Numb. 45. Tuesday, August at, 1750.

To the RAMBLER,

SIR,

rM-IOUGH, in the dissertations which you

tions are laid down against the common causes of inselicity, and the necessity of having, in that important choice, the first regard to virtue, is carefully inculcated; yet I cannot think the subject so much exhausted, but that a little reflection would present to the mind many questions, in the discussion of which great numbers are interested, and many precepts which deserve to be more particularly and forcibly impressed.

You seem, like most of the writers that have gone before you, to have allowed, as an uncontested principle, that Marriage is generally unhappy: but I know not whether a man who prosesses to think for himself, and concludes from his own observations, does not depart from his character when ho follows the crowd thus implicitly, and receives maxims without recalling them to a new examination, espe

marriage, very just cau

cially when they comprise so wide a circuit of lise, and include such variety of circumstances. As I have an equal right with others to give my opinion of the objects about me, and a better title to determine concerning that state which I have tried, than many who talk of i<: without experience, I am unwilling to be restrained by mere authority from advancing what, I believe, an accurate view of the world will confirm, that marriage is not commonly unhappv, otherwise than as lise is unhappy; and that most of thofe who complain of connubial miseries, have as much satissaction as their nature would have admitted, or their conduct procured, in any other condition.

It is, indeed, common to hear both sexes repine at their change, relate the happiness of their earlier years, blame the folly and rashness of their own choice, and warn thofe whom they see coming into the world against the same precipitance and insatuation. But it is to be remembered, that the days which they so much wish to call back, are the days not only of celibacy but of youth, the days of novelty and improvement, of ardour and of hope, of health and vigour of body, of gaiety and lightness of heart. It is not easy to surround lise with any circumstances in which youth will not be delightsul; and I am asraid that whether married or unmarried, we shall find the vesture of terrestrial existence more heavy and cumbrous, the longer it is worn.

That they censure themselves for the indiscretion of their choice, is not a sufficient proof that they have chofen ill, since we see the same discontent at every other part of lise which we cannot change.

Converse Converse with almost any man, grown bid in a profession, and you Will find him regretting that he did not enter into some disserent course, to which he too late finds his genius better adapted, or in which he discovers that wealth and honour are more easily attained. "The merchant," says Horace, "enu vies the soldier, and the soldier recounts the se*' licity of the merchant; the lawyer, when his ** clients harass him, calls out for the quiet of the ,c countryman; and the countryman, when business "calls him to town, proclaims that there is no hap"piness but amidst opulence and crowds." Every man recounts the inconveniencies of his own station, and thinks thofe of any other less, because he has not selt thenrii Thus the married praise the ease and freedom of a single state* and the single fly to marriage from the weariness of solitude. From all our observations we may collect with certainty, that misery is the lot of man, but cannot discover in What particular condition it will find most alleviations; or whether all external appendages are not, as we use them, the causes either of good or ill.

"Whoever seels great pain, naturally hopes for ease from change of posture; he changes it, and finds himself equally tormented: and of the same kind are the expedients by which we endeavour to obviate or elude those uneasinesses, to which mortality will always be subject. It is not likely that the married state is eminently miserable, since we see such numbers, whom the death of their partners has set free from it, entering it again.

Wives and husbands are, indeed, incessantly complaining of each other; and there would be reason

U a for for imagining that almost every house was insested with perverseneis or oppression beyond human sufserance, did we not know upon how small occasions some minds burst out into lamentations and reproaches, and how naturally every animal revenges .his pain upon thofe who happen to be near, without any nice examination of its cause. We are always willing to sancy ourselves within a little of happiness, and when, with repeated efforts, we cannot reach it, persuade ourselves that it is intercepted by an illpaired mate, since, if we could sind any other obstacle, it would be our own sault that it was not removed.

Anatomists have often remarked, that though our diseases are sufficiently numerous and severe, yet when we enquire vnto the structure of the body, the tenderness of some parts, the minuteness of others, and the immense multiplicity of animal sunctions that must concur to the healthsul and vigorous exercise of all our powers, there appears reason to wonder rather that we are preserved so long, than that we perish so soon, and that our frame subsists for a single day, or hour, without disorder, rather than that it should be broken or obstructed by violence of accidents, or length of time.

The same reflection arises in my mind, upon observation of the manner in which marriage is frequently contracted. When 1 fee the avaricious and crafty taking companions to their tables, and their beds, without any enquiry, but aster sarms and money; or the giddy and thoughtless uniting themselves for lise to thofe whom they have only seen by the light of tapers at a ball; when parents make articles for their children, without enquiring after their con5 sent;

sent; when some marry for heirs to difappoint their brothers, and others throw themselves into the arms of thofe whom they do not love, because they have found themselves rejected where they were more solicitous to please; when some marry because their servants cheat them, some because they squander their own money, some because their houses are pestered with company, some because they will live like other people, and some only because they are sick of themselves, I am not so much inclined to wonder that marriage is sometimes unhappy, as that it appears so little loaded with calamity; and cannot but conclude that society has something in itself eminently agreeable to human nature, when I find its pleasures so great that even the ill choice of a companion can hardly overbalance them.

By the ancient custom of the Muscovites, the men and women never faw each other till they were joined beyond the power of parting. It may be suspected that by this method many unsuitable matches were produced, and many tempers associated that were not qualified to give pleasure to each other. Yet, perhaps, among a people so little delicate, where the paucity of gratifications, and the unisormity of lise gave no opportunity for imagination to interpofe its objections, there was not much danger of capricious diflike, and while they selt neither cold nor hunger, they might live quietly together, without any thought of the desects of one other.

Amongst us, whom knowledge has made nice, and affluence wanton, there are, indeed,, more cautions requisite to secure tranquillity; and yet is we observe the manner in which thofe converse, who have

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