I am merely a simple maker of Negligées, and not one of the priests

of Hymenæus.

Having however divided my old maids into a couple of sections and uttered some truisms respecting the nolens volens, or second class, I must, in common gallantry, address a few words to the volens ladies, lest the demon of jealousy should take possession of their fair bosoms, and I would fain rescue even him from so pleasureless a home, the Esquimaux temperature of which is habitually down to "Zero."

The volens, or voluntary old maid, is an awful exemplification of antiquated verecundity: doubtless she is not a man, and it is almost as certain she is not a woman-she must be considered then (having failed to identify herself with either sex) as of the Epicene or neuter gender-she is, in fact, a sort of human mermaid, female, above the zone, and anything you like but that, below it.

Woman (without citing Scripture writ) was a present (and what a delicious one!) from the Deity to man; she was given to him as a living “ Souvenir,” or “ Forget-me-not,” and in her (like the magician's ring) centres every joy or pleasure, bliss or delight, that his heart can hope or sigh for.

Woman, (trumpet it forth my muse,) when given to man, was not bestowed upon him merely as the kindler of his love, or as the beauteous object of his caresses: 'tis sweetly true, her charms were meant to exercise (and ever may they) a witching spell over his heart, but then, she was intended to be an earthly angel of a still higher class, one joining the deep blandishments of love with the soberer duties of domestic rule. she was meant to be (and

very

is) the soul and centre of his existence-the alpha and omega of whatever he knows by the name of happiness-she was meant to be his true and discreet counsellor by day, his lusorious fondling, his bosom-mate by night—she was meant to be his life-spring, his friend, his solace, his comforter, his-wife!

Who then will dare to justify the icy tenets of celibacy? does Evangelism preach so unnatural a creed? if so, I confess (and glory in my ignorance) I am unread in its hateful doctrine.

Arguing solely with the voice of reason, I would ask, what claim the voluntary, or inveterate old maid has to any feeling, save that of abhorrence or contempt; since willingly estranged from all the better (or rather best) indulgences of our nature—since setting at defiance the very behest of her God, she withers out her span of infelicity, unloving and unloved, and who, when her joyless race is is "gathered into the great harvest of eternity," unwept by all and any, save and except her darling poodle, parrot, monkey or cat-the only living things that ever shared her thoughts or affections.

run,

I fearlessly maintain that woman (a true woman at heart) must perish long before her time, if condemned to (what she was never designed for) a life of maidenhood; there is not in the English language so terrific a monosyllable to a girl out of her teens, as that of "miss," it sits like a nightmare upon her troubled heart, and, if the incubus be not removed, will assuredly destroy her.

Unlike the inveterate old maid, her aspirations are pure and feminine; the former is a voluntary recusant from the canons of love, whilst the latter abhors their unwomanly tenets, and would fain

P

exchange the vestals linteum supernum for the rosa alba, or the orange blossom of the bride.

While denouncing with the thunder of my " Perryian pen," the vengeance of Hymen against all voluntary old maids, I must upon no account overlook that male monstrosity, the OLD BACHELOR; and as the female heteroclite has been typified under the likeness of a mermaid, the masculine hybrid may equi-justly claim identity with the Sagittary or Minotaur-being half man and half-whatever else you please.

In point of truth, he must be considered as the arch-master, or founder of the order of celibacy, for to his misogyny is clearly referrible the unwedded condition of the female unit; as owing to the habitude of society, and the innate diffidence of the sex, it is forbidden to the lady-candidate for bridal bliss to give the soft challenge, she being, par usage, only the fair accepter; and as the challenged party, (the laws of Honor and Hymen being in this particular alike,) the "time and place are always subject to her appointment.

I have just said, and I cannot too often iterate the assertion, that to the old bachelor's anti-connubial bias, may, and must be traced the growth of that gorgon evil-old maidism; and so acutely alive do I feel to the dangers of depopulation, (maugre the Malthusian prophecy,) that I vehemently call upon " Mrs. Betsy Brindle" + to present a petition to the Commons House of Parlia

* Or rejecter, as her high pleasure may decree it.

A rabbit like, and motherly sort of woman, who according to a late

ment, praying (lest the kingdom be unpeopled) that a tax, and that a heavy one, be forthwith levied upon all bachelors between the ages of 25 and 50, those being, in my opinion, the intermediate years, or jours d'arbitrage, in a man's life, that belong de jure to womankind. I have chalked out these nubile and specific lustrums for marital husbandry,* as on the creature man attaining the first-named period I consider him " in the May of youth and bloom of lustihood," and on rounding the half-hundred, as (peut-être) "for ladies' love unfit;" consequently up to 25 I would not clip his wing, and after 50 I would most assuredly make it felo-de-se to commit matrimony.

To prove how especially hors d'odeur old bachelors have been in every age and in all countries, Athenæus says, (speaking of one of the Greek festivals,)" It seems to have been instituted to give the fair sex an opportunity of avenging themselves upon all those who had neglected them; at its celebration they were empowered to lay hold on all OLD BACHELORS they could find, to drag them” (in their birth-day suits) "round an altar, and beat them soundly all the time they were doing so with the palms of their hands.” There, ye living Sagittaries, think of that and tremble, and bless your trine stars that you did not vegetate (for live you never do) in the days of the worthy Athenæus.

morning paper,

"was safely delivered of her thirtieth child."-Lord deliver us from such a deliverance !

* I somewhat questioned the fitness of this expression for the meaning I had in view, but on consulting my friend Walker, 1 find it rendered (with other uses) "care of domestic affairs."

Feeling deeply imbued with the momentousness of the question at issue, I have for some time past dedicated my attention to a branch of the subject, that is not, I think, sufficiently understood; albeit, the "children of men," (more especially, the mermaids and Minotaurs) are vitally interested in its consideration—I allude to the transmigration of souls.

It little concerns either the erudite or unlearned reader, to become acquainted with the means, occult or otherwise, that I have employed, to arrive at the important knowledge about to be revealed; sufficient for his or her curiosity is the proffered guarantee, that the following exposition is stamped with the seal of indubitability.

It is not without the most pleasing augury of the influential sway my discoveries are fated to exercise over the minds of the rising generation, and the consequent death-blow that I am dealing against old maidism and bachelorship, that I proceed to dispense the information I have acquired, for the gratuitous benefit of all mammas and papas in petto; and any mortal masculine or feminine, that after this cautionary exposé, wickedly, and with malice prepense, dieth unwed, richly merits the retributory punition in store for them.

Aided by the doctrine of Psychomancy, I have been enabled to ascertain to a dead certainty, what becomes of the souls (!) of old maids and old bachelors after they die, (although Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, and the learned Johannes Damascenus, are great sticklers for their being born without any,) and the result of my divination is, that they are, beyond a doubt, subjected to the