FOOTNOTES:

"Quum primum pavido custos mihi purpura cessit,"

that passage on friendship which gushes out so livingly from the stern heart of the satirist. And when old —— complimented me on my verses, my eye sought yours. Verily, I now say as then,

"Nescio quod, certe est quod me tibi temperet astrum."[8]

Audley turned away his head as he returned the grasp of his friend's hand; and while Harley, with his light elastic footstep, descended the stairs, Egerton lingered behind, and there was no trace of the worldly man upon his countenance when he took his place in the carriage by his companion's side.

Two hours afterwards, weary cries of "Question, question!" "Divide, divide!" sank into reluctant silence as Audley Egerton rose to conclude the debate—the man of men to speaklate at night, and to impatient benches: a man who would be heard; whom a Bedlam broke loose would not have roared down; with a voice clear and sound as a bell, and a form as firmly set on the ground as a church-tower. And while, on the dullest of dull questions, Audley Egerton thus, not too lively himself, enforced attention, where was Harley L'Estrange? Standing alone by the river at Richmond, and murmuring low fantastic thoughts as he gazed on the moonlit tide.

When Audley left him at home, he had joined his parents, made them gay with his careless gayety, seen the old-fashioned folks retire to rest, and then—while they, perhaps, deemed him once more the hero of ball-rooms and the cynosure of clubs—he drove slowly through the soft summer night, amidst the perfumes of many a garden and many a gleaming chestnut grove, with no other aim before him than to reach the loveliest margin of England's loveliest river, at the hour the moon was fullest and the song of the nightingale most sweet. And so eccentric a humorist was this man, that I believe, as he there loitered—no one near to cry "How affected!" or "How romantic!"—he enjoyed himself more than if he had been exchanging the politest "how-d'ye-do's" in the hottest of London drawing-rooms, or betting his hundreds on the odd trick with Lord de R—— for his partner.

FOOTNOTES:[8]"What was the star I know not, but certainly some star it was that attuned me unto thee."

[8]"What was the star I know not, but certainly some star it was that attuned me unto thee."

There is one country which is not represented at the Great Exhibition, one power which refused to send any specimens of its produce, lest the having done so should be considered as a tribute to the commercial greatness of England, and lest exhibitors and exhibited should incur contamination by contact with specimens of the world's industry. One is not sorry that this should be the case, and that the felon power of Europe should have thus passed judgment on itself, and of its own accord placed itself in Coventry.

The country we allude to is Naples. The horror which the king entertains of any thing constitutional since his Majesty took the oath to his own constitution, and since he hanged those who committed the same crime without afterwards perjuring themselves after the royal example, has induced him to prohibit the sending of any specimens to London. Naples, to be sure, has little to exhibit. Industry in that country, so blessed by nature, has been crushed and annihilated by the hand of tyranny. Sulphur and other volcanic products, wine which science has never enabled to bear exportation, silk in itsbrutstate, with some coarse fabrics of cloth and linen, and hats in imitation of Tuscany, compose all the industry of one of the finest countries in Europe. No marvel, therefore, it should have shrunk upon any pretence from occupying a booth at the Great Exhibition.

A very different place in that great show is held by Piedmont, which has furnished a large assortment of raw materials and manufactured articles. On the other hand, Florence and Venice are far, we fear, from even keeping up a shadow of their old reputation. The country of Benvenuto Cellini has lost the gift of the arts with that of freedom; and the manufactures with which Venice used to pay for the merchandise of the East are no more. Strange to say, however, Milan supplies one of the most interesting and perfect compartments of the Exhibition, that of small sculptures, in which the youth of the region are so skilled as to distance all competition.

The United States must be held to have furnished far less valuable specimens of either art or nature than might have been expected; and this will be the more evident, as its stall occupies the great compartment of the Exhibition adjoining the eastern entrance, and first meeting the eye. France and Germany, especially North Germany, hold their ground well. One thing, however, seems certain, and the more remarkable as it was not altogether expected, which is, that England is not inferior to her competitors in any department. That her machinery, and the results of her science and skill in working in metals should distance all competition, might have been looked for. But what will greatly astonish people, is her very signal success in so many departments of the ornamental: and whilst of natural productions her various colonies have supplied specimens the most novel and most startling, the produce of the looms as well as of the mines of Indostan offer among the most novel and interesting sights that the curious could flock to see.

