should be a warm and powerful union of soul, to which I was yet totally
a stranger.

During my absence from town, a letter was written to Mr. Garrick,
informing him that an advantageous marriage (for my mother considered
Mr. Robinson as the legal heir to a handsome fortune, together with an
estate in South Wales) had induced me to relinquish my theatrical
prospects; and a few weeks after, meeting Mr. Garrick in the street, he
congratulated me on my union, and expressed the warmest wishes for my
future happiness.

The day after our marriage, Mr. Robinson proposed dining at
Henley-upon-Thames. My mother would not venture in the phaeton, and Mr.
Balack occupied the place which was declined by her. On taking his seat
between Robinson and myself, he remarked, "Were you married, I should
think of the holy anathema,--Cursed is he that parteth man and wife." My
countenance was suddenly suffused with the deepest scarlet; I cautiously
concealed the effect which his remarks had produced, and we proceeded on
our journey.

Descending a steep hill, betwixt Maidenhead Thicket and Henley, we met a
drove of oxen. The comic opera of the "Padlock" was then in high
celebrity, and our facetious little friend a second time disconcerted me
by saying, in the words of Don Diego, "I don't like oxen, I wish they
had been a flock of sheep!" I now began to discover the variety of
unpleasant sensations which, even undesignedly, must arise from
conversation, in the presence of those who were clandestinely married. I
also trembled with apprehension, lest anything disgraceful should attach
itself to my fame, by being seen under doubtful circumstances in the
society of Mr. Robinson.