In the absence of that finely-adjusted balance of power which ought to be found in the state of marriage, it becomes a nice question, whether less evil results from an overstretched domination on the part of the husband, or from his due submission or subjugation to an authority exercised by her, and carried farther than is generally deemed consistent with the delicacy of her sex, or the situation in which she is placed. Connected with this question is that which comprises the comparative evil arising from a superabundance or deficiency of the intellectual powers of the wife. We are too well aware of the uselessness, as well as the impracticability, of solving such speculative questions, to say a single word on either side of the vexed argument to which they have given rise; but we will be within our province, and probably not beyond the wishes of our readers, if we lay before them a _case of real life_, involving a solution of the question in one exemplary instance, where the "grey mare" is not only found to be the "better horse," but where, by her powers of judicious leading, she saves not only herself but her partner from the dangers of a rough road and a precipitous course. In those good days of old Scotland, when the corporation hall formed the theatre wherein was enacted the great play (comedy, if you please) of "Burgh Ambition," the influence of petticoat power extended its secret workings behind the green curtain, and often regulated all the actions of the performers in a manner which was not only totally concealed from the spectators, but even from the moving puppets themselves. In one instance--that to which we have referred--this secret authority transpired, and in a manner so ludicrous that it deserves to be recorded. The incorporation of Dyers and Scourers of P---- (at the time of which we speak a considerable fraternity) had a deacon and boxmaster; the former named Murdoch Waldie, and the latter Andrew Todd. Their names still figure in the old books of the corporation, if these are not gone astray; and there is, or was, an entry in these same books, connected with the reign of the two worthies, which, illustrative and probative as it is of our story, we shall have occasion to lay before our readers. Well, to proceed in historical order, the worthy boxmaster had been married for a number of years. He might be about fifty years of age, was of small stature, very bland and affable in his manners, of an easy disposition, but, withal, as ambitious of fame as any of the aspirants for office in his corporation. Endowed by nature with very inadequate powers of judgment, he experienced no want of the powers of speech, which was as fluent as a shallow mind could make it; and he had, besides, a species of humour about him, which owed its existence rather to the simplicity and _bonhommie_ of his nature, than to the more ordinary source of a perception of the ludicrous. As almost every want is remedied by some