a passion of jealousy stabbed, she was judged therefore, and suffered the death at Tybourn.) So unbuckling the broad velvet necklace, behold! her livid throat was all over sore, discoloured, and bruised, and writhled, and deep cut into by the cruel and despiteous rope.

"Sir Guy, who had awhiles stood aghast in a voiceless dismay, now heaved forth a deep and dread groan,-for well might he remember, when his sister would fain dissuade him from wedding any semblance of the vision, that he profanely did say :- Soothly, Alice, were a she-devil to tempt me in such winning wise, I would certes wed her;' and he sorely trembled to think that some demon, peradventure Sathan himself, had incorporated himself in that now loathed form, to receive his plight, and so delude and win his sinful soul. Thenceforward his gay some heart and gaysome right merry cheer did altogether fail him; he 'gan to wail and dump, shunning converse of man, and in lonesome corners would paddle his neck with his hand, saying he could lay his finger in the wound, as if himself had been hanged; and in this wise gat worse and worse, until at last he went stark distraught, and was mewed up in the Spittal for the crazed, where, some three or four weeks thereafter, he gave up the ghost in great wildness and agony of soul."

MUSICAL WIVES.

"Omnibus hoc vitium est Cantatoribus."

HORACE.

Oн, that unfortunate walk by the river-side! But for that ill-fated excursion I might have enjoyed connubial happiness, of which there is now, alas! but little hope. Let me not, however, be mistaken. No whiskered officer of dragoons, parading the beautiful promenade at Richmond, while music melted on the waves and the setting sun threw its glowing light through the arches of the bridge upon the wooded hill beyond, has whispered soft nonsense in my lady's ear, and so possessed my imagination with the phantasmas of the green-eyed monster. No, I speak of a water-side stroll enacted some four or five thousand years ago by the Egyptian Mercury, the Hermes Trismegistus, or "thrice illustrious," who, wandering forth to enjoy the cool breezes of evening upon the banks of the Nile, after its periodical overflowing, and gazing intently on the ascending moon, struck his foot against the shell of a tortoise which had been left by the retiring flood, and was astonished at hearing a melodious sound. Stooping down to ascertain the cause of this phenomenon, he found that the flesh having been dried and wasted by the burning sun, nothing but the nerves and cartilages remained, which being braced and contracted by the heat, had become sonorous; and the idea of a lyre instantly started into his imagination. Constructing the instrument in the

form of a tortoise, he strung it with the dried sinews of dead animals: such, according to Apollodorus, was the origin of music; and this ominous ramble of the moon-gazing "thrice illustrious" was, consequently, the source of all my conjugal infelicity.

This is the age for accomplishments; but in the education of our females, it may be doubted whether they be not too openly and exclusively invested with those graces and attractions which may best qualify them for the matrimonial market-as a certain schoolmistress advertised "to get up young ladies for the India department." In music this seems more especially perceptible. Tibullus could not now exclaim, "Ah! nimium faciles aurem præbere puellæ;" for a modern damsel, instead of lending her own ear, is more prone to exclaim with Antony, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears," and sits herself down to a harpsichord to play con amore-for a husband. Brilliant fingers have superseded brilliant eyes; execution is performed by octaves, not ogles; and hearts are literally carried by a coup de main. Holding a wax light instead of a torch, Hymen takes his post beside a book of canzonets ;-Cupid bestriding the keys, with one foot upon a Flat, the other upon a Natural, takes a Sharp for his arrow, which he aims at the ear, not the heart, of his victim, and of course the greatest asses present the readiest and most open mark. It is painful to enrol oneself in this asinine brotherhood, yet candour obliges me to confess, that I suffered myself to be tamely caught by the auricular appendage, and led up to the Hymeneal

halter. My wife sang sweetly, played divinely, had brilliancy without noise, expression without affectation, science without pedantry, and many other things without many other things-at least every body said so. I received the congratulations of my friends, and was the happiest of men for the full period of—a whole honeymoon.

Stradella, as all the world knows, saved his life by playing a tune to the bravoes who were hired to assassinate him; but we are now become so much more musical, that I verily believe I should incur the fate which he avoided, were I even to attempt setting limits to the passion. What a dictionary of quotations should I draw down upon my devoted head! "Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast”and "The man that hath not music in his soul," &c. and a thousand others, would be spouted forth against me, while I should in vain contend that I was deprecating the abuse, not the use of any art; that I might love any given pursuit without having a rage for it; and that, however partial I may be to sweet voices, or sweet wines, I have no ambition to be sung to death, or smothered in a butt of malmsey. Alas! those who have ears for music have none for reason. After the first bustle of visiting, introductions, singing, playing, and admiration, I naturally concluded that we should subside into a little domestic quiet and self-possession, when I might calmly prosecute my studies, and enjoy my own fireside; but my wife's notions of enjoyment were so far from harmonizing with mine, that I found a da capo had commenced, and I was condemn

ed to run through the same round of melodious misery. Since then I have been in vain expecting a finale; "the cry is still they come:" fiddlers, singers, masters, and amateurs, besiege my house, and there is no end to my wife's parties, or my remonstrances. I find I have married, a musician, who perpetually reminds me of Dr. Pangloss's distinction between a concert and a consort. Accustomed to admiration, she cannot live without it; and her home becomes insipid, unless it is crowded with listeners and flatterers, and converted into an arena for display. I have no voice in my own house, because my wife has so much, and every body keeps time so rigorously, that I cannot find any for my own occupations. From, morning to night I am distracted with harmony-my head seems to be a thoroughfare for crotchets, quavers, and semiquavers a common sewer, into which is disgorged a perpetual stream of noise, under every possible variety which the modulation of air can produce. Even in my sleep I have a constant singing in my head; the nerves of my brain, like an Æolian harp, vibrate of themselves; and if I dream, it is of the jarring, scraping, and tuning of ten thousand instruments.

Man has been defined, by physiologists, as a featherless biped, but I have been sometimes struck with the capricious contrast between the human and the winged subject. In peacocks, pheasants, and all the gallinaceous tribe, it is the male who is dressed out in gorgeous colours and fine feathers, while the female is as plain and unadorned as a quakeress. Singing birds are all small, the black-bird being the largest ;