for ever ftrangers to. After fupper, over fome little nectared-bowl, we fweetly chatted, till it was bed-time; or I played on my flute, and Charlotte divinely fung. It was a happy life; all the riches and honours of the world cannot produce fuch fcenes of blifs as we experienced in a cottage, in the Wilds of Westmoreland. Even the winter, which is ever boisterous and extreme cold in that part of the world, was no feverity to us. As we had moft excellent provifions of every kind in abundance, and plenty of firing from the ancient woods, which cover many of thofe high hills; and two men fervants, and two maids, to do whatever tended to being and to well-being, to supply our wants, and to complete our hap piness; on Hindhead-heath, in the way to Portsmouth. It is as large as a good Darking fowl, and the colour is a deep iron-grey. Its eyes are large and fine as the black cock's; but, instead of the red circle round them, it has bright and beautiful fcarlet eye-brows.. The cock of the wood. The cock of the wood, (as unknown in London as the black cock) is almoft as large as a turkey, but flies well. The back is a mixture of black, grey, and a reddish brown; the belly grey, and the breast a pale brown, with tranfverfe lines of black, and a little white at the tips of the feathers. It has a large round head, of the pureft black, and over its fine hazle eyes, there is a naked space, that looks like an eye-brow of bright fcarlet. It is delicious eating, but far inferior to the black cock. pinefs; this foftened the hard rough scene, and the roaring waters, and the howling winds, appeared pleafing founds. In short, every season, and all our hours, were quite charming, and full of delight. Good Tom Fleming, our friend, did likewise enhance our felicity, by coming once or twice a week to see us, and staying fometimes two or three days. In the fummer time we alfo went now and then to vifit him; and, if one was inclined to melancholy, yet it was impoffible to be dull while he was by; his humour, and his fongs, over a bowl of punch, were enough to charm the most fplenetic, and make even rancour throw its face into fmiles. The death of my friend others. 1727. atat. 24. §. 5. Two years, as I have faid, this fine fcene lafted ; and during that foft, tranfporting period, I was the happieft man on earth. But in came Death, when we leaft expected him, fnatched my charming partner from me, and melted all my happiness into air, into thin air. A fever, in a few days, fnapt off the thread of her life, and made me the child of affliction, when I had not a thought of the mourner. Language cannot paint the diftrefs this calamity reduced me to; nor give an idea of what I suffered, when when I faw her eyes fwimming in death, and the throws of her departing fpirit. Bleft as fhe was, in the exercise of every virtue that adorns a woman, how inconfolable must her husband be! and to add to my diftress, by the fame fever fell my friend Tom Fleming, who came the day before my. wife fickened to fee us. One of my lads likewife died, and the two fervant maids. They all lay dead around me, and I fat like one inanimate by the corps of Charlotte, till Fryer Fleming, (the brother of Tom,) brought coffins and buried them all. Thus did felicity vanish from my fight, and I remained like a traveller in Greenland, who had loft the fun, death. §. 6. O eloquent, just, and Areflection on mighty death! (fays Raleigh) It is thou alone puts wifdom into the human heart, and fuddenly makes man to know himself. It is death that makes the conqueror ashamed of his fame, and wish he had rather ftolen out of the world, than' purchased the report of his actions, by rapine, oppreffion, and cruelty; by giving in fpoil the innocent and labouring foul to the idle and infolent; by emptying the ci ties of the world of their ancient inhabitants, and filling them again with fo many, and fo variable forts of forrows. It is death tells and of all the faces of the dead I have feen, none ever looked like his. There was an anxiety, a rage, a horror, and a despair to be feen in it, that no pencil could exprefs. The apology for the mar ried ftate continued. §. 3. Thus fell Euftace in the 29th year of his age, and by his hand his virtuous, beautiful, and ingenious wife: and what are we to learn from thence? Is it, that on fuch accounts, we ought to dread wedlock, and never be concerned with a wife? No, furely; but to be from thence convinced, that it is neceffary, in order to a happy marriage, to bring the will to the obedience of reason, and acquire an equanimity in the general tenour of life. Of all things in this world, moral dominion, or the empire over ourselves, is not only the moft glorious, as reason is the fuperior nature of man, but the most valuable, in refpect of real human happinefs. A conformity to reafon, or good fenfe, and to the inclination of our neighbours, with very little money, may produce great and lafting felicity; but without this fubfervience to our own reafon, complaifance to company, and softness and benevolence to all around us, the greatest 5 mifery mifery does frequently fprout from the largest stock of fortunes. It was by ungoverned paffions, that Eu ftace murdered his wife, and died himself the moft miferable and wretched of all human beings. He might have been the happieft of mortals, if he had conformed to the dictates of reason, and foftened his paffions, as well for his own eafe, as in compliance to a creature formed with a mind of a quite different make from his own. There is a fort of fex in fouls; and, exclufive of that love and patience which our religion requires, every couple fhould remember, that there are things which grow out of their very natures, that are pardonable, when confidered as fuch. Let them not, therefore, be fpying out faults, nor find a fatisfaction in reproaching; but let them examine to what confequences their ideas tend, and refolve to ceafe from cherishing them, when they lead to contention and mischief. Let them both endeavour to amend what is wrong in each other, and act as becomes their character, in practising the focial duties of married perfons, which are fo frequently and ftrongly inculcated by revelation and natural reafon; and then, instead of matrimony's being a burthen, and hanging a weight upon our very beings, there |