recollected that no object however sublime, no sounds however charming, can continue to transport us with delight, when they no longer strike us with novelty. The skill to renovate the powers of pleasing are said indeed to be possessed by some women in an eminent degree, but the artifices of maturity are seldom seen to adorn the innocence of youth; you have made your choice, and ought to approve it.

Satiety follows quick upon the heels of possession; and to be happy, we must always have something in view. The person of your lady is already all your own, and will not grow more pleasing in your eyes, doubt, though the rest of your sex will think her handsomer for these dozen years. Turn therefore all your attention to her mind, which daily grows brighter by polishing. Study some easy science together, and acquire a similarity of taste while you enjoy a community of pleasures. You will, by this means, have many images in common, and be freed from the necessity of separating to find amusement. Nothing is so dangerous to wedded love, as the possibility of either being happy out of the company of the other endeavor, therefore, to cement the present intimacy on every side. Let your wife never be kept ignorant of your income, your expenses, your friendships or aversions; let her know your very faults, but make them amiable by your virtues; consider all concealment as a breach of fidelity; let her never have any thing to find out in your character, and remember, that from the moment one of the partners turns spy upon the other, they have commenced a state of hostility.

Seek not for happiness in singularity; and dread a refinement of wisdom as a deviation into folly. Listen not to those sages who advise you always to scorn the counsel of a woman, and if you comply with her requests pronounce you wife-ridden. Think not any privation, except of positive evil, and excellence; and do not congratulate yourself that your wife is not a learned lady, or is wholly ignorant how to make a pudding. Cookery, and learning, are both good in their places, and may both be used with advantage.

With regard to expense I can only observe, that the money laid out in the purchase of distinction is seldom or never profitably employed. We live in an age when splendid equipage and glittering furniture are grown too common to catch the notice of the meanest spectator; and for the greater ones, they only regard our wasteful folly with silent contempt, or open indignation. This may, perhaps, be a displeasing reflection, but the following consideration ought to make amends. The age we live in, pays, I think, peculiar attention to the higher distinctions of wit, knowledge and virtue, to which we may more safely, more cheaply, and more honorably aspire. The giddy flirt of quality frets at the respect she sees paid to Lady Edgecumbe, and the gay dunce sits pining for a partner, while Jones, the orientalist, leads up the ball.

I said that the person of your lady would not grow more pleasing to you, but pray let her never suspect that it grows so; that a woman will pardon an affront to her understanding much sooner than one to her person, is well known; nor will any of us contradict the assertion. All our attainments, all our arts, are employed to gain and keep the heart of man; and what mortification can exceed the disappointment, if the end be not obtained? There is no reproof however pointed, no pun

ishment however severe, that a woman of spirit will not prefer to neglect; and if she can endure it without complaint, it only proves that she means to make herself amends by the attention of others for the slights of her husband. For this and for every reason, it behoves a married man not to let his politeness fail, though his ardor may abate; but to retain, at least, that general civility towards his own lady which he is so willing to pay to every other, and not show a wife of eighteen or twenty years old, that every man in company can treat her with more complaicence than he who so often vowed to her eternal fonduess.

It is not my opinion that a young woman should be indulged in every wild wish of her gay heart or giddy head, but contradiction may be softened by domestic kindness, and quiet pleasures substituted in the place of noisy ones. Public amusements are not indeed so expensive as is sometimes imagined, but they tend to alienate the minds of married people from each other. A wel! chosen society of friends and acquaintance, more eminent for virtue and good sense than for gaiety and splendor, where the conversation of the day may afford comment for the evening, seems the most rational pleasure this great town can afford.

