and the public: they have severer duties to fulfil, to encounter which they are proportionably weak.

The wife and mother is freer to yield to the infirmities that beset her, than is the husband and father. He is not so immersed as she is, in cares that tempt the mind to suffer itself to be engrossed by partial concerns, and to grow blind to those universal ones to which the principles of duty correspond. Owing to his leisure, and the native force of his character, he can more keep his mental vision constantly fixed on those great, austere, moral truths, to which he should ever conform his practice; it therefore depends on him properly to fortify his own mind, as well as to strengthen and enlighten that of his wife. Yet, though he sees what he should do, he cannot act agreeably to his knowledge, if he be not firmly propped by the sentiments of the society around him; having very powerful feelings, which strongly urge him to descend to his wife's native level, rather than try to exalt her to his.

Still, like our first father, a husband, filled with the feelings which that relation commonly inspires to a well intentioned man, is obnoxious to being led astray, in spite of his better judgment, by the wheedling voice of his wife. He is often the more tempted to yield to her, because similar feelings to those which urge her to endeavour to gain a point, by means of her influence over him, stir within his breast, though, without her aid, they would not acquire the ascendant there.

A husband, then, greatly requires to have his resolution to act up to his judgment fortified by the suffrage of society. However, its voice, though firm, should be gentle, leaving him no room to doubt of its emanating from a social corps filled with tenderness and respect for women, and thoroughly able to appreciate the various feelings which fluctuate in a husband's mind. Did it call upon him, sternly, to contradict his wife, even where he might have reason on his side, it would prove to him that the persons from whom it issued, neither knew how, feelingly, to respect women, nor yet those affections which ought to be warm in his breast. He would either, in obedience to it, treat his wife with humiliating harshness, which would tend to sinking her and her sex beneath their due rank

in society; or else, unable to comply with its dictates, he would turn to it a deaf ear, and yield, implicitly, to the wish to comply with a consort's entreaties.

In the present state of Europe, this latter consequence is what would, continually, follow any efforts which society might make, with unkind obdurateness, to steel a husband's heart against a wife's prayers. It never could preserve an imposing consistency, in recommending too severe a treatment of wo

men.

Husbands would soon learn, from experience, that, were they to hearken to its advice, when it would urge them to conduct themselves in their marital capacity with unpitying rigour, the persons from whom such unkind counsels originated, would quickly forget having given them, and be among the most forward to condemn the husband, and pity the wife. But it is not only necessary that society should ever treat women with due forbearance and respect, in order to acquire over husbands, a useful, evenly operating influence, it must, also, prove that it is inclined to manifest, to the latter, a proper forbearance and respect. It should show them that it has the utmost regard for the independence of their marital authority, as well as for those sentiments of honour which tell them that they will not abuse it, even though they assert a claim to be, themselves, the supreme judges of how it becomes them to exert it.

That haughty jealousy that husbands, usually, feel, of those who dictate to them the line of conduct which they ought to pursue towards the women of whom marriage has rendered them the chiefs, ought not to receive the least offence from society; while yet its opinion shall, directly, determine the proceedings of husbands in regard to the conjugal relation.

The principal object of the persons who sincerely wish to make marriage, with the fewest exception possible,-be honoured as a respectable and happy state, should be, to render the opinion of society, respecting the reciprocal conduct becoming husbands and wives, so steady, consistent, and agreeable to good order, that the former should be aware of the solid advantages which would accrue to them, from paying,

themselves, and engaging their wives to do the same, an implicit deference to it.

The conjugal relation, is the source of all the fond domestic connexions, and, I may add, of all the charities which warm our hearts towards our fellow-creatures. It therefore merits to be viewed by us with tendernes, and a species of filial re

verence.

Nor should the kind, respectful emotions, kindled in us by the contemplation of it, have merely an abstract, metaphysical bearing.

They should be directed on human beings, and influence our conduct towards the persons engaged in the matrimonial connexion-as far as that connexion is concerned-we should consider, with deep respect, the virtues which it may call into action in them; we should view, with a kind of filial unwillingness and regret, the faults into which, in the capacity of persons bound in wedlock, they may fall; and when called on to interfere in matrimonial strifes, we should, even though we be the friends of one party, impose on ourselves the strict obligation to treat both with impartiality, consideration and respect.

