ing, and whose interests have much in common. He does not take his breakfast at a café, nor his dinner at a restaurant; but he, his wife, and family share the same table; his children are not farmed at so much a year, and brought up away from him, but nurtured in his own house, and under his own eye, they grow up around him in the tender bonds of family union, whilst he declines in their midst; and so from all this familiar intercourse of domestic life, there issues first the love of home, and then the nobler feeling which alone can make a nation strong, the undying love of country. This is the accepted notion, stal true to a cert un extent; but in the main we shall find that the institution of matrimony, as well as the social system springing from it, has undergone some changes, and been affected by the intensified life of the times.

At this point the temptation of saying a few words upon the nature of the institution itself is too great to be resisted. The major portion of the readers of this essay, or at any rate the fairer portion, will unanimously admit that it is an institution which deserves support, not only from its great antiquity, but from many other reasons too numerous to mention. The natural instinct of Ife is to marry, nothing can disproveti at, and though marriage does not always bring happiness, yet the bachelor that is the ful bachelor, has against him, not only the laws of nature, but the consciousness of his own existence,

Somebody said once that men were only children of a larger growth; to that statement we may add, that they as require a certain amount of "rock" through 1te. Women alone understand that sort of thing; it is impiented in their bosems as al instinct by the hand of a merciful Providence, and, to their honour be it said, they have hitherto sne teled in "roeking" humabity very well. A man goes about his dilly work, and, as he proceeds, little tiras decur to worry and vex hin. Tat bil has to be met this speculation is falling the other bushess is gong wrong Jones said something very disagreeable, and he feitann ›ved, not that it is usual for men to a w e trifles to a let tarta, but still a pi ply wan ru".1,

and this sum-total of daily cares tells upon him; so that when he goes home he arrives there jaded, tired, and, in the least possible degree, perhaps, cross. Then ensues one of the greatest operations of woman's destiny greatest and best in spite of all the opinions of the strong-minded, who must surely owe their existence, to some hybrid pre-occupation in the mind of Nature. The wife sees it all at a glance, and the operation commences; she rocks him gently, but effectually. In a thousand little ways the process goes on all the evening, until he has quite forgotten the epigram of Jones, the bil, the speculation, the business. Her gentle hands bind up the wounds, pour in the healing balin, and on the morrow he goes out again, strong and well. Some are not even conscious of this rocking operation; but that occurs only when the man has fallen into the hands of a perfect artist. Such an one stands bravely at his hearth, and, plucking his collar, thinks himself lord and master, at least of that domain. Delusion ! he has been quietly and insidiously sothed into the notion by that gooİ lady, who, in an invisible cradle, has roked him, and with an invisible sceptre rules both him and his house, But to proceed. Much has been said lately about the indisposition on the part of men to marry; and when that indisposition manifests itself in a state so wealthy and prosperous as England, it is indicative of something radically wrong. Let us exam.ne matters a little. We know very weil that both the teachings of the Bible and the instincts of nature enjoin as an inviolable condition to the compact of matrimony the existence of mutual love; but civiliza tion, with its advanced mode of living, has introduced new interests into the compact-interests of so great a moment that men often sam fice the original condition so soitiin y engined to meet these requirements, We look in vain in the exaggerated life of our time for instances of that mutual self devotion which seem to exit now only in the elegantlybound edition of the poets lying on the drawing room table. That there should be a prudential consider a': n as to ultanate providon, no salie man will refue to allow, but