In a general way it is not yet possible to guess what effect the Exhibition is likely to have. So many persons will crowd to it with widely different views, that it is extremely difficult to sum up its probable impression on the whole. But we believe that those most gratified will be scientific persons, who can see and compare for the first time all raw materials and all finished productions gathered together under the same roof. It is, indeed, as a creator of new combinations and of new ideas, that the Great Exhibition must in any permanent sense be chiefly valuable; for it is hardly conceivable but that many most startling inventions in art manufacture must ultimately spring from it. But these will be silent enjoyments, and for a long time secret profits. Those on whose fertile minds the good seed of new ideas may fall, will silently cherish and allow them to germ in the shade, and years may elapse ere we see the growth or the fruit. What meanwhile we may count upon hearing most of for the moment will be the enjoyment of the curious at the view of the Koh-i-noor, and the other mere sight-wonders of the Exhibition.

Let us add that not the least pleasure of this kind is the view which each race of the human family will be enabled to take of the other. The crowds now brought together are essentially,the greater part of them, of the middle and artisan class, although it may be generally of those already successful and enriched. This is a kind of people that would never have come amongst us but upon an occasion such as the present, and whom to see and be seen by, cannot but be productive of large, friendly, humane, cosmopolitan results.

The Visitor's Book of the Elephant Hotel in Weimar contains, under the date of the 12th August, a rather remarkable autograph, which the curious collector would do well to buy, if possible, or, if not possible, then to beg or steal. Perhaps, among the many distinguished names which the long series ofFremdenbücherkept at Weimar during the last fifty years must necessarily exhibit, there are few to which an earnest, thinking man would attach the same profound, though somewhat painful degree of interest. It is the name of "Dr. David Strauss, aus Ludwigsburg," written by himself.

"How!" you exclaim in a mingled tone of surprise and incredulity, "Dr. Strauss in Weimar? David Strauss among the pilgrims to the tomb of the poets?"

It does sound apocryphal—mythical, if you will. One would almost as soon expect to hear of the late Dr. Jordan Faust himself paying a visit to the ghost of Goethe. Nevertheless, and in spite of all that learned critics, a thousand years hence, may advance and prove to the contrary, a veritable fact it is, Strauss actually has been among us—has been seen here in the body during several days by several witnesses, the present writer being one.

It is my intention here briefly to record the impression which I still retain of my transient intercourse with this celebrated man. Such a record can scarce be considered as a breach of confidence, an invasion of the sacred domains of private life: the author of the "Leben Jesu" is a public, I had almost said, an historical character.

Up to his arrival in Weimar, my relation to Strauss had been merely of that mystic, invisible, and impersonal description, which usually subsists between a gifted writer and his readers. But even before I knew the language, and, by consequence, before I could read the works of Strauss, I had heard much and often of the young Tubingen theologian, who, at the age of twenty-seven years, with all the moral courage of a Luther, all the critical skill, and more than all the learning of a Lessing, had arisen andimplicitlydeclared to the whole German nation, and to the world at large, that their belief rested on a false basis (in his opinion).

Though educated in a country where every man reads and reverences his Bible, I had likewise arrived at that, in every sense,criticalperiod, which is, I suppose, common to all men of an inquiring disposition. I, too, had eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge—had become as a god in my own conceit, knowing good from evil. I had passed through the French and English schools of skepticism, with my orthodoxy, if not intact, at least not vitally injured. To study Strauss, therefore, seemed a mere matter of course. Well; I read his celebrated work. It contained nothing absolutely new, either in assertion or opinion. I had met with the same or similar elsewhere. And yet the very samewoodenarguments I had so often smiled at in the writings of the French and English free-thinkers, seemed here to annihilate me. In vain I said to myself, "they are still wooden!" Strauss had so sheathed and bound them with his triple fold ofbrass. In other words, had so supported and confirmed them with his unheard-of array of learning, logic, and science; that nothing, I thought, could resist them. It seemed as if the world-old, hereditary feud between faith and reason were here to be terminated for ever. As I read, the solid earth seemed to be giving way beneath me; and when I at length closed the ominous volume, I could have almost cried out with the chorus in Faust: "Woe! woe! thou hast shattered the lovely world!"

