Still, there was a very distinct advance in culture, elegance, comfort, and luxury, beyond the condition of the colonies in the previous century. Those who remember the stately Hancock House, on the top of Beacon Hill in Boston, and compare its exterior and interior with still extant edifices which were residences of the wealthier colonists of two hundred years ago, may gather some idea of the far more lavish adornment and elegance of the period in which Hancock lived. We may well believe that when Washington drove through the streets of Philadelphia in a state coach, "of which the body was in the shape of a hemisphere, cream-colored, bordered with flowers round the panels, and ornamented with figures representing cupids, and supporting festoons," he presented a very different appearance from that of the early Puritan governors and Virginian squires; and could we have peeped into the square, solid drawing-room in which, as President, he held his receptions, aided by the matronly grace and dignity of Mrs. Washington, the scene would be far gayer and more imposing than William Penn's house would have displayed, or the company of the richest Dutch "patroon" of New York could have presented in the seventeenth century. [Sidenote: Old Furniture.] Yet, had we gone over the mansion, in how many things would we, used to the minute refinements of this later age, have judged it wanting! Instead of gas, there would be candles, and not of the best quality, everywhere. Instead of stoves and furnaces with coal, we should have been fain to comfort ourselves with the cheerful blaze and genial glow, but scant and capricious warmth, of the wood logs, burning in the big open fireplaces. Lace curtains and moquette carpets would be nowhere apparent. The furniture, though here and there richly carved and bountifully upholstered, would be wanting in variety and the luxurious ease of that which we now enjoy. [Sidenote: The Tables of 1776.] At table we should have missed the thousand refinements and inventions of French and native cooking which now lend variety to our sustenance. The food would have been substantial and heavy and little various; the English simplicity, probably, of barons of beef and shoulders of mutton, and cold bread, and big plum puddings, with a relish of fruits. Were we in fancy to journey from New York to Philadelphia or Boston, we should be forced to rumble slowly over bad roads, through interminable forests and by desert sea-coasts, in heavy and rudely jolting vehicles, and be several days upon the trip. [Sidenote: Travelling in the Olden Time.] [Sidenote: The Wealthier Classes.]