beginning without missing one. For, believe me, I am, dear Mr. Lounger, whether in town or country, your constant reader and admirer,

An is mibi liber cui mulier imperat? cui leges imponit præscribit, vetat quod videtar?

SIR,

To the LOUNGER.

CICERO.

I AM a middle-aged gentleman, possessed of a moderate income, arising chiefly from the profits of an office, of which the emolument is more than sufficient to compensate the degree of labour with which the discharge of its duties is attended. About my forty-fifth year I became tired of the bachelor-state; and taking the hint from some little twinges of the gout, I began to think it was full time for me to look out for an agreeable help-mate. The last of the juvenile tastes that forsakes a man is his admiration of youth, and beauty; and I own I was so far from being insensible to these attractions, that I felt myself sometimes tempted to play the fool, and marry for love. I had sense enough, however, to resist this inclination, and, in my choice of a wife, to sacrifice rapture and romance to the prospect of ease and com fort. I wedded the daughter of a country gentleman

of small fortune, a lady much about my own time of life, who bore the character of a discreet prudent woman, who was a stranger to fashionable folly and dissipation of every kind, and whose highest merit was that of an excellent housewife.

When I begin by telling you that I repent of my choice, you will naturally suppose, Mr. Lounger (a very common case), that I have been deceived in the idea I had formed of my wife's character. Not at all, Sir; I found it true to a tittle. She is a perfect paragon of prudence and discretion. Her moderation is exemplary in the highest degree; and as to œconomy she is all that I expected, and a great deal more too. You will ask, then, of what it is that I complain? I shall lay my grievances before you without reserve.

A man, Sir, who with no bad dispositions, and with some pretensions to common sense, has arrived at the age of five and forty, may be presumed to have formed for himself a plan of life, which he will not care hastily to relinquish, merely to gratify the caprices of another. I entered the matrimonial state with a firm resolution not to quarrel with my wife for trifles i but really, Sir, the sacrifices daily exacted on my part, and the mortifications I have been forced to submit to, are at length become so numerous and so intolerable, that I must either come to a downright rupture, or be hooted at for a silly fellow by all my acquaintance.

Before I married, having, as I already informed you, a decent income, I thought myself entitled to many of those little indulgencies to which a social disposition inclines a man who is possessed of the means of gratifying it. The necessary business in which my office engaged me occupying several hours of the day, it was my highest pleasure to pass the evenings with a few sensible friends, either at my

own lodgings, at theirs, or in the tavern. I found myself likewise a very welcome guest in many respectable families, where, as the humour struck me, I could go in at any hour, and take my part of a domestic meal without the formality of an invitation. I was a member too of a weekly club, which met on the Saturday evenings, most of them people of talents, and some of them not unknown in the world of letters. Here the entertainment was truly Attic. a single bottle was the modicum, which no man was allowed to exceed. Wit and humour flowed without reserve, where all were united by the bonds of inti macy and learning lost her gravity over the enlivening glass. O noctes canaque Deum!

As my profession was a sedentary one, I kept for the sake of exercise, a couple of good geldings, and at my leisure hours contrived frequently to indulge myself in a scamper of a dozen miles into the country. It was my pride to keep my horses in excellent order; and when debarred by business from riding them, I consoled myself with a visit to the stable. Shooting was likewise a favourite amusement; and though I could not often indulge it, I had a brace of springing spaniels, and a couple of excellent pointers. In short, between my business and amusement, my time passed most delightfully; and I really believe I was one of the happiest bachelors in Great Britain.

Alas, Sir, how little do we know what is for our good! Like the poor gentleman who killed himself by taking physic when he was in health*, I wanted to be happier than I was, and I have made myself miserable.

My wife's ruling passion is, the care of futurity. We had not been married above a month before she * Mr. Easy alludes to the Italian epitaph, Stava ben, ma Der star meglio, sto qui

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found my system, which was to enjoy the present, was totally inconsistent with those provident plans she had formed in the view of a variety of future contingencies, which, if but barely possible, she looks upon as absolutely certain. The prospect of an increase to our family (though we have now lived five years together, without the smallest symptom of any such accident) has been the cause of a total revolution of our domestic economy, and a relinquishment, on my part of all the comforts of my life. The God of Health, we are informed, was gratified by the sacrifice of a cock; but the God of Marriage, it would seem, is not so easily propitiated: for I have sacrificed to him my horses, my dogs, and even my friends, without the smallest prospect of securing his favour.

In accomplishing this œconomical reformation, my wife displayed no small address. Lord, Sir, what ways women have of working out their points! She began by giving me frequent hints of the necessity there was of cutting off all superfluous expences; and frequently admonished me that it was better to save while our family was small, than to retrench when it grew larger. When she perceived that this argument had very little force, (as indeed it grew every day weaker,) and that there was nothing to be done by general admonition, she found it necessary to come to particulars. She endeavoured to convince me, that I was cheated in every article of my family expenditure. It is a principle with her, that all servants are thieves. When they offer themselves to be hired, ifthey demand what she thinks high wages, she cannot afford to pay at the rate of a Duchess; if their demand is moderate, she is sure they must make it up by stealing. To prove their honesty, she lays temptations in their way, and watches in a corner to catch 'them in the fact. In the first six months after our

marriage we had five search warrants in the house. My groom (as honest a fellow as ever handled a curry-comb) was indicted for embezzling oats; and though the sleek sides of my geldings gave strong testimony to his integrity, he was turned off at a day's warning. This I soon found was but a prelude to a more serious attack; and the battery was levelled at a quarter where I was but too vulnerable. I never went out to ride, but I found my poor spouse in tears at my return. She had an uncle, it seems, who broke his collar-bone by a fall from a horse. My pointers, stretched upon the hearth, were never beheld by her without uneasiness. They brought to mind a third cousin who lost a finger by the bursting of a fowling-piece; and she had a sad presentiment that my passion for sport might make her one day the most miserable of women. Sure, my dear,' she would say, 'you would not for the sake of a trifling gratification to yourself, render your poor wife, constantly unhappy! yet I must be so while you keep those vicious horses and nasty curs.' What could I do, Sir? A man would not chuse to pass for a barbarian.

It was a more difficult task to wean me from those social enjoyments I mentioned, and to cure me of a dangerous appetite I had for the company of my friends. If I passed the evening in a tavern, I was sure to have a sermon against intemperance, a warning of the too sensible decay of my constitution, and a most moving complaint of the heaviness of those solitary hours which she spent in my absence. Those hours, indeed she attempted sometimes to shorten, by sending my servant to acquaint me that she had gone to bed indisposed. This device, however, after two or three repetitions, being smoaked by my companions, I was forced to vindicate my honour before them, by kicking the messenger down stairs.