A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE

Not too loving neither: that does not explain my meaning. Besides, why should that offend me? The very act of separating themselves from the rest of the world, to have the fuller enjoyment of each other's society, implies that they prefer one another to all the world.

thrust the most obnoxious part of their patent into our faces.

Nothing is to me more distasteful than that entire complacency and satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a newmarried couple,—in that of the lady particularly it tells you, that her lot is disposed of in this world: that you can have no hopes of her. It is true, I have none: nor wishes either, perhaps; but this is one of those truths which ought, as I said before, to be taken for granted, not expressed.

But what I complain of is, that they carry this preference so undisguisedly, they perk it up in the faces of us single people so shamelessly, you cannot be in their company a moment without being made to feel, by some indirect hint or open avowal, that you The excessive airs which those people give are not the object of this preference. Now themselves, founded on the ignorance of us unthere are some things which give no offence, married people, would be more offensive if they while implied or taken for granted merely; were less irrational. We will allow them to but expressed, there is much offence in them. understand the mysteries belonging to their If a man were to accost the first homely-own craft better than we, who have not had featured or plain-dressed young woman of the happiness to be made free of the comhis acquaintance, and tell her bluntly, that she was not handsome or rich enough for him, and he could not marry her, he would deserve to be kicked for his ill manners; yet no less is implied in the fact, that having access and opportunity of putting the question to her, he has never yet thought fit to do it. The young woman understands this as clearly as if it were put into words; but no reasonable young woman would think of making this the ground of a quarrel. Just as little right have a married couple to tell me by speeches, and looks that are scarce less plain than speeches, that I am not the happy man, -the lady's choice. It is enough that I know I am not I do not want this perpetual reminding.

The display of superior knowledge or riches may be made sufficiently mortifying; but these admit of a palliative. The knowledge which is brought out to insult me, may accidentally improve me; and in the rich man's houses and pictures,—his parks and gardens, I have a temporary usufruct at least. But the display of married happiness has none of these palliatives: it is throughout pure, unrecompensed, unqualified insult.

Marriage by its best title is a monopoly, and not of the least invidious sort. It is the cunning of most possessors of any exclusive privilege to keep their advantage as much out of sight as possible, that their less favoured neighbours, seeing little of the benefit, may the less be disposed to question the right. But these married monopolists

pany: but their arrogance is not content within these limits. If a single person presume to offer his opinion in their presence, though upon the most indifferent subject, he is immediately silenced as an incompetent person. Nay, a young married lady of my acquaintance, who, the best of the jest was, had not changed her condition above a fortnight before, in a question on which I had the misfortune to differ from her, respecting the properest mode of breeding oysters for the London market, had the assurance to ask with a sneer, how such an old Bachelor as I could pretend to know anything about such matters!

But what I have spoken of hitherto is nothing to the airs which these creatures give themselves when they come, as they generally do, to have children. When I consider how little of a rarity children are, that every street and blind alley swarms with them,― that the poorest people commonly have them in most abundance,-that there are few marriages that are not blest with at least one of these bargains,—how often they turn out ill, and defeat the fond hopes of their parents, taking to vicious courses, which end in poverty, disgrace, the gallows, &c.-I cannot for my life tell what cause for pride there can possibly be in having them. If they were young phoenixes, indeed, that were born but one in a year, there might be a pretext. But when they are so common―

I do not advert to the insolent merit which they assume with their husbands on these

occasions. Let them look to that. But why we, who are not their natural-born subjects, should be expected to bring our spices, myrrh, and incense, our tribute and homage of admiration, I do not see.

amiable or unamiable per se; I must love or hate them as I see cause for either in their qualities. A child's nature is too serious a thing to admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage to another being, and to be "Like as the arrows in the hand of the loved or hated accordingly: they stand with giant, even so are the young children: SO me upon their own stock, as much as men says the excellent office in our Prayer-book and women do. Oh! but you will say, sure appointed for the churching of women. it is an attractive age, there is something "Happy is the man that hath his quiver full in the tender years of infancy that of itself of them" So say I; but then don't let him charms us? That is the very reason why I discharge his quiver upon us that are weapon- am more nice about them. I know that a less; let them be arrows, but not to gall sweet child is the sweetest thing in nature, and stick us. I have generally observed that not even excepting the delicate creatures these arrows are double-headed: they have which bear them; but the prettier the kind two forks, to be sure to hit with one or the of a thing is, the more desirable it is that it other. As for instance, where you come into should be pretty of its kind. One daisy a house which is full of children, if you differs not much from another in glory; but happen to take no notice of them (you are a violet should look and smell the daintiest. thinking of something else, perhaps, and turn-I was always rather squeamish in my a deaf ear to their innocent caresses), you are women and children. set down as untractable, morose, a hater of children. On the other hand, if you find them more than usually engaging, if you are taken with their pretty manners, and set about in earnest to romp and play with them, some pretext or other is sure to be found for sending them out of the room; they are too noisy or boisterous, or Mr. does not like children. With one or other of these folks the arrow is sure to

hit you.

