ties; but is
this a face to make those husbands better? Surely no! It is only by such
looks as these [_turns the picture_] they are to be won: and may the
ladies hereafter only wear such looks, and may this never more be known
[_turns the picture_] only as a picture taken out of AEsop's Fables.
[_Gives off the picture._]

May each married lady preserve her good man, And young ones get good
ones as fast as they can.

It is very remarkable there should be such a plentiful harvest of
courtship before marriage, and generally such a famine afterwards.
Courtship is a fine bowling-green turf, all galloping round and
sweet-hearting, a sunshine holiday in summer time: but when once through
matrimony's turnpike, the weather becomes wintry, and some husbands
are seized with a cold aguish fit, to which the faculty have given this
name--[_Shews the girdle of indifference._] Courtship is matrimony's
running footman, but seldom stays to see the stocking thrown; it is
too often carried away by the two grand preservatives of matrimonial
{61}friendship, delicacy and gratitude. There is also another distemper
very mortal to the honeymoon; 'tis what the ladies sometimes are seized
with, and the college of physicians call it by this title--[_Shews the
girdle of the sullens._]

This distemper generally arises from some ill-conditioned speech, with
which the lady has been hurt; who then, leaning on her elbow upon the
arm-chair, her cheek resting upon the back of her hand, her eyes fixed
earnestly upon the fire, her feet beating tattoo time: the husband in
the mean while biting his lips, pulling down his ruffles, stamping
about the room, and looking at his lady {62}like the devil: at last he
abruptly demands of her her,

"What's the matter with you, madam?"

The lady mildly replies,

"Nothing."

"What is it you mean, madam?"

"Nothing."

"What would you make me, madam?"

"Nothing."

"What is it I have done to you, madam?"

"O--h--nothing." And this quarrel arose as they sat at breakfast. The
lady very innocently observed, she believed the tea was made with Thames
water. The husband, in mere contradiction, insisted upon it that the
tea-kettle was filled out of the New River.

{63}From a scene of matrimonial tumult here is one of matrimonial
tranquillity. [_Matrimonial picture brought on, and you go forward._]
Here is an after-dinner wedlock _tete-a-tete_, a mere matrimonial
_vis-a-vis_; the husband in a yawning state of dissi