It grieves me when I consider, that these restraints upon matrimony take away the advantage we should otherwise have over other countries, which are sunk much by those great checks upon propagation, the convents. It is thought chiefly owing to these, that Italy and Spain want above half their complement of people. Were the price of wives always fixed and settled, it would contribute to filling the nation, more than all the encourage ments that can possibly be given to foreigners to transplant themselves hither.

I therefore, as censor of Britain, until a law is made, will lay down rules which shall be observed, with penalty of degrading all that break them, into Pretty Fellows, Smarts, Squibs, Hunting-Horns, Drums, and Bagpipes.

The females that are guilty of breaking my orders, I shall respectively pronounce to be Kits, Hornpipes, Dulcimers, and Kettle-drums. Such widows as wear the spoils of one husband, I will bury, if they attempt to rob another.

I ordain, That no woman ever demand one shilling to be paid after her husband's death, more than the very sum she brings him, or an equivalent for it in land.

That no settlement be made, in which the man settles on his children more than the reversion of the jointure, or the value of it in money; so that at his death, he may in the whole be bound to pay his family but double to what he has received I would have the eldest, as well as the rest, have his provision out of this.

When men are not able to come up to those settlements I have proposed, I would have them receive so much of the portion only as they can come up to, and the rest to go to the woman by way of

pin money, or separate maintenance. In this, I think, I determine equally between the two sexes.

If any lawyer varies from these rules, or is above two days in drawing a marriage-settlement, or uses more words in it than one skin of parchment will contain, or takes above five pounds for drawing it, I would have him thrown over the bar.

Were these rules observed, a woman with a small fortune, and a great deal of worth, would be sure to marry according to her deserts, if the man's estate were to be less incumbered, in proportion as her fortune is less than he might have with others.

A man of a great deal of merit, and not much estate, might be chosen for his worth; because it would not be difficult for him to make a settlement.

The man that loves a woman best, would not lose her for not being able to bid so much as another, or for not complying with an extravagant demand.

A fine woman would no more be set up to auction as she is now. When a man puts in for her, her friends or herself take care to publish it; and the man that was the first bidder is made no other use of but to raise the price. He that loves her will continue in waiting as long as she pleases, if her fortune be thought equal to his; and, under pretence of some failure in the rent-roll, or difficulties in drawing the settlement, he is put off until a better bargain is made with another.

All the rest of the sex, that are not rich or beautiful to the highest degree, are plainly gainers, and would be married so fast, that the least charining of them would soon grow beauties to the bachelors.

Widows might be easily married, if they would not, as they do now, set up for discreet, only by being mercenary.

The making matrimony cheap and easy would be the greatest discouragement to vice: the limiting the expence of children would not make men ill inclined, or afraid of having them in a regular way; and the men of merit would not live unmarried, as they often do now, because the goodness of a wife cannot be insured to them; but the loss of an estate is certain, and a man would never have the affliction of a worthless heir added to that of a bad wife.

I am the more serious, large, and particular on this subject, because my Lucubrations, designed for the encouragement of virtue, cannot have the desired success as long as this incumbrance of settlements continues upon matrimony.

N°224.THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1710.

Materiam superabat opus.

OVID. Met. II. 5.

The matter equall'd not the artist's skill.

R. WYNNE.

From my own Apartment, September 13.

Ir is my custom, in a dearth of news, to entertain myself with those collections of advertisements that appear at the end of all our public prints. These I consider as accounts of news from the little world, in the same manner that the foregoing parts of the

paper are from the great. If in one we hear that a sovereign prince is fled from his capital city, in the other we hear of a tradesman who hath shut up his shop, and run away. If in one we find the victory of a general, in the other we see the desertion of a private soldier. I must confess I have a certain weakness in my temper, that is often very much affected by these little domestic occurrences, and have frequently been caught with tears in my eyes over a melancholy advertisement.

But to consider this subject in its most ridiculous lights, advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all, as they are instruments of ambition. A man that is by no means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the advertisements; by which means we often see an apothecary in the same paper of news with a plenipotentiary, or a running-footman with an ambassador. An advertisement from Piccadilly goes down to posterity with an article from Madrid, and John Bartlett of Goodman'sfields is celebrated in the same paper with the emperor of Germany. Thus the fable tells us, that the wren mounted as high as the eagle, by getting upon his back.

A second use which this sort of writings hath been turned to of late years, has been the management of controversy; insomuch that above half the advertisements one meets with now-a-days are purely polemical. The inventors of " Strops for razors" have written against one another this way for several years, and that with great bitterness; as the whole argument pro and con in the case of "the morning-gown" is still carried on after the

same manner.

I need not mention the several pro

A truss-maker.

prietors of Dr. Anderson's pills; nor take notice of the many satirical works of this nature so frequently published by Dr. Clark, who has had the confidence to ad ertise upon that learned knight, my very worthy friend, Sir William Read: but I shall not interpose in their quarrel: Sir William can give him his own in advertisements, that, in the judgment of the impartial, are as well penned as the doctor's.

The third and last use of these writings is to inform the world, where they may be furnished with almost every thing that is necessary for life. If a man has pains in his head, colics in his bowels, or spots in his cloaths, he may here meet with proper cures and remedies. If a man would recover a wife or a horse that is stolen or strayed; if he wants new sermons, electuaries, asses milks, or any thing else, either for his body or mind; this is the place to look for them in.

The great art in writing advertisements, is the finding out a proper method to catch the reader's eye, without which a good thing may pass over unobserved, or be lost among commissions of bankrupts. Asterisks and hands were formerly of great use for this purpose. Of late years the N. B. has been much in fashion, as also little cuts or figures, the invention of which we must ascribe to the author of spring-trusses. I must not here omit the blind Italian character, which, being scarce legible, always fixes and detains the eye, and gives the curious reader something like the satisfaction of prying into

a secret.

But the great skill in an advertiser is chiefly seen in the style which he makes use of. He is to mention the universal esteem, or general reputation," of things that were never heard of. If he is a physician or astrologer, he much change his