and errors, but conducting their minds from one humour to another, with as much ceremony as we lead their person from one place to another. I therefore diffembled my concern, and in compliance with her, as a lady that was to use her feet no more, I begged of her, after a short visit, to let me persuade her not to stay out till it was late, for fear of catching cold as she went into her coach in the dampness of the evening. The malapert knew well enough I laughed at her, but was not ill pleased with the certainty of her power over her husband, who she knew would fupport her in any humour he was able, rather than pafs through the torment of an expoftulation to gainfay anything she had a mind to. As foon as my fine lady was gone, I writ the following letter to my brother:

"DEAR BROTHER,

"I am at present under very much concern at the splendid appearance I faw my fifter make in an equipage which she has fet up in your abfence. I beg of you not to indulge her in this vanity; and defire you to confider, the world is fo whimsical, that though it will value you for being happy, it will hate you for appearing fo. The poffeffion of wisdom and virtue (the only folid diftinctions of life) is allowed much more easily than that of wealth and quality. Befides which, I must entreat you to weigh with yourself what it is that people aim at in fetting themselves out to fhew in gay equipages and moderate fortunes! You are not by this means a better man than your neighbour is, but your horfes are better than his are. And will you fuffer care and inquietude to have it faid as you pass by, Thofe are very pretty punch nags?' Nay, when you have arrived at this, there are a hundred worthless fellows who are still four horfes happier than you are. member, dear brother, there is a certain modesty in the enjoyment of moderate wealth, which to tranfgrefs, exposes men to the utmost derifion; and as there is nothing but meannefs of spirit can move a man to value himself upon what can be purchafed with money, fo he that fhews an ambition that way, and cannot arrive at it, is more emphatically guilty of that meannefs. I give you only my firft thoughts on this occafion,

Re

but fhall, as I am a cenfor, entertain you in my next with my fentiments in general upon the subject of equipage, and fhew that, though there are no fumptuary laws amongst us, reafon and good sense are equally binding, and will ever prevail in appointing approbation or dislike in all matters of an indifferent nature when they are purfued with earnestness.

I am, Sir, &c."

There are certain occafions of life which give propitious omens of the future good conduct of it, as well as others which explain our prefent inward state, according to our behaviour in them. Of the latter fort are funerals, of the former, weddings. The manner of our carriage when we lofe a friend, fhews very much our temper, in the humility of our words and actions, and a general fenfe of our destitute condition, which runs through all our deportment. This gives a folemn teftimony of the generous affection we bore our friends, when we feem to difrelish every thing now we can no more enjoy them, or fee them partake in our enjoyments. It is very proper and humane to put ourselves, as it were, in their livery after their decease, and wear a habit unfuitable to profperity, while those we loved and honoured are mouldering in the grave. As this is laudable on the forrowful fide, fo on the other, incidents of fuccess may no less justly be represented and acknowledged in our outward figure and carriage. Of all fuch occafions, that great change of a fingle life into marriage is the most important, as it is the fource of all relations, and from whence all other friendship and commerce do principally arise. The general intent of both fexes is to difpofe of themselves happily and honourably in this state; and, as all the good qualities we have are exerted to make our way into it, fo the best appearance, with regard to their minds, their perfons, and their fortunes, at the first entrance into it, is a due to each other in the married pair, as well as a compliment to the rest of the world. It was an instruction of a wife Lawgiver, that unmarried women should wear fuch loofe habits, which, in the flowing of their garb, should incite their beholders to a defire of their persons;

M

and that the ordinary motion of their bodies might display the figure and shape of their limbs in fuch a manner, as at once to preserve the strictest decency, and raise the warmest inclinations.

This was the economy of the legislator for the increase of people, and at the fame time for the preservation of the genial bed. She who was the admiration of all who beheld her while unmarried, was to bid adieu to the pleasure of shining in the eyes of many, as soon as she took upon her the wedded condition. However there was a festival of life allowed the new-married, a fort of intermediate state between celibacy and matrimony, which continued certain days. During that time, entertainments, equipages, and other circumstances of rejoicing, were encouraged, and they were permitted to exceed the common mode of living, that the bride and bridegroom might learn from fuch freedoms of converfation to run into a general conduct to each other, made out of their past and future ftate, fo to temper the cares of the man and the wife, with the gaieties of the lover and the mistress.

