Good. I do know thee. Thou art the foul malignant Arthur Montresor; the abettor of the plotting traitor Ormond; the outlawed son of the lawless cavalier who once owned this demesne. Arth. And knowing me for Arthur Montresor, could'st thou take me for garden robber? Could'st thou grudge to the some time heir of these old Halls a parting glance of their venerable beauty? Good Young man, wilt thou tell me, darest thou tell me, that it was to gaze on this old mansion that thou didst steal hither, like a thief in the night Arthur Montresor, canst thou look at thy father's house and utter that falsehood? Ye were a heathenish and blinded generation, main props of tyranny and prelacy, a worldly and a darkling race, who knew not the truth but yet, from your earliest ancestor to the last possessor of those walls, ye had amongst the false gods whom ye worshipped one fair idol, called Honour. Arthur Montresor, I joy that thou hast yet enough of grace vouchsafed to thee to shrink from affirming that lie. I A onda Arth. But a robber! a garden thief! K Good. Ay, a robber! I said, and I repeat, a robber, a thief, a despoiler. Hath the garden no fruit save its apricots and dewberries -No flower save the jessamine and the rose Hath the house no treasure but its vessels of gold and silver? the cabinet no jewel but its carbuneles and its rubies 4 If ever thou art a father, and hast one hopeful and dutiful maiden, the joy of thine heart, and the apple of thine eye, then thou wilt hold all robbery light so that it leaves thee her, all robbers guiltless save him who would steal thy child. Weep not thus, Mabel. And thou, young man; away. I joy that the old and useless gun defeated my angry purpose that I slew not mine enemy on his father's ground: Away with thee, young and Go study the parable that Nathan spake to David. I believe that there is warrant enough for thy detention, but I will not make thee prisoner in the house of thy fathers. Thank ane not; but goz mét Mab. Father, hear me ! Good. Within! To-morrow! Mab. Nay, here, and now. Thou hast pardoned him ; but thou hast not pardoned me. ForGood. I have forgiven theeido forgive thee, dooved så fort AM Good. Mabel, this is a vain and simple fancy.nik Arth: Alas I dare not. Thou art a rich heiress; I am a poor exile.dod Mab. Out on such distinctions! one word from my father; one stroke of Cromwell's pen, and thou art an exile no longer. Plead for us, Arthur! my benefactor; he has given me *Fire a liberty. Would'st thou have me of his child? abel, I dare not. Thy father say these gifts by bereaving him Mab! We will not leave him. We will dwell together. Arthur, wilt thou not speak? Good. His honourable silence hath pleaded for him better than idle words. Arthur Montresor, dost thou love this maid ?{T Arth, Do I love her! Good I believe in good truth that thou dost dost. Take her then from the hand of her father. There is room enough in yonder mansion for the heir and the the old possessor and the new. Take her, and heaven bless ye, my Talisa sa bazote evit sor 201 Mab. Now, bless thee, mine own dear father! and bless all the accidents of this happy nightOur projected elopement and the little door that would not let us elope-and the wind that blew out Jonathan's spark of fire-and the old useless gun that, for want of that spark, would not shoot my Arthur. Blessings on them all! U204 12901. ja vu ve bɔtusnew sú éqadzen VOL. XIX. I NEVER knew a good fellow, in all my life, that was not, some way or other, the dupe of women. One man is an ass unconsciously; another, with his eyes open but all, that are good for anything, are saddled and bridled in some way, and at some time or other. If a good fellow drinks-your best perhaps won't drink very much now but, if he does drink, ten to one, it is because he is out of humour, with some woman. If he writes, what can he write about, but woman? If he games, why is it, but to get money to lavish upon her? For all his courage, ardour, wit, vanity, good-temper, and all other good qualities that he possesses, woman keeps an open market, and can engross them wholly! Why, then, after we have abused womenwhich we all of us do-and found out that they are no more to be trusted than fresh-caught monkeys—which the best of us are very likely to do ;-after all, what does it come to but this that they are the devil's plagues of our lives-and we must have them? one. For, if you are "five-and-twenty, or thereabouts," and good for any thing, you'll certainly become attached to some woman; and-you'll find I'm right, so take warning in time-depend upon it, it had better be to an honest It's Cockney taste, lads, nasty, paltry, Bond-street stuff-to be seen driving about in a cabriolet with the