bability of universal ridicule. Extinguish the mercenary motive, and good would be effected. "Were not beauty venal, it would not prostitute itself to what it abhorred, either for a long, or a short period; but where the venality exists, it would be unnecessary to contend that it is wisely limited in its power of setting itself up for sale.
Mr. Shelley says "Law pretends even to govern the indisciplinable wanderings of passion, to put fetters on the clearest deductions of reason, and, by appeals to the will, to subdue the involuntary affections of our nature." In the instance selected for the illustration of this description of the law, it does no such thing. In too many instances, I confess, laws have put fetters on the deductions of reason; but in the institution of marriage, I can perceive no such manacling;—nor do they pretend to govern the passions; because it is quite evident they cannot govern them. I do not understand how "appeals to the will," are to subdue "our involuntary affections." Laws appeal to nothing; still less would they appeal to the will—and least of all would they appeal to our wills, against our involuntary affections. General laws are meant to regulate our conduct to each other, within certain rules; that the
