To make her amiable:

Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,
In every gesture dignity and love!

I, overjoy'd, could not forbear aloud,

'This turn hath made amends; thou hast fulfill'd

Thy words, Creator bounteous and benign,
Giver of all things fair, but fairest this
Of all thy gifts! I now see

Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, myself
Before me!-Woman is her name, of Man
Extracted for this cause he shall forego
Father and mother, and to his wife adhere;

And they shall be one flesh, one heart, one soul!"'"

An eminent female writer of the past century (Mrs. Thrale) has given in very lively terms her sentiments on the deportment of a husband, in a letter to a young gentleman on his marriage, of which we subjoin the following extract :—

"I received the news of your marriage with infinite delight, and hope that the sincerity with which I wish your happiness may excuse the liberty I take in giving you a few rules, whereby more certainly to obtain it. I see you smile at my wrongheaded kindness, and, reflecting on the charms of your bride, cry out in a rapture that you are happy enough without my rules. I know you are, but after one of the forty years which I

hope you will pass pleasingly together are over, this letter may come in turn, and rules for felicity may not be found unnecessary, however some of them may appear impracticable.

"When your present violence of passion subsides, and a more cool and tranquil affection takes its place, be not hasty to censure yourself as indifferent, or to lament yourself as unhappy: you have lost that only which it was impossible to retain; and it were graceless amid the pleasures of a prosperous summer to regret the blossoms of a transient spring. Neither unwarily condemn your bride's insipidity, till you have recollected that no object however sublime, no sounds however charming, can continue to transport us with delight, when they no longer strike us with novelty. The skill to renovate the powers of pleasing, is said indeed to be possessed by some women in an eminent degree, but the artifices of maturity are seldom seen to adorn the innocence of youth. You have made your choice, and ought to approve it.

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Satiety follows quick upon the heels of possession, and to be happy, we must always have something in view. The person of your

lady is already all your own, and will not grow more pleasing in your eyes I doubt, though the rest of your sex will think her handsomer for these dozen years. Turn therefore all your attention to her mind, which will daily grow higher by polishing. Study some easy science together, and acquire a similarity of tastes while you enjoy a community of pleasures. You will by this means have many pursuits in common, and be freed from the necessity of separating to find amusement: endeavour to cement the present union on every side; let your wife never be kept ignorant of your income, your expenses, your friendships, or aversions; let her know your very faults, but make them amiable by your virtues; consider all concealment as a breach of fidelity; let her never have anything to find out in your character, and remember, that from the moment one of the partners turns spy upon the other they have commenced a state of hostility.

"Seek not for happiness in singularity, and dread a refinement of wisdom as a deviation into folly. Listen not to those sages who advise you always to scorn the counsel of a woman, and if you comply with her requests pronounce you to be wife-ridden. Think not

any privation, except of positive evil, an excellence; and do not congratulate yourself that your wife is not a learned lady, or is wholly ignorant how to make a pudding. Cooking and learning are both good in their places, and may both be used with advantage.

"With regard to expense, I can only observe, that the money laid out in the purchase of luxuries is seldom or ever profitably employed. We live in an age when splendid furniture and glittering equipage are grown too common to catch the notice of the meanest spectator; and for the greater ones, they can only regard our wasteful folly with silent contempt or open indig

nation.

"This may perhaps be a displeasing reflection; but the following consideration ought to make amends. The age we live in pays, I think, a peculiar attention to the higher distinction of wit, knowledge, and virtue, to which we may more safely, more cheaply, and more honourably aspire.

"I said that the person of your lady would not grow more pleasing to you; but pray let her not suspect that it grows less so. There is no reproof, however pointed, no punish

ment, however severe, that a woman of spirit will not prefer to neglect; and if she can endure it without complaint, it only proves that she means to make herself amends by the attention of others for the slights of her husband. For this, and for every reason, it behoves a married man not to let his politeness fail, though his ardour may abate, but to retain at least that general civility towards his own lady which he is so willing to pay to every other, and not show a wife of eighteen or twenty years old, that every man in company can treat her with more complaisance than he who so often vowed to her eternal fondness.

"It is not my opinion that a young woman should be indulged in every wild wish of her gay heart or giddy head, but contradiction may be softened by domestic kindness, and quiet pleasures substituted in the place of noisy ones. Public amusements are not indeed so expensive as is sometimes imagined, but they tend to alienate the minds of married people from each other. A well chosen society of friends and acquaintance, more eminent for virtue and good sense than for gaiety and splendour, where the conversation of the day may afford comment for the

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