he is hardly sure of his own wants being supplied for the remainder of his days. The hearts of some men become quite hardened by the prudential maxims upon which they have acted, and which, like the old fortresses of our native country, survive long after there is any occasion for them. Then there is another set-children of fortune-men who have been wandering about all their days, till, in the words of a quaint writer, "they almost forget what a home is." These, of course, let them settle when they like, or where they like, have an absolute difficulty in comprehending the idea of matrimony, and, even if they could understand it, would fear to tie themselves down, lest they should, some day hereafter, take it into their heads to go out a voyage to Vera Cruz, and be a little bothered with "the childer." Others are prevented from marrying by lending too serious attention to those silly bugbears about matrimony, which are occasionally the subject of sportive conversation—such, for instance, as the chance of a scolding wife, or of children who turn out ill, and so forth-as if any venture in this life were assured against a risk of some kind or other. There is still another and larger class, whom we shall first describe, and then show how plain a tale will put them down. This class may be called the Jacobin Bachelors. They repudiate matrimony as a thing calculated to impair their personal liberty. Give us, they cry, the freedom, the independence, of a single life. None of your chains for us. We are the hearty boys, who despise all petticoat government. We must be sole monarchs of ourselves, and have nobody whatsoever to exert the least control over our actions. We'll remain free as nature first made man, Stop a little, gentlemen, and let us consider your case. Methinks your quotation is somewhat infelicitous. The noble savage who ran so wildly through these primitive forests, long since degenerated into peat-moss, was a person, let it always be kept in mind, without breeches. Not a rag of toggery had he of any kind, nor a house to shelter him, and his freedom consisted in a permission to knock every other naked rascal like himself on the head if he could, always with the understanding that he was also to be knocked on the head whenever any other body had the courage or strength to do so. These gentlemen have found a convenience in submitting to certain laws and rules, which no doubt trench dreadfully on freedom, but at the same time conduce much to comfort. In short, men have submitted Now, what is matrimony but to the bondage of society. one of those salutary restraints which sensible people in general have agreed to submit to, in order to increase their mutual happiness? There may be a wild momentary pleasure in an unlimited indulgence of the will; but if it be not reasonable and innocent, it is only momentary. The servitude is incurred, through an impulse of the reason, in order that our pleasure may be prolonged and protected. Thus matrimony becomes a "linked sweetness long drawn out," while there never can be any thing but an irrational and visionary happiness in the sense that we are free from it. Always remember that freedom is not in itself a good —it is only a means of good; and that in cases where it produces a sensible benefit, it is to be appreciated, but in no other. If an exemption from matrimonial control produced either a general or an individual good, we would say, by all means give not thy soft heart to woman. But this is not the case. An universal exemption from matrimony would make the world a wilderness—a particular case of it makes a man a desert. It is an evil in every way it can be taken. What, then, is the use of the abstract freedom, if it be not attended with any of the benefits of freedom? The whole is obviously a mistake of the means for the end; and the Jacobin Bachelors, we suspect, only fear those unseen chains which love imposes, because they are themselves fond of rule. Messieurs the Bachelors have several other fallacies, and as we are resolved to leave them not a leg to stand upon, we shall tumble the whole of these down one after the other. As part of the preceding fallacy about freedom, they conceive that there must be something irksome, if not almost impossible, in the constancy which matrimony requires as one of its cardinal rules. We know the slipperiness and vagrancy of our own minds, say they very cunningly, and we really cannot deliberately undertake a solemn obligation which we know we would soon break. Now, this is a mere hypocritical shift, for, instead of there being any natural tendency to inconstancy in men, there is an almost insurmountable disposition to constancy; insomuch that they are almost as certain to be constant to what is bad, as to what is good. Constancy forsooth! Fallacy the second is an idea they have, or pretend to have (for many of their arguments are only assumed), that, by keeping clear of matrimony, they avoid all care, expense, and responsibility, respecting the next generation, and secure an equable and certain happiness in life, even to its close. Poor unhappy men !—it is little they know of the way in which affairs are really to run hereafter. In regard to the first expectation, we would just ask if any one ever knew an old bachelor who was not burdened some way or other with children? Are they not sure, just in proportion to their own childlessness, to have brothers and sisters who bring whole legions of children into the world-which children regularly are cantoned out in alternate plots upon their bachelor uncle, partly to relieve the press of matter at home, and partly from a benevolent desire to provide him with company wherewithal to cheer his solitary parlour? Is not "our uncle" appealed to on every occasion of extraordinary expense, such as the fitting out of one of us for India, and the putting another of us to college to study medicine, and so forth? And does he not thus in the long-run dissipate as much of his hard-earned gains as if he had had children of his own-in which case, moreover, he would have had a little more of the honour to console him for the cost? No, no; tell us not of the saving of bachelorship. One way or another, the expense of rearing the next generation is pretty well allocated over society. But old bachelors are not suffered to escape with simply providing for a troop of nephews and nieces: they very frequently become the prey of their servants, who consider their property as fairly liable to spoliation in every possible shape. Where is the old bachelor-the man who perhaps abstained from marriage to escape being ruled—who is not wholly ruled, three-quarters tormented, and at least half plundered, by a Jenny, or a Betty, or a Mary-some old withered female domestic, who knows his cue, and manages him accordingly? No, no; it is all stuff to talk of there being any saving, or any defence against being ruled in old bachelorhood. If bachelors knew their own interests in time, they would in reality marry in self-defence. Finally, as to their assurance of happiness to the very close of life, nothing could be more wilfully absurd. If happiness depended alone upon wealth-which it notoriously does not then it might be secured. But happiness depends upon the cultivation of the social affections, so far as it depends on any thing earthly; and this is the very point which the bachelor has neglected. While more prudent men make provision in middle life for the necessities of age, by rearing an attached and honourable offspring, who at last become a hedge of shelter around him, the poor timid and unforeseeing bachelor thought, that, because he now was contented to enjoy wealth, he would always be so; and, accordingly, he goes on in a state of declared rebellion against nature, till, at length, when it is too late, he finds himself exposed on the common of society, unable to comfort himself with his gold, and totally destitute of what alone could comfort him-a possession which gold could once have cheaply bought, if he had only had the heart to disburse it. Such is the latter part of the pretended happiness of a single life with wealth, courted by insincere friends, or at least friends in whose sincerity there can be no confidence without it, only the more fully exposed to all the evils of poverty. THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. IN London and other large commercial cities, I have always found myself remarkably impressed by one peculiar circumstance the contrast between the bustling streets, full of living faces and to-day objects of all kinds, and the quiet and ancient churchyards which are generally found situated in the midst of them. But five yards, perhaps, of a thoroughfare which for centuries has borne the press of breathing men where the luxuries and conveniences of life are presented in infinite variety, to attract and fix the attention of the passenger, and where men and women seem so much engaged in the affairs of this world as hardly to be conscious that there is any other you find the silent and cloistered precinct of the old parish church, paved with the memorials of past generations, who once passed as gaily and thoughtlessly along the ways of the city as those you have just seen, but have long retreated to this narrow place, so near, yet so different from, all their former haunts. The transition, in your own case as a visitor, as well as in theirs who pass in this space from life unto death, is the most sudden and rapid that can be imagined-yet how different all the attributes of the two scenes! In the first, how neat, how fresh, how perfectly of this world, every thing looks!—in the other, how dismal, and, in general, how neglected! Here you have, at one moment, perhaps the most animated and cheering scene in the world; there, at the next instant, your gaze is turned upon the most torpid and gloomy. At one twinkle of the eye, you find life and all its affairs exchanged for death and all its circum |