mistress of half the town. And, for the attachment, never flatter yourselves that you are certain to get "tired" of any woman with whom you constantly associate. Depend upon it, you are a great deal more likely to become very inextricably fond of her, Kick it all out of doors, the stale trash, that men are naturally "indifferent" to their wives. How the deuce should a fine woman be the worse for being one's wife? And are there not five hundred good reasons-to everybody but a puppy-why she must be the better? Then, as you must all of you be martyred, suffer in respectable company. MARRY! boys-it's a danger; SHAKSPEARE but, though it is a danger, it is the best. It is a danger! I always feel thankful when a man is hanged for killing his wife; because I should not choose to kill a wife of my own-and yet the crying of the "dying speech" for the barbarous and inhuman murder!" &c. &c. is a sort of warning to her as one rat, losing his tail in the rat-trap, frightens the whole granary-full that are left. But, though marriage is a danger, nevertheless, bazard it. Between evils, boys!-you know the proverb ?-choose the least. Marry, I say, all and each of you !— Take wives; and take them in good time, that "your names may be long in the land." And then, seeing that you would, one and all of you, have wives comes the question, how you should go about to get them? Then, in the first place, I shall assume, that he who reads this paper and marries, marries for a wife. Because, if he wants a "fortune" to boot, or a "place," or to be allied (being plebeian) to a "titled family," the case is out of my métier; he had better apply to an attorney at once. Don't make these things indispensable, any of you, if you can help it. For the fortune, a hundred to one-when you get it—if it does not over-ride you with settlements," and " "trusts," and whole oceans of that sort of impertinence, which every proper man should keep clear of. No woman ought to be able to hold property independent of her husband. And, if that is not the law, all I can say is, that it ought to be so. Then, for the "Place"-it's very well to have a place, where you can get one. -but it must be the very devil to have the donor eternally, all your life afterwards, reminding you how you came by it. And, for the "Titled family," why, shut the book this minute, and don't have the impudence to read another line that I write, if you wouldn't quoit a brother-in-law that was "right honourable," with one impetus from Charing-Cross to Whitechapel, just as soon as a kinsman that was a clerk in the Victualling-office-provided he de can read them three or four times over. And let such not be too hastily disheartened; for it is part of wit, (and of this Magazine,) to bear with dulness; and one comfort is, when you have at least beaten anything into a skull of density, the very devil himself can hardly ever get it out again. "We write on brass," as somebody or other observes, and somewhere, "less easily than in water; but the impression, once made, endures for ever." served it, or you took it into your head that it was convenient to do it! Besides, a nice woman is worth all the money in the Bank. What would you do with it, after you had it, but give it all for one? Please your taste, my children; and so that you get an honest woman, and a pleasing one, to the devil send the remainder. And then to guide your choice, take the following maxims: Those who have brains, will perceive their value at a glance; and such as are thick-headed MAXIM I. Now, in making marriage, as in making love-and indeed in making most other things-the beginning it is that is the difficulty. But the French proverb about beginnings-"C'est le premier pas qui coute"-goes more literally to the arrangement of marriage; as our English well illustrates the condition of love, "The first step over, the rest is easy." Because, in the marrying affair, it is particularly, the "first step" that "costs" as to your cost you will find, if that step happens to go the wrong way. And most men, when they go about the business of wedlock, owing to some strange delusion, begin the affair at the wrong end. They take a fancy to the white arms (sometimes only to the kid gloves) or to the neat ancles of a peculiar school girl; and conclude, from these premises, that she is just the very woman of the world to scold a houseful of servants, and to bring up a dozen children! This is a convenient deduction, but not always a safe one. Pleasant-like Dr Maculloch's deductions in his Political Economy-but generally wrong. "Let not the creaking of shoes, nor the rustling of silk, betray thy poor heart," as Shakespeare says, &c. &c. "to woman!"Implying thereby, that red sashes and lace flounces are but as things transitory; and that she who puts ornaments of gold and silver upon her own head, may be a "crown to her husband" and yet not exactly such a "crown" as King Solomon meant a virtuous woman should bo. He that has ears to hear (while he has nothing worse than ears)-let him hear! A word to the wise should be enough.