and he wishes for her acquaintance; he next ventures a letter. Time and place are appointed for a conversation; and though the lover be unable to support himself, and still less a wife, or his rank be above any thought of such an alliance, still will the "beggar girl" plainly ask him, " Will you marry me?” If the gallant finds the proposal against his liking, the girl, in concert with her mother, tries every art possible, and often the two lovers are surprised together by the parent and other witnesses. Then, the dupe has no other choice than to pay a large sum of money fixed by law, to embrace matrimony, or go to the galleys.

At VENICE a very singular and grand ceremony takes place every year on Ascension Day, and is called the marriage of the Doge of Venice to the sea. The Doge, the senators, foreiga ambassabors, and great numbers of the nobility in their black robes, walk to the sea-side, where a magnificent vessel, called the Busentoro, is waiting to receive them. They then proceed about two miles up the Laguna; when arrived at a certain place, they all stop. The Doge then rises from his chair of state, goes to the side of the vessel, and throws a gold ring into the sea, repeating the following words: "We espouse thee, O Sea! as a token of our perpetual dominion over thee." At the close of this part of the ceremony all the galleys fire their guns, and the music continues to play. On

their voyage back they stop at a small island, where they go to church, and high mass is there celebrated. They then return in the same order they at first set out. We may justly say with the sacred scriptures, "How are the mighty fallen!" An English frigate now would make the maritime power of Venice tremble.

The girls of pleasure are, says Mr. Trapp, a class of beings who receive the protection of government. They belong to the entertainments of the Carnival, which could not do well without. them. Most part of these unfortunate females are sold by their parents in their tender infancy.— These make a regular agreement with lovers, or dealers in virginity. It is done before a notary public, stands valid in every court of justice, and specifies a time when Miss is to be yielded up, upon paying a stipulated sum. The usual price is from one to two hundred zechins. This, however, is a mere pretence, as their parents keep the money, and leave their daughter in a brothel.These nymphs observe most strictly their fasts, go daily to mass, and have their special tutelar saint, under whose auspices they exercise their profession with a good conscience. Such is the hypocrisy and outrage of decency, that the courtezans have often the figure of the Virgin in their bed-rooms, before whose face they draw a curtain, previously to sleeping with their gallants.

SPAIN.

THE ladies of this country possess as many ecclesiastical and civil rights as any country in Europe; but neither their happiness nor their virtues appear to increase with their privileges. In the Spanish dominions females are reckoned marriageable at twelve, and males at fourteen; and nothing is more common in this country than for a husband and his wife's ages together not to amount to thirty. Congeniality of sentiment and disposition are never consulted in their matches; and marriage is entered into with as little reflec-> tion as if it were only to remain for a single day. Notwithstanding the Spanish law fixes the period of majority at twenty-five, and till that age the consent of parents is necessary to constitute a legal marriage, yet this salutary provision is rendered nugatory, as a boy of fourteen and a girl of twelve years old, who long to be united in indissoluble bonds, can demand, as the law prescribes, the consent of their parents. If the morals, education, or manners, of either of the parties be deemed exceptionable, the parents have a right to refuse their consent; but this refusal, which, in another country, would be sufficient to render any anterior contract null and void, here

only opens a door for a vexatious and scandalous process between a child and its parents; and the law, so far from aiding the parental authority, forces them to furnish a marriage portion to their disobedient children, according to their circumstances, and likewise to pay the expences of the suit for obtaining the same. The only plea admitted in those courts for a parent withholding his consent to the marriage of his child is inferiority of birth; but, if he fail to establish this point, neither the bad conduct of the party, disparity of age, nor inequality in point of fortune, will prevent the tribunal from ordering the immediate celebration of the marriage. In a country like Spain, where hereditary greatness is alone held in estimation, it is easy to perceive the ruinous consequences and implacable hatred which must necessarily flow from this just but impolitic law.

When the parties declare in the presence of a priest that they take each other for husband and wife, neither the non-publication of banns, nor the opposition of parents, can prevent the marriage being legal. The civil code indeed, in this respect, is opposite to the canonical law, and proscribes those sorts of contracts; but, as they inflict no penalty upon the offending parties, and as parents can only seek redress by a tedious prosecution, they have hardly an alternative between

pardoning or finally throwing off their offending offspring.

Domestic unhappiness, so evident in this country, is, we think, justly attributable to too early marriages. The children, who have continually before their eyes the infidelity of their parents, and the intrigues of their mother, soon learn to despise every moral obligation; and thus vice, becoming hereditary as it were, is transmitted from generation to generation. The blind protection too afforded by the Spanish laws to females, in opposition to their husbands, is another cause of the unhappiness of marriages. No being can be more unfortunate than a Spanish husband whose wife is jealous, dissolute, or peevish. If tormented by the first of these passions, she readily finds access to the civil and ecclesiastical authority, which usually believes every thing that a heated and angry imagination can suggest. The most common complaints are, that the husband keeps a mistress; that he spends all his fortune in dissipation, while she and her family are in want of the common comforts of life, &c. No proof is required of these or similar assertions. The husband in such cases, according to the rank he holds in society, is either cited to appear, in order that he may receive a severe reprimand, or he is, without further inquiry, thrown into prison, till his wife solicit his enlargement. If the husband complain