned and built with an air of amplitude and assured permanence that bespoke a comfortable consciousness of firmly established and easy affluence which justified the builders in planning broadly both for their own day and for future generations. Town houses and country houses equally indicated the wealth and estate of their owners and reflected the lavish and elegant mode of life more truly than any of the other tangible memorials still remaining from those days. From the middle of the eighteenth century Philadelphia was the largest and most important city in the American Colonies and one naturally expects, therefore, to find country houses more representative and more numerous in the neighbourhood than elsewhere. For that reason the Georgian houses in the vicinity of Philadelphia will furnish the examples used in the latter part of this chapter to illustrate the variations of type characteristic of Pennsylvania, Delaware and the Jerseys, in other words, the section of the country for which Philadelphia was the natural centre of influence. To some it may, perhaps, seem strange that houses which oftentimes exhibit so much architectural elegance and elaboration of detail should have been built in a community supposedly dominated by the principle of outward simplicity professed by the Society of Friends. As a matter of fact, however, the Quaker influence, though always a powerful factor in every aspect of Philadelphia life, was offset and oftentimes strongly opposed by the vigorous social and political activity of the “World’s People”, that is to say, the members of the Church of England and the adherents of the Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, Lutheran and Baptist Churches, many of whom were the acknowledged leaders of society and managed to impart no small degree of dash and gaiety to the life of their day and generation. It should also be remembered that the Friends were by no means uniform in their interpretation and practice of the social discipline of their organisation. While some of the plain Friends were exceedingly strait in their behaviour and dress and eschewed all manner of frivolity, there were many who found it quite compatible with their consciences to attend brilliant social functions, attired in sumptuous and brave coloured clothes, dance, go to punch drinkings and join heartily in the frequent fox hunts for which the country about Philadelphia has always been famous.