atrocious wickedness of throwing away life, and rushing into the prefence of our Almighty Judge in the very act of infulting him, without opportunity for repentance, had its due weight with people, one would think they would contrive any way of fettling difputes, rather than with the fword. If a perfon has committed a flight injury against me, where lies the prudence, or the common fenfe, of giving him an opportunity of injuring me ftill worse; I mean by taking my life?

I greatly approve the conduct of an English officer in Flanders, whofe example may ferve as an univerfal model. That gentleman, having received a challenge from another, refused to be the caufe of the fhedding of either his own, or another's blood, cold. The challengerpofted him for a coward; he pofted the other for a liar. The challenger threatened to cane him. He told him, he would ftand on his own defence. The challenger attacked him. He received him with a blow of a cudgel on the head, which laid him fprawling. He recovered, drew, and made an ill-directed pafs at the pacific gentleman, who received him on the point of his fword; which ended the quarrel. The gentleman's courage being well known, and the whole affair being public, it was brought in manslaughter.

I

SECT. VI.

Of Marriage.

T is one of the greatest unhappineffes of our times. that matrimony is fo much difcountenanced; That in London, and in other great cities, fo many never marry at all, and that the greatest part have got into the unhappy and unnatural way of wafting the best years of their lives in purfuit of a giddy round of vain amufements and criminal pleafures (if any thing criminal can be called a pleature); looking upon the married ftate as the end of all the happinefs of life, whereas it is in truth, when entered into with prudence, only the beginning. How do we accordingly fee our youth go on to thirty or forty years of age, without ever thinking of fettling in life, as becomes Chriftians and members of fociety, till at laft, being fated and cloyed with lawless

4

Jove,

love, avarice drives them to feek the alliance of a wealthy family, or dotage puts them upon mifapplying that facred inftitution to the moft fordid purposes.

The advantage of early marriage, both to the community and to particulars, and the mifchiefs which might thereby be prevented, are not to be expreffed. It is therefore my advice to all my young readers, That they enter into the marriage-ftate as foon as they find themselves fettled in a likely way of fupporting a family. And I can promise them, upon the general experience of all prudent and good-natured men, that, if they make a judicious choice, the only thing they will have occafion to repent of, will be, that they did not enter into that ftate fooner; and that they will find it as much beyond the happieft fingle life, as eafe and affluence are beyond the narroweft circumstances. Indeed, what can be conceived more perfect, in an imperfect fate, than an infeparable union of interefts between two perfons, who love one another with fincerity and tenderness; who mutually defire to oblige one another; and who can with the utmoft freedom unbofom to one another all their joys and all their griefs, whereby the one may be doubled and the other divided? If friendfhip has afforded matter for fo many commendations, worked up with innumerable figures of rhetoric, what may not be faid of that moft perfect of all friendships, which fubfifts between married perfons?

I do not deny, that there are women, whofe natural tempers are fo unhappy, that it is not eafy to live with them; nor that the ladies of our times give themselves up too generally to an idle and expenfive manner of life, to the great detriment of oeconomy, and the vexation of prudent mafters of families: but it must be owned, at the fame time, that the greateft number of unhappy hufbands have themfelves chiefly to thank for what they fuffer. If a man will be fo weak, as, for the fake of either beauty or fortune, to run the defperate hazard of taking to his bofom a fury, or an idiot; or if he will fuffer a woman, who might, by gentle and prudent ways, be reclaimed from her follies, to run on to ruin, without having the fpirit to warn her of the confequen

ces

ces; or if, instead of endeavouring, by the humane methods of remonftrance and perfuafion, joined with the endearments of conjugal affection, which a woman. must be a monster to refift; I fay, if inftead of endeavouring by mild and affectionate methods to fhew her the error and bad confequences of her manner of life, a man will refolve to carry things with a high hand, and to ufe a woman of natural fenfe, birth, and fortune, every way equal to himfelf, as a flave, or fool, it is no wonder that his remonftances are ineffectual, and that domeftic peace is interrupted, and oeconomy fubverted. It is not the most exquifite beauty, the mott fprightly wit, or the largest fortune, nor all three together, nor an hundred other accomplishments, if fuch there were, that will make a man happy in a partner for life, who is not endowed with the two principal accomplishments of good-fenfe and good-nature. If a woman has not common fenfe, fhe can be in no refpect a fit companion for a reasonable man. On the contrary, the whole behaviour of a fool must be difgufting and tirefome to every one, that knows her, efpecially to a husband, who is obliged to be more in her company than any one else, who must therefore fee more of her folly than any one else, and muft fuffer more from the fhame of it, as being more nearly connected with her than any other perfon. If a woman has not fome fmall fhare of fenfe, what means can a husband ufe to fet her right in any error of conduct, into many of which fhe will naturally run? Not reafon, or argument: for a fool is proof against that. And if he has not a little goodnature; to attempt to advise her, will be only arguing with a tempeft, or roufing a fury.

