The sum of all that makes a just man happy
Consists in the well choosing of his wife;
And there, well to discharge it, does require
Equality of years, of birth, of fortune;
For beauty being poor, and not cried up

By birth or wealth, can truly mix with neither.

And wealth, where there's such difference in years

And fair descent, must make the yoke uneasy.

3118 Massinger: New Way to Pay Old Debts. Activ. Sc. 1

Our Maker bids increase; who bids abstain But our destroyer, foe to God and man. 3119

Milton: Par. Lost. Bk. iv. Line 748

For contemplation he and valor form'd;
For softness she and sweet attractive grace.
3120

Milton: Par. Lost. Bk. iv. Line 297

Hail, wedded love! mysterious law, true source
Of human offspring.

3121

Milton: Par. Lost. Bk. iv. Line 750.

When men upon their spouses seiz'd,
And freely married where they pleas'd;
They ne'er forswore themselves, nor lied,
Nor, in the mind they were in, died;
Nor took the pains t' address and sue,
Nor play'd the masquerade to woo.

3122 Butler: Epis. of Hudibras to his Lady. Line 239

For women first were made for men,
Not men for them. It follows, then,
That men have right to every one,
And they no freedom of their own;

And therefore men have power to choose

But they no charter to refuse.

3123 Butler: Epis. of Hudibras to his Lady. Line 273

Though women first were made for men,

Yet men were made for them again:

For when (out-witted by his wife)
Man first turn'd tenant but for life,

If woman had not interven'd

How soon had mankind had an end!

3124 Butler: Hudibras. Lady's Ans. to the Knight. Line 239

Marriage is the life-long miracle,

The self-begetting wonder, daily fresh.

3125 Charles Kingsley: Saint's Tragedy. Act ii. Sc. 9 Love's history, as Life's, is ended not

By marriage.

3126

Bayard Taylor: Lars. Bk. ii

He, who was half my self!

One faith has ever bound us, and one reason

Guided our wills.

3127

Rowe: Fair Penitent. Act iii. Sc. 1

And now your matrimonial Cupid,

Lash'd on by time, grows tired and stupid.
For story and experience tell us

That man grows old and woman jealous.
Both would their little ends secure;
He sighs for freedom, she for power:
His wishes tend abroad to roam,
And hers to domineer at home.
3128
Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure.
Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.

3129

Prior: Alma. Canto ii. Line 63.

Congreve: Old Bachelor. Act v. Sc. 3

She who ne'er answers till a husband cools,
Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules.
Charms by accepting, by submitting sways,
Yet has her humor most when she obeys.

3130 Pope: Moral Essays. Epis. ii. Line 261. There swims no goose so gray, but soon or late, She finds some honest gander for her mate. 3131

Pope: Wife of Bath. Line 98.

Grave authors say, and witty poets sing,
That honest wedlock is a glorious thing.

3132

Pope: January and May. Line 21.

Where friendship full-exerts her softest power,
Perfect esteem enliven'd by desire
Ineffable, and sympathy of soul;

Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,
With boundless confidence: for nought but love
Can answer love, and render bliss secure.

Thomson: Seasons. Spring. Line 1037.

3133 But happy they! the happiest of their kind! Whom gentle stars unite, and in one fate Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend! 3134

Thomson: Seasons. Spring. Line 1030

Ev'n in the happiest choice, where fav'ring heaven
Has equal love and easy fortune giv'n, -

Think not, the husband gain'd, that all is done;
The prize of happiness must still be won:
And, oft, the careless find it to their cost,
The lover in the husband may be lost;
The graces might alone his heart allure;
They and the virtues, meeting, must secure.
8135

Lord Lyttelton: Advice to a Lady

All of a tenor was their after-life,
No day discolor'd with domestic strife;
No jealousy, but mutual truth believed,
Secure repose, ard kindness undeceiv'd.

3136 Dryden Palamon and Arcite. Bk. iii. Line 2424

Though fools spurn Hymen's gentle powers,

We, who improve his golden hours,

By sweet experience know

That marriage, rightly understood,
Gives to the tender and the good
A paradise below.

3137

Cotton: Fireside. St. 5.

O, friendly to the best pursuits of man,
Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace,
Domestic life in rural pieasure pass'd!

Few know thy value, and few taste thy sweets.
3138

Cowper: Task. Bk. iii. Line 288.

Misses! the tale that I relate

This lesson seems to carry

Choose not alone a proper mate

But proper time to marry.

3139

Cowper: Pairing-time Anticipated. Moral.

