will read such a lecture to my husband, that he will never let me go abroad.’ ‘Oh no, my lady,’ said the Marquess, ‘he must not debar you of that liberty, provided you never go abroad but when you go out like the snaile; who seldom stirs abroad but whilst that blessing, the dew of heaven, is upon the earth, that she may gather benefit; and by her greatest care, and equal management, still carries her house upon her back.’ ‘Oh, my lord,’ said she, ‘if I should goe abroad like the snaile, I should carry not only a house upon my back, but horns upon my forehead!’ ‘No, lady,’ said the Marquess; ‘though she pockes at you, yet they are not horns; the snaile can soon draw them in if you touch them, which no horned creature can perform; but she carries them in her head to teach you what you should provide, and bear in mind against you go to hay-making.’ “But the Marquess fearing he had a little displeased the young couple, he thought to make amends by the following, though somewhat equivocal, discourse:--‘Sir,’ said he to the bridegroom, ‘you know I have compared your wife unto a building, and I much commend your choice, for a goodly house should not be chosen for the smoothness or whiteness of the wall--for such a one may be but a dairy-house or a milk-house; nor according to the colours or paintings of the outside--for such a one may be but a tavern or an alehouse; but if I see a house that is lofty and stately built, and hath fair windows, though the outside be but rough-cast, yet I am sure there are goodly rooms therein.’ “And so,” adds Bayly, “both parties were well pleased.” For what the Marquess meant to express by this string of similes was, that although the lady was much disfigured by the smallpox, yet her fine expressive eyes, intellectual forehead, noble carriage, and cultivated mind, amply atoned for accidental disfigurement; and left a balance in her favour which no outward appearance could disparage or conceal. These <g>anecdotes</g> of an octogenarian, however unsuited to modern ideas, and of rather doubtful merit on the score of compliment, are characteristic of times when the court-jester was still thought a necessary appendage to a great household; and when riddle and allegory were the daily vehicles of political wit and private satire, as well as the legitimate promoters of loyalty, mirth, and good-fellowship. That they were considered by Dr. Bayly himself--a grave and learned man--as reflecting honour upon the Marquess who uttered them, and creditable to his own taste and industry in transmitting them to posterity, is a proof that, agreeably to the taste of the age, they were fully entitled to the distinction of ‘apophthegms.’