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that which fhe herself had chofen; and would not put her on a level with my other daughters. You are to confider, Madam, that it is our duty to maintain the fubordinition of civilized fociety; and when there is a grofs and fhameful deviation from rank, it should be punished so as to deter others from the fame perversion *."

A gentleman talked to him of a lady whom he greatly admired and wished to marry, but was afraid of her fuperiority of talents." Sir (faid he), you need not be afraid; marry her. Before a year goes about, you'll find her reafon much weaker, and her wit not fo bright." Yet the gentleman may be justified in his apprehension by one of Dr. Johnson's admirable sentences in his life of

* "After frequently confidering this fubject (fays Mr. B ), I am more and more confirmed in what I then meant to exprefs, and which was fanctioned by the authority, and illuftrated by the wifdom of Johnfon; and I think it of the utmoft confequence to the happiness of fociety, to which fubordination is abfolutely neceffary. It is weak and contemptible, and unworthy in a parent, to relax in fuch a cafe. It is facrificing general advantage to private feelings. And let it be confidered, that the claim of a daughter who has acted thus, to be restored to her former fituation is either fantastical or unjuft. If there be no value in the diftinction of rank, what does the fuffer by being kept in the fituation to which fhe has defcended? If there be value in that diftinction, it ought to be fteadily maintained. If indulgence be shown to fuch conduct, and the offenders know that in a longer or fhorter time they shall be received as well as if they had not contaminated their blood by a base alliance, the great check upon that inordinate caprice which generally occafions low marriages will be removed, and the fair and comfortable order of improved life will be miferably disturbed."

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Waller: "He doubtlefs praised many whom he would have been afraid to marry; and, perhaps, married one whom he would have been afhamed to praife. Many qualities contribute to domestic happiness, upon which poetry has no colours to bestow; and many airs and fallies may delight imagination, which he who flatters them never can approve."

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Suppofing (faid he) a wife to be of a ftudious or argumentative turn, it would be very troublesome; for inftance-if a woman should continually dwell upon the fubject of the Arian

herefy."

He expreffed his opinion, that "a man has a very bad chance for happiness in that state unless he marries a woman of very ftrong and fixed principles of religion."

He maintained, contrary to the common notion, that a woman would not be the worfe wife for being learned.

Talking of the heinoufnefs of the crime of adultery, by which the peace of families was deftroyed, he faid, "Confufion of progeny conftitutes the effence of the crime; and therefore a woman who breaks her marriage vows is much more criminal than a man who does it. A man, to be fure, is criminal in the fight of Gon; but he does not do his wife a very material injury, if he does not infult her; if, for inftance, from

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mere wantonness of appetite, he steals privately to her chambermaid. Sir, a wife ought not greatly to refent this. I would not receive home a daughter who had husband on that account.

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to reclaim her husband by more attention to please him. Sir, a man will not, once in a hundred inftances, leave his wife and go to a harlot, if his wife has not been negligent of pleafing."

Here he discovered that acute discrimination, that folid judgment, and that knowledge of human nature, for which he was upon all occafions remarkable. Taking care to keep in view the moral and religious duty, as understood in our nation, he fhewed clearly, from reason and good fenfe, the greater degree of culpability in the one fex deviating from it than the other: and, at the fame time, inculcated a very useful leffon as to the way to keep him.

Being asked if it was not hard that one deviation from chastity fhould abfolutely ruin, a young woman ?-JOHNSON. "Why no, Sir;

it is the great principle which she is taught. When she has given up that principle, fhe has given up every notion of female honour and vir tue, which are all included in chastity."

"I mentioned to him (fays Mr. Boswell) a difpute between a friend of mine and his lady,

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concerning conjugal infidelity, which my friend had maintained was by no means fo bad in the hufband as in the wife. "Your friend was in the right, Sir, faid Johnfon. Between a man and his Maker it is a different question; but between a man and his wife a husband's infidelity is nothing. They are connected by children, by fortune, by ferious confiderations of community. Wife married women don't trouble themselves about the infidelity of their hufbands."-BoSWELL. "To be fure there is a great difference between the offence of infidelity in a man and that of his wife.-7. "The difference is boundless. The man imposes no baftards upon his wife."

"Here (Mr. B. obferves) it may be queftioned, whether Johnfon was entirely in the right. It will hardly be controverted, that the difference in the degree of criminality is very great on account of the confequences; but ftill it may be maintained, that, independent of moral obligation, infidelity is by no means a light offence in a husband, because it must hurt a delicate attachment, in which a mutual conftancy is implied, with fuch refined fentiments as Maffinger has exhibited in his play of "The Picture." Johnfon probably at another time would have admitted this opinion. And let it be kept in remembrance, that he was very careful not

to

to give any encouragement to irregular conduct."

He praised the ladies of the prefent age, infifting that they were more faithful to their hufbands, and more virtuous in every respect, than in former times; because their under ftandings were better cultivated. It was an undoubted proof of his good fenfe and good difpofition, that he was never querulous, never prone to inveigh against the prefent times, as is fo common when fuperficial minds are on the fret.

He difapproved of the Royal Marriage Bill; "Because (faid he) I would not have the people think that the validity of marriage depends on the will of man, or that the right of a King depends on the will of man. I should not have been against making the marriage of any of the royal family, without the approbation of the King and Parliament, highly criminal."

CHILDREN.

TALKING of the common remark, that af fection descends, a gentleman faid, that "this was wifely contrived for the prefervation of mankind, for which it was not fo neceffary that

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