TWENTY-ONE MAXIMS TO MARRY BY.

GENTLEMEN.

"To be thus, is nothing; But to be safely thus-!"

soon as a kinsman that was a clerk in the Victualling-office-provided he deserved 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, can read them three or four times over. And let such not be too hastily disheartened; for it is the part of wit, (and of this Magazine,) to bear with dulness; and one comfort is, when you have at last 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 impres sion, once made, endures for ever.”

MAXIM 1.

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 be. 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 small-pox; 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 life

time 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 ineans 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 it stops-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 you should marry the honest man's widow; because, with women, habit is always stronger than reason.

MAXIM VI.

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 waymaid 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 VIII.

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 under-done 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!

MAXIM II.

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.

MAXIM XII.

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 com→ monly 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 your self 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 I 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 principle I rather think I mentioned this before,-suffer no "guardianships," or trusteeships," in your family, to disturb your reign, or fret your quiet. I knew a very worthy fellow, who, having only a marriage settlement brought to him, broke the solicitor's clerk's neck down stairs that brought it; and it was brought in "Justifiable homicide." If a dog dares but to hint that there is such a thing as "parchment" in your presence, plump, and rib him.

MAXIM XV.

I don't think, by the way, that there ought to be any parchment, except the petitions to the House of Commons, which are cut up to supply the tailors with measures. This is useful. Messrs Shiel and O'Connell's work takes the dimensions of my person once a-month very accurately. I mention this, because it has been said that no measures, in which the work of those gentlemen was concerned, ever could be taken accurately.

MAXIM XVI.

Talking of accuracy, leads me to observe :-Don't marry any woman hastily at Brighton or Brussels, without knowing who she is, and where she lived before she came there. And whenever you get a reference upon this or any other subject, always be sure and get another reference about the person referred to.

MAXIM XVII.

Don't marry any woman under twenty-She is not come to her wickedness before that time. Nor any woman who has a red nose at any age; because people make observations as you go along the street. A "cast of the eye,' as the lady casts it upon you-may pass muster under some circumstancesand I have even known those who thought it desirable; but absolute squinting is a monopoly of vision which ought not to be tolerated.

MAXIM XVIII.

Talking of "vision," reminds me of an absurd saying,-That such or such a one can see as far through a mill-stone as those that picked it." I don't be lieve that any man ever saw through a mill-stone but Jeremy Bentham; and he looked through the hole.

MAXIM XIX.

One hears a great deal about "City taste;" I must say, I don't think an Alderman's daughter by any means (qua Cornhill merely) objectionable. A fine girl may be charming, even though her father should be a Common Councilman-Recollect this.

MAXIM XX.

On the question of getting an insight into matters before marriage, if possible, I have dropped a word already. It is a point of very great importance, and there are two or three modes in which you may take your chance for accomplishing it. If you are up to hiring yourself into any house as a chambermaid-it requires tact, and close shaving; but it would put you into the way of finding out a thing or two. I " took up my livery" once as a footman, and I protest I learned so much in three weeks, that I would not have married any female in the family. An old maiden aunt, or sister, if you have one, is capable of great service. She will see more of a tomboy in five minutes than you would in six months; because, having been in the oven herself, she knows the way. On the other hand, there is the danger that she may sell you to some estate that she thinks lies convenient; or even job you off to some personal favourite, without the consideration of any estate at all. The Punic faith of all agents -and especially one's own relatives-is notorious.

MAXIM XXI.

On the subject of accomplishment, it is hardly my business to advise. I leave a great part-the chief part-upon this point, to your own fancy. Only don't have any waltzing, nor too much determined singing of Moore's songs; there is bad taste, to say the best of it, in all such publicities. For music, I