When the lady rules the roast, and wears the inexpressible look of tyrannical command, and the gentleman tacitly yields to her usurping and unnatural sway, it is a pitiable affair.

When the husband is not content with the sweets of the flower he has culled, but flies abroad, and, like the "little busy bee," goes sipping and "gathering honey" from "every opening flower," it is a lamentable affair.

When the lady, forgetful of her vows of constancy and love, "bolts" with a pair of black whiskers, and ditto military boots, it is a very naughty affair.

Taking all these reflections into consideration, it must incontestably appear that marriage is a very serious affair. And, as marriages are said to be made in heaven, we should advise every candidate not to tie the knot before he obtains a duly authenticated certificate of the original contract !

Marriage
Settlements

LINK THE SECOND.

THE science of boxing is peculiarly English, and would appear to have an influence even upon the softer sex; for, no sooner does a suitor "show fight," than the lady and her relatives simultaneously demand "a ring a ring!" Mercy on the poor fellow who engages with his fair antagonist!

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If, blinded by passion, he rushes heedlessly to the encounter, he may run a risk of getting his head "in Chancery," or his "nob" may suffer from the fair one's dexterity in "fibbing," or his "bread-basket may be punished, and, elegant and accomplished though she be, he will find that even the best bred is not unleavened!

LINK THE THIRD.

"DID you ever see!

ร exclaims the tender-hearted Susan Maydew. "Well, I declare, B is the very perfection of husbands.”

"Dear, delightful creature! echoes her friend Elizabeth; "he is as full of spirits as gallantry. What delicate attentions he lavishes upon his wife! Truly now, courtship appears to have come after, instead of before marriage."

Happy woman!" continues Susan Maydew, (a spinster, by the bye, as well as her sympathising friend!) "I do verily believe, if she could eat gold, he would procure it for her!"

And then, having exhausted all their eloquent admiration, they each conclude with a sigh, which may be easily interpreted in the words of Shakespeare, or Shakspeare,

"She would that heaven had made her such a man!

How deceitful are

appearances! How profound the hypocrisy of man! B, the admired, the "loved of all the ladies for his "delicate attentions to his better-half abroad, is a veritable bashaw in his own house, a tyrannical task-master, and his envied rib the trembling slave of his unreasonable whims and caprices, who dare not look a contradiction to his behests. So, Sigh no more, ladies, Men mere deceivers ever."

LINK THE FOURTH.

A TYRANT is detestable; but that yielding piece of clay, called a "soft husband," is only ridiculous. He has frequently to boast the honour of having been wooed by the lady before marriage, and invariably ruled by her afterwards. He generally falls to the lot of a shrew, not being naturally shrewd enough to avoid the insidious pitfall cunningly set to entrap him.

The only merit he has, is that of the chameleon; taking kindly the colour of surrounding objects, and yielding unmurmuringly to the domineering dictatress who rules his destiny, as a writing-master rules a copybook in straight lines or aslant; and he has to form his letters accordingly, and, above all, to mind his and qs.

ps

If the "happy, happy, happy pair" are going out to a party, he is literally worried.

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Now, Peter," cries the lady impatiently, from the parlour-door, her sweet voice ascending the stair to his dressing-room, "what are you dawdling about? Here have I been waiting for you this quarter of an hour."

Poor Peter, flurried, grasps both his white kid gloves in his red right hand, and rushes to her pre

sence.

"Here I am, dear, right as a trivet!" says he good-humouredly.

"I beg, sir, you will not use such vulgar kitchen phrases in my presence," exclaims his "dear," who has been practising propriety, and endeavouring to put on her best manners with her best clothes; "but it's

of no use talking; there's no making a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' Come, let me look at you."

Peter instantly stands before her in his bran new blue coat, with gilt buttons, extending his arms with all the grace of a clothes'-horse, his head bolt upright.

She regards him from top to toe with the glance of a drill-sergeant. "In the name of goodness! what have you crumpled up your gloves in that fashion for ?"

"I hadn't time, dear, to put my fist in 'em; you were in such a dev-such a hurry, that really

"Don't talk to me !" interrupted the lady snappishly. "But-well, I do think you are enough to make a clergyman execrate !" and, darting forward her hand, she seizes hold of the tie or rosette of his white cravat, and nearly throttles him in the endeavour to snatch it from his neck. "Was ever woman SO

plagued and pestered? Peter, you are a fool! Why, I declare you have fumbled and tumbled your cravat about till it's dirty, and tied it so clumsily, that it looks like an old towel about your neck. Don't speak ; don't answer me; but take the keys, and fetch a clean one out of the top-drawer; and, mind, don't rout the things about, like a pig in a turnip-field. Well! I suppose we shall be ready to go by the time the company are coming away. You dolt, you! you've put me quite in a fever with your stupidity! and really (turning to the mirror) if I ain't as red as a roost-cock."

Peter scuttles away upon his errand, with a flea in his ear, without daring to utter a word, and quickly returns with the cravat.