children, fall into mistakes from too great anxiety, their neglect is without excuse, who, immersed in dissipation, delegate to a hireling the most sacred and most natural of all duties: to these unprofitable and inconsiderate beings I shall not speak in plain prose, but will desire them to give the following little poem a perusal.

Dorinda and her spouse were join'd

As modern men and women are,
In matrimony, not in mind,
A fashionable pair.

Fine clothes, fine diamonds, and fine lace,
The smartest vis-à-vis in town,
With title, pin-money, and place,

Made wedlock's pill go down.

In decent time by Hunter's art
The wish'd-for heir Dorinda bore;
A girl came next: she'd done her part,
Dorinda bred no more.

Now education's care employs

Dorinda's brain

-but ah! the curse,

Go, take 'em to the nurse!

The lovely babes improve apace

By dear Ma'amselle's prodigious care;
Miss gabbles French with pert grimace,
And Master learns to swear.

Sweet innocents!' the servants cry,
'So natural be, and she so wild:
Laud, Nurse, do humour 'em-for why?
Twere sin to snub a child.'

Time runs- My God!'-Dorinda cries,
How monstrously the girl is grown!
She has more meaning in her eyes
Than half the girls in town.'

Now teachers throng; Miss dances, sings,
Learns every art beneath the sun,
Scrawls, scribbles, does a thousand things
Without a taste for one.

Lapdogs and parrots, paints, good lack!
Enough to make Sir Joshua jealous,
Writes rebusses, and has her clack
Of small-talk for the fellows :

Mobs to the milliners for fashions,
Reads every tawdry tale that's new;
Has fits, opinions, humours, passions,
And dictates in virtù.

Ma'amselle to Miss's hand conveys
A billet-doux; she's très-commode,
The Dancing-master's in the chaise,
They scour the northern road.

Away to Scottish land they post,

Miss there becomes a lawful wife;

Her frolic over, to her cost

Miss is a wretch for life.

Master meanwhile advances fast

In modern manners and in vice,
And with a school-boy's heedless haste,
Rattles the desperate dice.

Travels no doubt by modern rules
To France, to Italy, and there
Commences adept in the schools
Of Rousseau and Voltaire.

Returns in all the dernier gout

Of Brussels-point and Paris clothes, Buys antique statues vampt anew, And busts without a nose.

Then hey! at dissipation's call

To every club that leads the ton,
Hazard's the word; he flies at all,
He's pigeon'd and undone.

Now comes a wife, the stale pretence,
The old receipt to pay new debts;
He pockets City-Madam's pence,
And doubles all his bets.

He drains his stewards, racks his farms,
Annuitizes, fines, renews,

And every morn his levee swarms

With swindlers and with Jews.

The guinea lost that was his last,
Desperate at length the maniac cries—
This thro' my brain!'-'tis done; 'tis past;
He fires-he falls-he dies!

NUMBER XXVIII.

Γάμος κράτιστός ἐστιν ἀνδρὶ σώφρονι

Τρόπον γυναικὸς χρηστὸν ἔνδον λαμβάνει.—HIPPONAX.
To a wise husband, when possessing

A virtuous wife, wedlock's a blessing.

THOUGH I do not like paradoxes, and can readily acknowledge the respect due to general opinions, yet I am bold to aver to the face of all those fine gentlemen, who, if they think as they act, will laugh me to scorn for the notion, that marriage is a measure of some consequence. I do not mean to say that it is necessary in the choice of a wife, that she should be of any particular stature or complexion, brown or fair, tall or short; neither do I think a man of family need absolutely to insist upon as many clear descents, as would satisfy a German count, before he quarters arms with a lady; nor do I article for fortune, or connexion, or any other worldly recommendation as indispensable; satisfied only, if it will be granted to me, that the parties ought not to unite without some mutual explanation, some previous understanding of each other's temper, and some reasonable ground of belief that the contract they are about to enter into for life, is likely to hold good to the end of the term for which it is made.

I am not so ignorant of the world as not to know how many specious reasons may be given on the other side of the question; and being sensible I have

a hard point to drive, I am willing to conciliate my opponents by all reasonable concessions.

Lord Faro married to pay off a mortgage that encumbered his estate, and to discharge certain debts of honour that encumbered his mind still more: his match therefore was a match of principle; and though a run of bad luck defeated his good intentions towards his creditors, and though the vulgar manners of his lady smelt so strong of the city that she became insupportable, yet all the world allowed that the measure was judicious, justifiable, and in his lordship's situation indispensable.

Lady Bab Spectre married Colonel Spectre because he haunted her in all assemblies, was for ever at her back in the Opera-house, glided into the church when she was at her devotions, and declared in all companies that he was determined to have her. Lady Bab married to be revenged of him; nobody denied but she took the right method, and all the world allowed that she had her revenge: the colonel is literally a spectre at this moment.

Sir Harry Bluster and Miss Hornet were first cou-. sins, and though brought up together in the same house like brother and sister, squabbled and fought like dog and cat: Sir Harry's face bore the marks of her nails, and Miss's head-dress was the frequent victim of his fury: this young pair made a match in the laudable expectation of a better agreement after wedlock : all the world applauded their motives, and the event fully answered their expectation-for they parted by consent.

Old Lady Lucy Lumbago was told by a fortuneteller that she should die a maid: when she was at least sixty years in advance towards fulfilling the prediction, she drew a piece of wedding-cake through a bride's gold ring, and dreamed of her own footman: she married him the next week to thwart the

destinies the footman went off with her strong-box, and left her behind to complete the prophecy.

Lord Calomel had a plentiful estate and a very scanty constitution, but he had two reasons for marrying, which all the world gave him credit for; the first was, to get an heir, which he wanted, and the second was to get rid of a mistress he was tired of: he made his choice of Miss Frolic, and every body allowed the odds were in his favour for an heir: the lady brought him a full-grown boy at five months end; his lordship drove his wife out of his house, and reinstated his mistress.

Jack Fanciful had a blind-side towards a fine eyebrow. It was his humour, and he had a right to please himself: Signora Falsetta struck an arrow to his heart from a pair of full-drawn bows, that would have done honour to Cleopatra herself, whose stage representative the signora then was: Jack made overtures of a certain sort, which her majesty repulsed with the dignity that became her; in short, the virtue of Cleopatra was impregnable, or at least, it was plain she was not every body's Cleopatra. What could Jack do? It was impossible to give up the eyebrows, and it was no less impossible to have them upon any terms, but terms of honour. Jack married her it was his humour, and all the world allowed he was in the right to indulge it: the happy knot was tied; Jack flew with lips of ardour to his lovely Cleopatra; the faithless eyebrow deserted from the naked forehead of its owner, and (O sad exchange!) took post upon Jack's chin.

These, and many more than these, may be called cases in point, and brought to prove that matrimony is a mere whim, a caprice of the moment, and by people who know the world treated with suitable indifference; but still I must hope that such of my readers, at least, who do not know the world, or