COLLOQUY II.

CHAPTER IV.

"And sure there seem of human kind

Some born to shun the solemn strife;

Some for amusive tasks designed

To soothe the certain ills of life,

Grace its lone vales with many a budding rose,

Call forth refreshing shades, and decorate repose."

SHENSTONE.

THERE were three souls in the sanctum at Ivy Lodge on a laughing day in merry May. The Church, by a rather affecting process, quite apart from necromancy, has since resolved those three into two, after an honest and straight-forward fashion, on which one needs not to be over-explicit. I have before hinted at this "catastrophe." That eulogistic description in detail which it might have been excellent gratification to attempt for E.'s god-daughter, as such, would be

egregious impropriety under an existing connection. I have two codes of law, by one of which I regulate my conduct socially, and by the other, my conduct professionally; and so distinctly maintained are their respective dictates, that, out of court or chambers, I jealously avoid hyperbole and equivoque, and am careful, when I doff the coif, to don sincerity. The testimony, too, of all interested witnesses, is inherently vulnerable; and the portrait of a young wife, drawn by a spouse peradventure uxorious, could hardly be set up for the scrutiny of Candour, the mind of the painter being by hallucination blinded to the fault of an extravagant use of vermilion. So, like Bassanio before the gaudy golden casket, "I will none of it.” It may be reasonable-or, to avoid all contention about terms—it may be sufferable to laud the object of one's idolatry while yet advancing on that pathway of pleasant meanderings which wend ultimately through the church-porch and have their terminus at the altar-rail; but that goal once attained, the sound of rhapsody beyond grates on the general ear, and incites to sarcasm and a search after blots. I restrain my ink, therefore, at the chops of a channel, into which, if its current once entered, Impartiality might be deluged, and the pilotage of Prudence despised.

It is comfortable to hear the cooing of old couples, who, having well-nigh ended their journey over the thorny wilderness, and loving the more tenderly for its lacerations, are justified in the congratulation, that the hazardous result of custom has approved itself in reciprocal solace, not in satiety. But I distrust the discretion of those who, barely entered on the perilous noviciate of the nuptial noose, announce their conjugal felicity to be secured on a lease for life, and confidently calculate upon realising a vague amount of bliss, equivalent to Paradise regained. Experience, however, like the wary inspector of a building-plan, made captivating by impracticable embellishments, reminds the credulous and eager candidates for so blissful a possession, that the paradise which fascinates them exists merely in design;-that the soil (de la nature humaine,) is always uncertain, and may be sometimes treacherous, concealing stubborn rocks and gnarled roots;-that this portal of the home of Pleasure, to-day gaudy in fanciful decoration, may to-morrow be made grotesque by mutilation, or be pitilessly shattered by storm;-and that the fabric, in its best estate, lodges, with its possessors, a little reptile-horde of bickerings in embryo, which, exposed to a particular heat, burst from the shell at once into

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vigour, and are deadlier in their enmity than armed men. These cautious cavils raised by Experience are not agreeable to dwell upon, but they lend no feeble aid to Prudence, in advising the suppression of a premature proclamation of happiness which is to be. "The world's a stage" on which the scene sometimes shifts as soon as the poor player has strutted a few paces; and in the scene of a marriage, the merry bridal-peal has often almost subsided into the note of burial;-so brief the intermission between transport and the tomb. To sum up, therefore, I conceive it better becomes the newly-married to be taciturn than babblers about bliss, lest at any time a nuptial dirge should suddenly succeed a nuptial ditty.

The month of May could never have presented a comelier aspect or have diffused a kindlier influence than at the time of which I have spoken. The quire about Ivy Lodge were urging their tiny throats to a dangerous distension; and the Elder's eyes were ready to start from their sockets in a perfect fever of exhilaration.

E." Welcome hither, as is the spring to the earth!*" Mr. C. By frantic Fred! (Mary, is that bird inebriated?) by Sir Fred! we are to-day most highly

*Winter's Tale, 5, i.