in the county of Hants. After this event Mr. Gilbert Gurney, as every man when he marries should do, turned over a new leaf-in his common-place book; and I find a hiatus, " valdé deflendus," of nearly two months, in his memoranda. Love, I presume, left him no leisure for literature; at least there is nothing discoverable in the way of detail, affecting either the celebration of his wedding, or the subsequent excursion which fashionable delicacy appears to have rendered indispensable upon such occasions; and the first resumption of his notes occurs on the first day of the year succeeding that in which he became a Benedick: and thus he writes:

I begin a new year in a new character-I am now a married man. 66 Marriage," says Johnson, "is the strictest tie of perpetual friendship, and there can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity; and he must expect to be wretched who pays to beauty, riches, and politeness, that regard which only virtue and piety can claim." Johnson was right.

Cuthbert's munificence has enabled me to establish myself in perfect comfort. He has made one stipulation-he desires to make our house his home; and when the young Falwassers, his wife's children, have their school vacations, they are also to pass their Christmas and Midsummer holidays here. This is all right and pleasant-a combination not very common in the affairs of this world. Cuthbert has an apartment of two rooms, consisting of a study and bed-chamber, allotted to him, both opening into Harriet's flower-garden on the south side of the house; for his long residence in India has rendered him extremely sensitive, as far as our capricious climate is concerned.

Fanny Wells is staying with my wife, to whom she was always an affectionate sister; and we are all as happy as we could wish, and perhaps even happier than we deserve to be. I feel myself snatched from the follies and frivolities of an idle vagabond life, and placed by providence in a haven of security, where nothing but quietude and comfort are to be found.

There was certainly something remarkably odd in the way in which I was inveigled into matrimony. My father-in-law's conduct might, in many other cases, have been attributed to interested motives, and his eagerness to conclude a matrimonial treaty between his daughter and myself, might have been put to the account of his anxiety to get her off his hands, and settle her advantageously in the world; but that cannot be thought or imagined, the moment the smallness of my income is taken into consideration. What startles me most, and most powerfully excites my gratitude to Providence is, that circumstances should have occurred not only to prevent distress and uneasiness, and perhaps worse calamities, in my wife's family, and not only to rescue us from the necessity of undertaking a voyage to India, but to place us in a state of such agreeable competency as that in which we now find ourselves.

When Cuthbert first established himself at Ashmead-a somewhat pastoral "name" for my first local habitation"-I was very much surprised at his absolute helplessness. His servant

is qui-hi'd into his room every five minutes. Lighting a taper or sealing a letter appears to be an Herculean task to him, and the listlessness which pervades the conduct of his life, manifests itself so strongly when we are at breakfast or dinner, that I am sure if, amongst the innumerable classes of domestics with which India abounds, there were such an officer as an Eatabader to be had, Cuthbert would have him at any price.

When we first met at Gosport, he was so evidently labouring under the effects of bad health and depression of spirits, that I could quite understand this abasement of animal exertion; and before I knew how nearly we were connected, I felt the deepest sympathy for his unhappy case. Now, that feeling is changed into wonder and astonishment, that a being who, by what he calls his own exertions, has contrived to realize a handsome fortune, should seem to possess no power of exerting himself upon any occasion whatever. His health is good, his

spirits are recovering rapidly, but his torpor continues.

He is, I find, like our friend Nubley, afflicted with occasional fits of absence. I am afraid, if Harriet were to speak truth, she and her sister Fanny would not break their hearts if the fit were permanent. He crawls or is wheeled out of his own rooms every day about noon, and seats himself in the drawing-room, in order, as he says, to amuse the ladies and the visitors who chance to call; and the ladies are forced to remain where they are, in order to amuse him. He talks to everybody with whom he meets, as if he had known them all his life; and I cannot conceal the fact from myself, that he talks about nothing in the world, let him talk long as he may.

Wells rather enjoys his peculiarities, and Nubley listens to him with the deepest interest. In short, strange as it may seem, I believe Cuthbert's anxiety that I should take this house was mainly attributable to his desire to be near his old friend and former partner. To Harriet, of