Introduced to my beloved Julia's uncle, Mr. Jackson, a nabob, who gave me a receipt for bile, and told me a famous story of a tiger-hunt at Calcutta ;-a pleasant chatty man. His wife rather in the style of the Hottentot than the Medici Venus, but genteel in her manners; the three daughters pleasing interesting girls, and one of them good-looking. Sent Nimrod to Tattersal's, as I mean to give up hunting. Bad enough for bachelors to risk their necks by galloping after a poor inoffensive hare; preposterous in married men. Sold my Joe Manton and patent percussion gun to Compton, as I flatter myself I shall be better employed in the society of my amiable Julia, than in wading through mud and snow to destroy partridges and pheasants. Besides, going out with a friend upon these occasions by no means implies your returning with him, as he is very apt to miss the birds and shoot you. If you go alone, two alternatives await you: in getting over a stile a twig unfortunately catches the lock of your piece, and lodges its contents in your kidnies; or your favourite spaniel makes a point-of putting his paw upon your trigger, and in the ardour of his fondling blows out your brains. Sportsmen should really devise some new mode of death; these are quite hackneyed. Julia much pleased when I told her my intentions: she particularly objected to hunting, on account of its expense. She is decidedly economical, which is a great comfort.

Julia being engaged with her uncle Jackson, I spent the evening alone by my own fire-side;-very bilious and hippish. Dr. Johnson is quite right;-a married man has many cares, but a single one has no pleasures. What a solitary forlorn wretch is the latter in misery and sickness! Some years ago there was an account in the papers of a respectable old bachelor, in Gray's Inn, who after several months' disappearance was found dead in his chambers, half eaten up by bluebottle flies. Conceive the idea of a man's being forgotten by his friends and remembered by the blue-bottles. I never see one of these flying Benedict-eaters without wishing myself fairly married; their buzzing in my ear seems to echo the Epithalamium of Manlius to my Julia's namesake

my

Io, Hymen Hymenæe, io!

lo, Hymen Hymenæe!

Next week adorable Julia is to become mine for ever, and if I know any thing of myself, Jack Egerton will be the happiest man in the world. Can't say I like the ceremonial-rather lugubrious and solemn-Parents looking dolorous-sisters and cousins crying-bride ready to faint-nobody comfortable but the clergyman and clerk. Compton says, it is very like going to be hanged, and observes, that there is only the difference of an aspirate between altar and halter. A bad joke, like all the other sorry witticisms launched against women and marriage. Satirists of the sex either disappointed men, or fools, or mere inventors of calumny. Pope confesses, in the advertisement to his Satires, that none of the characters are drawn from real life. He that lives single, says St. Paul, does well, but he that marries does better. St. Paul was a wise man.

Post-Nuptial.

Heigho!-three months elapsed without a single entry in my journal. What an idle fellow I have become, or rather what a busy

one, for I have been in a perpetual bustle ever since the expiration of the honey-moon. By the by, nothing can be more ill-judged than our custom of dedicating that period to rural sequestration, that we may do nothing but amuse one another, while it generally ends in our tiring one another to death. Remember reading of a pastrycook, who always gave his apprentices a surfeit of tarts when first they came, to insure their subsequent indifference. Very well for him, but a dangerous conjugal experiment. Godwin mentions in his Memoirs of Mary, that they alienated themselves from one another every morning, that, instead of mutually exhausting their minds, they might have almost always something new to impart, by which means they met with pleasure and parted with regret. Most people reverse the process. In England, if a man is seen with his wife perpetually dangling on his arm, it is a dispensation from all other observances; let him do what he will, he has a reputation for all the cardinal virtues. In France it is the extreme of mauvais ton. Many hints might be advantageously borrowed from our Gallic neighbours.

Tired to death of people wishing one joy-there is an impertinence about this salutation; it conveys a doubt at best, and, as some people express themselves, looks very like a sneer. Received seven epistolary congratulations, which, from their great similarity of phrase and sentiment, I suspect to be all plagiarisms from the Polite Letter-Writer. Paid them in their own coin by writing a circular reply.