If, between the two married perfons, there be upon the whole enough for a comfortable fubfiftence according to their ftation and temper of mind, it fignifies very little whether it comes by one fide, or the other, or both. Nothing is more abfurd, than that it fhould feem of fuch importance in the judgment of many people, that a gentleman make a match fuitable to himfelf, as they often very improperly call it; by which they mean, that he is in duty bound to find out a lady poffeffed of

F

a fortune equal to his own, though what he has already may be more than fufficient for fupporting the rank he is born in. The confequences of this mercenary way of procceding, are only the accumulating more and more materials for luxury, vanity, and oftentation, the perverfion of the inftitution of marriage, which was for the mutual fupport and comfort of the parties, into a mere affair of bargain and fale; the alienating, or cooling the affections of the parties for one another, by thewing each of them, that the union was not entered into by the other on account of any perfonal regards, but from mercenary motives only; and the feparation, inftead of the union of interefts. It is no wonder, that fuch marriages prove unhappy; and that each fhould look upon the other as a clog annexed to the fortune, which was the principal object each aimed at, and should therefore mutually wifh one another well out of the way.

I do not here mean to infinuate, that every woman of fortune muft of course be good for nothing. But that a man in affluent circumftances is much to blame, who, for the fake of adding to an heap, already too large, enters into an engagement, to which inclination does not lead him, and deprives himself of an opportunity of gaining and fixing the affections of a virtuous and amiable perfon, raised by him to a rank above her expectations, and thereby inspired, if she is not wholly void of goodness, with fuch a sense of gratitude to her benefactor, as muft influence all her actions.

On the other hand, nothing is more dreadful than the profpect thofe people have, who from romantic love run precipitately into an engagement, that muft hold for life, without confidering or providing for the confequences. Two young perfons, who hurry into marriage, without a reasonable profpect of an income to fupport them and their family, are in a condition as wretched, as any I know of, where a guilty conscience is out of the question. Let a man confider a little, when he views the object of his paffion, to whom he longs to be united by a facred and indiffoluble bond, how he will bear to fee thofe eyes, every glance of which makes his heart bound with joy, drowned in

tears,

tears, at the thought of mifery and poverty coming upon her; how he will bear to fee that face, whofe finile rejoices his foul, grown pale and haggard through anguish of mind; or how he will bear to think that the offfpring, fhe is going to bring forth, is to be born to beggary and mifery. If young people confidered maturely the fearful confequences of marriage, where there is no profpect of a proper provifion, and where the anguish of poverty will be the more intolerable, the more fincere their affections are; they would not run headlong, as we often fee them, into mifery irretrievable.

It may often happen, that the family and connexions with which a woman is engaged, may alone be of more advantage to a man than a fortune; as on the other hand, it may happen, that a woman of fortune, may be fo given to expence, or may bring with her fuch a tribe of poor relations, as thrice the income of her fortune would not be fufficient to maintain. In either of thefe cafes, a man's prudence is to direct him to make that choice which will be the best upon the whole.

It is a fatal error in the conduct of many young people in the lower ranks of life, to make choice of young women, who have been brought up in indolence and gaiety, and are not poffeffed of fortunes fuitable the manner of life they have been accustomed to. The probable confequence of fuch matches is great and remedilefs mifery. For fuch women, having never been practifed in the oeconomy of families, are incapable of applying themselves with that attention and affiduity, much lefs. condefcenfion, to the meaner parts of household affairs, which is abfolutely neceffary, where the income is but moderate. If a young trader's gains are but fmall, and his help-mate neither brings in any thing to the common ftock, nor knows how to make the moft of a little, and at the fame time there is a profpect of a numerous family of children coming on, with the cafualities of fickness, a decay of trade, and fo forth, the man, who finds himself involved in fuch a fcene of troubles, mav juftly be looked upon, as among the most wretched of mortals.