I could forgive their jealousy, and dispense with toying with their brats, if it gives them any pain; but I think it unreasonable to be called upon to love them, where I see no occasion, to love a whole family, perhaps eight, nine, or ten, indiscriminately,-to love all the pretty dears, because children are so engaging!

But this is not the worst: one must be admitted into their familiarity at least, before they can complain of inattention. It implies visits, and some kind of intercourse. But if the husband be a man with whom you have lived on a friendly footing before marriageif you did not come in on the wife's side-if you did not sneak into the house in her train, but were an old friend in fast habits of intimacy before their courtship was so much as thought on,-look about you—your tenure is precarious-before a twelvemonth shall roll over your head, you shall find your old friend gradually grow cool and altered towards you, and at last seek opportunities of breaking with you. I have scarce a married friend of my acquaintance, upon whose firm faith I can rely, whose friendship did not commence after the period of his I know there is a proverb, "Love me, love marriage. With some limitations, they can my dog" that is not always so very practi- endure that; but that the good man should cable, particularly if the dog be set upon you have dared to enter into a solemn league of to tease you or snap at you in sport. But a friendship in which they were not consulted, dog, or a lesser thing-any inanimate sub- though it happened before they knew him, stance, as a keepsake, a watch or a ring, a-before they that are now man and wife tree, or the place where we last parted when my friend went away upon a long absence, I can make shift to love, because I love him, and anything that reminds me of him; provided it be in its nature indifferent, and apt to receive whatever hue fancy can give it. But children have a real character, and an essential being of themselves: they are

ever met, this is intolerable to them. Every long friendship, every old authentic intimacy, must be brought into their office to be new stamped with their currency, as a sovereign prince calls in the good old money that was coined in some reign before he was born or thought of, to be new marked and minted with the stamp of his authority,

before he will let it pass current in the world. You may guess what luck generally befalls such a rusty piece of metal as I am in these new mintings.

was for some supposed charm in your conver-
sation that he first grew to like you, and was
content for this to overlook some trifling
irregularities in your moral deportment, upon
the first notice of any of these she as readily
exclaims, "This, my dear, is your good
Mr- -" One good lady whom I took
the liberty of expostulating with for not
showing me quite so much respect as I
thought due to her husband's old friend, had
the candour to confess to me that she had
often heard Mr.
speak of me before
marriage, and that she had conceived a great
desire to be acquainted with me, but that
the sight of me had very much disappointed

Innumerable are the ways which they take to insult and worm you out of their husband's confidence. Laughing at all you say with a kind of wonder, as if you were a queer kind of fellow that said good things, but an oddity, is one of the ways;-they have a particular kind of stare for the purpose; till at last the husband, who used to defer to your judgment, and would pass over some excrescences of understanding and manner for the sake of a general vein of observation (not quite vulgar) which he perceived in her expectations; for from her husband's you, begins to suspect whether you are not altogether a humourist, a fellow well enough to have consorted with in his bachelor days, but not quite so proper to be introduced to ladies. This may be called the staring way; and is that which has oftenest been put in practice against me.

representations of me, she had formed a notion that she was to see a fine, tall, officerlike-looking man (I use her very words), the very reverse of which proved to be the truth. This was candid; and I had the civility not to ask her in return, how she came to pitch upon a standard of personal accomplishments for her husband's friends which differed so much from his own; for my friend's dimensions as near as possible approximate to mine; he standing five feet five in his shoes, in which I have the advantage of him by about half an inch; and he no more than myself exhibiting any indications of a martial character in his air or countenance.

