woman more beautiful than the wife.  This is no justification for the husband to plead; for he has, with his eyes open, made a solemn contract:  if he have not beauty enough to please him, he should have sought it in some other woman:  if, as is frequently the case, he have preferred rank or money to beauty, he is an unprincipled man, if he do any thing to make her unhappy who has brought him the rank or the money.  At any rate, as conjugal infidelity is, in so many cases; as it is generally caused by the want of affection and due attention in the husband, it follows, of course, that it must more frequently happen in the case of ugly than in that of handsome women.

131.  In point of dress, nothing need be said to convince any reasonable man, that beautiful women will be less expensive in this respect than women of a contrary description.  Experience teaches us, that ugly women are always the most studious about their dress; and, if we had never observed upon the subject, reason would tell us, that it must be so.  Few women are handsome without knowing it; and if they know that their features naturally attract admiration, will they desire to draw it off, and to fix it on lace and silks and jewels?

132.  As to manners and temper there are certainly some handsome women who are conceited and arrogant; but, as they have all the best reasons in the world for being pleased with themselves, they afford you the best chance of general good humour; and this good humour is a very valuable commodity in the married state.  Some that are called handsome, and that are such at the first glance, are dull, inanimate things, that might as well have been made of wax, or of wood.  But, the truth is, that this is not beauty, for this is not to be found only in the form of the features, but in the movements of them also.  Besides, here nature is very impartial; for she gives animation promiscuously to the handsome as well as to the ugly; and the want of this in the former is surely as bearable as in the latter.

133.  But, the great use of female beauty, the great practical advantage of it is, that it naturally and unavoidably tends to keep the husband in good humour with himself, to make him, to use the dealer’s phrase, pleased with his bargain.  When old age approaches, and the parties have become endeared to each other by a long series of joint cares and interests, and when children have come and bound them together by the strongest ties that nature has in store; at this age the features and the person are of less consequence; but, in the young days of matrimony, when the roving eye of the bachelor is scarcely become steady in the head of the husband, it is dangerous for him to see, every time he stirs out, a face more captivating than that of the person to whom he is bound for life.  Beauty is, in some degree, a matter of taste:  what one man