arriage--as in the case of that gentleman who was "led such a life"
by the rats, that "he had to go to London to get himself a wife."

... "This very day, to others the day of greatest mirth and jollity,
sees me overwhelmed with more and greater misfortunes than have
befallen a descendant of Adam for these thousand years past, I am
sure. I am now in a house surrounded with enemies who take counsel
together against my soul, and when I lay me down to rest, they say
among themselves, Come, let us destroy him. I am sure if there is such
a thing as a devil in this world, he must have been here last night,
and have had some hand in contriving what happened to me. Do you think
the cursed rats (at his instigation, I suppose) did not eat up my
pocket-book, which was in my pocket, within a foot of my head? And not
contented with plenty for the present, they carried away my
jemmy-worked silk garters, and half a dozen new minuets I had just
got, to serve, I suppose, as provision for the winter. But of this I
should not have accused the devil, (because you know rats will be
rats, and hunger, without the addition of his instigations, might have
urged them to do this,) if something worse, and from a different
quarter, had not happened. You know it rained last night, or if you do
not know it, I am sure I do. When I went to bed I laid my watch in the
usual place, and going to take her up after I arose this morning, I
found her in the same place, 'tis true, but, _quantum mutatus ab
illo_! afloat in water, let in at a leak in the roof of the house,
and as silent and still as the rats that had eat my pocket-book. Now
you know if chance had had any thing to do in this matter, there were
a thousand other spots where it might have chanced to leak as well as
this one, which was perpendicularly over my watch. But I'll tell you,
it's my opinion that the devil came and bored the hole over it on
purpose. Well, as I was saying, my poor watch had lost her speech. I
should not have cared much for this, but something worse attended it;
the subtle particles of the water with which the case was filled, had
by their penetration so overcome the cohesion of the particles of
paper, of which my dear picture and watch-paper were composed, that in
attempting to take them out to dry them, my cursed fingers gave them
such a rent as I fear I never shall get over! _Multis fortunae
vulneribus percussus, huic uni me imparem sensi, et penitus succubui._
I would hav