These are some of the mortifications which

Then there is the exaggerating way, or the way of irony; that is, where they find you an object of especial regard with their husband, who is not so easily to be shaken from the lasting attachment founded on esteem which he has conceived towards you, by never qualified exaggerations to cry up all that you say or do, till the good man, who understands well enough that it is all done in compliment to him, grows weary of the debt of gratitude which is due to so have encountered in the absurd attempt much candour, and by relaxing a little on to visit at their houses. To enumerate his part, and taking down a peg or two in them all would be a vain endeavour; I shall his enthusiasm, sinks at length to the kindly therefore just glance at the very common level of moderate esteem that "decent impropriety of which married ladies are affection and complacent kindness "towards guilty,-of treating us as if we were their you, where she herself can join in sympathy | husbands, and vice verså. with him without much stretch and violence to her sincerity.

Another way (for the ways they have to accomplish so desirable a purpose are infinite) is, with a kind of innocent simplicity, continually to mistake what it was which first made their husband fond of you. If an esteem for something excellent in your moral character was that which riveted the chain which she is to break, upon any imaginary discovery of a want of poignancy in your conversation, she will cry, "I thought, my dear, you described your friend, Mr.

I

I mean, when they use us with familiarity, and their husbands with ceremony. Testacea, for instance, kept me the other night two or three hours beyond my usual time of supping, while she was fretting because Mr. I did not come home, till the oysters were all spoiled, rather than she would be guilty of the impoliteness of touching one in his absence. This was reversing the point of good manners: for ceremony is an invention to take off the uneasy feeling which we derive from knowing ourselves to be less the object of love and esteem with a fellow-creature than some

as a great wit?" If, on the other hand, it other person is. It endeavours to make up

by superior attentions in little points, for a dish of Morellas, which I was applying to that invidious preference which it is forced with great good-will, to her husband at the to deny in the greater. Had Testacea kept other end of the table, and recommended a the oysters back for me, and withstood her plate of less extraordinary gooseberries to husband's importunities to go to supper, she my unwedded palate in their stead. Neither would have acted according to the strict can I excuse the wanton affront of rules of propriety. I know no ceremony But I am weary of stringing up all my that ladies are bound to observe to their married acquaintance by Roman denominahusbands, beyond the point of a modest tions. Let them amend and change their behaviour and decorum: therefore I must manners, or I promise to record the fullprotest against the vicarious gluttony of length English of their names, to the terror Cerasia, who at her own table sent away of all such desperate offenders in future.

ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS.

THE casual sight of an old Play Bill, her plaintive ones. There is no giving an which I picked up the other day-I know account how she delivered the disguised not by what chance it was preserved so long story of her love for Orsino. It was no set -tempts me to call to mind a few of the speech, that she had foreseen, so as to weave Players, who make the principal figure in it. it into an harmonious period, line necessarily It presents the cast of parts in the Twelfth following line, to make up the music-yet I Night, at the old Drury-lane Theatre two- have heard it so spoken, or rather read, not and-thirty years ago. There is something without its grace and beauty-but, when she very touching in these old remembrances. had declared her sister's history to be a They make us think how we once used to "blank," and that she "never told her love," read a Play Bill-not, as now peradventure, there was a pause, as if the story had ended singling out a favourite performer, and cast--and then the image of the "worm in the ing a negligent eye over the rest; but spell- bud," came up as a new suggestion-and the ing out every name, down to the very mutes heightened image of "Patience" still followed and servants of the scene;-when it was after that, as by some growing (and not a matter of no small moment to us whether mechanical) process, thought springing up Whitfield, or Packer, took the part of Fabian; after thought, I would almost say, as they when Benson, and Burton, and Phillimore- were watered by her tears. So in those fine names of small account-had an importance, linesbeyond what we can be content to attribute now to the time's best actors.—" Orsino, by Mr. Barrymore."-What a full Shakspearian sound it carries! how fresh to memory arise the image and the manner of the gentle actor! Those who have only seen Mrs. Jordan within the last ten or fifteen years, can have no adequate notion of her performance of such parts as Ophelia ; Helena, in All's Well that Ends Well; and Viola in this play. Mrs. Powel (now Mrs. Renard), then in Her voice had latterly acquired a coarseness, the pride of her beauty, made an admirable which suited well enough with her Nells and Olivia. She was particularly excellent in Hoydens, but in those days it sank, with her her unbending scenes in conversation with steady, melting eye, into the heart. Her the Clown. I have seen some Olivias-and joyous parts-in which her memory now those very sensible actresses too-who in chiefly lives-in her youth were outdone by these interlocutions have seemed to set their

Right loyal cantos of contemned love-
Hollow your name to the reverberate hills—

there was no preparation made in the foregoing image for that which was to follow. She used no rhetoric in her passion; or it was nature's own rhetoric, most legitimate then, when it seemed altogether without rule or law.