If Care steal amang us he's narrowly watch'd, By a smile or a squeeze of the hand he's dispatch'd; Or the arm of a friend should the stout villain meet, One blink of true love lays him dead at your feet. Then fill up a glass to the absent and dear-- May their lives be serene as their breasts are sincere; And to crown our true bliss, let us give, ere we part-- May we have in our arms whom we love in our heart. _London Weekly Review._ * * * * * THE SKETCH-BOOK. No. XLVII. MATCHES IN TEENS. "To marry!--Why, every man plays the fool once in his life--but to marry is playing the fool all one's life long."--CONGREVE. There is something so satisfactory in knowing at once the limit of your fortunes--in making yourself secure in the first instance of that happiness to which all your exertions are directed,--which is in fact the end and aim of your worldly existence, and of all your worldly toils--the enjoyment of domestic peace and love;--in quenching that restless, burning anxiety, which is ever busy within the bosom of the young and the aspiring. Marrying early, in fact, is taking time by the forelock, and leading your future destinies after you, instead of suffering yourself to be led and tossed about by them,--it is tearing away the black veil from the brow of futurity, and perusing all her lineaments in her own despite. It is [he continued with an oratorical attitude] building your fate upon a rock--" "Ah!" I exclaimed, "stop there--that _rock_ is so commonplace."