that natural feelings should be crushed and sacrificed to the absorbing interests of wealth or position-that two beings should enter into the compact, like a couple of sharpers trying to get the best of each other --that domestic life should be arranged in deception and commenced in perjury, are evils which lie at the very base of whatever domestic misery exists amongst us. We have no wish to advocate sentimentalism, but honesty. It has always existed in the natural perversity of things, that young people, with bright blue eyes and no earthly prospects, are sure to fall in love with each other, and a great deal of misery ensues from it; but even this, this foolish yet honest compact, is far better than what we see going on around us daily. Parents have preached the doctrines of wealth and position into their children's ears so perseveringly, that even the generosity of youth is chilled into a cold and precocious selfishness. By the force of early associations, as well as by the exigences of exaggerated life, young men are driven into looking upon matrimony in inseparable connexion with jointures and settle ments; whilst the hearts of our young ladies flutter most not at the natural fascinations of the man, but at the more substantial fascination of the balance at his bankers. And no wonder that they should-no wonder that the generous warmth of youth is chilled-no wonder that the ingenuous purity of the girl is sullied by mercenary calculations. They look about them and they see how the power of wealth is worshipped in all ranks of society-how men bow down before it-how it asserts itself from the ragged urchin in the streets, who, with sixpence in his pocket, lords it over the beggar, up to the vulgar millionaire, who buys with his gold the ancestral dignities of the noble. They see the gifted, the proud, and the honoured humbling themselves at the feet of ignorance, vulgarity, and even crime; when that ignorance drives the best horses; that vulgarity gives the best dinners, and that crime has the largest balance at its bankers. How can we wonder, then, that young girls are mercenary, and young men selfish? Or how can parents, who have laboured so assiduously to corrupt the hearts of their

innocent children by instilling into them these worldly maxims, wonder when they see those children grow up cold, calculating, covetous-when they come to them in after-life with the weeping tale of a wretched home and a blighted existence; or when, in the pride of affluence and prosperity, they leave their cunning teachers to die in the chill penury of neglected age? These are truths which lie at the root of the domestic evils of the time; they generate and foster that selfishness which characterizes the social existence of the present day more than at any other time in the history of the country; hence arise those unhappy marriages which begin by perjury in the church, and end in exposure at the Divorce Court. A fatal system which debars brave and honourable men, who are willing to fight out the battle of life, from the consolations of homewhich starts into being modes of living illicit and criminal, where natural feeling is degenerated into licentiousness-irreparable shame is entailed upon the heads of the innocent; and, finally, which summons into existence, as from some dark world of evil, the horrible demon, Infanticide, now haunting our towns and villages, and prevailing to that frightful extent as to become the lamentation of every honest man, and the crying shame of this Christian country. Such are a few of the results of this impetuous, exaggerated life, as pertains to the institution of matrimony.

As regards modern hospitality, which is the next feature in our mode of life, there have been many and marked changes during the last fifty years-some operating for the better, others for the worse. One of the great reforms, if not the greatest, has been the gradual abolition of that hard drinking which was so pre-eminently the characteristic of English society. Before the introduction of tea, beer and wine were the staple drinks of the country, and, in fact, the living was much coarser in every respect. It is an historical fact, that the maids of honour of Queen Elizabeth breakfasted on beefsteaks and beer, and were allowed several pints of that liquid daily. Such was the unangelic diet of the Sylphs, Fairies, Hebes, and Dianas,

about whom the Elizabethan bards raved so beautifully. However, this heavy drinking went steadily on, very little diminished, down to the times of the three-bottled men of glorious memory, when the Squire and the Parson vied with each other in feats of this nature. At that time ladies had to amuse themselves as they best could. The men were either fox hunting or carousing in the dining room. Then came an element into the social system to rival the three bottles-an element which has done a great deal to suppress quietly and gradually much of that heavy tippling the element of dancing as a means of social relaxation. It is only within the last century that dancing has been so universally the means of social reunion; and, though elsewhere it has given an im petus to many evils, yet here, in its legitimate sphere, it has been the unconscious means of rooting out one great vice. The rising youth, by the more natural attractions of the ball-room, were drawn away from the too insidous temptation of the bottle; and, therefore, the dance, in this, its legitimate use, has helped to achieve a great reform. The dinner party and the ball are the two grand divisions of modern hospitality, all other social entertainments come under one of these headings directly or indirectly. With the diner puty we have not to do; it is in the halfroom, where the g; at dramy of life is enactel, and its in the bal room where we shall find the high pressure of exaggerate 1 i.fe wypad to modern hospitanty. Instead of being, as it on è was, the hearty reunion of oldand w known fren. is, it is the ambing a motley heterogeneous crowd, a ways too naerons for ti e capacity of the rooms; instead of being a pleasing relaxation where your 2 propie meat learn to know each other, with a judiciously regulated view toulterior and matrimonial results, it has become a hot, dusty, crow led battlefield a scene of anxions hard fighting, where the interest of the host has to be worked ont just as assiduously as in the senate, the form, or the counting house- where his wife has to make frien is for him, and often to unconse, susly trap the unwary into the meshes of his spenat. ins The political, profesio si, and the commercial life are ad fought out

