racter, which, whatever it might have been originally, is melted down and cast into the one prevailing mould of Fashion; all the strong, native discriminating qualities of his mind being made to take one shape, one stamp, one superscription! However varied and distinct might have been the materials which nature threw into the crucible, plastic Fashion takes care that they shall all be the same, or at least appear the same, when they come out of the mould. A young man in such an artificial state of society, accustomed to the voluptuous ease, refined luxuries, soft accomodations, obsequious attendance, and all the unrestrained indulgences of a fashionable CLUB, is not to be expected after marriage to take very cordially to a home unless very extraordinary exertions are made to amuse, to attach, and to interest him; and he is not likely to lend a very helping hand to the happiness of the union, whose most laborious exertions have hitherto been little more than a selfish stratagem to reconcile health with pleasure. Excess of gratification has only served to make him irritable and exacting; it will of course be no part of his project to make sacrifices, he will expect to receive them; and what would appear incredible to the Paladins of gallant times, and the Chevaliers Preux of more heroic days, even in the necessary business of establishing himself for life, he sometimes is more disposed to expect attentions than to make advances.

Thus the indolent son of Fashion with a thousand fine, but dormant, qualities, which a bad tone

of manners forbids him to bring into exercise; with real energies which that tone does not allow him to discover, and an unreal apathy which it commands him to feign; with the heart of a hero, perhaps, if called into the field, affects at home the manners of a Sybarite; and he who, with a Roman, or, what is more, with a British valour, would leap into the gulf at the call of public duty,

Yet in the soft and piping time of peace,

when Fashion has resumed her rights, would murmur if a rose-leaf lay double under him.

The clubs above alluded to, as has been said, generate and cherish luxurious habits, from their perfect ease, undress, liberty, and inattention to the distinctions of rank; they promote a love of play, and, in short, every temper and spirit which tends to undomesticate; and what adds to the mischief is, that all this voluptuous enjoyment is attained at a cheap rate compared with what may be procured at home in the same style.

These indulgences, and this habit of mind, gratify so many passions, that a woman can never hope successfully to counteract the evil by supplying at home gratifications which are of the same kind, or which gratify the same habits. Now a passion for gratifying vanity, and a spirit of dissipation is a passion of the same kind; and, therefore, though for a few weeks, a man who has chosen his wife in the public haunts, and this wife a woman made up of accomplishments, may, from the novelty of

the connection and of the scene, continue domestic; yet in a little time she will find that those passions, to which she has trusted for making pleasant the married life of her husband, will crave the still more seducing pleasures of the club; and while these are pursued, she will be consigned over to solitary evenings at home, or driven back to the old dissipations abroad.

To conquer the passion for club gratifications, a woman must not strive to feed it with sufficient aliment of the same kind in her society, either at home or abroad; she must supplant and overcome it by a passion of a different nature, which Providence has kindly planted within us; I mean, by inspiring him with the love of fire-side enjoyments. But to qualify herself for administering these, she must cultivate her understanding, and her heart, and her temper, acquiring at the same time that modicum of accomplishments suited to his taste, which may qualify her for possessing, both for him and for herself, greater varieties of safe recreation.

One great cause of the want of attachment in these modish couples is, that by living in the world at large, they are not driven to depend on each other as the chief source of comfort. Now it is pretty clear, in spite of modern theories, that the very frame and being of societies, whether great or small, public or private, is jointed and glued together by dependence. Those attachments, which arise from, and are compacted by, a sense of mutual wants, mutual affection, mutual benefit, and

mutual obligation, are the cement which_secures the union of the family as well as of the state.

Unfortunately, when two young persons of the above description marry, the union is sometimes considered rather as the end than the beginning of an engagement: the attachment of each to the other is rather viewed as an object already completed, than as one which marriage is to confirm more closely. But, indeed, the companion for life is not always chosen from the purest motive; she is selected, perhaps, because she is admired by other men, rather than because she possesses in an eminent degree those peculiar qualities which are likely to constitute the individual happiness of the man who chooses her. Vanity usurps the place of affection,

and indolence swallows up the judgment. Not happiness, but some easy substitute for happiness, is pursued; and a choice which may excite envy, rather than produce satisfaction, is adopted as the means of effecting it.

The pair, not matched but joined, set out separately with their independent and individual pursuits. Whether it made a part of their original plan or not, that they should be indispensably necessary to each other's comfort, the sense of this necessity, probably not very strong at first, rather diminishes than increases by time; they live so much in the world, and so little together, that to stand well with their own set continues the favourite project of each; while to stand well with each other is considered as an under part of the plot in the drama of life. Whereas, did they start in the

conjugal race with the fixed idea that they were to look to each other for their chief worldly happiness, not only principle, but prudence, and even selfishness, would convince them of the necessity of sedulously cultivating each other's esteem and affection as the grand means of promoting that happiness. But vanity, and the desire of flattery and applause, still continue to operate. Even after the husband is brought to feel a perfect indifference for his wife, he still likes to see her decorated in a style which may serve to justify his choice. He encourages her to set off her person, not so much for his own gratification, as that his self-love may be flattered, by her continuing to attract the admiration of those whose opinion is the standard by which he measures his fame, and which fame is to stand him in the stead of happiness. Thus is she necessarily exposed to the two-fold temptation of being at once neglected by her husband, and exhibited as an object of attraction to other men. If she escape this complicated danger, she will be indebted for her preservation not to his prudence, but to her own principles.

In some of these modish marriages, instead of the decorous neatness, the pleasant intercourse, and the mutual warmth of communication of the once social dinner, the late and uninteresting meal is commonly hurried over by the languid and slovenly pair, that the one may have time to dress for his club and the other for her party. And in these cold abstracted têtes-à-têtes, they often take as little pains to entertain each other