Our law code would, were its injunctions only carried out in private life, effect most extraordinary reformations in our customs and habits. The most singular innovations in our tastes and opinions would spring out of the statutes. It was only a few days ago where a man sought reparation for the greatest injury one could inflict on another, the great argument of the defendant's counsel was based on the circumstance that the plaintiff and his wife had not been proved to have lived happily together, except on the testimony of their servants. Great stress was laid upon this fact by the advocate; and such an impression did it make on the minds of the jury, that the damages awarded were a mere trifle. Now, only reflect for a moment on the absurdity of such a plea, and think how many persons there are whose quiet and unobtrusive lives are unnoticed beyond the precincts of their own door—nay, how many estimable and excellent people who live less for the world than for themselves, and although, probably for this very reason, but little exposed to the casualty in question, would yet deem the injustice great that placed them beyond the pale of reparation because they had been homely and domestic.

Civilisation and the march of mind are fine things, and doubtless it is a great improvement that the criminal is better lodged, and fed, in the prison, than the hungry labourer in the workhouse. It is an admirable code that makes the debt of honour, the perhaps swindled losses of the card-table, an imperative obligation, while the money due to toiling, working industry, may be evaded or escaped from. Still, it is a bold step to invade the privacy of domestic life, to subvert the happiness we deem most national, and to suggest that the world has no respect for, nor the law no belief in, that peaceful course in life, which, content with its own blessings, seeks neither the gaze of the crowd, nor the stare of fashion. Under the present system, a man must appear in society like a candidate on the hustings—profuse in protestations of his happiness and redolent of smiles; he must lead forth his wife like a blooming dÉbutante, and, while he presents her to his friends, must display, by every endeavour in his power, the angelic happiness of their state. The coram publico endearments, so much sneered at by certain fastidious people, are now imperative; and, however secluded your habits, however retiring your tastes, it is absolutely necessary you should appear a certain number of times every year before the world, to assure that kind-hearted and considerate thing, how much conjugal felicity you are possessed of.

It is to no purpose that your man-servant and your maid-servant, and even the stranger within your gates, have seen you in the apparent enjoyment of domestic happiness: it is the crowd of a ball-room must testify in your favour—it is the pit of a theatre—it is the company of a steam-boat, or the party on a rail-road, you must adduce in evidence. They are the best—they are the only judges of what you, in the ignorance of your heart, have believed a secret for your own bosom.

Your conduct within-doors is of little moment, so that your bearing without satisfy the world. What a delightful picture of universal happiness will England then present to the foreigner who visits our salons! With what ecstasy will he contemplate the angelic felicity of conjugal life! Instead of the indignant coldness of a husband, offended by some casual levity of his wife, he will now redouble his attentions, and take an opportunity of calling the company to witness that they live together like turtle-doves. He knows not how soon, if he mix much in fashionable life, their testimony may avail him; and the loving smile he throws his spouse across the supper-table is worth three thousand pounds before any jury in Middlesex.

Romance writers will now lose one stronghold of sentiment. Love in a cottage will possess as little respect as it ever did attraction for the world. The pier at Brighton, a Gravesend steamer, Hyde Park on a Sunday, will be the appropriate spheres for the interchange of conjugal vows. No absurd notions of solitude will then hold sway. Alas! how little prophetic spirit is there in poetry! But a few years ago, and one of our sirens of song said,

Not a word of it! The appropriate place is amid the glitter of jewels, the glare of lamps, the crush of fashion, and the din of conversation. The private boxes of the opera are even, too secluded, and your happiness is no more genuine, until recognised by society, than is an exchequer bill with the mere signature of Lord Monteagle.

The benefits of this system will be great. No longer will men be reduced to the cultivation of those meeker virtues that grace and adorn life; no more will they study those accomplishments that make home happy and their hearth cheerful. A winter at Paris and a box at the VariÉtÉs will be more to the purpose. Scribe's farces will teach them more important lessons, and they will obtain an instructive example in the last line of a vaudeville, where an injured husband presents himself at the fall of the curtain, and, as he bows to the audience, embraces both his wife and her lover, exclaiming, “Maintenant je suis heureux—ma femme—mon meilleur ami!” He then may snap his fingers at Charles Phillips and Adolphus: he has not only proved his affection to his wife, but his confidence in his friend. Let him lay the damages at ten thousand, and, with a counsel that can cry, he'll get every shilling of the money.