in the modern ball room, no matter whether the entertainment be given by Her Grace the Duchess of So andso, whose lord holds a portfolio in the Cabinet; or by the lady of Dr. Blister, who is anxious to push a practice or a theory; or by Mrs. Consols, the stock broker's intelligent partner, whose husband has always something good for his friends; or even by plain honest Mrs. Cleaver, the butcher's lady, who, having two pretty daughters to get off her hands, invites other purveyors of the neces saries of life to the splendour of her upstairs rooms. In all these casts the object, the working, and the results are the same. And now, in imagination, let us visit the scene of contit; for a crowded ball room, in its diversity of characters and interests-in its joys, its sorrows, its triumphs, and envy forms one of the most pleasing miniatures of the great world which philosophy need ever desire to contemplate. In no dip'omatic circle is there such masterly intr que, such polite hatred, such concealed struzzle; and on no battiefield is there more valiant fighting than in this little circle of fa hion. Men talk a great deal about the intricacies of diploma y and the cares of state; but there is more finished diplomacy, more anxious Wearying care in the beautiful heads of some twenty or thirty matrons, who may be seen in any London ball room, than in all the corps diplomatiques or noisy senatehouses in the world. Let us just gance at the motley group. There are men who shed a lustre upon the company, and men who receive a temporary lustre from being present ; men for whom the bail was specially got up, and men who were poately requested to get themselves up for the ball; blissful beings who may choose the prettiest girls in the room and be stied upon, and poor gorgeous wretches, against whom the beauties are anxiously warned, and who are had there for the aed and infirm, the ha't and the ma.med condemned to a forced charity, the Benedictines of fashion. There, on the other side, are the grand British ma trons who secretly move the whole ma hinery, who in the privacy of their homes have arranged everything, and who now with those alling eyes watch every movement, and

underneath that placid exterior conceal agonies of apprehension, palpitations of hope, and tortures of envy. Then, too, floating here and there, are the blue-eyed innocents, the raw material on which the plastic hands of the mammas operate-anxious, too, and trembling-but all well drilled, disciplined, and ready for the fray. And how fiercely that fray rages through the season, subsiding at last into a dull broken fire, like a battle-field at eventide. And there has been some good fighting by these fair warriors during the campaign-some daring feats of arms, gallant assaults, and desperate charges, outposts carried, stubborn fortresses made to yield, and the treaties of peace ordered to be drawn up for signature at St. George's, Hanover-square; but in this great matrimonial battle-field as there are triumphs, so there are defeats; and amidst the waving of flags and the shouts of the victors, many a poor victim is carried to the rear, desperately wounded, a pensioner for life. So that in this busy man-wasting age the very relaxations of social life are made a labour and an anxiety; and why? Because people are now absorbed in the one idea of competing with each other in the wild race of life. John Bull is sadly altered from the old historical Bull: he used to be a stern methodical man of business in the counting-house no dreams nor much poetry about him then; but rigid justice, coupled with a certain generous measure of forbearance to wards the honestly unfortunate. Then he paid more taxes than any other civilized mortal; but no matter, they had only to tell him it was for old England, or to fight the French, when in went his great hand into that capacious pocket, and out came the golden guineas without stint-a freehanded man with his money in his own house or with his friends about him, who had only to eat, drink, and be merry to put John in his happiest temper. But, we repeat, he is a little changed just now, since he has taken to joint-stock business and commercial billiards; still a good fellow at heart, but rather too absorbed in the main chance, which tinges all his actions, from his doings on 'Change to his dinner parties, and even to Mrs. Bull's little assemblies. Then he is grown fond of titles and titled people,

not in the old way, but in a more servile way. If any wrong is done, any violation of the moral code, John can be very solemn and severe, provided the delinquent be not too high up in the social scale; if he should be one of the upper ten thousand, John looks him out in his peerage, reads the list of his titles and the names of his father and grandfather, and then drops a tear of forgiveness on the sacred page;-not a very manly feeling, but perhaps not wholly a bad one, as it helps to keep things together.

