LETTER LXXII,

To the Same.

THE MARRIAGE ACT CENSURED.1

NoT far from this city lives a poor tinker, who has educated seven sons, all at this very time in arms, and fighting for their country; and what reward do you think has the tinker from the state for such important services? None in the world: his sons, when the war is over, may probably be whipt from parish to parish as vagabonds, and the old man, when past labour, may die a prisoner in some house of correction.

time were called "the New Spring Gardens at Fox [or Faux] Hall," was still the liberal and tasteful manager, and the price of admission was still the popular shilling. Tyers was the father of Goldsmith's and Dr. Johnson's friend, Tom Tyers. 'London and its Environs Described,' published by the Dodsleys in 1761, gives the following account of the chief attractions of Vauxhall Gardens at this time: "In the midst of the garden is a superb orchestre containing a fine organ and a band of music with some of the best voices, and the seats or boxes are disposed to the best advantage with respect to hearing the music. In most of the boxes are pictures painted from designs by Mr. Hayman [with some by a greater than Hayman, namely, Hogarth]. . The trees are scattered here with a pleasing confusion. At some distance are several noble vistas of very tall trees, where the spaces between each are filled up with neat hedges, and on the inside are planted flowers and sweet smelling shrubs. Some of these vistas terminate in a view of ruins, and others in a prospect of the adjacent country, and some are adorned with the painted representation of triumphal arches. There are here also several statues, and in particular a good one in marble by Mr. Roubiliac of the late Mr. Handell playing on the lyre in the character of Orpheus. As Ranelagh has its rotunda, so here also is a rotund and a ball room, finely illuminated. When it grows dark the garden near the orchestre is illuminated almost in an instant, with about 1500 glass lamps, which glitter among the trees, and render it exceedingly light and brilliant," &c., &c. Later, the admission price was raised, and then fluctuations of fortune as well as of price set in, till, finally," the gardens" closed in our own time (1859), and the land was built upon. See also the note to another essay upon Vauxhall (on the singers, Mrs. Vincent and Miss Brent') in our vol. iv.-ED.

Possibly Lord Hardwick's Act of 1753, which did away with the Fleet marriages and some other abuses, but was for a time very unpopular. The date of this essay in the Public Ledger was Sept. 10, 1760. Goldsmith continued the subject in Letter CXIV.-ED.

Such a worthy subject in China would be held in universal reverence; his services would be rewarded, if not with dignities, at least with an exemption from labour; he would take the left hand at feasts, and mandarines themselves would be proud to show their submission. The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more,they reward virtue!

Considering the little encouragement given to matrimony here, I am not surprised at the discouragement given to propagation. Would you believe it, my dear Fum Hoam, there are laws made which even forbid the people's marrying each other! By the head of Confucius, I jest not; there are such laws in being here; and yet their lawgivers have never been instructed among the Hottentots, nor imbibed their principles of equity from the natives of Anamaboo.

There are laws which ordain, that no man shall marry a woman against her own consent. This, though contrary to what we are taught in Asia, and though in some measure a clog upon matrimony, I have no great objection to. There are laws which ordain, that no woman shall marry against her father and mother's consent, unless arrived at an age of maturity; by which is understood those years when women with us are generally past childbearing. This must be a clog upon matrimony, as it is more difficult for the lover to please three than one, and much more difficult to please old people than young ones. The laws ordain, that the consenting couple shall take a long time to consider before they marry this is a very great clog, because people love to have all rash actions done in a hurry. It is ordained, that all marriages shall be proclaimed before celebration: this is a severe clog, as many are ashamed to have their marriage made public, from motives of vicious modesty, and many afraid, from views of temporal interest. It is ordained, that there is nothing sacred in the ceremony but that it may be dissolved, to all intents and purposes, by the authority of any civil magistrate. And yet, opposite to this, it is ordained, that the priest shall be paid a large sum of money for granting his sacred permission.

Thus, you see, my friend, that matrimony here is hedged

round with so many obstructions, that those who are willing to break through or surmount them must be contented if at last they find it a bed of thorns. The laws are not to blame, for they have deterred the people from engaging as much as they could. It is, indeed, become a very serious affair in England, and none but serious people are generally found willing to engage. The young, the gay, and the beautiful, who have motives of passion only to induce them, are seldom found to embark, as those inducements are taken away; and none but the old, the ugly, and the mercenary are seen to unite, who, if they have any posterity at all, will probably be an ill-favoured race like themselves.