Sat next to Lady Madeleine at a dinner-party. What a remarkably fine woman she is!-quite majestic after one has been accustomed to dwarfs and puppets. After all, there is nothing so feminine and lovely as a fair complexion, especially when accompanied with that Corinthian air-that natural nobility, (if I may so express myself.) which at once stamps the high-born and high-bred woman of quality. If her hand alone were shewn to me, I should swear that it belonged to a person of rank. A complexion of this sort testifies the station of its possessor. One sees Olives and Brunettes trundling mops and crying mackerel; but no menial ever possessed Lady Madeleine's soft and delicate tints. What a charm, too, in that gentle and modest demeanour, forming so happy a medium between rustic reserve and London flippancy!

Finding ourselves alone and the time hanging rather heavy, I began reading aloud Milton's Lycidas; but, before I had accomplished three pages, observed Julia fast asleep! Waked her, to remind her of her former declaration that she doted upon poetry. "So I do," was the

reply, "but then I like something funny; have you got Peter Pindar, zor Dr. Syntax's Tour ?"-Heavens! what a taste!--Requested her to play me one of Haydn's canzonets; found her harp was thrown aside with seven broken strings, and the piano so much out of tune that she had not touched it for weeks. Am assured, however, that she is passionately fond of music-when it is played by any one else; on the faith of which I subscribed to six concerts, and my wife actually went to one.-By love of the country I learn that she means Bath, Brighton, and Cheltenham, in the respective seasons; but as to the rural, the romantic, and the picturesque, she protests that she has no particular penchant for "a cow on a common, or goose on a green," and is even uninfluenced by the combined attractions of " doves, dung,

ducks, dirt, dumplings, daisies, and daffidowndillies." Flippancy is not wit. Sorry to find a difference in our sentiments upon many essential points, and compelled to acknowledge that she is by no means a woman of that invariable good sense for which I had given her credit.

Compton and Harvey have quite become strangers. Could not understand the meaning-questioned the former upon the subject, when he asked me if I recollected one of the Miseries of Human Life"Going to dine with your friend upon the strength of a general invitation, and finding by the countenance of his wife that you had much better have waited for a particular one." I don't mind a cold dinner, he continued, but I cannot stand cold looks; and Harvey is too much in request to go where he is considered, even by silent intimation, as "un de trop." Expostulated with Mrs. Egerton upon this subject, when she denied the fact of any incivility, but confessed her wonder that I should associate with such a rattling fellow as Compton, who had nothing in him. Nothing in him!-no more has soda water; its attraction consists in its effervescence and volatility. Compton is an honest fellow, and loves good eating and drinking. He has vivacity, edacity, and bibacity;-what the deuce, would she have?

By the by, those odious Jacksons positively haunt the house. It is lucky the old Nabob is worth money, for he is worth nothing else. The bore!--he has now given me five different receipts for bile, and I have been six times in at the death of that cursed tiger that he shot near Calcutta. Another dip would have made his fat wife a negress. Let no man offer to hand her down stairs unless he can carry three hundred weight, and listen to a ten minutes wheezing. Absurd to wear two diamond necklaces where not one of them can be seen for her three double chins. The daughter, whom they call handsome (!!!) squints the clever one is a Birmingham bluestocking: the youngest is good-tempered, but quite a fool. As to "dear cousin Patty," she seems to have taken up her residence with us, though she has nothing to do but flatter my wife, and wash the lapdog. I thought it was against the canon law to marry a whole family.

Shooting season-nothing to do at home-devilish dull-Compton drove me in his tilbury to Hertfordshire-lent me my old Joe Manton-never shot better in my life-missed nothing. Accepted an invitation from Sir Mark Manners to pass a fortnight with him in Norfolk, upon the strength of which bought a new patent percussion gun, and promise myself famous sport. Got a letter from Harvey, at Melton-the hunt was never kept up in such prime style ;-ran down just for one day-so much delighted that I purchased a famous hunter for only three hundred guineas, and was out every morning till it was time to start across the country for Sir Mark's shooting-box in Norfolk.

Returned from Sir Mark's-never spent a pleasanter fortnight in my life-famous preserves-my gun did wonders. Mrs Egerton thought proper to object to the great expense of my recommencing a hunting-establishment, while she tormented me to death at the same time to give her a box at the Opera. In all that regards my amusements, I cannot accuse her of any want of economy; but in every thing

that has reference to her own freaks and fancies, she is perfectly regardless of cost. She is of the Hudibrastic quality, and

"

Compounds for sins she is inclined to

By damning those she has no mind to."

