THE

WEEKLY ENTERTAINER.

For MONDAY, October 20, 1783.

REFLECTIONS on the ORIGIN and INTENT of MARRIAGE.

MA

AN was created as a focial, not a folitary creature, and the omniscient Power that formed him for that purpofe, has not only implanted in him a natural tendency and inclination to the fociety of his fellow-creatures, but has fixed another latent quality in his heart, the effects of which are seen every moment, though the caufe is fometimes difallowed, which univerfally pleads for the participation of his gladness; and will not fuffer him to enjoy any thing truly 'till a friend is rejoiced with the knowledge of it.

It is on this first principle that community is founded. Man finds it neceffary to share with another the joys his own private Occurrences bring him intimacy fucceeds to a mutual confidence of this kind, and to intimacy friendship: fuch is the first affociation among men ; and from a number of fuch affociations, mutually inclined to extend the bounds of the relation, rifes community. What gave origin to the general union, ftill keeps, however, its priftine rank and dignity: friendship allows focial benevolence a high place in the lift of the good and useful effects to which it gives birth; but it keeps itfelf at an awful distance above, and would think the man guilty of treafon to its nature, who attempted to confound it with the other, or to raise fo humble an imitator to its level. 2 Z

VOL. II. 42.

On fo natural, fo neceffary, fo amiable a bafis, is friendchip founded; fo juft are its pretenfions to our private acknowledge ments, and to the esteem of the world. So defirable, indeed, is it in its nature, that it were fcarce to live as men without it; fo intimately and effentially is it connected with our happiness of every kind, that he whofe furly foul denies it a place, is mistaken when he fuppofes he is capable of true fatisfaction.

That man may make a happy friendship with man, is hourly evident; and that fuch friendship may continue inviolable, is poffible but it is with woman that we are formed for carrying this amiable affociation to its utmost height; and it is with woman alone that nature has contrived that it should, and that reafon affures us it will, be lafting.

Men have ten thousand purfuits and views in which they interfere with one another; ten thousand objects are formed equally affecting both, and for equally engaging the intere the wishes, nay, the very paflions of either; and where the clafh, what is to become of friendship? The fuccefs of one the two in an attempt, instead of giving to the other that jo which friendship exacts, fhall often feparate them for ever; or common mistress shall draw their fwords against each other: breafts.

Whoever understands the leaft part of the value of friend fhip, would with it to last for ever: whoever knows the le human nature, will fee that a duration of this kind, in fuch incmacy, is not to be expected. Where the fame kind of waise, indeed, is commenced with a perfon of the other fex, there is one of all thefe caufcs to threaten its diffolution; there are to views that can interfere, no purfuits that can create animouty e rivalfhip the thoughts are as much united as the inclinations, and the interefts as connected as the hearts.

Reafon dictates to us to feek the perpetuity of that in with we have delight; and the fame reafon tells us, that the fum and fource, as it were, of all delights, is friendship: what then does it point out to us, but to engage our hearts where a mutual warmth is moft fure to meet them; and where, fo long as virtue influences cur actions, no accident can part them? Reaser, therefore, as well as inclination, points out to us to take to o bofoms one felect acquaintance, and to engage our hearts where ties of a tender kind will endear the union. Nature, who, in an amazing manner, keeps up the proportion between the fexes in the human fpecies, tells us, by that lafting miracle, that this is her intent, who has provided one of each fex for either: forms the union between confenting hearts; and human pohty, conícious of the frailties even of the beft of the indica

whom

whom it connects and regulates, adds a tie which makes that union lafting and indiffoluble.

. Such is the origin, fuch the intent, and fuch the effect of marriage; an inftitution under which woman becomes as certainly (unless vice and folly prevent) the fupreme happiness of him who poffeffes her, as, under the unrestrained licentioufness of the libertine, she is the ruin of him by whom the was herfelf undone. There is not a more unhappy mistake, in the economy of the generality of the world, than that universal opinion of the diffolute, that the pleasure of woman is in the variety.What is love in its molt exalted form, in the friendship I have been recommending, defcends, under these circumstances, into a paffion which we pay the brutes an ill compliment when we fuppofe we enjoy it in common with them; "only the brute of reafon has it," and he fcarce ever fails to meet from it his deftruction.

Pleasure is unquestionably the end we have in view in all purfuits of this kind, and it is rational and laudable that it should be fo; but nothing is more certain than that those who set out in the fearch of it on thefe wild principles, never find it. I defy the most fuccessful libertine to tell me, that he ever once thought the purchafe, in the morning, worth the price, or the pains it had coft him over night; or that he even efteemed the face he had deified the day before, other than distasteful, and even contemptible, upon the morrow. This is the natural, the neceffary effect, of taking the perfon without the inclinations; of rushing on love, unconnected with friendship: on the other hand, I am apt to believe, that he who had first won the heart of the object of his adoration, has never failed to find that additional charm converting joy into rapture; ennobling friendfhip with what is truly, properly, and only love.

An ACCOUNT of the late EARTHQUAKES in CALABRIA, SICILY, &c. Communicated to the ROYAL SOCIETY by Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON.

