It is easier for an artful man who is not in love to persuade his mistress he has a passion for her, and to succeed in his pursuits, than for one who loves with the greatest violence. True love has ten thousand griefs, impatiences, and resentments, that render a man unamiable in the eyes of the person whose affection he solicits; besides that it sinks his figure, gives him fears, apprehensions, and poorness of spirit, and often makes him appear ridiculous where he has a mind to recommend himself. Those marriages generally abound most with love and constancy, that are preceded by a long courtship. The passion should strike root, and gather strength before marriage be grafted on it. A long course of hopes and expectations fixes the idea in our minds, and habituates us to a fondness of the person beloved. There is nothing of so great importance to us, as the good qualities of one to whom we join ourselves for life; they do not only make our present state agreeable, but often determine our happiness to all eternity. Where the choice is left to friends, the chief point under consideration is an estate; where the parties choose for themselves, their thoughts turn most upon the person. They have both their reasons. The first would procure many conveniences and pleasures of life to the party whose interests they espouse; and at the same time may hope that the wealth of their friends will turn to their own credit and advantage. The others are preparing for themselves a perpetual feast. A good person does not only raise but continue love, and breeds a secret pleasure and complacency in the beholder, when the first heats of desire are extinguished. It puts the wife or husband in countenance both among friends and strangers, and generally fills the family with a healthy and beautiful race of children. I should prefer a woman that is agreeable in my own eye, and not deformed in that of the world, to a celebrated beauty. If you marry one remarkably beautiful, you must have a violent passion for her, or you have not the proper taste for her charms; and if you have such a passion for her, it is odds but it would be imbittered with fears and jealousies. Good-nature and evenness of temper will give you an easy companion for life; virtue and good sense, an agreeable friend; love and constancy, a good wife or husband. Where we meet one person with all these accomplishments, we find an hundred without any one of them. The world notwithstanding, is more intent on trains and equipages, and all the showy parts of life; we love rather to dazzel the multitude, than consult our proper interests; and as I have elsewhere observed, it is one of the most unaccountable passions of human nature, that we are at greater pains to appear easy and happy to others, than really to make ourselves so. Of all disparities, that in humour makes the most unhappy marriages, yet scarce enters into our thoughts at the contracting of them. Several that are in this respect unequally yoked, and uneasy for life with a person of a particular character, might have been pleased and happy with a person of a contrary one, notwithstanding they are both perhaps equally virtuous and laudable in their kind. Before marriage we cannot be too inquisitive and discerning in the faults of the person beloved, nor after it too dim-sighted and superficial. However perfect and accomplished the person appears to you at a distance, you will find many blemishes and imperfections in her humour, upon a more intimate acquaintance, which you never discovered or perhaps suspected. Here therefore discretion and good nature are to shew their strength; the first will hinder your thoughts from dwelling on what is disagreeable, the other will raise in you all the tenderness of compassion and humanity, and by degrees soften those very imperfections into beauties. Marriage enlarges the scene of our happiness and miseries. A marriage of love is pleasant; a marriage of interest easy; and a marriage where both meet, happy. A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all the enjoyments of sense and reason, and indeed, all the sweets of life. Nothing is a greater mark of a degenerate and vicious age, than the common ridicule which passes on this state of life. It is, indeed, only happy in those who can look down with scorn and neglect on the impieties of the times, and tread the paths of life together in a constant uniform course of virtue. C. No. 262. MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1711. Nulla venenato littera mista joco est. ADAPTED. OVID. Trist. ii. 566. My paper flows from no satyric vein, I THINK myself highly obliged to the public for their kind acceptance of a paper which visits them every morning, and has in it none of those sea ich you never Here thereto shew their our thoughts ble, the other of compassion en those very our happiness is pleasant; a arriage where iage has in it the enjoyments Il the sweets of f a degenerate ridicule which , indeed, only with scorn and mes, and tread nstant uniform C. ཅམཅ, single word of news, a reflection in politics, stroke of party; so, on the other, there are n shionable touches of infidelity, no obscene i no satires upon priesthood, marriage, and the popular topics of ridicule; no private sca nor any thing that may tend to the defamati particular persons, families, or societies. There is not one of those above-menti subjects that would not sell a very indifferen per, could I think of gratifying the public by mean and base methods. But notwithstandi have rejected every thing that savours of p every thing that is loose and immoral, and e thing that might create uneasiness in the m of particular persons, I find that the demand my papers has increased every month since t first appearance in the world. This does not haps reflect so much honour upon myself, a my readers, who give a much greater attenti discourses of virtue and morality than ever I pected, or indeed could hope. When I broke loose from that great bod writers who have employed their wit and par propagating vice and irreligion, I did not ques but I should be treated as an odd kind of fe that had a mind to appear singular in my wa writing but the general reception I have fo convinces me that the world is not so corru we are apt to imagine; and that if those me parts who have been employed in vitiating age had endeavoured to rectify and amend it, needed not to have sacrificed their good s and virtue to their fame and reputation. Not is so sunk in vice and ignorance, but there still some hidden seeds of goodness and knowledge in him; which give him a relish of such reflections and speculations as have an aptness to improve the mind, and make the heart better. I have shewn in a former paper, with how much care I have avoided all such thoughts as are loose, obscene, or immoral; and I believe my reader would still think the better of me, if he knew the pains I am at in qualifying what I write after such a manner, that nothing may be interpreted as aimed at private persons. For this reason, when I draw any faulty character, I consider all those persons to whom the malice of the world may possibly apply it, and take care to dash it. with such particular circumstances as may prevent all such ill-natured applications. If I write any thing on a black man, I run over in my mind all the eminent persons in the nation who are of that complexion: when I place an imaginary name at the head of a character, I examine every syllable and letter of it, that it may not bear any resemblance to one that is real. I know very well the value which every man sets upon his reputation, and how painful it is to be exposed to the mirth and derision of the public, and should therefore scorn to divert my reader at the expense of any private man. As I have been thus tender of every particular person's reputation, so I have taken more than ordinary care not to give offence to those who appear in the higher figures of life. I would not make myself merry even with a piece of pasteboard that is invested with a public character; for which reason I have never glanced upon the late designed procession of his Holiness and his attendants, notwithstanding it might have afforded matter to many ludicrous speculations. Among |