Addison observes in the 205th number of the Spectator, "that the palest features look the most agreeable in white; that a face which is overflushed, appears to advantage in the deepest scarlet, and that a dark complexion is not a little alleviated by a black hood:"—which he explains, by observing that a complexion however dark, never approaches to black, or a pale one to white, so that their respective tendencies are modified by being compared with their extremes. Notwithstanding this authority, my wife, whose skin is almost Moorish, persists in wearing a white hat, which gives her the look of a perfect Yarico. Declined walking out with her this morning unless she changed it, which she obstinately refused, after wrangling with me for half an hour; and as I was determined to exercise my marital authority, I went out without her. Is it not astonishing that a person of the smallest reflection or good sense should stubbornly contend about such a mere trifle? She has a monstrous disposition to domineer, which I am resolved to resist.

Met Harvey in my promenade, who told me that as there had been no committee at Brookes's or Arthur's since I withdrew my name, there was still time to reinstate it, which he kindly undertook to do for me. Hurried on myself to the Alfred and Union, and got there just in time to take down the notices. How excessively fortunate! Acting the Hermit in London won't do: I hate affectation of any sort. Long evenings at home I hate still worse. One must have some resources; for the romance of life, like all other romances, ends with marriage. The Rovers, Sir Harry Wildairs, Lovebys, and other wild gallants of the old comedies, never appear upon the stage after this ceremony; their freaks are over-their "occupation's gone"-they are presumed to have become too decent and dull for the dramatist. Their loves were a lively romance; their marriage is flat history.-The uncertainty of Bachelorship unquestionably gives a charm to existence;-a married man has nothing farther to expect; he must sit down quietly, and wait for death. A single one likes to speculate upon his future fate; he has something to look forward to, and while he is making up his mind to what beauty he shall offer his hand, he roves amid a haram of the imagination, a sort of mental Polygamist. A man may be fortunate in wedlock, but if he is not

!!!

I certainly thought my wife had some smartness of conversation, but find that it only amounts to a petulant dicacity. Swift explains the process by which I was deceived when he says," a very little wit is valued in a woman, as we are pleased with a few words spoken plain by a parrot." Perhaps he solves the difficulty better when he adds in another place," women are like riddles; they please us no longer when once they are known."

Told of a bon-mot launched by my friend Taylor on the occasion of my nuptials. Old Lady Dotterel exclaiming that she feared I had been rather wild, and was glad to hear I was going to be married"So am I too," cried Taylor; but, after a moment's consideration,

added in a compassionate tone," though I don't know why I should say so, poor fellow, for he never did me any harm in his life.". -Went to the play-one of Reynolds's comedies-used to laugh formerly at the old fellow's reply, when he is told that bachelors are useless fellows and ought to be taxed-" So we ought, Ma'am, for it is quite a luxury."-Admitted the fact, but could not join in the roar.-Not a bad joke of the amateur, who, on examining the Seven Sacraments painted by Poussin, and criticizing the picture of Marriage, exclaimed,-“I find it is difficult to make a good marriage even in painting." Maître Jean Piccard tells us, that when he was returning from the funeral of his wife, doing his best to look disconsolate, and trying different expedients to produce a tear, such of the neighbours as had grown-up daughters and cousins came to him, and kindly implored him not to be inconsolable, as they could give him another wife. Six weeks after, says Maître Jean, I lost my cow, and, though I really grieved upon this occasion, not one of them offered to give me another.- -St. Paul may have been a very wise man in his dictum about marriage; but he is still wiser who contents himself with doing well, and leaves it to others to do better. H.

GREEK SONG. THE BOWL OF LIBERTY.

BEFORE the fiery Sun—

The sun that looks on Greece with cloudless eye,
In the free air, and on the war-field won,
Our fathers crowned the Bowl of Liberty.*

Amidst the tombs they stood,

The tombs of Heroes! with the solemn skies
And the wide plain around, where patriot-blood
Had steeped the soil in hues of sacrifice.

They called the glorious Dead,

In the strong faith which brings the viewless nigh!
And poured rich odours o'er their battle-bed,
And bade them to the rite of Liberty.

They called them, from the shades,

The golden-fruited shades! where minstrels tell
How softer light th' immortal clime pervades,
And music floats o'er meads of Asphodel.

Then fast the bright red wine

Flowed to their names who taught the world to die,
And made the land's green turf a living shrine-
Meet for the wreath and Bowl of Liberty!

At the Anniversary Solemnities, in memory of the Battle of Platæa, See Potter's Antiquities of Greece, vol. 1. p. 38%.