ture; as truly now as in the days of the patient Griselda. The plans of the Princess Ida, and all similar plans, advocated by Fourierites, or by reformers of any other name, are false in theory and impossible in execution; and none know this better than those whose pretended emancipation is by these plans to be accomplished.

There is, we conceive, a false sentimentality on this subject, which is somewhat prevalent in these days. It is akin to that false benevolence which fears to take the life of the murderer, and which dabbles in sickly cant about the rights of labor. It shows itself in legislation, in what are called enactments to protect the property of married women. The old common law, which upon marriage gave the. wife's property to her husband, is scouted, as being far behind the spirit of the age; and new systems are adopted, which are intended to keep the property of the wife distinct from that of the husband and under her sole control. Yet that old common law doctrine was based on a higher authority than human legislation. It rested upon the divine command, "they twain shall be one flesh." Following this command it treated husband and wife as one; one, as they should be, in property, in interest and in will. Hard as the rule might sometimes be, the end in view, the perfect union formed by the marriage contract, was too great a good to be sacrificed for occasional evils. Nous avons changè tout cela. A court, which took its rules from Pagan authority, first broke through the old principles; and legislation has completed the work. Married women are protected. The wife's interest is one thing, the husband's is another. They are no longer one flesh. The wife owns stock in one steamboat company, and the husband owns stock in an opposition. At home she owns the spoons on the table, and the husband owns the knives and forks. The meat on the table is his, but the platter on which it lies is hers. He drives his horses before her carriage and drinks his wine out of her glasses-covers his floors with her carpets, and places his candles in her candlesticks. Meum and teum stand like a wall of separation between them. They are not even partners. He owns his property and she owns hers. She may share in his prosperity, but she stands aloof from his adversity. Misfortune may overwhelm him, but she is safe.

Now we have too much faith in womankind to believe that any woman, who is married to a man whom she loves, would ever desire a separation of interests. She would willingly share his prosperity, and more willingly still his adversity. It would be no pleasure to her to see him suffering from storms, while she was secure. She would know no meum towards him; but would gladly sacrifice for him her property, as she would herself. Dependence on him would be a greater happiness than any independence could be.

In fact, whatever be the pretence, it is not for the protection of the wife, but of the husband, that laws such as these to which we

have alluded, are enacted. It is the husband who fears that in the misfortunes of business his property may be lost, and who wishes to have somewhere a fund which no creditor can touch. Knowing that no law can take away his influence over his wife, and that whatever is hers in name will generally be his in fact, he welcomes any law, the effect of which is to make a part of his property safe against loss. It is to this, that we owe our modern legislation for the protection of the property of married women.

But however this may be, we cannot but believe that such legislation is fundamentally wrong. We must think that it tends to weaken and degrade the marriage tie-to change it from a union to one into a contract between two-to waken conflicting interests between those whose wishes should be, not harmonious, but the same Nearly all the trouble and contention in the world grow out of property and questions connected with it; and it has always been one source of peace and happiness in the marriage contract, that generally between the parties to that contract no such questions could arise. There, at least, law and litigation could not penetrate. But now, in every family, this legislation has sown a fruitful seed of discord. The seed may not always take root. In some instances it may find no soil; in others affection may choke its growth. But we fear that too often it will spring up and bear sharp thorns. If in any instance it does not, it will be because woman, in her confiding spirit, will render the enactment, so far as she is concerned, a dead letter-because she will in fact yield up the control of her property to her husband, who will thus become the ostensible owner of that to which his creditors can never have any claim. But there always will be Kates and Petruchios; and that will indeed be a happy fireside where they meet, when even the bond of common pecuniary interests has been sundered.

