match-but he, blinded by his attachment to her, saw no defect in her conduct, and actually quarrelled with all his relations and friends who, feeling for his clerical reputation, ventured to remonstrate with him upon his unbounded indulgence of the capricious whims of his wife.-At length the lady became a mother, or rather, she presented him with a child, for, mother, was a word to which she attached no other idea, than the tedious confine ment to which it doomed her-naturally affectionate, but, I believe I must add, foolishly fond, he sacrificed all his wiser impressions of right and wrong, to her girlish repugnance at fulfilling the primary duty of a mother, that of suckling her own infant.-As soon as she could escape from her room, she committed all maternal ties to a wet nurse, and entered with renewed delight upon all her former pursuits - the wearisome monotony of the cradle's rock, was exchanged for the rapid gallop of the fleet hunter, and the wailings of her infant were disregarded for the more cheering cry of a pack of fox hounds.-The wretched husband saw and felt in his very soul the misery which awaited him, and yet had not resolution enough to stay the progress of his forebodings. If she vouchsafed to enter the nursery once a day, it was merely to meet the unconscionable wish of her Moody Parson, as she decorously called her husband-and if she now and then descended so low as to leave the stable for the kitchen, and to give directions to the cook, it was only to quiet the slip-slop discontent of her everend rib-All this could not last the hapless M's uxorious slavery, at length became too galling for him quietly to wear the chain of subserviency to such outrages of his domestic anticipations. He ven tured to expostulate-she laughed at his remonstrances, and mimicked the gravity with which they were made he threatened to break up housekeeping-she coolly replied —“ as you please, Sir, but you will first have the goodness to provide me with a residence suitable to the fortune which I brought you."-" He urged her to consider her infant,she assured him that he was hetter able to nurse the brat than herself-the altercation increased-and she finished the dispute by ringing for her groom to saddle Gimgrack, and attend her to her father's. He melted, and implored her

-

to reflect but for a moment she bewailed her folly in not having re flected for that moment, before she married a parson Gimgrack was brought to the door, she mounted and rode off full swing for her father's house on the road she overtook a member of the County hunt-he extolled her riding-she told him whither she was going-he inveighed against the cause, as a barbarous and unfeeling act of des. potism on the part of her husband, who, although he had the honor of calling him friend, was by no means the man he took him for"-She agreed in his opinion-assuring him that he had driven her to the step she had taken, by his arbitrary conduct towards berhe deplored the improbability of her ever being happy with such a man-she admitted it-be again deplored it-and thus proceeding in full trot and entire concurrence of sentiment-the interview finished by his promising to call upon her at her father's, and pointing out to him the unavoidable necessity for what she had done-the sequel you will of course anticipate-in a few days before the pretensions of either party could be deliberately decided upon, Mrs, M, and her fox-hunting friend de camped for the Continent, leaving her husband in a state of distraction, and a prey to all that self-reproach, which a sensible but irresolute man always feels, when as a husband he finds himself the victim of his own ill-placed confidence and injudicious indulgence. Had the luckless M.- used his conjugal authority at first, by compelling this child of nature to obey against her will, she would, like other wayward children, have felt and submitted to the necessity-and as all these pupils of nature are children of babit, he might have formed her mind to the subjugation of duty-and as we are all of us more or less inclined to practice what we have been taught to adopt, she would have gone through the characters of a wife and a mother, at all events, with decent conformity-and this by the mere habit of doing the same thing continually, would have become in time just as satisfactory, as following a fox, or substituting the stable for the nursery.-Your instance Mr.- proves that she who can be induced to obey without the will, at first, may in the end be inclined to voluntary obedience

