Marriage enlarges the Scene of our Happiness and Miseries.  A Marriage of Love is pleasant; a Marriage of Interest easie; and a Marriage, where both meet, happy.  A happy Marriage has in it all the Pleasures of Friendship, all the Enjoyments of Sense and Reason, and indeed, all the Sweets of Life.  Nothing is a greater Mark of a degenerate and vicious Age, than the common Ridicule [which [2]] passes on this State of Life.  It is, indeed, only happy in those who can look down with Scorn or Neglect on the Impieties of the Times, and tread the Paths of Life together in a constant uniform Course of Virtue.

[Footnote 1:  [will]]

[Footnote 2:  [that]]

* * * * *

No. 262.  Monday, December 31, 1711.  Steele.

  Nulla venenato Littera mista Joco est.

  Ovid.

I think myself highly obliged to the Publick for their kind Acceptance of a Paper which visits them every Morning, and has in it none of those Seasonings that recommend so many of the Writings which are in Vogue among us.

As, on the one Side, my Paper has not in it a single Word of News, a Reflection in Politics, nor a Stroak of Party; so on the other, there are no Fashionable Touches of Infidelity, no obscene Ideas, no Satyrs upon Priesthood, Marriage, and the like popular Topics of Ridicule; no private Scandal, nor any Thing that may tend to the Defamation of particular Persons, Families, or Societies.

There is not one of these above-mentioned Subjects that would not sell a very indifferent Paper, could I think of gratifying the Publick by such mean and base Methods.  But notwithstanding I have rejected every Thing that savours of Party, every Thing that is loose and immoral, and every Thing that might create Uneasiness in the Minds of particular Persons, I find that the Demand of my Papers has encreased every Month since their first Appearance in the World.  This does not perhaps reflect so much Honour upon my self, as on my Readers, who give a much greater Attention to Discourses of Virtue and Morality, than ever I expected, or indeed could hope.

When I broke loose from that great Body of Writers who have employed their Wit and Parts in propagating Vice and Irreligion, I did not question but I should be treated as an odd kind of Fellow that had a mind to appear singular in my Way of Writing:  But the general Reception I have found, convinces me that the World is not so corrupt as we are apt to imagine; and that if those Men of Parts who have been employed in vitiating the Age had endeavour’d to rectify and amend it, they needed [not [1]] have sacrificed their good Sense and Virtue to their Fame and Reputation.  No Man is so sunk in Vice and Ignorance, but there are still some hidden Seeds of Goodness and Knowledge in him; which give him a Relish of such Reflections and Speculations as have an [Aptness [2]] to improve the Mind, and make the Heart better.