Thrice happy they whom the ftrong chain of wedlock binds together in love, undisturbed by jarring complaints, of equal duration with their life.

Y fifter Jenny's lover, the honeft Tranquillus (for that shall be his name), has been impatient with me to dispatch the neceffary directions for his marriage. . . . When I had reprimanded him for the ardour wherein he expreffed himself... I told him the day of his nuptials fhould be on the Saturday following, which was the 8th inftant. On the 7th, in the evening, poor Jenny came into my chamber, and having her heart full of the great change of life from a virgin condition to that of a wife, fhe long fat filent. I faw fhe expected me to entertain her on this important fubject, which was too delicate a circumftance for herself to touch upon, whereupon I relieved her modefty in the following manner: "Sifter," faid I, "you are now going from me, and be contented that

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you leave the company of a talkative old man for that of a fober young one; but take this along with you, that there is no mean in the state you are entering into, but you are to be exquifitely happy or miserable; and your fortune in this way of life will be wholly of your own making. In all the marriages I have ever feen, most of which have been unhappy ones, the great cause of evil has proceeded from flight occafions; and I take it to be the firft maxim in a married condition, that you are to be above trifles. When two perfons have fo good an opinion of each other as to come together for life, they will not differ in matters of importance, because they think of each other with respect in regard to all things of confideration that may affect them, and are prepared for mutual affistance and relief in fuch occurrences, but for lefs occafions they have formed no refolutions, but leave their minds unprepared.

"This, dear Jenny, is the reafon that the quarrel between Sir Harry Willit and his lady, which began about her squirrel, is irreconcilable. Sir Harry was reading a grave author; she runs into his study, and in a playing humour, claps the squirrel upon the folio. He threw the animal in a rage on the floor; the fnatches it up again, calls Sir Harry a four pedant, without good nature or good manners. This caft him into fuch a rage, that he threw down the table before him, kicked the book round the room, then recollected himself: 'Lord, madam,' said he, 'why did you run into fuch expreffions? I was,' faid he, in the highest delight with that author, when you clapped your squirrel upon my book,' and smiling, added upon recollection, I have a great refpect for your favourite, and pray let us all be friends.' My lady was fo far from accepting this apology, that the immediately conceived a refolution to keep him under for ever, and with a serious air, replied, 'There is no regard to be had to what a man fays who can fall into fo indecent a rage and fuch an abject fubmiffion in the fame moment, for which I absolutely despise you.' Upon which fhe rushed out of the room. Sir Harry ftaid fome minutes behind to think and command himself, after which he followed her into her bed-chamber, where she was

proftrate upon the bed, tearing her hair, and naming twenty coxcombs who would have used her otherwise. This provoked him to fo high a degree, that he forbore nothing but beating her; and all the fervants in the family were at their feveral stations liftening, whilft the best man and woman, the best master and mistress, defamed each other in a way that is not to be repeated, even at Billinfgate. You know this ended in an immediate feparation. She longs to return home, but knows not how to do it. He invites her home every day . . . Her husband requires no fubmiffion of her; but she thinks her very return will argue she is to blame, which she is refolved to be for ever, rather than acknowledge it.

"Thus, dear Jenny, my great advice to you is, be guarded against giving or receiving little provocations. Great matters of offence I have no reason to fear either from you or your husband." After this we turned our difcourfe into a more gay style, and parted; 'but before we did fo, I made her resign her fnuff-box for ever, and half drown herself with washing away the stench of the mufty.

But the wedding morning arrived, and our family being very numerous, there was no avoiding the inconvenience of making the ceremony and festival more publick than the modern way of celebrating them makes me approve of. The bride next morning came out of her chamber, dressed with all the art and care that Mrs. Toilet, the tire-woman, could bestow on her. She was on her wedding-day, three-and-twenty. Her perfon is far from what we call a regular beauty, but a certain sweetness in her countenance, an ease in her shape and motion, with an unaffected modesty in her looks, had attractions beyond what symmetry and exactness can inspire without the addition of these endowments. When her lover entered the room, her features flushed with shame and joy; and the ingenuous manner, fo full of paffion and of awe, with which Tranquillus approached to falute her, gave me good omens of his future behaviour towards her. The wedding was wholly under my care. After the ceremony at church, I was refolved to entertain the company with a dinner suitable to the occafion,

and pitched upon the Apollo, at the Old Devil at Temple Bar, as a place facred to mirth, tempered with difcretion, where Ben Jonfon and his fons used to make their liberal meetings. Here the chief of the Staffian race appeared; and as soon as the company were come into that ample room, Lepidus Wagftaff began to make me compliments for choofing that place, and fell into a difcourfe upon the subject of pleasure and entertainment, drawn from the rules of Ben's club, which are in gold letters over the chimney. Lepidus has a way very uncommon, and speaks on fubjects on which any man elfe would certainly offend, with great dexterity. He gives us a large account of the publick meetings of all the well-turned minds who had paffed through this life in ages paft, and closed his pleasing narrative with a discourse on marriage, and a repetition of the following verfes out of Milton :

Hail, wedded love! myfterious law! true fource
Of human offspring, fole propriety

In paradife, of all things common elfe.

by thee,

Founded in reafon, loyal, juft, and pure,
Relations dear, and all the charities
Of father, fon, and brother, first were known.
Perpetual fountain of domeftick fweets,
Whofe bed is undefil'd, and chafte pronounc'd,
Prefent or paft, as faints or patriarchs us'd.
Here love his golden fhafts employs; here lights
His conftant lamp, and waves his purple wings :
Reigns here, and revels not in the bought smile,
lovelefs, joyless, unindear'd,
Cafual fruition; nor in court amours,

Mix'd dance, or wanton mafk, or midnight ball,
Or fenerade, which the ftarv'd lover fings

To his proud fair, beft quitted with difdain.

In these verses, all the images that can come into a young woman's head on fuch an occafion are raised, but that in fo

chafte and elegant a manner, that the bride thanked him for his agreeable talk, and we fat down to dinner.

Among the rest of the company, there was got in a fellow you call a wag. This ingenuous perfon is the ufual life of all feafts and merriments, by fpeaking abfurdities, and putting every body of breeding and modefty out of countenance. As foon as we fat down, he drank to the bride . . . and then made twenty double meanings. . We are the best bred family, for one fo numerous, in this kingdom; and indeed we fhould all of us have been as much out of countenance as the bride, but that were relieved by an honeft rough relation of ours at the lower end of the table, who is a lieutenant of marines. The foldier and the failor had good plain fenfe, and faw what was wrong as well as another; he had a way of looking at his plate, and fpeaking aloud in an inward manner; and whenever the wag mentioned the word. words. . . the lieutenant in that voice cried, knock him, down. The merry man wondering, angry, and looking round, was the diverfion of the table. When he offered to recover, and fay, to the bride's beft thoughts, knock him down, fays the lieutenant, and fo on. This filly humour diverted, and faved us from the fulfome entertainment of an ill-bred coxcomb, and the bride drank to the lieutenant's health. We returned to my lodging, and Tranquillus led his wife to her apartment, without the ceremony of throwing the stocking, without any ceremony at all.

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