Lorenzo, being wrought on by false representations, at length repudiates her. To the last, however, she maintains her patient sweetness, and her love for him, in spite of his cruelty. She deplores his error, even more than his unkindness; and laments the delusion which has turned his very affection into a source of bitThere is a moving pathos in her parting address to Lo

terness.

renzo after their divorce:

Farewell, Lorenzo,

Whom my soul doth love: if you e'er marry,
May you meet a good wife, so good that you
May not suspect her, nor may she be worthy
Of your suspicion: and if you hear hereafter
That I am dead, inquire but my last words,
And you shall know that to the last I loved you.
And when you walk forth with your second choice
Into the pleasant fields, and by chance talk of me,
Imagine that you see me, lean and pale,

Strewing your path with flowers

But may she never live to pay my debts:

If but in thought she wrong you, may she die

In the conception of the injury.

Pray make me wealthy with one kiss: farewell, sir:
Let it not grieve you when you shall remember
That I was innocent: nor this forget,
Though innocence here suffer, sigh, and groan,

She walks but thorow thorns to find a throne.

In a short time Lorenzo discovers his error, and the innocence of his injured wife. In the transports of his repentance, he calls to mind all her feminine excellence; her gentle, uncomplaining, womanly fortitude under wrongs and sorrows:

Oh Abstemia!

How lovely thou lookest now! now thou appearest
Chaster than is the morning's modesty

That rises with a blush, over whose bosom

The western wind creeps softly; now I remember
How, when she sat at table, her obedient eye
Would dwell on mine, as if it were not well,
Unless it look'd where I look'd: oh how proud
She was, when she could cross herself to please me!
But where now is this fair soul? Like a silver cloud
She hath wept herself, I fear, into the dead sea,

And will be found no more.

It is but doing right by the reader, if interested in the fate of Abstemia by the preceding extracts, to say, that she was restored to the arms and affections of her husband, rendered fonder than ever, by that disposition in every good heart to atone for past injustice, by an overflowing measure of returning kindness:

Thou wealth worth more than kingdoms; I am now

Confirmed past all suspicion; thou art far

Sweeter in thy sincere truth than a sacrifice

Deck'd up for death with garlands. The Indian winds

That blow from off the coast, and cheer the sailor
With the sweet savor of their spices, want

The delight flows in thee.

I have been more affected and interested by this little dramatic picture than by many a popular love tale; though, as I said before, I do not think it likely either Abstemia or patient Grizzle stands much chance of being taken for a model. Still I like to see poetry now and then extending its views beyond the wedding day, and teaching a lady how to make herself attractive

even after marriage. There is no great need of enforcing on an unmarried lady the necessity of being agreeable; nor is there any great art requisite in a youthful beauty to enable her to please. Nature has multiplied attractions around her. Youth is in itself attractive. The freshness of budding beauty needs no foreign aid to set it off; it pleases merely because it is fresh, and budding, and beautiful. But it is for the married state that a woman needs the most instruction, and in which she should be most on her guard to maintain her powers of pleasing. No woman can expect to be to her husband all that he fancied her when he was a lover. Men are always doomed to be duped, not so much by the arts of the sex, as by their own imaginations. They are always wooing goddesses, and marrying mere mortals. A woman should therefore ascertain what was the charm which rendered her so fascinating when a girl, and endeavor to keep it up when she has become a wife. One great thing undoubtedly was, the chariness of herself and her conduct, which an unmarried female always observes. She should maintain the same niceness and reserve in her person and habits, and endeavor still to preserve a freshness and virgin delicacy in the eye of her husband. She should remember that the province of woman is to be wooed, not to woo; to be caressed, not to caress. Man is an ungrateful being in love; bounty loses instead of winning him. The secret of a woman's power does not consist so much in giving, as in withholding. A woman may give up too much even to her husband. It is to a thousand little delicacies of conduct that she must trust to keep alive passion, and to protect herself from that dangerous familiarity, that thorough acquaintance with every weakness and imperfection incident to matrimony. By these means she may still maintain her power, though she has surren

dered her person, and may continue the romance of love even beyond the honey-moon.

"She that hath a wise husband," says Jeremy Taylor, "must entice him to an eternal dearnesse by the veil of modesty, and the grave robes of chastity, the ornament of meeknesse, and the jewels of faith and charity. She must have no painting but blushings; her brightness must be purity, and she must shine round about with sweetnesses and friendship; and she shall be pleasant while she lives, and desired when she dies."

I have wandered into a rambling series of remarks on a trite subject, and a dangerous one for a bachelor to meddle with. That I may not, however, appear to confine my observations entirely to the wife, I will conclude with another quotation from Jeremy Taylor, in which the duties of both parties are mentioned; while I would recommend his sermon on the marriage ring to all those who, wiser than myself, are about entering the happy state of wedlock.

"There is scarce any matter of duty but it concerns them both alike, and is only distinguished by names, and hath its variety by circumstances and little accidents: and what in one is called love, in the other is called reverence; and what in the wife is obedience, the same in the man is duty. He provides, and she dispenses; he gives commandments, and she rules by them; he rules her by authority, and she rules him by love; she ought by all means to please him, and he must by no means displease her."

1

READY-MONEY JACK.*

My purse, it is my privy wyfe,
This song I dare both syng and say,
It keepeth men from grievous stryfe
When every man for hymself shall pay.
As I ryde in ryche array

For gold and silver men wyll me floryshe;
By thys matter I dare well saye,

Ever gramercy myne owne purse.

BOOK OF HUNTING.

On the skirts of the neighboring village there lives a kind of small potentate, who, for aught I know, is a representative of one of the most ancient legitimate lines of the present day; for the empire over which he reigns has belonged to his family time out of mind. His territories comprise a considerable number of good fat acres; and his seat of power is in an old farm-house, where he enjoys, unmolested, the stout oaken chair of his ancestors. The personage to whom I allude is a sturdy old yeoman of the name of John Tibbets, or rather Ready-Money Jack Tibbets, as he is called throughout the neighborhood.

The first place where he attracted my attention was in the church-yard on Sunday; where he sat on a tombstone after the service, with his hat a little on one side, holding forth to a small circle of auditors; and, as I presumed, expounding the law and the prophets; until, on drawing a little nearer, I found he was only expatiating on the merits of a brown horse. He presented

* From Bracebride Hall.