which may happen to a statesman howsoever devoted to political life, marriage will be the least imperfect protection; for business does but lay waste the approaches to the heart, whilst marriage garrisons the fortress.

And if early marriage be desirable for a statesman to guard him against the irruptions of passion, the peaceable attachment by which this is effected, is not less to be sought for its own sake. His marriage is not only to compose the heart and disenchant the fancy, but also to exercise the affections; which are in a way to be corrupted and extinguished if political life be not conjoined with domestic. Nothing can compete with the interests of political life except the attractions of a pleasant home or extreme excitements; and if the one alternative be wanting the other will be resorted to. A statesman's almost incessant engagements hardly admit, unless upon the call of passion, any other occupants of his affections than such as being inmates

of his house, fall, as it were, into the chinks of his time.

Let no man suppose that his character is strong and high enough to resist the influence of a lower character in a wife. The apparent advantages of men over women in the conjugal relation, are of an insidious tendency so far as the character is concerned, and the inequality in that particular is the reverse of what it seems. An inferior man, carrying his ends by authority, will often pass clear of his wife's character; whereas an inferior woman, to carry her objects, must work through the character of her husband. A statesman, knowing that his character is obvious to many poisons abroad, should choose such a wife as would invest it with a charmed life, instead of a Dejanira's robe.

A woman who idolizes her husband, if she do not hurt his character, will at least not help it. But in most cases she will hurt it very seriously. For domestic flattery is the most dangerous of

all flatteries. The wife who praises and blames, persuades and resists, warns or exhorts upon occasion given, and carries her love through all with a strong heart and not a weak fondness, she is the true helpmate.

Ambition being almost the vocation of a statesman, he must be expected to marry ambitiously. But if he be as wise as one of his calling should be, he will not be precluded by objects of ambition from considering other objects along with them. On the contrary, since with the young ambition is a less over-ruling passion than love, he will probably take a greater variety of objects into the contemplation of his choice, than they who are more amorously directed. Wealth is of great importance to a statesman, because it gives independence, and (what is almost of as much consequence) the reputation of independence. Therefore, if he be not wealthy by inheritance, he should endeavour to secure wealth by marriage. Along

with this, he should seek for such qualities in a wife as will tend to make his home as much as may be a place of repose, and his life within doors the reverse of that which he leads elsewhere. To this end his wife should at least have sense enough or worth enough (and where there is no absolute defect of understanding worth amounts to sense) to exempt him from trouble in the management of his children and of his private affairs, and more especially to exempt him from all possibility of debt. She should also be pleasing to his eyes and to his taste the taste goes deep into the nature of all men; love is hardly love apart from it; and in a life of political care and excitement, that home which is not the seat of love cannot be a place of repose; rest for the brain and peace for the spirit being only to be had through the softening of the affections. He should look for a clear understanding, cheerfulness, and alacrity of mind, rather than gaiety or brilliancy; and for a gentle

tenderness of disposition in preference to an impassioned nature. Lively talents are too stimulating in a tired man's house, passion is too disturbing. Nor is it necessary that a statesman's wife should have such knowledge or abilities as would enable her to be a party to his daily political interests and occupations. When a woman gives her mind that way, she becomes best acquainted with what is least respectable in politics—their personalities. It will be better for a statesman that such topics should be strangers in his house and unwelcome; that so he may be under the less temptation to desecrate his fireside. In the society of his wife he should find that fulness of rest which only a change in the direction of his thoughts can give. A lesson to this purpose may be taken from nature. He who is in the habit of recollecting his dreams will find that the topics of the day are seldom pursued in the dreams of the night next succeeding, unless under circumstances