MRS. ARLINGTON.

"te sæpe vocanti

"Duram difficilis mane." HORAT

THIS lady was not much known in the fashionable world, and very little spoken of, until her marriage with Colonel Arlington; and it is painful to relate, that even after her marriage, she was less taken notice of as a dutiful, constant, and affectionate wife, than she was in becoming the theme of general conversation, after she had formed a fatal attachment, which ended in her public disgrace!

Her husband, being a man of large fortune, of a noble family, and appearing, in the opinion of the world, to live very happily with her, each eye was turned with disgust at her faulty conduct, and every ear was open to the invective hourly poured forth on her blighted reputation.

Be it our part not to screen or palliate

A fair and just Defence.

vice, but fairly to investigate the faults on both sides, ever to lean to the side of the weakest, and prove the unhappy wife not always the sole aggressor.

Certainly every proof was adduced of Mrs. Arlington's guilt; but what might lead or uge her on to the commitment of it, is carefully concealed. We cannot forbear remarking, that very peculiar circumstances must influence a brother to welcome a proscribed wife, and grant her an honourable and safe protection! A brother is always tenacious of his sister's honour, and is seldom known to screen her, when guilty of the crime of adultery, unless some strange concurrences, which perhaps cannot be made public, induce him to it.

Not one kind word is said in defence of Mrs. Arlington, though she does not fly to the arms of her seducer, but deplores her fault in retirement, and seeks

A Caution to Married Women,

consolation only from the soothings of fraternal affection.

Beautiful, and in the prime of life, - she too easily lent an ear to the blandishments of flattery, directed to her from a man of high rank and accomplishments in the absence of her husband. That part of her conduct admits of no defence. Gradual is the progress of vice, and the married woman must guard against receiving protestations of love from any other man; for when she listens with outward complacency, and inward pleasure, she is lost, especially if the honour of her lover is not to be depended upon; and little can be relied on where a man allows himself, in such a situation, openly to profess his inclinations.

We do not say that Colonel Arlington was purposely absent, but after a husband has harboured suspicions, why does he prefer aquatic excursions to the so

Damage-hunting Husbands.

ciety of an amiable woman, and leave her unguarded and assailable? Why not expostulate with her? why not tell her his suspicions or rather why not be more at home, increase his own attentions and kindnesses towards her, and thereby act on a generous mind in that safest manner of ensuring her virtue and his own honour, by so preventing the lapse of her's? No, the sweet hopes of obtaining high damages are the temptation; and men seem delighted with the gilded antlers, which they proclaim before all the world they wear. Even two hundred pounds from a livery-servant have had their charms for one of these damage-hunting gentlemen ;-Since he has ripped up the old frailties of his guilty partner in the sweet expectation of oðtaining a little more, and he was not disappointed, for he gained one shilling!

But Mrs. Arlington does not appear to be depraved; she might have been kind

Observations.

ly led back to virtue, before she stepped into the path of vice: she now shrinks, abashed, from the world, and conceals her shame under her brother's roof.

Colonel Arlington seemed determined to find her guilty he went not himself to prevent the fatal assignation before it was too late; but every plan was laid to proclaim her crime, and his own disgrace, to the public.

What officious, high-feeding landlady would lose her own dinner, and sit, for an hour, watching the guests who frequented her house, had it not been previously planned, and she well rewarded for it?

The chambermaid, likewise, and servants, seemed all to combine the force of preconcerted evidence, against the unhappy transgressor.-And how often has the evidence of domestics been procured