Guilt grins me in the face; infamy barks at my heels; scorn points her finger at me; disease is gnawing at my vitals; death already touches me with his icy fingers; and eternity waits to swallow me up. I am going to meet Amelia !

The man to whose charge I am committed, has furnished me with the means of fulfilling this my last task, and making the only atonement in my power for what I have done. If there be any one who shall read this, to whom temptation may beckon afar off, at a distance which disguises its deformity, let him contemplate me as I entered on the stage of life; as I pursued my career forward; as I closed, or am about to close it for ever. Let him not cheat his soul; let him not for a moment believe, that it is impossible for him to become as bad, nay, worse than I have been. If we look only at the beginning and the end of a career of infamy and wickedness, the space appears a gulf which the delinquent has overleapt at a single bound. But if we examine into the particulars of his life and progress, we shall seldom fail to find that the interval has been passed, and the goal attained, step by step, by little and little, from good to bad, from bad to worse. The pride of human reason may whisper in our ears that we can never become like the wretch whose career we have

just been tracing. But as poor Ophelia says,

"We know what we are, but we know not what we may be." It is only to begin as I began; to sow the same seeds, and be sure that in good time you will reap the same fruits; drink the same gall and bitterness here, the same fiery draught hereafter.

THE MARRIAGE BLUNDER.

I HAVE never been able to understand the peculiar significancy of the old and often quoted maxim, that matches are made in heaven, as if Providence had more to do with our marriages, and we ourselves less, than with the other enterprises and acts of our lives. The truth is, that nothing we do is transacted with more deliberation than our matrimonial engagements. precipitancy, and blindness, in the parties between whom the union is formed, is all cant, and cant of the most ancient and stale kind. I wonder it is not exploded in an age when old theories and long established opinions are thrown aside with as little ceremony or remorse as a grave-digger shovels up the bones and dust of past generations. In almost every marriage that takes place, the bridegroom has passed by many a fair face before he has made his final election, and the bride refused many a

The talk about rashness,

wooer. The parties are united after a courtship generally of months-the fair one defers the day of the nuptials from mere maiden coyness, and the lover must have time to provide her a habitation. Religious ceremonies, the forms of law, the preparations for the festivity of the occasion, all interpose their numerous delays. Even where the parties have nothing to do with the matter themselves, it is managed with great reflection and contrivance, with negociations warily opened and skilfully conducted on the part of their relations. Why, the very making of these matches, which the proverb so flippantly affirms to be made without our agency, constitutes nearly half the occupation of civilized society. For this the youth applies himself diligently to the making of his fortune; for this the maiden studies the graces and accomplishments of her sex. I have known persons who for years never thought of any other subject. I have known courtships which lasted through four lustres. I have known mothers who for years made it the business of their lives to settle their daughters. The premeditation of matrimony influences all the fashions, amusements, and employments of mankind. What a multitude of balls and parties, and calls, and visits, and journeys, are owing to this fruitful cause-what managing and manoeuvring, what dressing and

dancing, what patching and painting, how much poetry and how much prose, what quantities of music, and conversation, and criticism, and scandal, and civility, that otherwise would never have had an existence !

The result justifies the supposition of deliberation; and most marriages are accordingly made with sufficient wisdom. Talk of the risk undertaken by the candidate for the happiness of a conjugal life! The man who marries is not so often cheated as the man who buys a horse, even when the bargain is driven for him by the most knowing jockey. Ten are unfortunate in trade, to one who is unfortunate in a wife. Marriages are comfortable and respectable things the world over, with a few exceptions. Ill-natured people torment each other, it is true; but if they were not married they would torment somebody else, unless they retired to a hermitage; while, on the other hand, good tempers are improved by the domestic affections which the married state calls forth.

If marriage happened to a man without his knowledge or consent; if it came upon one unexpectedly like a broken leg, or a fever, or a legacy from a rich relation, or a loss by a broken bank; if young men and young women were to lay their heads on their pillows in celibacy and wake the next morning in wedlock; if one were to have no voice in