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from being together perpetually by the ears, and yet there are only three persons in the house. Gorgias, it seems, had a kindness for his servant, which made her mistress jealous. It therefore behooves that man to keep his family in exquisite order, who will undertake to regulate the conduct of his friends or the public.

ON COMPULSORY LAWS

RESPECTING MARKIAGE; WITH THE

STORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE SEPARATION AT ROME.

Wealth and power, what are you worth,
To pleasure if you give not birth?

Совв.

HEAVEN bestowed upon man the finer feelings of the soul, with a view to augment his happiness, and to render his situation in life the more pleasant; yet, in consequence of those erroneous notions which refinements in society engender, these very feelings are the cause of the greatest distresses to which human nature is subjected. To such a weak and fallible creature as man, the sympathetic endearments arising from reciprocal affections are necessary, before his mind can experience the highest degree of gratification of which it is susceptible. In times of distress, he seeks for some sympathetic bosom that shall take pleasure in administering the balm of comfort; and when the heart exults with joy, it feels a dreary want until it can find some one who will participate with him in that peculiar bliss. Every emotion of the heart proves that man was not made to be alone; and that if ever he hopes to attain to happiness, it can never be found in solititude, far less in the company of those whose dispositions, desires, and modes of thinking, are not of a nature congenial to his own.

These are truths that will readily be admitted by every one who is young and unhacknied in the ways of men; but as age approaches, these sympathetic affections seem to subside the pleasures of social intercourse diminish ; and the love of wealth and power acquire dominion in their stead. Aged persons, in general greedy of power,

and callous to the impulses of kindness, imagine that wealth or grandeur alone are sufficient to gratify every desire of the soul. Forgetting their own rule for judging whilst young, they wish to deprive others of the same privilege they valued once so highly themselves; and thus are led to dictate, with the most inflexible authority, to their children, as to the choice of a companion for life; the most mo. mentous transaction in which any man can ever be engaged.

༄།

Nor is this propensity confined to one country, or to one set of people on the globe; but it extends its influence, to a greater or less degree, to all nations that can assume to themselves the proud name of civilized. Among such people, laws have ever been contrived, which, by a stern inflexibility, overpower the voice of nature, and make man submit to her imperious decrees. The following affecting story evinces the truth of these remarks. Would to Heaven it were in the regions of despotism alone, that such transactions were to be found!

"In this capital (Rome) we have just now witnessed an event which has drawn tears from every body here. It is five years since a young gentleman of the family of Amedei married an amiable and virtuous young woman he loved, but whose birth was not equal to his. At the end of one year, they had a daughter as the fruit of their love; but this tender union was, in a short time, cruelly disturbed by the parents and relations of the gentleman, who exclaimed against his marriage as clandestine, and obtained against the unhappy young man an order of the Pope, by virtue of which they tore him from the arms of his spouse, and conducted him a prisoner to the castle of St. Angelo. A process was immediately instituted for annulling the marriage. The gentleman tried every means possible, to prove that his marriage was valid, and to make it be ratified; his wife went also with her daughter in her arms, and threw herself at the feet of her judges; but in vain. A sentence was

at last pronounced, annulling the marriage, obliging the mother, that inconsolable wife, to write to her husband with her own hand, the fatal news of their eternal separation. Oppressed with the most cruel despair, she thus wrote to him: I find myself under the cruel necessity of renouncing those sweet and sacred bands which till now have held our hearts firmly united; but I resign myself with less repugnance, from the consideration, that it will be the means of terminating that long and severe captivity which you have suffered for my sake. Live free, DEAR HUSBAND, (this, alas! is the last time that my lips will pronounce so sweet a name,) O live! and, if it be possible, live happy, far from me. Since you love the mother, remember the daughter which she has given to you, and take care of her, when you know I no longer exist; for the grief which this separation causes to me is so bitter, so penetrating, and absorbs in such a manner the faculties of my soul, that I want strength to resist it. Very soon shall I cease to live; may my death satiate the inhumanity of our cruel persecutors! God bless you. Farewell! farewell!-for ever!'

"Four days afterwards, that unhappy and tender wife died in horrible convulsiont; and her death set the gentleman at liberty, whose despair has not yet been calmed."

A

LETTER FROM A YOUNG LADY, WITH A DESCRIPTION OF
THE MAID'S HUSBAND.

SIR,

You must know, that with a tolerable person, a very good fortune, and lovers in abundance, I have a particular humour to live and die a maid. This way of thinking, I protest, does not arise from disappointed love; but, on the contrary, from my never having seen any one man, who has been possessed of those accomplishments which I think necessary for a husband.

I proceed now to give you a description of one, whom, notwithstanding my present humour, I would willingly marry, and reward with a fortune of ten thousand pounds. To silence the pretensions of those, who may suppose that I am easily to be carried off, here follows the description of the only man in the world that I will consent to marry; and whom I shall beg leave to entitle

The Maid's Husband.

He must have a person graceful and engaging. The features of his face must be regular; and, though regular, agreeable; which, as yet, I hardly remember to have seen, having generally observed, that where nature is most exact, she is least engaging. His eyes must be lively, sparkling, and affecting; and over the whole face there must be a

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