In those wife ages when the dignity of life was kept up, and on the celebration of fuch folemnities there were no impertinent whispers, and fenfeless interpretations put upon the unaffected cheerfulness or accidental seriousness of the bride; but men turned their thoughts upon their general reflections, upon what iffue might probably be expected from fuch a couple in the fucceeding courfe of their life, and felicitated them accordingly upon fuch profpects.

I must confefs I cannot, from any ancient manuscripts, fculptures, or medals, deduce the rife of our celebrated custom of throwing the stocking, but have a faint memory of an account a friend gave me of an original picture in the palace of Aldobrandini in Rome. This feems to fhow a sense of this

affair very different from what is ufual among us. It is a Grecian wedding, and the figures reprefented are a perfon offering facrifice, a beautiful damfel dancing, and another playing on the harp. The bride is placed in her bed, the bridegroom fits at the feet of it, with an afpect which intimates his thoughts were not only entertained with the joys with which he was furrounded, but also with a noble gratitude and divine

pleasure in the offering, which was then made to the gods, to invoke their influence on his new condition. There appears in the face of the woman a mixture of fear, hope, and modefty; in the bridegroom a well-governed rapture. As you fee in great fpirits, grief which discovers itself the more by forbearing tears and complaints, you may observe also the highest joy is too big for utterance, the tongue being of all the organs the leaft capable of expreffing fuch a circumftance. The nuptial torch, the bower, the marriage fong, are all particulars which we meet with in the allufions of the ancient writers; and in every one of them fomething is to be observed, which denotes their industry to aggrandize and adorn this occafion above all others.

With us, all order and decency in this point is perverted by the infipid mirth of certain animals we ufually call wags. These are a fpecies, of all men the most insupportable. One cannot without fome reflection fay, whether their flat mirth provokes us more to pity or to fcorn; but, if one confiders with how great affectation they utter their frigid conceits, commiferation immediately changes itself into contempt.

A wag is the last order even of pretenders to wit and good humour. He has generally his mind prepared to receive fome occafion of merriment, but is of himself too empty to draw any out of his own set of thoughts, and therefore laughs at the next thing he meets, not because it is ridiculous, but because he is under a neceffity of laughing. A wag is one that never in its life faw a beautiful object, but fees what it does fee in the most low and most inconfiderable light it can be placed. There is a certain ability neceffary to behold what is amiable and worthy of our approbation, which little minds want, and attempt to hide by a general difregard to everything they behold above what they are able to relish. Hence it is that a wag in an affembly is ever gueffing how well fuch a lady slept last night, and how much fuch a young fellow is pleased with himself. The wag's gaiety consists in a certain professed ill-breeding, as if it were an excufe for committing a fault that a man knows he does fo. Though all publick places are full of perfons of this order, yet, because I will not allow imperti

nence and affectation to get the better of native innocence and fimplicity of manners, I have, in fpite of fuch little disturbers of publick entertainments, perfuaded my brother Tranquillus and his wife, my fister Jenny, in favour of Mr. Wilks, to be at the play to-morrow evening.

They, as they have fo much good fenfe as to act naturally, without regard to the observation of others, will not, I hope, be difcompofed, if any of the fry of wags fhould take upon them to make themselves merry upon the occafion of their coming, as they intend, in their wedding clothes. My brother is a plain, worthy, and honeft man; and as it is natural for men of that turn to be mightily taken with sprightly and airy women, my fister has a vivacity which may perhaps give hopes to impertinents, but will be efteemed the effect of innocence among wife men. They defign to fit with me in the box, which the house have been fo complaisant to offer me whenever I think fit to come thither in my publick character.

I do not in the least doubt, but the true figure of conjugal affection will appear in their looks and geftures. My fifter does not affect to be gorgeous in her drefs, and thinks the happiness of a wife is more visible in a cheerful look than a gay apparel. It is a hard task to speak of perfons fo nearly related to one with decency; but, I may fay, all who shall be at the play, will allow him to have the mien of a worthy English gentleman, her, that of a notable and deserving wife.