FROM SIR WILLIAM DEVEREUX.

'Sdeath, nephew Morton,--but I won't scold thee, though thou deservest
it. Let me see, thou art now scarce twenty, and thou talkest of
marriage, which is the exclusive business of middle age, as familiarly
as "girls of thirteen do of puppy-dogs." Marry!--go hang thyself
rather. Marriage, my dear boy, is at the best a treacherous proceeding;
and a friend--a true friend--will never counsel another to adopt it
rashly. Look you: I have had experience in these matters; and, I think,
the moment a woman is wedded some terrible revolution happens in her
system; all her former good qualities vanish, /hey presto/! like eggs
out of a conjuror's box; 'tis true they appear on t' other side of the
box, the side turned to other people, but for the poor husband they are
gone forever. Ods fish, Morton, go to! I tell thee again that I have
had experience in these matters which thou never hast had, clever as
thou thinkest thyself. If now it were a good marriage thou wert about
to make; if thou wert going to wed power, and money, and places at
court,--why, something might be said for thee. As it is, there is no
excuse--none. And I am astonished how a boy of thy sense could think of
such nonsense. Birth, Morton, what the devil does that signify so long
as it is birth in another country? A foreign damsel, and a Spanish
girl, too, above all others! 'Sdeath, man, as if there was not
quicksilver enough in the English women for you, you must make a
mercurial exportation from Spain, must you! Why, Morton, Morton, the
ladies in that country are proverbial. I tremble at the very thought of
it. But as for my consent, I never will give it,--never; and though I
threaten thee not with disinheritance and such like, yet I do ask
something in return for the great affection I have always borne thee;
and I make no doubt that thou wilt readily oblige me in such a trifle as