That your own superiority should be always seen, but never felt, seems an excellent general rule. A wife should out-shine her husband in nothing, not even in her dress. If she happens to have a taste for the trifling distinction that finery can confer, suffer her not a moment to fancy, when she appears in public, that Sir Edward or the Colonel are finer gentlemen than her husband. The bane of married happiness among the city men in general has been, that finding themselves unfit for polite life, they transferred their vanity to their ladies, dressed them up gaily, and sent them out a gallanting, while the good man was to regale himself with port wine or rum punch, perhaps among mean companions, after the counting-house was shut; this practice produced the ridicule thrown on them in all our comedies and novels since commerce began to prosper. But now that I am so near the subject, a word or two on jealousy may not be amiss, for though not a failing of the present age's growth, yet the seeds of it are but too certainly sown in every warm bosom for us to neglect it as a fault of no consequence. If you are ever tempted to be jealous, watch your wife narrowly, but never tease her: tell her your jealousy, but conceal four suspicion: Let her, in short, be satisfied that it is only your odd temper, and even troublesome attachment, that makes you follow her; but let her not dream that you ever doubted seriously of her virtue, even for a moment. If she is disposed towards jealousy of you, let me beseech you to be always explicit with her, and never mysterious; be above delighting in her pain, nor do your business, nor pay your visits, with an air of concealment, when all you do might as well be proclaimed perhaps in the parish vestry. But I will hope better than this of your tenderness and of your virtue, and will release you from a lecture you have so very little need of, unless your extreme youth and my uncommon regard, will excuse it. And now farewell: make my kindest compliments to your wife, and be happy in proportion as happiness is wished you by, Dear sir, &c.

LETTER 187.

From Dr. Franklin, to John Alleyne, Esq. on early Marriage. DEAR JACK,

You desire, you say, my impartial thoughts on the subject of an early marriage, by way of answer to the numberless objections that have been made by the too many numerous persons to your own. You may re

member when you consulted me on the occasion, that I thought youth on both sides to be no objection. Indeed, from the marriages that have fallen under my observation, I am rather inclined to think, that early ones stand the best chance of happiness. The temper and habits of the young have not yet become so stiff and uncomplying, as when more advanced in life; they form more easily to each other, and hence many occasions of disgust are removed. And if youth has less of that prudence which is necessary to manage a family, yet the parents and elder friends of young married persons are generally at hand to offer their advice, which amply supplies that defect; and by early marriage, youth is sooner formed to regular life; and possibly some of those accidents or connections, that might have injured the constitution, or reputation, or both, are thereby happily prevented. Particular circumstances of particular persons, may possibly sometimes make it prudent to delay entering into that state; but in general, when nature has rendered our bodies fit for it, the presumption is in nature's favor, that she has not judged amiss in making us desire it. Late marriages, are often attended, too, with this further inconvenience, that there is not the chance that the parents shall live to see their offspring educated. "Late children," says the Spanish proverb, are early orphans." A melancholy reflection to those whose case it may be! With us in America, marriages are generally in the morning of life; our children are therefore educated and settled in the world by noon; and thus, our business being done, we have an afternoon and evening of cheerful leisure to ourselves, and just such as our friend at present enjoys. By these early marriages we are blest with more children; and from the mode among us founded by nature, of every mother suckling and nursing her own child, more of them are raised. Hence the swift progress of population among us, unparalleled in Europe. In fine, I am glad you are married, and congratulate you most cordially on it. You are now in the way of becoming a most useful citizen, and you have escaped the unnatural state of celibacy for life; the fate of many here, who never intended it, but who having too long postponed the change of their condition, find, at length, that it is too late to think of it, and so live all their lives in a situation that greatly lessens a man's value. An odd volume to a set of books bears not the value of its proportion to the set: What think you of the odd half of a pair of scissors? It can't well cut any thing; it may possibly serve to scrape a trencher.

Pray make my compliments and best wishes acceptable to your bride. I am old and heavy, or I should ere this have presented them in person. I shall make but small use of the old man's privilege, that of giving advice to younger friends. Treat your wife always with respect; it will procure respect to you, not only from her, but from all that observe it. Never use a slighting expression to her, even in jest; for slights in ject

after repeated bandyings are apt to end in anger earnest. Be studious in your profession, and you will be learned. Be industrious and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober and temperate, and you will be healthy. Bo in general virtuous, and you will be happy.. At least, you will by such conduct, stand the best chance for such consequences. I pray God to bless you both! being ever your affectionate friend.

LETTER 188.

On Marriage. Ascribed to the Rev. John Witherspoon, late President of Princeton College.

DEAR SIR,

It

I offer with some hesitation, a few reflections upon the married state. I express myself thus, because the subject has been so often and so fully treated, and by writers of the first class, it may be thought nothing now remains to be said that can merit attention. My only apology is, that what I offer is the fruit of real observation and personal reflection. is not a copy of any man's writings, but of my own thoughts; and therefore if the sentiments should not be in themselves wholly new, they may possibly appear in a light not altogether common. I shall give you them in the way of aphorisms or observations; and subjoin to each a few thoughts by way of proof or illustration.

