tions of your readers in a particular wherein every
man's own heart suggests more than the nicest observer can form to
himself without experience. I therefore, who am an old married man,
have sat down to give you an account of the matter from my own
knowledge, and the observations which I have made upon the conduct
of others in that most agreeable or wretched condition.

"It is very commonly observed, that the most smart pangs which we
meet with are in the beginning of wedlock, which proceed from
ignorance of each other's humour, and want of prudence to make
allowances for a change from the most careful respect to the most
unbounded familiarity. Hence it arises, that trifles are commonly
occasions of the greatest anxiety; for contradiction being a thing
wholly unusual between a new married couple, the smallest instance
of it is taken for the highest injury; and it very seldom happens,
that the man is slow enough in assuming the character of a husband,
or the woman quick enough in condescending to that of a wife. It
immediately follows, that they think they have all the time of
their courtship been talking in masks to each other, and therefore
begin to act like disappointed people. Philander finds Delia
ill-natured and impertinent; and Delia, Philander surly and
inconstant.

"I have known a fond couple quarrel in the very honeymoon about
cutting up a tart: nay, I could name two, who after having had
seven children, fell out and parted beds upon the boiling of a leg
of mutton. My very next neighbours have not spoken to one another
these three days, because they differed in their opinions, whether
the clock should stand by the window, or over the chimney. It may
seem strange to you, who are not a married man, when I tell you how
the least trifle can strike a woman dumb for a week together. But
if you ever enter into this state, you will find, that the soft sex
as often express their anger by an obstinate silence, as by an
ungovernable clamour.

"Those indeed who begin this course of life without jars at their
setting out, arrive within few months at a pitch of benevolence
and affection, of which the most perfect friendship is but a faint
resemblance. As in the unfortunate marriage, the most minute and
indifferent things are objects of the sharp