The error of such legislation lies in assuming that the happiness of the marriage bond arises from dollars and cents. False as this assumption is in regard to any situation in life, it is still more thoroughly false in regard to this relation. Happiness here must come from the harmony of the parties. It can come from no other source. Wealth cannot purchase it; poverty need not want it. Unity of interests and wishes are its pre-requisites. Without these no marriage settlements or wholesale legislation can secure the happiness of the wife; with them, such settlements and such legislation are useless, or may serve to introduce dissension and misery where otherwise harmony and happiness would prevail. The wife of the humble day laborer, who is wedded to his fortunes as well as to himself, whose lot it is to struggle with him against poverty, to share with him his distress, and to feel with him the pinchings of want, is more truly that help-meet, which God intended woman should be to man, than she is, who, in her separate affluence, is secure against the misfortunes which may meet and crush her husband. For better or for worse" is, and should be, the vow.

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We would not be mistaken. We would not render in any respect the happiness and comfort of the wife less secure. No one can desire, less than we do, to see woman either the drudge of man, or the mere instrument of his pleasures. We gladly acknowledge her end to be far higher and far nobler than this. She should be his loved and loving companion, doubling his joys and dividing his sorrows, trusting to his affection, confiding in his wisdom, and seeking her happiness in her perfect union with him. We dread any change which shall disturb this union, and shall recognize the existence of separate interests in the married couple; and we believe that, if the common law ever deserved the appellation of "the perfection of human wisdom," it was when it laid down and strictly enforced the principle, that, "the husband and his wife be but one person in the law."

In our digression we have quite lost sight of the princess. We must return for a parting word. The story ends where we left it. The reader must fancy for himself how happily in after years the prince and princess lived together; and how her wild follies served as food for merry laughter. The University, we presume, was never re-opened; and the vines which grew about it, left to nature's training, twisted themselves about sturdy trees, and mocked the wisdom which would have made them depend on their own support.

A SYLVAN SCENE.

BY A. F. OLMSTED.

Hark! I hear the song of birds,
Their evening melody,
Softer than the softest words
Of human minstrelsy.

I hear the gently wooing breeze,
Now floating calmly by,
And, far amid the waving trees
In sweetest cadence die.

And yonder far expands the scene

Where evening cheers the sight.
And smiles through all the valleys green
And on the mountain height.

CLASSIC VAGARIES.

NO. IX.

A ROMAN GARDEN.

It is Spring, indeed, at Rome. It was in the latter part of February that the farmer began to plough and the west wind to blow. Before the vernal equinox in March, the same vivifying air had fluttered the tender blades of many early plants, and now it shakes the green folds of mature verdure over our heads. You spoke in raptures of the trees which skirt Pompey's Piazza as we passed it, and from time to time have started at the beauty of the myrtles and plane-trees and bays along the streets. Why have we no elms to cast their gothic shades here, or light and airy poplars? Why must exotic shade-trees, or those whose shape is quaint and approaching the artificial, alone be dignified in Rome with the name of "city-trees"? (For I only tell you a literal truth, when I say that this name is as distinctive here, as "foresttrees" or "fruit-trees" can be elsewhere.) But hasten along! I surely need not ask you twice, at this season-when even those, who are blindest to the charms of the natural world, are catching some inspiration from such auroral bursts of glory as flooded the world an hour ago, and from such crimson sunsets as we saw yesterday as we stood on the Esquiline Hill; from the slopes and plains of trembling emerald all around us; from panoramic views of freshening forests and polished streams, and from the endless vicissitudes of beauty in the world of flowers-to accompany me this morning to a Roman Garden.

I can take you to many in the city itself. We are now standing in the Field of Mars, and you can, without moving, see the Hill of Gardens yonder; distinguished by the family monument of the Domitii, which crowns it, and beneath which sleeps the dust of Nero and his Corinthian mistress. You might be somewhat disappointed were you to visit it in expectation of finding any great show of vegetable magnificence. But there is a plenty of gardens in Rome, besides those on the "Hill," although they have not always been known here. In early times, they were only cultivated in the country, where even kings deigned to till the ground. It was in his country garden that Tarquin the Proud, received an inquisitive message from his hopeful son, who wished to know what to do to keep the people of Gabii in allegiance. Tarquin answer