realize the representation of the gormandizer in Wilkie's admirable picture of the Rent-day-who, with a large bone sticking across his mouth, is holding out his plate for more, before either plate or mouth is empty.

"After dinner this gentleman confirmed his brother's mortification by proving, from his discourse, that his inward sentiments were as gross as his outward habits. My friend, therefore, seemed relieved from a heavy burthen when, our wine being finished, he asked me to escape with him into the garden.

"Here he recommenced the subject of the morning's complaint. It is not,' said he, that I love my wife less than when I married her.' Here he hesitated, fearing perhaps that he had opened too much, but went on, as if in parenthesis,'You see I still look upon you as my counsellor and confessor, though no longer my tutor.' I begged him always to consider me so, and as such to believe me a friend heartily interested for his welfare. I trust, however,' said I, 'that the prospect of happiness you anticipated from Mrs. Sedley's attachment, and her capacity as well as wish to cultivate her mind, so as to be thoroughly your companion-I trust that this balances all these drawbacks, which, I own, seem great, but for which she at least is not to blame.'

"My dear friend,' said he, pressing my arm, 'I wish the balance you talk of could exist; but were my wife more what I hoped to make her, and really all she wishes herself to befor my sake, I doubt her's, I doubt anybody's power to make me content with the purgatory in which I live. Nothing short of banishing these low relations, and others whom you have not seen, whom, to break with, would break her heart, could restore me to myself; and the purchase, you see, would be too dear.'

''Mrs. Sedley, then,' said I, 'has other relations!'

Alas! a second edition of brother and sisters, the very counterparts of these ; and it is astonishing with what indefatigability they relieve guard; so that my house is never free from them, or I from despair. It is hence that I am driven into banishment from all my own society, among whom, as you must have seen, whatever my wife may be, these people are absolutely not presentable. But they even, in some degree, contaminate Letitia herself, who, having nobody to please

in the article of manners but her husband, and being too sure (she thinks) of him, takes no pains to correct a growing indolence in that respect, which blinds her still more to the faults of her family. The good breeding she certainly once possessed, when with my cousin, Lady Lancaster, is fast ebbing away, where there is nothing but its opposite to be seen as an example for imitation. Her mother and sisters, naturally slatterns, and more so from being totally uneducated, have nothing to preserve them from sloth. Hence every thing they undertake is neglected and goes to ruin, and Letitia is becoming too like them in this respect. Even to dress is now an exertion which fatigues her; and seeing no one but myself to participate in the pleasures of mental cultivation, much less to kindle emulation, it is with pain I see her gradually sinking, I will not say to a level with those about her, (that would be too horrible,) but into an indifference to their manners, thoughts, and conversation. Believe me, I am far from happy.' "At this he gave a deep sigh, and veiled his face with

his hand.

"Yet her gratitude,' said I, endeavouring to console him. "Ah! that gratitude,' cried he, interrupting me; 'would I could root the word from the vocabulary. It is that which causes me more distress than almost all the rest. It comes too often forward, not to make me think it takes the place of love. Had she been my equal there would have been no place for it, and every little attention, every fond caress would, for it must, have sprung from tender attachment. But to have purchased it, as it were-which gratitude implies -O! the thought is unbearable."

"He was evidently suffering under this suspicion, and I knew not how to relieve him, as he alone could be the judge, if any one could, of its truth. Every way the prospect was bad, nor was it mended by any thing I saw during the week I staid with him. Mrs. Snaggs and her daughters continued the pictures of reckless and brazen vulgarity, and Mrs. Sedley, although not disgusting, and comparatively polished, was evidently of so inferior a cast of mind as to give me little or no notion of a companion for her cultivated husband.

"I left them mournful at seeing so little hope of improvement in their prospect. Nor did I find greater comfort in regard to my other married friend, Bostock, in a letter I re

ceived from him on my arrival at Oxford, telling me that all the suitors having taken their leave, he had thought it best to put off the reforms he meditated with Lady Cherubina till some other opportunity."

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE SUBJECT CONTINUED, IN WHICH SOMETHING OF THE EXCLUSIVES IS DISCUSSED.

HERE my tutor's manuscript closed, and I regretted there was no more of it ;-for the narratives which I have set forth were only some of several which had been drawn up by this observing man, whose disposition and general practice, it seems, was to note down any thing and every thing he met with remarkable in the characters and conduct of men in their progress through life.

These notes he had formed into a volume, which he called his book of human nature, and told me I should probably one day find myself portrayed there in glowing colours, under the head of Enthusiast.

