NUMB. 167. TUESDAY, October 22, 1751. Candida perpetuo refide concordia lecto, Diligat ipfa fenem quondam, fed et ipfa marito Their nuptial bed may fmiling concord drefs, SIR, To the RAMBLER. MART. F. LEWIS. T is not common to envy thofe with whom we cannot easily be placed in comparison. Every man fees without malevolence the progrefs of another in the tracks of life, which he has himself no defire to tread, and hears, without inclination to cavils or contradiction, the renown of those whofe distance will not fuffer them to draw the attention of mankind from his own merit. The failor never thinks it neceffary to conteft the lawyer's abilities; nor would the Rambler, however jealous of his reputation, be much difturbed by the fuccefs of rival wits at Agra or Ipahan. We do not therefore afcribe to you any fuperlative degree of virtue, when we believe that we may inform you of our change of condition without danger of malignant fascination; and that when you read of the marriage of your correfpondents Hy menaus menæus and Tranquilla, you will join your wishes to thofe of their other friends for the happy event of an union in which caprice and selfishness had fo little part. There is at least this reason why we should be lefs deceived in our connubial hopes than many who enter into the same state, that we have allowed our minds to form no unreasonable expectations, nor vitiated our fancies, in the foft hours of courtship, with vifions of felicity which human power cannct bestow, or of perfection which human virtue cannot attain. That impartiality with which we endeavoured、 to inspect the manners of all whom we have known. was never so much overpowered by our paffion, but that we discovered fome faults and weakneffes in each other; and joined our hands in conviction, that as there are advantages to be enjoyed in marriage, there are inconveniencies likewife to be endured; and that, together with confederate intellects and auxiliar virtues, we must find different opinions and oppofite inclinations. We however flatter ourselves, for who is not flattered by himself as well as by others on the day of marriage, that we are eminently qualified to give mutual pleasure. Our birth is without any fuch remarkable difparity as can give either an opportunity of infulting the other with pompous names and fplendid alliances, or of calling in, upon any domestick controverfy, the overbearing affiftance of powerful relations. Our fortune was equally fuitable, fo that we meet without any of thofe obligations which always produce reproach or fufpicion, of reproach, which, though they may be forgotten in the gaieties of the first month, no delicacy will always suppress, or of which the suppression must be confidered as a new favour, to be repaid by tamenefs and fubmiffion, till gratitude takes the place of love, and the defire of pleafing degenerates by degrees into the fear of offending. The fettlements caused no delay; for we did not trust our affairs to the negociation of wretches who would have paid their court by multiplying ftipulations. Tranquilla fcorned to detain any part of her fortune from him into whofe hands fhe delivered up her perfon; and Hymenæus thought no act of basenefs more criminal than his who enflaves his wife by her own generofity, who by marrying without a jointure condemns her to all the dangers of accident and caprice, and at last boasts his liberality, by granting what only the indifcretion of her kindness enabled him to withhold. He therefore received on the common terms the portion which any other woman might have brought him, and referved all the exuberance of acknowledgment for those excellencies which he has yet been able to discover only in Tranquilla. We did not pafs the weeks of courtship like those who confider themfelves as taking the laft draught of pleasure, and refolve not to quit the bowl without a furfeit, or who know themfelves about to fet happiness to hazard, and endeavour to lofe their fenfe of danger in the ebriety of perpetual amusement, and whirl round the gulph before they fink. Hymenæus often repeated a medical axiom, that the fuccours of fickness ought not to be wasted in health. We know that however our eyes may yet sparkle, and and our hearts bound at the prefence of each other, the time of liftleffnefs and fatiety, of peevishness and discontent, must come at last, in which we shall be driven for relief to fhows and recreations; that the uniformity of life must be sometimes diverfified, and the vacuities of converfation fometimes fupplied. We rejoice in the reflection that we have ftores of novelty yet unexhausted, which may be opened when repletion fhall call for change, and gratifications yet untafted, by which life, when it shall become vapid or bitter, may be restored to its former sweetness and fprightliness, and again irritate the appetite, and again fparkle in the cup. Our time will probably be less tasteless than that, of those whom the authority and avarice of parents unites almoft without their confent in their early years, before they have accumulated any fund of reflection, or collected materials for mutual entertainment. Such we have often feen rifing in the morning to cards, and retiring in the afternoon to dofe, whose happiness was celebrated by their neighbours, because they happened to grow rich by parfimony, and to be kept quiet by infenfibility, and agreed to eat and to fleep together. We have both mingled with the world, and are therefore no ftrangers to the faults and virtues, the designs and competitions, the hopes and fears of our cotemporaries. We have both amufed our leifure with books, and can therefore recount the events of former times, or cite the dictates of ancient wisdom. Every occurrence furnishes us with fome hint which one or the other can improve, and if it should happen that memory or imaginaVOL. VII. M tion tion fail us, we can retire to no idle or unimproving folitude. Though our characters, beheld at a distance, exhibit this general refemblance, yet a nearer infpection discovers fuch a diffimilitude of our habitudes and fentiments, as leaves each fome peculiar advantages, and affords that concordia difcors, that fuitable difagreement which is always neceffary to intellectual harmony. There may be a total diverfity of ideas which admits no participation of the same delight, and there may likewise be such a conformity of notions, as leaves neither any thing to add to the decifions of the other. With fuch contrariety there can be no peace, with fuch fimilarity there can be no pleasure. Our reasonings, though often formed upon different views, terminate generally in the fame conclufion. Our thoughts, like rivulets iffuing from diftant springs, are each impregnated in its courfe with various mixtures, and tinged by infufions unknown to the other, yet at last easily unite into one ftream, and purify themselves by the gentle effervefcence of contrary qualities. Thefe benefits we receive in a greater degree as we converfe without referve, because we have nothing to conceal. We have no debts to be paid by impercep→ tible deductions from avowed expences, no habits to be indulged by the private fubferviency of a favoured fervant, no private interviews with needy relations, no intelligence with fpies placed upon each other. We confidered marriage as the most folemn league of perpetual friendship, a ftate from which artifice and concealment are to be banished for ever, and in which every act of diffimulation is a breach of faith. The |