Wedlock's a saucy, sad, familiar state,

Where folks are very apt to scold and hate : --
Love keeps a modest distance, is divine,

Obliging, and says ev'ry thing that's fine.

3140 Peter Pindar: A Rowland for an Oliver. Ode on

Marriage, from love, like vinegar from wine
A sad, sour, sober beverage-by time
Is sharpened from its high celestial flavor
Down to a very homely household. savor.
3141

[Matrimony.

Byron: Don Juan. Canto iii. St. 5.

Talk six times with the same single lady, And you may get the wedding dresses ready.

3142

Byron: Don Juan. Canto xii. St. 59.

There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told,
When two, that are link'd in one heavenly tie,
With heart never changing, and brow never cold,
Love on thro' all ills, and love on till they die.
One hour of a passion so sacred is worth
Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss;
And oh! if there be an Elysiurg on earth,
It is this it is this!

3143

Moore: Lalla Rookh. Light of the Harem

Oh, happy, happy, thrice happy state,

When such a bright Planet governs the fate
Of a pair of united lovers!

'Tis theirs, in spite of the Serpent's hiss,
To enjoy the pure primeval kiss

With as much of the old original bliss

As mortality ever recovers!

3144

Hood: Miss Kilmansegg. Her Honeymoon.

But alas! alas! for the Woman's fate,
Who has from a mob to choose a mate!

'Tis a strange and painful mystery!

But the more the eggs, the worse the hatch;
The more the fish, the worse the catch;
The more the sparks, the worse the match;
Is a fact in Woman's history.

3145

Hood: Miss Kilmansegg. Her Courtship.

Across the threshold led,

And every tear kissed off as soon as shed,
His house she enters, there to be a light,
Shining within, when all without is night;
A guardian angel o'er his life presiding,

Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing!

3146

MARTYRS.

Rogers: Human Life.

Life has its martyrs, as brave, as strong, and as faithful, E'en as the martyrs of death.

3147

H. H. Boyesen: Calpurnia. Pt. iv.

A pale martyr in his shirt of fire. 3148

MARY.

Alexander Smith: A Life Drama. Sc. 2.

I have a passion for the name of "Mary,"
For once it was a magic sound to me,
And still it half calls up the realms of fairy,
Where I beheld what never was to be.

3149

MASQUERADE.

Byron: Don Juan. Canto v. St 4

Hail, blest Confusion! here are met
All tongues and times and faces,

The Lancers flirt with Juliet,

The Brahmin talks of races;

And where's your genius, bright Corinne?
And where your brogue, Sir Lucius?
And Chinca Ti, you have not seen
One chapter of Confucius.

Lo! dandies from Kamtschatka flirt
With beauties from the Wrekin;

And belles from Berne look very pert,
On Mandarins from Pekin;

The Cardinal is here from Rome,
The Commandant from Seville;
And Hamlet's father from the tomb,
And Faustus from the Devil.

3150

MASTERS.

Praed: Fancy Ball. Sts. 6 and

We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly followed.

3151

MATCH-MAKING.

Shaks.: Othello. Act i. Sc. 1.

How all the needy honorable misters,

Each out-at-elbow peer, or desperate dandy,
The watchful mothers, and the careful sisters,
(Who, by the by, when clever, are more handy
At making matches, where "'tis gold that glisters,"
Than their he relatives), like flies o'er candy,
Buzz round the Fortune " with their busy battery,
To turn her head with waltzing and with flattery!

3152

MATHEMATICS.

Byron: Don Juan. Canto xii. St. 32.

In mathematics he was greater
Than Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater;
For he, by geometric scale,

Could take the size of pots of ale.

3153

MAY.

Butler: Hudibras. Pt. i. Canto i. Line 119

For thee, sweet month, the groves green liveries wear,
If not the first, the fairest of the year;

For thee the Graces lead the dancing hours,

And Nature's ready pencil paints the flowers.

When thy short reign is past, the feverish sun

The sultry tropic fears, and moves more slowly on. 3154

Dryden: Palamon and Arcite. Bk. ii. Line 663

The voice of one who goes before, to make

The paths of June more beautiful, is thine,

Sweet May!

3155

Helen Hunt: May.

The new-born May,

As cradled yet in April's lap she lay.
Born in yon blaze of orient sky,
Sweet May! thy radiant form unfold,
Unclose thy blue voluptuous eye,

And wave thy shadowy locks of gold.

3156 Erasmus Darwin: L. of the Plants. Canto ii. Line 307