was ordered to engross them; the wedding-clothes
were bought, and, in short, a day was appointed for the celebration of
their nuptials, to which everybody of any fashion in the neighbourhood
was invited. Among these, commodore Trunnion and Mr. Hatchway were not
forgotten, being the sole companions of the bridegroom, with whom, by
this time, they had contracted a sort of intimacy at their nocturnal
rendezvous.

They had received a previous intimation of what was on the anvil, from
the landlord, before Mr. Pickle thought proper to declare himself; in
consequence of which, the topic of the one-eyed commander's discourse,
at their meeting, for several evenings before, had been the folly and
plague of matrimony, on which he held forth with great vehemence of
abuse, leveled at the fair sex, whom he represented as devils incarnate,
sent from hell to torment mankind; and in particular inveighed against
old maids, for whom he seemed to entertain a singular aversion;
while his friend Jack confirmed the truth of all his allegations, and
gratified his own malignant vein at the same time by clenching every
sentence with a sly joke upon the married state, built upon some
allusion to a ship or sea-faring life. He compared a woman to a great
gun loaded with fire, brimstone, and noise, which, being violently
heated, will bounce and fly, and play the devil, if you don't take
special care of her breechings. He said she was like a hurricane that
never blows from one quarter, but veers about to all points of the
compass. He likened her to a painted galley, curiously rigged, with
a leak in her hold, which her husband would never be able to stop. He
observed that her inclinations were like the Bay of Biscay; for why?
because you may heave your deep sea lead long enough without ever
reaching the bottom; that he who comes to anchor on a wife may find
himself moored in d--d foul ground, and after all, can't for his blood
slip his cable; and that, for his own part, though he might make short
trips for pastime, he would never embark in woman on the voyage of life,
he was afraid of foundering in the first foul weather.

In all probability, these insinuations made some impression on the mind
of Mr. Pickle, who was not very much inclined to run great risks of any
kind; but the injunctions and importunities of his sister, who was bent
upon the match, overbalanced the opinion of his sea friends, who finding
him determined to marry, notwithstanding al