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officers and the affection of your family and friends, must, I conceive, leave your heart unwounded by disappointment, and your fame unsullied, even by a passing cloud. You have thus left little for affection to desire on your behalf; save your safe and early return to your native land, and to the bosom of an attached and expecting family. For myself, I anxiously desire to renew to you, in person, the assurance of those sentiments and feelings, which your kindness and generosity to me cannot fail to have inspired in a not ungrateful bosom; and to cultivate, by personal intercourse, those endearing sympathies and feelings, which give to life its sweetest charm:

For when affection's claim I cease to hold,

This hand be nerveless, and this heart be cold.

If I might covet for you one yet unparticipated blessing, it is that you may hereafter forget the cares and fatigues of Official and Military Life,

in the tranquil enjoyments of YOUR OWN SWEET HOME; and having served your God as faithfully

as you have your Country, you may, in a green

old age, descend to the house appointed for all living, in the full experience of that blessed "Hope which maketh not ashamed,"

Life's vesper star, which bright'ning to the tomb,
Illumes its twilight, and survives its gloom.

With such wishes, I remain, my dear Brother,

Your affectionate and grateful friend,

H. C. O'DONNOGHUE.

GLOUCESTER HOUSE,

New Road, London,

May 20th, 1828.

PREFACE.

Much has been written both on the Law of Marriage, and on the Duties of Married Persons. Treatises on the former subject, are necessarily and chiefly professional; whilst those which refer to the more popular and useful topics of duty are strictly religious. It may, therefore, be presumed that there is yet room for an addition to this department of literature; in which so much of feeling and interest may be united with moral truth, as to render the practical design of the work more likely of success.

The present is a reading age; in which novelty, interest, and pleasure are the principal objects of

pursuit. If we would address their hearts, or influence their lives, we must do so through the medium of men's feelings and affections.-Hence the following attempt to direct aright those feelings and affections, by a candid analyzation and developement of their nature, quality, and object. The passion of LOVE is too often treated with ridicule; or painted only as impetuous, headstrong, or vicious. But, surely, such a partial view of the matter, cannot but be unjust-no passion of the human mind is originally vicious; the fault lies in the excess, or the misapplication. It is the province of Reason and Religion to control, and to regulate, but not to extinguish them. If Love throw a radiance around the being it prefers, which dazzles the very senses, and misleads the mind; if a lively fancy, and a warm imagination, invest it with a fictitious, or an undue excellency, it becomes the province of Religion not to destroy, but to chastise that imagination; and to sober the splendours of fancy without obscuring them.

It is conceded that the ideas which most young persons entertain of Love, are both romantic and foolish; and it is not difficult to account why this is the case. Love is, too often, a proscribed topic, either of conversation or advice; all that is known concerning it is, therefore, derived from the fictions of Poetry, and the high wrought descriptions of Novels. Education is employed in directing, controlling, or reforming all the other passions and tempers of the human heart; but on this, it is systematically silent. Can we then wonder that a passion so stimulant, so powerful, so influential, shall, unguided, or misdirected, urge on to error, and to crime, the weak reason, and the generous, unsuspecting nature of youth? That there is a strong prejudice against the discussion of this subject is confessed; and when the peculiar delicacy attending it is considered, we cannot wonder that such a prejudice should exist. Even the most chaste and correct observations concerning it,

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