From the Babler.-The men fellows are eternally ridiculing the women for neglecting, after marriage, to employ an equal attention in securing their conquests, as before it they exert an industry to captive every body; but above all the fortunate favourite whom they intend to honour with their hand. Hence, Sir, if a poor girl is surprised in a night-cap, she is instantly condemned as a slovenly indolent; and looked upon as utterly regardless of her husband, if she is not constantly dressed before dinner. Yet at the same time these mighty advocates for decency, the husbands themselves, claim an indubitable right of being as nasty and odious as they think proper, and never recollect that a wife's stomach may be turned at a rank beard of a week's growth, or a filthy third day summer's shirt.

I called a few mornings ago at my brother Tom's, in Parliament-street, Mr. Babler, who has lately married one of the sweetest girls in the universe; and immediately observed, by a certain delicate projection of Tom's upper lip, that something had put him out of humour. Desirous of knowing the cause, I turned to Clarissa, who sat on the sopha in a dejected melancholy mood, and insisted upon hearing the whole affair. After some entreaty, Clarissa told me, that having lain in bed a little longer than ordinary that morning, and being fearful of making my brother wait for his breakfast, she had huddled on her clothes in a hurry, and had come down in the same stockings

which she had worn the day before; adding, that Tom was extremely offended with her, and notwithstanding she had assured him he never should have a second cause for complaint, he had been ill-natured enough to sit in the room a whole hour without speaking a single word.

Upon receiving this information, I directly went up to Tom, with whom I happen to be a very great favourite, and in my usual gay manner, took him by the collar, and dragged him across the room to his wife. Tom, however, still gave himself some airs, and though Clarissa, with all the intreating tenderness of love expressible, put one of her white arms about his neck, and animated her fine black eyes with an uncommon degree of the most melting sensibility, yet the ill-natured surly thing was not to be softened into complacency till he threw her into tears. Then, Sir, he was as humble in his concessions as he had before been haughty in his resentment, and stood a convincing proof that those who go to any extraordinary length in their pride, will always go to the same extremities in their humility.

Calling again at my brother's the next morning, a different scene presented itself to my observation. Tom had supped with some friends at the tavern overnight, and indulged himself so freely with the bottle, that he came home not a little disordered. When I entered the room, he was lolling in an armed chair, with his gown and night-cap on, his hair hanging sweaty and clammy down his cheeks

and shoulders; his beard an inch long upon his chin; his lips pale, livid, and offensive; his teeth covered with an odious consistency of green and yellow, like the rotten part of a Cheshire cheese, and his breath, good Lord deliver us!-Well, Mr. Babler, over this amiable figure was a woman scarce half a remove from an archangel, hanging with an air of divided sweetness and anxiety, every now and then kissing one of his squalid cheeks, and lamenting a head-ach which he complained of, and which I am told is the general attendant of such irregularities. This was an opportunity not to be neglected, and though perhaps I took my poor brother a little unseasonably, I could not help addressing him to the following purport:

"I am very sorry, my dear Tom, that a man of your fine understanding should ever be seen in such a situation as this, more especially when I consider the cause. Yesterday morning you were highly offended with poor Clarissa, because she forgot to change a pair of stockings; but give me leave to ask you, who has reason to be offended now? You will possibly say, that it is a woman's duty to study what will please a husband; but surely you have too much understanding to infer, that it is not a husband's duty to study the satisfaction of a wife, particularly when that wife is a woman of uncommon excellence, and requires nothing but what is conducive to your own health, your own honour, and your own happiness. A.

carelessness in dress, and in the minuter delicacies of female behaviour, are often pleaded as extenuations for the licentiousness of many husbands; and I grant with almost as much justice as success; but if a neglect of some little ornament in dress, or a propensity to some little foible in behaviour, are so capable of estranging the affections of a husband from a wife, ought not a thinking man to tremble lest a disregard of his own dress, and some glaring irregularities in his own behaviour, should equally estrange the affections of a wife from a husband; and lead her insensibly, as he himself perhaps is led, to a liking of another object more amiable, and consequently more apparently worthy of her regard? If the same arts that first engaged a husband's affection are still necessary to keep those affections continually alive, it follows, of course, that the same tenderness, the same complacency, and the same every thing which originally won the lady's heart, are absolutely necessary to be kept up too. Women, my dear brother, are made like the men, of mere flesh and blood, and are equally subject to human infirmities; for which reason I would advise every husband, who complains of an alteration in his wife's manner or dress, to examine himself very carefully, lest the error which he censures in her conduct should actually proceed from some palpable impropriety in his own. A woman who during the days of courtship enjoyed all the happy hours of a lover's company, thinks it very hard after marriage, to be the partner of his disagree

able ones only; and she who was treated with an uncommon share of veneration when a virgin, will naturally look for common civility when a wife: where she fails in these views, and still loves her husband, she is rendered disconsolate to herself, and becomes utterly regardless of a person which she finds is no longer able to please. But where she is disappointed, and does not love, another object is but too general a resource, and separations, divorces, or infamies of a blacker nature, very often destroy the peace and reputation of a family; which a small degree of civility on the one side, and a moderate share of understanding on the other, would have rendered tolerably happy and universally esteemed.”

I was going on, Mr. Babler; but Clarissa, who saw what I said affected my brother pretty much, entreated me to desist; so that I was obliged to drop moralizing, and can therefore send you but an imperfect view of my sentiments on this subject, as I fear I have already exceeded the bounds of your paper.

I am, Sir, &c.

Grosvenor-squaré.

FLAVELLA FRANKLY.

They write from Edinburgh, that on the 13th of March last, nine persons, all of them gentlemen of the name of Macpherson, and relations of Macpherson of Kyllihuntly, who was known to

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