30 bachelors' blessedness 



honourable bachelor in the kingdom ; and, with your permission, 

 I thus publicly enter my protest against it. Strange that a man 

 who can write at all, should not find something to write that would 

 be less offensive to a large and respectable portion of the community, 

 and less untrue ! And strange, too, that the editor of the work in 

 which it appeared, (he certainly was not a bachelor,) should not 

 have expressed either to the author or to the public, or both, his en- 

 tire disapprobation of the sentiments expressed ! But no ! there 

 the passage stands with all its wretched absurdity and falsehood ! 

 Just examine it quietly, if you can : — " The pace of a bachelor is 

 sober." That may be very true: there is no harm in that. But 

 what comes next would seem to insinuate that he had not a grain of 

 common sense : — " he would hardly mend it to get out of a storm, 

 *^ though the storm were to threaten a deluge." Tlfat I deny ! Ac- 

 customed as he is to depend more upon his own exertions than upon 

 those of others for his comfort and enjoyment, it is a glaring absurd- 

 ity to suppose that he would not make any necessary exertion to 

 prevent his being drenched with rain or blown heels over head by a 

 storm. Now the next sentence is equally absurd and untrue : — 

 " But shew him a woman who is entitled to the compliment of his 

 "hat, and he will shuffle on as if he was walking for a wager." 

 This would seem to indicate that a woman could make him do 

 what " storm" and " deluge" could not. Now does not the whole 

 of a bachelor's existence prove that this statement is utterly false ? 

 Does it not shew most clearly that the " fair charmer" has no such 

 powerful influence over his mind as this very discriminating writer 

 imagines ? But next comes what is far worse still. This audacious 

 scribbler would fain have you believe that a bachelor is destitute of 

 every thing like intellectual culture. Think of this : — " His house- 

 " keeper or laundress he can talk to without reserve, but any other 

 "of the sex, whose condition is above a useful dependent, is his 

 "terror." What strange nonsense is this! His terror indeed! 

 What is it, I would ask, which gives a man confidence and ease 

 when conversing with a woman (or any one else,) of a cultivated 

 mind ? Is it not the conviction of at least equal vigour of mind 

 and extent of information ? And who can reasonably be expected 

 to possess these in equal degree with a bachelor ? He is in general 

 less engaged in the bustle of active life, and has consequently more 

 time to devote to the improvement of his mind. His quiet is dis- 

 turbed by no wife's importunities or frequent scoldings — no milliners' 

 bills ! He slumbers peacefully and rises cheerful. He is never 

 interrupted at the very moment when a glorious thought has just 



