, though it be but
of a horse." He afterwards disserts very profoundly on the music there
is in beauty, "and the silent note which Cupid strikes is far sweeter
than the sound of an instrument." Such were his sentiments when
youthful, and residing at Leyden; Dutch philosophy had at first chilled
his passion; it is probable that passion afterwards inflamed his
philosophy--for he married, and had sons and daughters!

Dr. Cocchi, a modern Italian writer, but apparently a cynic as old as
Diogenes, has taken the pains of composing a treatise on the present
subject enough to terrify the boldest _Bachelor_ of Arts! He has
conjured up every chimera against the marriage of a literary man. He
seems, however, to have drawn his disgusting portrait from his own
country; and the chaste beauty of Britain only looks the more lovely
beside this Florentine wife.

I shall not retain the cynicism which has coloured such revolting
features. When at length the doctor finds a woman as all women ought to
be, he opens a new string of misfortunes which must attend her husband.
He dreads one of the probable consequences of matrimony--progeny, in
which we must maintain the children we beget! He thinks the father gains
nothing in his old age from the tender offices administered by his own
children: he asserts these are much better performed by menials and
strangers! The more children he has, the less he can afford to have
servants! The maintenance of his children will greatly diminish his
property! Another alarming object in marriage is that, by affinity, you
become connected with the relations of the wife. The envious and
ill-bred insinuations of the mother, the family quarrels, their poverty
or their pride, all disturb the unhappy sage who falls into the trap of
connubial felicity! But if a sage has resolved to marry, he impresses on
him the prudential principle of increasing his fortune by it, and to
remember his "additional expenses!" Dr. Cocchi seems to have thought
that a human being is only to live for himself; he had neither heart to
feel, a head to conceive, nor a pen that could have written one
harmonious period, or one beautiful image! Bayle, in his article
_Raphelengius_, note B, gives a singular specimen of logical subtlety,
in "a reflection on the consequence of marriage." This learned man was
imagined to have died of grief, for having lost his wife, and passed
three years in protracted despair. What therefore must we think of an
unh