ny tale proves, that when once the will of a woman is allowed to act

without constraint, in deviations from consistency of character, it soon asserts dangerous pre-eminence over duty, and giving the reins to passion, overleaps every boundary of honor and rtue.-I must tell you in addition to my story, that his wife was returned upon M.—'s bands, by her villainous seducer, who sent her home in a coffin about three months after her elopement.-It seems, that he could not brook the temper he had so vilely taken advantage of, and had liberally dispensed that chastisement which she deserved, and which he was brute enough to inflict-the miserable woman then, in all the pangs of fruitless remorse, called to mind the tender forbearance of her injured husband, and her cruel desertion of her first born that passionate ebullition of spirit with which she had resisted his will, expressed as that will was in the most affectionate expostulation, now sunk powerless beneath the arm of a ruffian adulterershe could not bear the horrible contrast of what she might have been and what she was-one night, therefore, when she had rushed from his merciless grasp in all the anguish of such conflicting thoughts, she threw herself into the Seine, and in suicide, put an end to an existence, which, whilst she lived, she knew not how to value aright, and when she had discovered its real worth in the disappointments of her vicious contempt of it, she threw away in a premature death.

"Pon honour,” cried Captain Olto, stiding a yawn," You have made out a most melancholy catastrophe—and very amusing 1 protest. Wha-ha-t do you think of this love story about murder, Mrs. -? 1 swear it has quite upset my nerves."

I

"Has it so," said Mrs. —; “Now, from as much as I have heard of it (for faith, Captain, my inclination to yawn was well nigh lost in a sound doze), think it is by no means so dull a history as you would make it out to be. I should like to have seen how the parson looked when he unpacked his parcel of returned goods."

"Good heavens, Mrs. —," exclaimed Miss G," how can you talk so! I declare I cannot conceive the motive for the wretch's sending hack the corpse of his wife to Mr. M: except it was to add insult to injury."

**Why, no," said the manager's wife,

"this was not the villain's motive, as it happened; for, at that time, no Protestant was allowed Christian burial in France: and, although he had not shrunk from debasing the unhappy woman below all that could make life desirable to her, yet he could not endure the thought of her not returning to her natural corruption in a hallowed grave."

"Pray, Mr.," asked Lady S—, "by what law of affinity are we to apply these two instances as elucidating my friend's position of the possibility of obeying without the will?"

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"The instance which I have adduced," answered Mr. proves, I think, that where caprice exists without illtemper, the folly of perverse inclinations and unconformable impressions may be prevented by a manly and decided resistance on the part of the husband, accompanied with affectionate remonstrance and earnest expostulation.And hence that obedience to which the will of the wife may at first have reluctantly submitted, may become, in the end, an act of just feeling, both as it relates to duty and to sentiment; to the understanding and the heart. The circumstances of Mrs M's history plainly enough point out the necessity for constraining such a mind as her's by actual coercion of authority; for, had Mr. M-allowed himself to reflect that he was the guardian of his wife's happiness, as well as the judge of his own, he would have seen that, as she felt so little concern about either as to commit both by the most childish extravagancies, it was his duty to use imperative injunction, instead of soothing persuasives, and to exact submission by commaud if he found it could not be obtained by entreaty."

"Which command, I presume," said Lady S-,"he ought to have followed up with due chastisement, as it has already been gently hinted."

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"Not so, Madam," replied Mr.

believe me I am no advocate for conjugal conflicts of that sort-for it would always be more adviseable that before such a dreadful alternative be resorted to, the less violent, though, perhaps, not less afflictive, should be tried-that of separation; since, if the wife is resolved to quarrel with her own opportunities of being happy, she certainly ought not to be permitted to destroy the peace of a man who, by every anxiety of affectionate indulgence, is

disposed to consult and secure her best satisfactions."

"You are perfectly right," observed Sir B," and if a woman is so much of a fool as to throw away her own felicity by an utter disregard of her duties as a wife, the natural conclusion must be, that she has not sense enough to understand them-she must, therefore, be contented with such treatment, as an idiot would be compelled to endure and be made to yield to constraint without the conviction of its reasonableness, since she who will not comprehend the latter should be taught to feel the former.'

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By the mass, Madam," said the Baronet, " you ladies would place your husbands in a very pitiable dilemina ; for if they, in their irrational excess of affection, allow you to presume upon their indulgence, they run the risk of being brutified by your ingratitude; and, if they are resolved to preserve your character and their own dignity, they are characterized with the civilized epithet of brutes-so that, miserable beings as they are in either case of indulgence or restraint, they must expect either dishonour or disrepute. To be sure, the character is more agreeable than the condition; but it is a moot point with me, whether she who unjustly affixes the one, would not with as little compunction of conscience contrive the other."