Well! and why not? What great act, or great conception, but ows its rise to enthusiasm? What youth of twenty ought ever to be without it? To be sure, it is for the most part a plunging, prancing steed, which sometimes throws his rider, and often gets him into scrapes, from which he does not always recover; but after a little training, and when got into the beaten road he goes the better for it in the end.

Much as I respected Fothergil's judgment, particularly in the philosophy of man, of which I had had excellent proofs, I was by no means naturally inclined to take things on mere authority, where I had any doubts of my own to be cleared; and I had many on this very subject. I could not therefore help, on re-delivering his manuscript, requesting a few explanations on the general question of unequal alliances. What was or was not equality on the whole, and not partial dispro

portions, ought, I thought, to be always settled before we came to a general conclusion.

"You are right," said he, "and I am far from being so dogmatical as to refuse a full investigation of parts, in order to make up our minds to a whole. In poor Bostock's case, the inequality was not confined to birth and rank. If it had, £150.000, liberal education, and liberal manners, superior sense, and superior character, would not only have balanced, but weighed down, a mere woman of quality, though backed by a whole army of birth and fashion, and all the weight of St. James's itself.

"But I fear the inequality here was in the minds and genius, aggravating that of the rank of the parties; and you will please to observe my theory respects inequality of any and every kind, whether of years, temper, character, or education, and is not confined to mere birth or fortune. In this instance, Lady Cherubina knew all her advantages in resolution and vigour over her husband's modesty, and had not generosity enough to abstain from using them to the utmost. She was a Catherine; had he been a Petruchio, the suitors would never have intruded, and the sister of a poor earl, notwithstanding her coronet, might have condescended to be happy to receive comfort and independance at the hand of a plebeian.

"I have myself seen aristocrats, of both sexes, whose high. heads, have stoopt to the vale,' where pecuniary advantages, or even a dinner, have been in question. They have reminded me of the illustrious Hidalgo, Captain Chinchilla, in Gil Blas, d'une taille gigantesque (which I suppose Le Sage puts for pride). 'et d'une maigreur extraordinaire', which I suppose he puts for poverty. This great personage, you know, though literally half starved, and forced to shut himself up, that nobody might witness his dinner of pumpkins and onions, forced the good natured Santillana to entreaties, at first, before he would partake of his dinner; but in the end, he came round very comfortably. 'Il voulul d'abord faire des facons; mais enfin il se rendit a mes instances. Apres quoi devenant insensiblement plus hardi, il m'adia de lui-meme a rendre mon plat net, et a vuider ma bouteille."

"Thus, as the Captain felt his condescension well repaid by accepting a dinner from the petit secretaire, so many a

high dame has kindly and graciously submitted to the disgrace of a shower of gold, poured into her lap by some rich and strong-minded merchant or manufacturer (who knew how to assert the privileges which nature and the law gave him), without a thought of rebelling. It is only where the submission is not gracious on the one side, or the mind not strong on the other, that the leaven appears; for, after all, leaven there always is, and it will sometimes show itself, though it may be kept from dangerous fermentation by a decided superiority of mind in the husband. Where that is uncontested, the equilibrium is restored; but for one instance of this happy balance, there are thousands of perpetual and unceasing struggles, till poor love is frightened out of doors, never to

I was strongly impressed with this, but asked whether the balance might not be struck, even without supposing the inequality of mind. "I mean," said I, "where the actual condition of the parties is concerned, in respect to other points, besides rank or fortune,-for example, as to age."

"This is a nice point," replied he, "nor perhaps has my experience yet settled it. But, though where the seniority is of the man to the woman, the question has been determined different ways, there can be no doubt, where it is on the side of the woman to the man. I think it is Rousseau who says, that the love of a wife to her husband has always the best chance of happiness when it partakes in some degree of that of a daughter to a father. Here, therefore, a disparity of age does not necessarily infer the mischiefs of a mesalliance; but no instance has ever occurred to my observation, in which the union of a young husband with an old wife has not made both parties ridiculous. Prudence, however, is a great leveller." I asked what that meant.

"You have it," said he, "in the late union, by which the fair Medowes consoled herself for your friend Hastings's loss, when she espoused the old and worn-out owner of Belvidere. He is fifty years older than she; so far they are mis-allied. But the inequality is made up to her by being mistress of Belvidere, which she wanted, but could not have without giving up her person; and her want of love is made up to him by the possession of that person, which is all he wanted on his part. Thus the balance is struck, and each is satisfied."