1. Nothing can be more contrary to reason or public utility, than the conversation and writings of those who turn matrimony into ridicule; yet it is in many cases as weakly defended, as it is unjustly attacked.

Those who treat marriage with ridicule, act in direct and deliberate opposition to the order of providence, and to the constitution of the society of which they are members. The true reason why they are borne with so patiently, is, that the Author of our nature has implanted in us instinctive propensities, which are by much too strong for their feeble attacks. But if we are to estimate the malignity of a man's conduct or sentiments, not from their effect, but from their natural tendency, and his inward disposition, it is not easy to imagine any thing more criminal, than an attempt to bring marriage into disesteem. It is plainly an effort, not only to destroy the happiness, but to prevent the existence of human nature. A man who continues through life in a single state, ought, in justice, to endeavor to satisfy the public that his case is singular, and that he has some insuperable obstacle to plead in excuse. If, instead of this, he reasons in defence of his own conduct, and takes upon him to condemn that of others, it is at once incredible and absurd that is to say, he can scarcely be believed to be sincere. And whether he be sincere or not, he deserves fo be detested.

In support of the last part of my remark, let it be observed, that those who write in defence of marriage usually give such sublime and exalted descriptions, as are not realized in one case of a thousand; and therefore cannot be a just motive to a considerate man. Instead of insisting on the absolute necessity of marriage for the service of the state, and the solid advantages that arise from it, in ordinary cases, they give us a certain refined idea of felicity, which hardly exists any where but in the writer's imagination. Even the Spectator, than whom there is hardly in our language a more just and rational writer, after saying many ex

cellent things in defence of marriage, scarcely ever fails to draw the character of a lady in such terms, that I may safely say not above one that answers the description is to be found in a parish, or perhaps a county. Now, is it not much better to leave the matter to the force of nature, than to urge it by such arguments as these? Is the manner of thinking induced by such writings, likely to hasten, or postpone a man's entering into the marriage state?

There is also a fault I think to be found in almost every writer who speaks in favor of the female sex, that they over-rate the charms of the outward form. This is the case in all romances; a class of writings to which the world is very little indebted. The same thing may be said of plays, where the heroine for certain, and often all the ladies that are introduced, are represented as inimitably beautiful. Even Mr. Addison himself in his admirable description of Marcia, which he puts in the mouth of Juba, though it begins with,

'Tis not a set of features or complexion, &c.

yet could not help inserting

True she is fair; Oh, how divinely fair!

Now I apprehend this is directly contrary to what should be the design of every moral writer. Men are naturally too apt to be carried away with the admiration of a beautiful face. Must it not therefore, confirm them in this error, when beauty is made an essential part of every amiable character The preference such writers pretend to give to the mental qualities, goes but a little way to remedy the evil. If they are never separated in the description, wherever men find the one, they will presume upon the other. But is this according to truth, or agreeable to experience? What vast numbers of the most valuable women are to be found, who are by no means "divinely fair ?" Are these all to be neglected then? Or is it not certain, from experience, that there is not a single quality, on which matrimonial happiness depends so little, as outward form? Every other quality that is good, will go a certain length to atone for what is bad; as, for example, if a woman is active and industrious in her family, it will make a husband bear with more patience a little anxiety of countenance, or fretfulness of temper, though in themselves disagreeable. But (always supposing the honeymoon to be over) I do not think that beauty atones in the least degree for any bad quality whatsoever; it is, on the contrary, an aggravation of them, being considered a breach of faith, or deception, by holding out a false signal.

2. In the married state in general, there is not so much happiness as young lovers dream of; nor is there by far so much unhappiness, as loose authors universally suppose.

The first part of this aphorism will probably be easily admitted. Be fore mentioning, however, the little I have to say upon it, I beg leave to observe, that it would be quite wrong to blame the tenderness and fer vency of affection by which the sexes appear to be drawn to each other and that generous devotedness of hearts which is often to be seen on one and sometimes on both sides. This is nature itself; and when under the restraint of reason, and government of prudence, may be greatly subservient to the future happiness of life. But there is certainly an extravagance of sentiinant and language on this subject that is at once ridicu