proverb, "The obstinacy of a woman, a child, and a king is not to be overcome; " with which may be compared the Kashmiri proverb which tells us that, "A contrary woman is like bad grass on the roof," the meaning being that grass which is not adapted for thatching does not set well. And we may compare an old English couplet :

"To talk well with some women doth as much good
As a sick man to eat up a load of green wood.”

Which, says Mr. Halliwell, is the same class of dictum as that which occurs in the "Schole-house of Women," 1541:

"As holsome for a man is a woman's corse
As a shoulder of mutton for a sick horse."

And once more, according to the Lancashire adage, a woman's will is thus summed up :—

STR

WOMEN AND MARRIAGE

"Be sure before you marry

Of a house wherein to tarry."
Old Proverb.

IR JOHN MORE, the famous Chancellor's father, once wrote: "I would compare the multitude of women which are to be chosen for wives unto a bag full of snakes, having among them a single eel: now, if a man should put his hand into this bag, he may chance to light on the eel, but it is an hundred to one he shall be stung by the snake"-a statement which finds its exact parallel in the proverb, "Put your hand in the creel, and take out either an adder or an eel," an idea as old as the time of Juvenal

"What! Posthumus take a wife? What rury drest
With snakes for hair has your poor brain possest?"

Severe as this statement may seem, it must be remembered that it was a woman-Lady Wortley

Montagu-thus gave expression to much the same sentiment: "It goes far towards reconciling me to being a woman, when I reflect that I am thus in no immediate danger of ever marrying one."

“With most marriages," remarked Goëthe, “it is not long till things assume a very piteous look," which is to the same effect as the French adage: "Wedlock rides in the saddle, and repentance on the croup; with which may be compared our own proverb, "Maids want nothing but husbands, and, when they have them, they want everything."

Selden looked upon marriage as "a desperate thing;" and he tells us that "the frogs in sop were extremely wise, they had a great mind to some water, but they would not leap into the well, because they could not get out again;" and a humorous description of marriage, much to the same point, has been left us by Sir John Davies in the "Contention":

"Wedlock hath oft compared been

To public feasts, where meet a public rout,
Where they that are without would fain go in,
And they that are within would fain go out.

Or to the jewel which this virtue had,

That men were mad till they might it obtain,
But, when they had it, they were twice as mad,
Till they were dispossessed of it again."

The Scotch say, "Married folks are like rats in a trap, fain to get ithers in, but fain to be out them

sels," an allusion to which we find in the "Tea Table Miscellany":

"Of all comforts I miscarried,

When I played the sot and married;
'Tis a trap, there's none need doubt on't,
Those that are in would fain get out on't."

It

And from the earliest period the same unfavourable view has been taken of marriage, Juvenal apeaking of it as the "matrimonial halter." was popularly said that "marriage is an evil that men pray for," and, according to another common adage, “Marriage, if one consider the truth, is an evil, but a necessary evil; an amusing illustration of the prudent man being found in one of Martial's epigrams :—

"You'd marry the marquis, fair lady, they say;
You are right; we've suspected it long :
But his lordship declines in a complaisant way,
And, faith, he's not much in the wrong."

Heyne quaintly wrote: "The music at a marriage procession always reminds me of the music which leads soldiers to battle," which is borne out by the adage: "The married man must turn his staff into a stake." Lord Burleigh's advice to his son, too, was similar: "In choosing thy wife, use great prudence and circumspection, for from thence will spring all thy future good or evil;" and it is "an action of life like unto a stratagem of war, wherein a man can err but once"-a timely warning we find embodied in the old proverb:

"Who weddeth ere he be wise,

Shall die ere he thrive ;

and in the adage, “Choose a wife rather by your ear than your eye."

Then there is the Spanish woman's opinion of marriage, who, when asked by her daughter, "What sort of a thing is marriage?" replied: Daughter, it is spinning, bearing children, and weeping; which is only another mode of expression for the subjoined folk-rhyme :

"When a couple are newly married,

The first month is honeymoon, or smick-smack.

The second is hither and thither, the third is thwickthwack.

The fourth, the devil take them that brought thee and I together."

There are numerous rhymes of this sort which do not reflect favourably on the fair sex. A couplet still often quoted to young people anxious for matrimony tells them :

"Needles and pins, needles and pins,

When a man marries his trouble begins;'

with which may be compared the Syrian maxim, "Girl, do not exult in thy wedding dress; see how much trouble lurks behind it." Indeed, of the host of sayings respecting marriage contained in the proverbial lore of our own and other countries, the greater part take a very pessimistic view of married life" Age and wedlock tame man and beast," and "Age and wedlock we all desire and repent of." However much the conjugal lot may be envied, the consensus of opinion appears to be that "Age and wedlock bring a man