City Sketchet. 457 



lion may appear,) that the attainment of capital was not originally 

 contemplated as the end and aim of marriage. Are the cardinal 

 virtues to go for nothing'? are the domestic qualities at a discount? 

 What puppy shall tell me that all sentiment is gone to the dogs'? 

 What periwig-pated fellow shall presume to doubt the existence of 

 ties "? Who has not heard of 



I 



A heart richer than Plutus* mine, 

 Dearer than gold ?' ' 



Why, therefore, should rhino be potential wherefore bullion para- 

 mount ? 



Unfortunately, however (and this was the blighting part of the 

 business), the newly-created Mrs. Cobb was no better provided for 

 on the mental, moral, and amiable score than she was furnished with 

 the secular; and hence her temper and her temporalities were 

 equally despicable. To say that Mr. Drinkwater Cobb was hen- 

 pecked were to go to the poultry-yard for an illustration, which might 

 be more fitly sought in a menagerie. He was vulture-torn ; he was 

 condor-clawed. St. George had an easy task cut out for him ; he 

 had only a dragon to deal with, and it was most probably a green 

 bne. Mrs. Cobb was nothing like that colour ; it was he, alas ! who 

 had been green. 



That Mr. Drinkwater Cobb survived this calamity is only another 

 evidence of the partial >and unfair dealing, which has been so often 

 attributed to the " grim feature." He wanted very much to be off 

 to'that bourne from whence no traveller returns ; but death would not 

 book his inside place. What was life henceforth to him ? He would 

 not have given a pinch of his own snuff for it. His comforts had been 

 long ago frightfully abridged. The cheerful glass and the nocturnal 

 pipe were withdrawn. He neither soaked nor smoked his clay. 

 What pleasure could he derive from the domestic hearth, when the 

 house was too hot to hold him ? What happiness from a better half, 

 from whom he could obtain no quarter ? Is it a wonder, then, that 

 he would rather have been under the ribs of death than under his 

 own living rib ? I should think not. 



Must it be inferred that Mr. Drinkwater Cobb bore this heavy 

 affliction with patience ? No, that were a wrong inference. Some- 

 times, indeed, he asked himself a few questions, which he could by no 

 means satisfactorily answer. For example : why should he, figura- 

 tively to speak, be under the thumb of a woman whom he could 

 twist round his little finger ? Why should the expenses of his ward- 

 robe be audited with so strict a regard to the economical principle, 

 at the same time that his wife was " titivated" out in the first style of 

 fashion ? Wherefore must he be always on the domestic side of the 

 street-door, and she so frequently (but he did not complain of that) 

 " traipsing" about the metropolis? And lastly, why should he be 

 made an honorary member of the Temperance Society, whilst Mrs. 

 Cobb had the spasms every day after dinner? 



Mrs. Cobb, doubtless, had been no gainer by the practical resolu- 

 tions of these questions, but for one circumstance. The physical 

 would afford no aid to the mental Cobb. He possessed energy of 