-There are some particular qualities now and then very likely to lead a gentleman on the sudden to make a lady his wife; and, after she has become so, very likely again to make him wish that they had made her anybody else's. MAXIM II. White arms, and neat ancles, bring me, naturally, at once, to the very important consideration of beauty. For, don't suppose, because I caution you against all day dishabilles, that I want to fix you with a worthy creature, whom it will make you extremely ill every time you look at. No! leave these to apothecaries lawyers and such, generally, as mean to leave money behind them when they die. You have health- —a competence a handy pull at a nose, or at a trigger:-let them grovel. For the style of attraction, please yourselves, my friends. I should say a handsome figure-if you don't get both advantages-is better than a merely pretty face. I don't mean, by "handsome figure," forty cubits high, and as big round as the chief drayman at Meux's brew-house. But finely formed and set. Good eyes are a point never to be overlooked. Fine teeth-full, well-proportioned limbs-don't cast these away for the sake of a single touch of the smallpox ; a mouth something too wide; or dimples rather deeper on one side than the other. MAXIM III. It may, at some time, be a matter of consideration, whether you shall marry a maid or a widow. As to the taste, I myself will give no opinion-I like both; and there are advantages and disadvantages peculiar to either. If you marry a widow, I think it should be one whom you have known in the lifetime of her husband; because, then—ab actu ad posse--from the sufferings of the defunct, you may form some notion of what your own will be. If her husband is dead before you see her, you had better be off at once; because she knows (the jade !) what you will like, though she never means to do it; and, depend upon it, if you have only an inch of penchant, and trust yourself to look at her three times, you are tickled to a certainty. MAXIM IV. Marrying girls is a nice matter always; for they are as cautious as crows plundering a corn-field. You may "stalk" for a week, and never get near them unperceived. You hear the caterwauling, as you go up stairs, into the drawing-room, louder than thunder; but itstops as if by magic! the moment a (marriageable) man puts his ear to the keyhole. I don't myself, I profess, upon principle, see any objection to marrying a widow. If she upbraids you at any time with the virtues of her former husband, you only reply that you wish he had her with him, with all your soul. If a woman, however, has had more than three husbands, she poisons them; avoid her. MAXIM V. In widow-wiving, it may be a question whether you should marry the widow of an honest man, or of a rascal. Against the danger, that the last may have learned ill tricks, they set the advantage she will be more sensible (from the contrast) to the kindness of a gentleman and a man of honour. I think y should marry the honest man's widow; because, with women, habit is always stronger than reason. IS MAXIM VI 200 you But the greatest point, perhaps, to be aimed at in marrying, is to know, before marriage, what it is that you have to deal with. You are quite sure to know this, fast enough, afterwards. Be sure, therefore, that you commence the necessary perquisitions before you have made up your mind, and not as people generally do, after. Remember there is no use in watching a woman that you love; because she can't do anything-do what she will-that will be disagreeable to you. And still less, in examining a woman that loves you; because for the time, she will be quite sure not to do anything that ought to be disagreeable to you. I have known a hundred perfect tigresses as playful as kittens-quite more obliging than need be-under such circumstances. It is not a bad way maid or widow-when you find yourself fancying a woman, to make her believe that you have an aversion to her. If she has any concealed good qualities, they are pretty sure to come out upon such an occasion. N.B. Take care, nevertheless, how you make use of this suggestion; because, right or wrong, it is the very way to make the poor soul fall furiously and fatally in love with you. Vulnus alit venis, et cæco carpitur igni ! MAXIM VII. In judging where to look for a wife-that is, for the lady who is to form the raw