so; we must preserve it as long, and supply it as happily, as we can.

When your present violence of passion subsides, however, and a more cool and tranquil affection takes its place, be not hasty to censure yourself as indifferent, or to lament yourself as unhappy; you have lost that only which it was impossible to retain, and it were graceless amid the pleasures of a prosperous summer to regret the blossoms of a transient spring. Neither unwarily condemn your bride's insipidity till you have recollected that no object however sublime, no sounds however charming, can continue to transport us with delight when they no longer strike us with novelty. The skill to renovate the powers of pleasing is said indeed to be possessed by some women in an eminent degree, but the artifices of maturity are seldom seen to adorn the innocence of youth; you have made your choice, and ought to approve it. Satiety follows quick upon the heels of possession; and to be happy, we must always have something in view. The person of your lady is already all your own, and will not grow more pleasing in your eyes I doubt, though the rest of your sex will think her handsomer for these dozen years. Turn, therefore, all your attention to her mind, which will daily grow brighter by polishing. Study some easy science together, and acquire a similarity of tastes while you enjoy a community of pleasures. You will, by this means, have many images in common, and be freed from the necessity of separating to find amusement: nothing is so dangerous to wedded love as the possibility of either being happy out of the company of the

other; endeavour therefore to cement the present intimacy on every side; let your wife never be kept ignorant of your income, your expences, your friendships, or aversions; let her know your very faults, but make them amiable by your virtues; consider all concealment as a breach of fidelity; let her never have any thing to find out in your character, and remember, that from the moment one of the partners turns spy upon the other, they have commenced a state of hostility.

Seek not for happiness in singularity; and dread a refinement of wisdom as a deviation into folly. Listen not to those sages who advise you always to scorn the counsel of a woman, and if you comply with her requests pronounce you to be wife ridden. Think not any privation, except of positive evil, an excellence, and do not congratulate yourself that your wife is not a learned lady, that she never touches a card, or is wholly ignorant how to make a pudding. Cards, cookery, and learning, are all good in their places, and may all be used with advantage.

With regard to expence, I can only observe, that the money laid out in the purchase of distinction is seldom or ever profitably emploved. We live in an age when spiendid furniture and glittering equipage are grown too common to catch the notice of the meanest spectator, and for the greater ones they only regard our wasteful foily with silent contempt, or open indignation.-This may perhaps be a displeasing reflection, but the following consideration ought to make amends. The age we live in pays, I think, peculiar attention to the higher distinctions of wit, knowledge,

and virtue, to which we may more safely, more cheaply, and more honourably, aspire. The giddy flirt of quality frets at the respect she sees paid to lady Edgcumbe, and the gay dunce sits pining for a partner, while Jones the orientalist leads up the ball.

I said that the person of your lady would not grow more pleasing to you, but pray let her never suspect that it grows less so: that a woman will pardon an affront to her understanding much sooner than one to her person, is well known: nor will any of us contradict the assertion. Ail our attainments, all our arts, are employed to gain and keep the heart of man; and what mortification can exceed the disappointment, if the end be not obtained! There is no reproof however pointed, no punishment however severe, that a woman of spirit will not prefer to neglect; and if she can endure it without complaint, it only proves that she means to make herself amends by the attention of others for the slights of her husband. For this, and for every reason, it behoves a married man not to let his politeness fail, though his ardour may abate, but to retain, at least, that general civility towards his own lady which he is so willing to pay to every other, and not show a wife of eighteen or twenty years old, that every man in company can treat her with more complaisance than he who so often vowed to her eternal fond

ness.

It is not my opinion that a young woman should be indulged in every wild wish of her gay heart or giddy head, but contradiction may be softened by domestic kindness, and quiet pleasures substituted

in the place of noisy ones. Public amusements are not indeed so expensive as is sometimes ima gined, but they tend to alienate the minds of married people from each other. A well-chosen so ciety of friends and acquaintance, more eminent for virtue and good sense than for gaiety and splendour, where the conversation of the day may afford comment for the evening, seems the most rational pleasure this great town can afford; and to this a game at cards now and then gives an additional relish.

That your own superiority should always be seen, but never felt, seems an excellent general rule. A wife should outshine her husband in nothing, not even in her dress. If she happens to have a taste for the trifling distinctions that finery can confer, suffer her not for a moment to fancy, when she appears in public, that sir Edward or the Colonel are finer gentlemen than her husband. The bane of married happiness among the city men in general has been, that finding themselves unfit for polite life they transferred their vanity to their ladies, dressed them up gaily, and sent them out a gallanting, while the good man was to regale with port-wine or rum-punch, perhaps among mean companions, after the compting-house was shut; this practice produced the ridicule thrown on them in all our comedies and novels since commerce began to prosper. But now that I am so near the subject, a word or two on jealousy may not be amiss; for though not a failing of the present age's growth, yet the seeds of it are too certainly sown in every warm bosom for us to neglect it as a fault of no consequence. If you are ever

tempted to be jealous, watch your wife narrowly, but never tease her: tell her your jealousy, but conceal your suspicion; let her, in short, be satisfied that it is only your odd temper, and even troublesome attachment, that makes you follow her; but let her not dream that you ever doubted seriously of her virtue, even for a moment. If she is disposed towards jealousy of you, let me beseech you to be always explicit with her, and never mysterious: be above delighting in her pain of all things, nor do your business, nor pay your visits, with an air of concealment, when all you are doing might as well be proclaimed perhaps in the parish vestry. But I will hope better than this of your tenderness and of your virtue, and will release you from a lecture you have so very little need of, unless your extreme youth and my uncommon regard will excuse it. And now farewell; make my kindest compliments to your wife, and be happy in proportion as happiness is wished you by, dear sir, &c.

LETTER XVII.

WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.

DEAR JOE, Huntingdon, June 24, 1765. THE only recompense I can make you for your kind attention to my affairs, during my illness, is to tell you, that by the mercy of God I am restored to perfect health, both of mind and body. This, I believe, will give you pleasure, and I would