TH

[Continued from page 346.]

HE mortality here, by the late earthquake of the 5th of February, correfponds with the apparent degree of damage done to the town, and does not exceed one hundred and twenty-fix. As it happened about noon, and came on gently, the people of Reggio had time to efcape: whereas, as I

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have

have often remarked, the fhock in the unhappy plain was as inftantaneous as it was violent and deftructive. Every building was levelled to the ground, and the mortality was general, and in proportion to the apparent deftruction of the buildings.

Reggio was destroyed by an earthquake before the Marfan war, and having been rebuilt by Julius Cæfar, was called Reggio Julio. Part of the wall ftill remains, and is called the jolian Tower it is built of huge maffes of ftone, without cement. Near St. Peruto, between Reggio and the Cape Sparti vento, there are the remains of a foundery, his prefent catholic majefty, when king of Naples, having worked filver mine in that neighbourhood; which were foon abandoned, the proft not having anfwered the expence.

There are fome towns in the neighbourhood that ftill retain the Greek language. About fifteen years ago, when I made the tour of Sicily, I landed at Spartivento, in Calabria Ultra, and went to Bova, where I found that Greek was the only language in ufe in that diftrict. On the 14th of May I left Reggio, and was obliged (the wind being contrary) to have my boats towed by oxen to the Punta del Pezzolo, oppofite Meffina, from whence the current wafted us with great expedition indeed int the port of Mefina. The port and the town, in its half-raised ftate by moon-light, was ftriatly picturefque. Certain it is, that the force of the earthquake (though very violent) was nothing at Mefina and Reggio to what it was in the plain. I vifited the town of Meffina the next morning, and found that all the beautiful front of what is called the Palazzata, which extended in very lofty uniform buildings, in the fhape of a crefcent, had been in fome parts, totally ruined, in others lefs; and that there were cracks in the earth of the quay, a part of which had funk above a foot below the level of the fea. These crack were probably occafioned by the horizontal motion of the earth, in the fame manner as the pieces of the plain were detached into the ravines at Oppido and Terra Nuova; for the fea at the edge of the quay is fo very deep, that the largest ships can lic along-fide; confequently the earth, in its violent commotion, wanting fupport on the fide next the fea, began to crack and feparate; and as where there is one crack, there are generally others lefs confiderable in parallel lines to the first, I fuppofe the great damage done to the houfes neareft the quay, has been owing to fuch cracks under their foundations. Many houfes are still standing, and fome little damaged, even in the lower part of Meffina; but in the upper and more clevated fituations, the earthquakes feem to have had fcarcely any effect, as I particularly remarked. A frong inftance of the force of the earth

quake

quake having been many degrees lefs here than in the plain of Calabria, is, that the convent of Santa Barbara, and that called the Noviziato de Gefuiti, both on an elevated fituation, have not a crack in them, and that the clock of the latter has not been deranged in the leaft by the earthquakes that have afflicted this country for four months paft, and which ftill continue in fome degree. Befides, the mortality at Meffina does not exceed feven hundred out of upwards of thirty thoufand, the fuppofed population of this city at the time of the firft earthquake, which circumftance is conclufive. I found that fome houfes, nay, a ftreet or two, at Medina, were inhabited, and fome thops open in them; but the generality of the inhabitants are in tents and barracks, which, having been placed in three or four diffe rent quarters, in fields and open fpots near the town, but at a great distance one from the other, must be very inconvenient for a mercantile town; and unless great care is taken to keep the streets or the barracks, and the barracks themselves, clean, I fear that the unfortunate Mefina will be doomed to fuffer a fresh calamity from epidemical diforders, during the heat of the fummer. Indeed, many parts of the plain of Calabria feem to be in the fame alarming fituation, particularly owing to the lakes, which are forming from the courfe of rivers having been stopped, fome of which, as I faw myself, were already green, and tending to putrefaction. I could not help remarking here, that the nuns, who likewife live in barracks, were conftantly walking about, under the tuition of their confeffor, and feemed gay, and to enjoy the liberty the earthquake had afforded them; and I made the fame obfervation with respect to school-boys at Reggio fo that in my journal, which I wrote in hafte, and from whence I have as haftily transcribed the imperfect account I fend you, the remark ftands thus: "Earthquakes particularly pleafing to nuns and fchool boys."

Out of the cracks on the quay, it is faid, that during the earthquakes fire had been seen to iffae, as many I fpoke with attefted; but there are no vifible figus of it, and I am perfuaded it was no more than, as in Calabria, a vapour charged with electrical fire, or a kind of inflammable air.A curious circumftance happened here alfo, to prove that animals can remain long alive without food. Two mules, belonging to the duke of Belvifo, remained under a heap of ruins, one of them twentytwo, and the other twenty-three days: they would not eat for fome days, but drank water plentifully, and are now quite recovered. There are numberlefs inftances of dogs remaining many days in the fame fituation; and a hen, belonging to the British viceconful at Meffina, that had been clotely fhut up under the ruins

of