If we sigh, and who, in these enlightened times, does not do so? -on reflecting on the miserable lot of an amiable woman, whom marriage has placed in utter dependence on a man addicted to some ruinous vice; our way to diminish to the utmost, the number of husbands so lost to every better feeling, as thus cruelly to deceive the woman who had fondly confided to them the care of her well being on earth, is, not outrageously to vent our rage against the married man, whom we behold heaping misery on his wedded partner; but to do what lies in our power to train the youth of the stronger sex to habits of self-control and to a practical respect for the laws of virtue.* 'Tis thus that we shall strike at the root of those disorders,

Such habits, however, they never will acquire, as long as women of the higher and more influential classes are trained, too much, to look on pleasure as being legitimately the primary object of their pursuit. Young men will, constantly, imitate them in the adoption of the same maxim, and the consequence will always be, owing to their stronger passions, and their greater sense of liberty, that it will hurry them much further from the paths of rectitude.

which so often involve married women in the deplorable consequences of a husband's profligacy, without, at the same time, treating, in the person of a married man, the conjugal relation with disrespect.

It would not be difficult, I am convinced, to make husbands almost universally be such, as thoroughly to satisfy every person of a good understanding and a sound, enlarged way of thinking, without holding the dread of the public displeasure, like a rod, over their heads, did we but let unmarried men see that a pure, irreproachable conduct is what best obtains the approbation of society; and did we form the opinions of society to be so enlightened and consistent that husbands must respect them, and be aware that, in suffering themselves to be guided by them, they would best consult their interest as well as uphold their dignity.

When we had thus grounded principles in youths, that would prepare them, both to enter the marriage state filled with honorable, good resolutions, and to exercise firmness, in persevering in them; when we had, also, rectified the opinion of society, respecting the line of conduct befitting husbands, so that they would neither be set astray nor perplexed by attempts to conciliate it, then might we cease to animadvert, with immoderate severity, on the faults of men detected even in very blameable conduct towards their wives, for as few husbands as, considering the depravity of human nature could be expected, would go materially wrong.

It would, however, be advisable to place a husband's power over his wife on such a footing, that it would tend towards awakening honorable, generous sentiments in his breast, by teaching him, deeply, to pity her weakness and dependence: the legislator should guard against supporting his conjugal authority in a mode, that would be likely to tempt him to become unjust and selfish.

Youths, too, should early be taught to be aware of the errors which the best intentioned, fondest husbands are too apt to commit in the first years of matrimony: they are such as, commonly, tend to wither the elegant blossoms of refined happiness which conjugal affections ought to produce, rather than

directly to wound any of the virtues by which they ought to be accompanied.

The want of attention to an elegant refinement of behaviour in small matters that continually recur, with which husbands may sometimes be justly reproached, is frequently much more ruinous to their domestic happiness, and a more considerable obstacle to their ruling their families with wisdom, than they are aware of. It is often of such a nature as to lessen a wife's confidence in them, and to dispirit her from doing her part towards rendering the chain that binds them mutually, soft and agreeable. The husband, also, is himself sometimes conscious of not behaving to her, to whom he is united, with a sufficiently endearing kindness in trifling concerns, and to prove to her that the harshness which he, inadvertently, manifests towards her, does not proceed from his heart, he yields to her in points in which he ought, firmly, to require her to be guided by him.

The task incumbent on a husband, vigilantly, to hold himself prepared always to behave to his wife with mildness and winning attention, would become a much lighter one than it usually is at present, were boys accustomed, from infancy to manhood, to the society of equally youthful females; and excited to feel such a wish to please them, as would naturally develope in their innocent, peaceable bosoms, sentiments of gallantry and politeness. The pure feelings, then, which should mingle through the affections of husbands, would be in an habitual state of vivacity within them, keeping them, on all occasions, disposed to behave to a consort, with tenderness and amiability.

But the principal means which the leaders of society could employ, for facilitating to husbands the discharge of their obligations, in quality of chiefs, to a wedded partner, would be, carefully, to form the dispositions of girls and wives, so that women, instead of being tempted to deride and frustrate the wise measures of a wedded lord, should be inclined to second them, and to laud him for pursuing them. However, as the ambition of women, particularly, displays itself by coveting distinctions that shall, immediately, surround them with sensible tokens of pre-eminence, the wiser part of society will