you have sworn to attend to; and who has a right to require, not only such a trifling compliance, but great sacrifices, if necessary.

It is, in fact, here understood, that you have made your wife, prior to your marriage, acquainted with all your very dear friendships, and that from the congeniality of your sympathies with hers, your friends would be likely to be agreeable to her. Of course, if you value your own honour, you would not wish to compel your wife to receive any friend of yours whose principles and manners were not such as an intelligent woman could approve.

Never witness a tear from your wife with apathy or indifference. Words, looks, actions-all may be artificial; but a tear is unequivocal; it comes direct from the heart, and speaks at once the language of truth, nature, and sincerity! Be assured, when you see a tear on her cheek, her heart is touched; and do not, I again repeat it, do not behold it with coldness or insensibility!

It is very unnecessary to say that contradiction is to be avoided at all times. Mere tame, uninteresting acquiescence is not meant by this avoidance of contradiction; but a courteous freedom from all harshly expressed

opinions: especially, when in the presence of others, be most particularly watchful. A look, or word, that perhaps, in reality, conveys no angry meaning, may at once lead people to think that their presence alone restrains the eruption of a discord, which probably has no existence whatsoever.

Some men, who are married to women of inferior fortune or connexion, will sometimes have the meanness to upbraid them with the disparity. For such men I do not write. They would be incapable of attaining social happiness their own baseness of spirit would prevent it. In reference to fortune, it would be well to remember, that you did not marry merely to oblige or please your wife. No, truly; it was to oblige and please yourself. Had she refused to marry you, you would have been (in lover's phrase) a very miserable man. Did you never tell her so? Therefore, really, instead of upbraiding her, you should be very grateful to her for rescuing you from such an unhappy fate.

It is particularly painful to a woman, whenever her husband is unkind enough to say a lessening or harsh word of any member of her family: invectives against herself are not half so wounding.

Should illness, or suffering of any kind, assail your wife, your tenderness and attention are then peculiarly called for; and if she be a woman of sensibility, believe me, a look of love, a word of pity or sympathy, will, at times, have a better effect than all the prescriptions of her physicians.

Perhaps some calamity, peculiarly her own, may befal her. She may weep over the death of some dear relative or friend; or her spirits and feelings may be affected by various circumstances. Remember that your sympathy, tenderness, and attention, on such occasions, are particularly required.

A man would not on any account use personal violence to his wife: but he will, without remorse, sometimes use to her language which strikes much deeper to her heart than the blow of any weapon he could make use of. "He would not, for the world," says an ingenious writer, "cut her with a knife, but he will, without the least hesitation, cut her with his tongue."

I have known some unfeeling husbands, who have treated their unhappy wives with unvaried and unremitting unkindness, till perhaps the arrival of their last illness, and who then became all assiduity and attention.

But when that period approaches, their remorse, like the remorse of a murderer, is felt too late the die is cast; and kindness or unkindness can be of little consequence to the poor victim, who only waits to have her eyes closed in the long sleep of death!

Perhaps your wife may be destitute of youth and beauty, or other superficial attractions which distinguish many of her sex: should this be the case, remember, many a plain face conceals a heart of exquisite sensibility and merit; and her consciousness. of the defect makes her peculiarly awake to the slightest attention or inattention from you and just for a moment reflect—

"What is the blooming tincture of the skin,
To peace of mind and harmony within ?
What the bright sparkling of the finest eye,
To the soft soothing of a calm reply?
Can loveliness of form, or look, or air,
With loveliness of words or deeds compare?
No: those at first the unwary heart may gain;
But these, these only, can the heart retain."

Besides-you had eyes, and chose her.

Your wife, though a gentle, amiable creature, may be deficient in mental endowments, and destitute of fancy or sentiment; and you, perhaps a man of taste and talents,

are inclined to think lightly of her. Complaints are unjust, unkind, and unwise. The time is past for complainings or invidious comparisons. If defects unseen before arise, resolve either to remedy them with diligence or bear them with gentleness. It is not, after all, the woman most gifted by nature, or most stored with literary knowledge, who invariably makes the most comfortable wife; by no means: your gentle, amiable helpmate may contribute much more to your happiness, more to the regularity, economy, and discipline of your house, and may make your children a much better mother, than many a brilliant dame who could trace with Moore, Scott, and Byron, every line on the map of taste and sentiment, and descant on the merits and demerits of poetry, as if she had just arrived fresh from the neighbourhood of Parnassus.

It is often the penalty demanded of great mental powers, that they should find companionship of intellect a rare blessing that does not often fall to their lot. This consideration should make people contented with their humble gifts; sympathy of mind, and congeniality of taste, being much more frequently the sweet boon permitted them.