Lord Brougham is to this extent a Malthusian, that he thinks minors ought to be, in some way or other, protected against the danger of an over-hasty marriage. His lordship's sympathies are strongly enlisted in behalf of the youthful aristocracy, more especially of the male sex; and he seems to regard Scotland as an infinitely more dangerous place of residence for a young man of rank and fortune than Paris or Vienna. In the latter places, the morals may be sapped, but personal liberty is preserved; in the former, the heir-expectant is not safe, for at any moment he is liable to be trapped like vermin. The red-haired daughters of the Gael, thinks Lord Brougham, are ever on the watch for the capture of some plump and unsuspecting squire. Penniless lads and younger sons may be insured at a reasonable rate against the occurrence of the matrimonial calamity, but wary indeed must be the eldest son who can escape the _perfervidum ingenium Scotarum_. This is, no doubt, an amusing picture, and the leading idea might be worked out to great advantage in a novel or a farce; but, unfortunately, it is not drawn from the usual occurrences of life. Isolated cases of hasty marriages may, no doubt, have taken place, but our memory does not supply us with a single instance of a clandestine marriage having been contracted under such circumstances as the above. In Scotland, a stranger may, for the base purposes of seduction, pledge his solemn faith to a woman, and so obtain possession of her person. If he does so, the law most justly interferes to prevent him resiling from his contract, and declares that he is as completely bound by the simple interchange of consenting vows, as though he had solicited and received the more formal benediction of the priest. Will any man gravely maintain that in such a case the tenor of the law is hurtful to morals, or prejudicial to the interests of society? Even if the woman should happen to be of inferior rank in life to the intending seducer, is she on that account to be consigned to shame, and the man permitted to violate his engagement, and escape the consequences of his dastardly fraud? In England, it is notorious to every one, and the daily press teems with instances, that seduction under promise of marriage is a crime of ordinary occurrence. We call it a crime, for though it may not be so branded by statute, seduction under promise of marriage is as foul an act as can well be perpetrated by man. In Scotland, seduction under such circumstances is next to impossible. The Scottish people are not without their vices, but seduction is not one of these; and we firmly believe that the existing law of marriage has operated here as an effectual check to that license which is far too common in England. Would it be wise, then, to remove that check, when no flagrant abuse, no common deviation even from social distinctions, can be urged against it? If seduction does not prevail in Scotland, still less do hasty and unequal marriages.