Let us add the advice given by Lord Burleigh to his son, embodying the experience of a wise statesman and practised man of the world.

"When it shall please God," said he, "to bring thee to man's estate, use great providence and circumspection in choosing thy wife; for from thence will spring all thy future good or evil.

And it is an action of thy life, like unto a stratagem of war, wherein a man can err but once....

Enquire diligently of her disposition, and how her parents have been inclined in their youth.

[209] Let her not be poor, how generous [20well-born] soever; for a man can buy nothing in the market with gentility.