** In truth, Sir," rejoined Mrs. "I cannot at all conjecture how you are to settle the point; that's a matter for your own consideration. I venture, however, to suggest to you, that the miserable beings whom you so earnestly compassionate, are found, in ninety cases out of a hundred, to be the authors of their own misfortune."

"But, Madam," observed the Rev. Doctor R, “peradventure there be one found in the hundred which prove the wife the aggressor, may it not be said that such a number is a large pro

By certain specimens, madam, which have reduced the possibility unto a very near approximation to certainty. Such, as I am sorry to say, our daily observation of many individuals in mar ried life present us with."

"Well, sir, at that rate, then, you can have no fear of your being among those miserable objects of the baronet's pity, as the odds must thus be reduced with you to those of three to one in your favour."

"Doctor," cried the baronet," I congratulate you upon the point being decided so much in your favour by so good a judge of possibilities and proba bilities as the lady who has taken up the argument."

Here Mr.

resumed his question, by observing that “a hint is thrown out by Dr. Hawkesworth, in the 25th number of his Adventurer, which it would be a most acceptable acquisition to society to improve into a practical form-namely, to demonstrate, a priori, how misery may be avoided in that state which is generally agreed to be capable of more happiness than any other.'

"This, I think, has already been done," said the poet, by our immortal Milton; and that it is a demonstra tion a priori is evident, from his having grounded it in the conduct of our first parents during their state of innocence, Many are the passages in which, with all the beauteous dignity of poetic diction, he describes the gentle yielding of our first mother to the will of Him whom she regarded as the Author and Disposer. The following is among the shortest yet most expressive description of this affectionate obedience

ex

room, we heard his voice in the street, calling upon the people to bring the "Here! here is one," ladders. claimed a part of the crowd. In an instant it was applied to the front of the house, and the first person we saw mounting it was Mr. -; he broke in the glass of the sash, and throwing it up, he was enveloped with smoke. In a few moments we saw him with the child in one arm, and the female supported by the other.

(To be continued.)

perpendicular section of any canal wider at the surface than at the bottom, and whereof the bottom is level; and let CE, DF, be both perpendicular to CD; also let C G be taken equal to EC, the depth then if the diagonal EG be drawn, the triangle ECG will truly represent the pressure against the line E C. [Hutton's Mathematics.] But the triangle ECG is equal to half the square of the depth. Hence EF drawn into half the square of the depth will be the pressure on the parallelogram E D.

Again because (as it is proved by the writers on Statics) the lateral pressure of any fluid, whose perpendicular section, is a triangle, having for its base the horizontal surface of the fluid, is equal to the pressure on a rectangle under the breadth, at the surface and greatest perpendicular depth, it follows that the pressure against the triangle AEC is of AE drawn into half the square of EC; and that on the triangle FBD equal to of FB drawn into half the square of FD.

Now AE+FB is the difference of the breadths at the surface and bottom; and therefore the RULE is correct in all cases

where the floor of the canal is level, and where the perpendicular section is not wider below than at the surface.

Were it required to ascertain the pressure on a dam-gate whereof the floor is horizontal, but the under breatdth the greater, change to in the given Rule, and the application will be faultless.

If the floor be not horihontal, a level is to be taken at the less depth, and the pressure on the triangle below that level must be calculated by the last Rule, and added to the pressure above the level, By all which it appears, as your Cor. respondent suggests, that Mr. Dows LING'S Rule is correct in practice, since flood-gates have always a level floor, and are never wider at the bottom than at the surface.

THE RULE, in my opinión, is not only neat and concise, but will be found eminently useful. Indeed, the whole of Mr. DowLING's Key to Dr Hutton's valuable and elaborate Trea

tise is so pregnant with elegance and improvement, that no mathematician in possession of Hutton's Course of Matheinatics should be without a copy of a work of such sterling merit. I remain, Sir,

Your obedient servant, T. W. C. EDWARDS. 40, Pall-mall, 5th Feb. 1818.