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The public recreations of a people form another great test of their social condition. It is a good sign to see a great and busy people occasionally enjoy themselves-to see the crowds pour out of the large towns into the green fields of the country to disport themselves among the balmy influences of nature; and to see the ruddy faces of the countrymen, who, tired of green fields, have come up in crowds to London to be electrified, puzzled, and bewildered by its many wonders. All this is very simple, but very good it helps to bind class to class, to make people of every condition know each other, and to nurture that union amongst all ranks of the people which makes a nation strong. One can never look at one of those huge pleasure-vans hurrying through the streets with its noisy laughing crowd of compressed hilarity, without thinking that it is the pulse of the nation beating strong and healthily, it is a sign of happiness, contentment, and freedom. The aspect of a people beaten down by sorrow, by tyranny, or by ignorance is a sad aspect: their very movements are slow and listless, the expression of their faces is mournful and brokenhearted; they lie about the streets slothful and beaten. But the aspect of a free intelligent people is lively, laughing, and joyous and all this occasional going out into the country, and coming in from the country, fosters, cherishes, and keeps up the ruddy cheerful health of England. But the dark side of the picture is the perversion of rational amusement which has obtained amongst us to such an extent, owing to this abnormal exaggerated life. How difficult it is to amuse people: public taste has been so pampered by extravagant and exciting scenes that

the appetite has become jaded and begins to recoil upon itself. What with witnessing necks broken on the tight rope, bones broken on the trapèze, real genuine patent ghosts, Colleen Bawn headers, gymnastic dramas, the people of the present day have exhausted the realm of the wonderful; and what with reading sensation novels, where bigamy is reduced to a science, adultery preached as a doctrine, where forgery and murder are the minor incidents of a domestic story; the youths of the present day have so outgrown their age, and become so ridiculously precocious, that it may be advanced as a curious speculation to which the attention of a Darwin might be directed, as to whether the children of the next generation will not be born with gray heads, wrinkled brows, and tortoise-shell spectacles.

But to conclude, what will be the result of all this exaggerated living this self aggrandizement-this highpressure life--this lashing of human energy into gigantic undertakings In that calamitous explosion at Erith we had a terrible instance of what may happen from concentrating large quantities of explosive matter on one spot; and we have had some few instances of similar results, from similar causes, in the social economy. Vast numbers of men are concentrated on different spots for the purpose of highpressure labour, instead of beng scattered far and wide over the surface of the country, to till and make it fruitful; by that concentration the lives and sustenance of these myriads hang by a thread upon supply of material from abroad, therefore depend upon the thousand caprices of Nature and interruptions of diplomacy. Suddenly there arises a foreign war, or a new treaty, and then we hear of Manchester cotton famines, and Co

ventry ribbon distresses, with all the harrowing details of hopeless misery. Or to take another phase, some gigantic banking system, which has been going at high pressure for a long time, unexpectedly bursts; and the whole country far and wide is strewn, like the surface of a wild sca after a shipwreck, with the shattered hopes, the broken fortunes, the wrecked prospects of a thousand families, from the retired professional, who has staked the fruit of his life's labour and his children's fortune, to the domestic servant or the defenceless widow, who have intrusted to it their savings, hardly earned. To resume, finally, we have endeavoured to show how the love of gain has stimulated our commercial energies into an unnatural excitement; and we have dwelt upon the national dan ger of an overweening pursuit of wealth. We have seen how it corrupts men, how it makes them individually sordid, mean, and heartless

how that love of money poisons every action of their lives, even their relaxations and charities. Then, again, how it corrupts them collectively as a nation- how patiently they will submit to any degradation or to any insult rather than imperil the interestsof commerce or stay the operations of national trade. When men arrive at that state they must degenerate; and when nations arrive at that state they must decline. It has always been so throughout the long tale of history, and it will be so with us unless something interpose to save us from ourselves now in this autumnal season of our national History, when the garners are being filled, the shadows are deepening, and the leaves begin to fall.