13, 1710_.

Una de multis face nuptiali
Digna.--HOR., 3 Od. xi. 33.

* * * * *

_From my own Apartment, June 12._

There are certain occasions of life which give propitious omens of the
future good conduct of it, as well as others which explain our present
inward state, according to our behaviour in them. Of the latter sort are
funerals; of the former, weddings. The manner of our carriage when we
lose a friend, shows very much our temper, in the humility of our words
and actions, and a general sense of our destitute condition, which runs
through all our deportment. This gives a solemn testimony of the
generous affection we bore our friends, when we seem to disrelish
everything now we can no more enjoy them, or see them partake in our
enjoyments. It is very proper and human to put ourselves as it were in
their livery after their decease, and wear a habit unsuitable to
prosperity, while those we loved and honoured are mouldering in the
grave. As this is laudable on the sorrowful side; so on the other,
incidents of success may no less justly be represented and acknowledged
in our outward figure and carriage. Of all such occasions, that great
change of a single life into marriage is the most important, as it is
the source of all relations, and from whence all other friendship and
commerce do principally arise. The general intent of both sexes is to
dispose of themselves happily and honourably in this state; and as all
the good qualities we have are exerted to make our way into it, so the
best appearance, with regard to their minds, their persons, and their
fortunes, at the first entrance into it, is a due to each other in the
married pair, as well as a compliment to the rest of the world. It was
an instruction of a wise lawgiver, that unmarried women should wear such
loose habits which, in the flowing of their garb, should incite their
beholders to a desire of their persons; and that the ordinary motion of
their bodies might display the figure and shape of their limbs in such a
manner, as at once to preserve the strictest decency, and raise the
warmest inclinations.

This was the economy of the legislator for the increase of people, and
at the same time for the preservation of the genial bed. She who was the
admiration of all who beheld her while unmarried, was to bid adieu to
the pleasure of shining in the eyes of many, as soon as she took upon
her the wedded condition. Howev