PREFACE.

IT

T is much to be regretted that many schemes which engross the attention and exercise the, ingenuity of man, fail of success; not because the schemes themselves are either absurd or impracticable, but because the means employed are no adapted to the purpose.

That society is much indebted to individuals who have spent their lives or their fortunes in merely speculating on plans of general utility, cannot reasonably be doubted. To withhold the tribute of praise, in this instance, would be the height of ingratitude. But let those remember who are desirous of more substantial recompense, and emulous either to enrich themselves or to benefit the world by new discoveries, that they will,

like many of their predecessors, labour to no purpose, unless means can be devised that shall infallibly secure those advantages which, from the very nature of the case, mankind have reason to expect.

The principle of this remark is applicable to all the speculations and enterprises of life; and of course to every undertaking that has for its end the attainment of happiness.

The sources whence men are expecting to derive happiness, as well as the means employed to obtain it, are greatly diversified and though the individuals who seek the inestimable blessing in the conjugal state must of necessity have recourse to different objects; yet, to be successful, they must all seek it by means substantially the same. But whether all, or the major part, have happily succeeded, is a question which the candidates who have tried the experiment are themselves best able to resolve.

In the present life there is indeed not condition in which unmingled felicity can be reasonably hoped; but no one, all things considered, is more likely to produce it than marriage: and were those persons who have not realized all the pleasure that is to be enjoyed in this endearing connection, to examine attentively the motives by which they were actuated in choosing a companion, it would perhaps be found, either that these motives were not such as could warrant the expectation of happiness, or that the object itself was ill chosen for the purpose.

Of all the pleasures that endear human life, there are none more worthy the attention of a rational creature, than those that flow from mutual returns of conjugal love. An happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all the enjoyments of sense and reason, and indeed all the sweets of life; and to make it so, nothing more is required than religion, virtue, prudence, and good nature. When two

minds are thus engaged by the ties of reciprocal sincerity, each alternately receives and communicates pleasures that are inconceivable to all but those who are in this situation: hence arises that heart ennobling solicitude for one another's welfare, that tender sympathy which alleviates affliction, and that participated pleasure which heightens prosperity and joy itself.'

But disappointment is the lot of man; what no prudence can always prevent, nor any vigilance wholly escape. Some disappointments are indeed comparatively trivial, and such as should not be suffered to interrupt our quiet; but there are others that interest all the feelings of the heart, and which no fortitude can meet without tasting the bitterness of sorrow. None, however, can be more affecting, or more pregnant with calamity, than those which are realized by individuals who have entered the matrimonial state in quest of happiness.

The present life may justly be consi

dered as a life of hope rather than fruition. The best concerted plans may be frustrated by a thousand casualties over which , we have no control, of which perhaps we never thought, and to counteract which we could therefore make no provision; but the causes of miscarriage, in reference to happiness in the marriage life, are not so latent as to elude discovery: many of them are sufficiently prominent to be seen without minute inspection; and he that is determined not to profit by the pernicious effects they have had on others, must remember that if he be wretched, he is wretched by his own fault.

Affecting, however, and instructive as these considerations evidently are, how seldom are we provident enough to benefit by the indiscretion or the precipitance of others! We see the painful effects of imprudence without taking the alarm we rush into the same paths, and venture on the same experiments; elated perhaps with a persuasion that we have sagacity to de