his nostrums: the Protestant clergy, who have carefully exploded all the Romish customs but those which make for their own benefit, serve their churches (when they are served at all) by proxies, although they receive their tithes in person; and in imitation of this reverend example, many of our great men in office (we cannot call them official men) generally slattern over what they are obliged to do, by proxy. Butler ridicules this custom, by making Hudibras ask Ralph whether a man may not be whipt by proxy, and Ralph resolves, that he may not only be whipped, but hanged by proxy; for which he brings a proof ecclesiastic :

"Our brethren of NEW ENGLAND Use

Choice malefactors to excuse,

And hang the guiltless, in their stead,
Of whom the churches have less need;
As lately 't happen'd: In a town
There liv'd a cobler, and but one,
That out of doctrine could cut use,
And mend men's lives as well as shoes.
This precious brother having slain,
In time of peace, an Indian,

(Not out of malice, but mere zeal,
Because he was an infidel,)

The mighty ToTTIPOTTYMOY
Sent to our elders an envoy,
Complaining sorely of the breach

Of league held forth by brother Catch
Against the articles in force

Between both churches, his and ours;
For which he crav'd the saints to render
Into his hands, or hang th' offender:
But they maturely having weigh'd,
They had no more but him o' th' trade,
(A man that serv'd them in a double
Capacity, to teach and cobble,)
Resolv'd to spare him; yet to do
The Indian Hoghan Moghan too
Impartial justice, in his stead did

Hang an old weaver that was bed-rid."

Now no vulgar person would, we believe, have any objection to be hanged by proxy; but in marriage they choose to perform propriâ persona. The example of the great is, however, contagious to little, weak minds, and hence we have lately seen among the vulgar a practice of making love by proxy, that is, by the intervention of the editor of a newspaper; but the fools generally either want money, or a wife to save the expence of hiring a nurse. Convenience is their excuse, as it was our Squire's, and it

must be allowed to be as reasonable an excuse as can be conveniently made for a marriage without inclination. Therefore, with all our deference for the Devil upon Two Sticks, or any other witty, facetious devil, we must differ from Asmodeus in one instance. He would have a place in the Casa de los Locos (a Spanish madhouse) assigned to a gentleman who married purely for convenience. "This man," says Asmodeus, "no sooner gets a ducat than he spends it; and, as he cannot live without expence, makes any shift to get money. About a fortnight ago, his laundress, to whom he owed no less than 30 pistoles, came and dunned him for the money, saying she had an absolute occasion for it, as she was going to be married to a valet-de-chambre who courted her. Why then, says he, you must have got money besides this, for who the devil would marry you for 30 pistoles? I beg your pardon for that, said she, I have 200 ducats more. Two hundred ducats! and I'll marry you, She took him at his

replied he; give them me, and so we shall be quit.

word, and he is now married to his washerwoman."-But, in our humble opinion, the gentleman could not have acted more reasonably.

He was troubled with such an infirmity, that he could not retain his money, and could not make a more prudent choice of a wife than one who had proved herself to be a kind of strong coffer. Besides he would have no more laundresses' bills to pay. Our Squire was troubled with a similar infirmity, and resolved to marry for a similar convenience; but his bride was a more suitable one, as her family was as ancient as the Squire's. We beg the reader's pardon for stooping to custom so far as to make use of the word ancient with respect to families, for we all know that any such distinction must be ridiculous, when all men sprung from the same, Adam and Eve. The Squire's intended bride had, indeed, no fortune, and, therefore, whatever else belonging to her might melt at the sight of our Squire, she could not, as the widow tells Hudibras,

"Dissolve her graces int' his pocket.”

But the tenants were not quite so closely shorn but that some clips might be taken off their backs and sides here and there. The authors of the marriage imagined themselves very ingenious in devising a plan by which the Squire's debts would be paid without the Squire's breaking his

word of honour not to call upon them again. They were not to ask the tenants to pay his debts, but to settle such an establishment as would enable him to pay them, and to live suitably to his rank. The weakest of the tenants could see through this flimsy evasion, and if their opinion had been asked upon it, they would have replied that there was no difference between paying a toyman a halfpenny for a toy which a child had bought of him, or giving the child a halfpenny to pay for the toy; they would, perhaps, have added, that though great men might think that little ones were fools, yet the little ones were sure that the great ones were very often fools, and oftener somewhat worse.

But to return from this zigzag excursion into the plain road of our history. As the Squire's manners were too dissolute to permit him to entertain the idea of wearing the conjugal yoke till he had trammelled himself again with debts, and necessity had pointed out to him,

"What graces must that lady have

That can from executions save!

What charms that can reverse extent,
And null decree and exigent!