What gave rise to those laws might have been some such accidents as these: It sometimes happened that a miser, who had spent all his youth in scraping up money to give his daughter such a fortune as might get her a mandarine husband, found his expectations disappointed at last, by her running away with his footman: this must have been a sad shock to the poor disconsolate parent, to see his poor daughter in a one horse chaise, when he had designed her for a coach and six. What a stroke from Providence! to see his dear money go to enrich a beggar; all nature cried out at the profanation!

It sometimes happened, also, that a lady, who had inherited all the titles, and all the nervous complaints of nobility, thought fit to impair her dignity, and mend her constitution, by marrying a farmer: this must have been a sad shock to her inconsolable relations, to see so fine a flower snatched from a flourishing family, and planted in a dunghill; this was an absolute inversion of the first principles of things.

In order, therefore, to prevent the great from being thus contaminated by vulgar alliances, the obstacles to matrimony have been so contrived, that the rich only can marry amongst the rich; and the poor, who would leave celibacy, must be content to increase their poverty with a wife. Thus have their laws fairly inverted the inducements to matrimony. Nature tells us, that beauty is the proper allurement of those who are rich, and money of those who are poor; but things here are so contrived, that

the rich are invited to marry by that fortune which they do not want, and the poor have no inducement but that beauty which they do not feel.

An equal diffusion of riches through any country ever constitutes its happiness. Great wealth in the possession of one stagnates, and extreme poverty with another keeps him in unambitious indigence; but the moderately rich are generally active: not too far removed from poverty to fear its calamities, nor too near extreme wealth to slacken the nerve of labour, they remain still between both in a state of continual fluctuation. How impolitic, therefore, are those laws which promote the accumulation of wealth among the rich; more impolitic still, in attempting to increase the depression on poverty!

Bacon, the English philosopher, compares money to manure, "If gathered in heaps," says he, "it does no good; on the contrary, it becomes offensive. But being spread, though never so thinly, over the surface of the earth, it enriches the whole country." Thus the wealth a nation possesses must expatiate, or it is of no benefit to the public; it becomes rather a grievance, where matrimonial laws thus confine it to a few.1

2

But this restraint upon matrimonial community, even considered in a physical light, is injurious. As those who rear up animals, take all possible pains to cross the strain, in order to improve the breed; so in those countries where marriage is most free, the inhabitants are found every age to improve in stature and in beauty; on the contrary, where it is confined to a caste, a tribe, or an horde, as among the Gaurs, the Jews, or the Tartars, each division soon assumes a family likeness, and every tribe degenerates into peculiar deformity. From hence it may be easily inferred, that if the mandarines here are resolved only to marry among each other, they will soon produce a posterity with mandarine faces; and we shall see the heir of some honourable family scarce equal to the abortion of a country farmer.

1 This paragraph does not appear in the Public Ledger version.-ED. 2 Prior and Cunningham read Gaours. The Gaurs or Ghors of Afghanistan (whence Giaour, Persian gawr, infidel) are probably meant.-ED.

These are a few of the obstacles to marriage here, and it is certain they have, in some measure, answered the end, for celibacy is both frequent and fashionable. Old bachelors appear abroad without a mask, and old maids, my dear Fum Hoam, have been absolutely known to ogle. To confess, infriendship; if I were an Englishman I fancy I should be an old bachelor myself; I should never find courage to run through all the adventures prescribed by the law. I could submit to court my mistress herself upon reasonable terms; but to court her father, her mother, and a long tribe of cousins, aunts, and relations, and then stand the butt of a whole country church; I would as soon turn tail, and make love to her grandmother.1

I can conceive no other reason for thus loading matrimony with so many prohibitions, unless it be that the country was thought already too populous, and this was found to be the most effectual means of thinning it. If this was the motive, I cannot but congratulate the wise projectors on the success of their scheme. Hail, O ye dim-sighted politicians, ye weeders of men! 'Tis yours to clip the wing of industry, and convert Hymen to a broker. 'Tis yours to behold small objects with a microscopic eye, but to be blind to those which require an extent of vision. 'Tis yours, O ye discerners of mankind! to lay the line between society, and weaken that force by dividing, which should bind with united vigour. 'Tis yours, to introduce national real distress, in order to avoid the imaginary distresses of a few. Your actions can be justified by a hundred reasons like truth; they can be opposed by but a few reasons, and those reasons are true. Farewell.

'The Public Ledger has "my grandmother.”—ED.