in a farmer’s or tradesman’s house, that the mistress did not know how to prepare and to cook; no pudding, tart, pie or cake, that she did not know how to make.  Never fear the toil to her:  exercise is good for health; and without health there is no beauty; a sick beauty may excite pity, but pity is a short-lived passion.  Besides, what is the labour in such a case?  And how many thousands of ladies, who loll away the day, would give half their fortunes for that sound sleep which the stirring house-wife seldom fails to enjoy.

120.  Yet, if a young farmer or tradesman marry a girl, who has been brought up to play music, to what is called draw, to sing, to waste paper, pen and ink, in writing long and half romantic letters, and to see shows, and plays, and read novels; if a young man do marry such an unfortunate young creature, let him bear the consequences with temper; let him be just; and justice will teach him to treat her with great indulgence; to endeavour to cause her to learn her business as a wife; to be patient with her; to reflect that he has taken her, being apprised of her inability; to bear in mind, that he was, or seemed to be, pleased with her showy and useless acquirements; and that, when the gratification of his passion has been accomplished, he is unjust and cruel and unmanly, if he turn round upon her, and accuse her of a want of that knowledge, which he well knew that she did not possess.

121.  For my part, I do not know, nor can I form an idea of, a more unfortunate being than a girl with a mere boarding-school education, and without a fortune to enable her to keep a servant, when married.  Of what use are her accomplishments?  Of what use her music, her drawing, and her romantic epistles?  If she be good in her nature, the first little faint cry of her first baby drives all the tunes and all the landscapes and all the Clarissa Harlowes out of her head for ever.  I once saw a very striking instance of this sort.  It was a climb-over-the-wall match, and I gave the bride away, at St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, the pair being as handsome a pair as ever I saw in my life.  Beauty, however, though in double quantity, would not pay the baker and butcher; and, after an absence of little better than a year, I found the husband in prison for debt; but I there found also his wife, with her baby, and she, who had never, before her marriage, known what it was to get water to wash her own hands, and whose talk was all about music, and the like, was now the cheerful sustainer of her husband, and the most affectionate of mothers.  All the music and all the drawing, and all the plays and romances were gone to the winds!  The husband and baby had fairly supplanted them; and even this prison-scene was a blessing, as it gave her, at this early stage, an opportunity of proving her devotion to her husband, who, though I have not seen him for about fifteen years, he being in a part of America which I could not reach when last there, has, I am sure, amply repaid her for that devotion.  They have now a numerous family (not less than twelve children, I believe), and she is, I am told, a most excellent and able mistress of a respectable house.