material" of one-very great caution is necessary. And you can't take anything better with you, in looking about, as a general principle, than that good mothers commonly make tolerably good daughters. Of course, therefore, you won't go, of consideration prepense, into any house where parents are badly connected, or have been badly conducted. Nor, upon any account at all, into any house where you don't quite feel, that if you don't conduct yourself properly, you'll immediately be kicked out of it. This assurance may be troublesome while you are only a visitor; but when you come to be one of the family, you'll find it mighty convenient, If you can find any place where vice and folly have been used to be called by their right names, stick to that by all means there are seldom more than two such in one parish; and if you see any common rascal let into a house where you visit as readily as yourself, go out of it immediately. MAXIM VIIL.. Mind-but I need hardly caution you of this,-that you are not taken in with that paltry, bygone nonsense about "If you marry-marrying a fool." Recollect that the greatest fool must be sometimes out of your sight; and that she will yet carry you (for all purposes of mischief) along with her. A shrew may want her nails kept short; but if you keep a strait waistcoat in the house, you may always do this yourself. And she is not, of necessity, like your "bleating innocents," a prey to the first wolf who chooses to devour her. MAXIM IX. At the same time, while you avoid a fool, fly-as you fly from sin and death-fly from a philosopher!. It is very dangerous to weak minds, examining (farther than is duly delivered to them) what is right or wrong. I never found anybody yet who could distinctly explain what murder is, if put to a definition. " All who find their minds superior to common rule and received opinion; value themselves on original thinking; talk politics; read Mary Wolstonecraft; or meddle with the mathematics; these are the unclean birds upon whom the protecting genius of honest men has set his mark that all may know ; and pray do you avoid them. MAXIM X. If you marry an actress, don't let her be a tragedy one. Habits of ranting, and whisking up and down with a long train before a row of "footlamps," are apt to cast an undue ludicrousness (when transplanted) over the serious business of life. Only imagine a castigation delivered to the cook, in "King Cambyses' vein," upon the event of an underdone leg of mutton at dinner; or an incarnation of Helen M'Gregor, ordering the cat to be thrown alive into the cistern, if a piece of muffin was abstracted, without leave, at breakfast!yo If you do marry an actress, the singing girls perhaps are best; Miss Paton, I think, seems very soft, and coaxing, and desirable. I myself should prefer Kitty Stephens to any of them. Though she is a sad lazy slut won't learn a line, and sleeps all day upon the sofa! But I'm a teacher; and therefore the less I parade my own practice-at least so the belief goes the better, Be sure, wherever you choose, choose a proud woman, All honesty is a kind of pride; or at least three-fourths of it. No people do wrong, but in spite of themselves they feel a certain quantity of descent and self-degradation: the more a woman has to forfeit, the less likely she is to forfeit anything at all. Take the pride, although you have the virtue ; the more indorsements you get, even on a good bill, the better. MAXIM XIII. I don't think the Saints-after all is said and done are the worst people in the world to match among. Nine-tenths of the mischief that women do arise less from ill design than from idle, careless, vagabond levity. It falls out commonly among the great card-players, and play-hunters; very little among the Methodists and Presbyterians. Of course, you won't contract for anything beyond going to church three times a day; and such like public professions of faith and feeling. But for the rest, I don't see why you should embarrass yourself about any system of belief, so long as it offends only against reason, and tends to the believer's temporal advantage. MAXIM XIV. At the same time, after the last sentence of the above exhortation, I need hardly tell you that you must not marry a Roman Catholic. Indeed Í suppose it would be a little too much for any of you, who read me, to fancy a pleasant gentleman claiming the right to catechise your wives in private? For my part, God help any rascal who presumed to talk of law, human or divine, in my family; except the law, which, like Jack Cade's law, came out of my mouth!" I know something of these matters, having once contemplated being a monk myself-in fact, I had stolen a dress for the purpose. On the same 66 |