It is unusual, I believe, to speak out these bosom secrets in this way; but I thought it necessary to give you this, by no means exaggerated description of my first spiritual encounter with the author of theLeben Jesu, in order that you might have some idea of the feelings with which, on the third morning after his arrival in Weimar, I received and read the following whimsical note:

Weimar, 15th August."A. S. requests the pleasure of Mr. M——'s company to-day, at two o'clock, to soup and Strauss."

Weimar, 15th August.

"A. S. requests the pleasure of Mr. M——'s company to-day, at two o'clock, to soup and Strauss."

How busily my fancy was employed the whole of that forenoon, I need not stop here to tell. Enough, that of all the various pictures she then drew for me, not one resembled the pale, the slightly made, and, but for a partial stoop, the somewhat tall, half-lay, half-clerical figure in spectacles, to whom I was presented on arriving at my friend's apartments. This was Strauss himself, whose portrait I may as well go on and finish here at once as well as I can, and so have done with externals.

Judging from appearance, Strauss's age might be any where between forty and fifty. But for his light brown, glossy hair, I should have said nearer the latter than the former. I have since ascertained, however, that he is, or was then, exactly forty-one years of age. His head is the very contrary of massive,—as, indeed, his whole figure is the opposite of robust or muscular. But it—the head—is of a purely classical form, having none of those bumps and extravagant protuberances, which phrenologists delight in. His profile, in particular, might be called truly Grecian, were it not for the thin and somewhat pinched lips, which give it an almost ascetical character. Strange enough, too, this same character of ascetism, or something akin to it, seems likewise indicatedby a peculiar expression in his otherwise fine, dark-brown eyes. It is not a squint, as at first sight it appears, but a frequent turning-upward of the eye-balls, like a Methodist at his devotions, which, in Strauss's case, is of course involuntary. Perhaps it is to conceal this slight blemish that he wears spectacles, for his large and lustrous eyes did not else appear to need them. I have said that Strauss was slightly made; and, in fact, this is so much the case as to suggest the idea of a consumptive habit. Nor do his narrow shoulders and hollow breast, together with a certain swinging serpentine gait when he walks, seem to contradict the supposition. I have little more to add to this feeble sketch of Strauss's outward man; for it would, I suppose, be too trifling a circumstance to mention that I had seldom seen a morethorough-bredhand and foot than his!

My entrance had interrupted a conversation, which Strauss presently resumed, and which proved to be on the eternal topic of politics. His voice was strong and deep, but he spoke (and it seemed to be a habit with him) in a subdued tone, and with a very decided Wurtemberg accent. I was surprised at some of the high-Tory opinions to which he gave utterance. I had not expected to find the author of theLeben Jesuon the Conservative side of any question. It seemed inconsistent. But I recollected that the man was now on the wrong side of forty; and I could not help thinking that if, instead of publishing his destructive book at the age of twenty-seven, he had waited with it till now, he might possibly have postponed it altogether. At table, our talk was of the usual commonplace description; and it may be worth while observing, that even Strauss could be commonplace with as good a grace as any. Our host and he had, it seems, been fellow-students together, and, of course, there was no want of anecdotes and reminiscences of those early days, all of which appeared to give him exquisite pleasure. In particular, I remember that he spoke with much fervor of the fine mountain scenery in the neighborhood of Heidelberg; and when a friendly discussion arose amongst us as to whether the mountains or the ocean were the sublimer spectacle, Strauss argued warmly in favor of the former. Some one (myself, I believe) happening to say that, like Goethe and Schiller, they were bothsuperlative, and not to becompared—"Bravo!" cried Strauss, and good humoredly gave up his position. The conversation now naturally turned upon Goethe, and upon all the localities in and about Weimar, connected with his memory. Like a pious pilgrim, as he was, Strauss, as I found, had already been to all these places, with the exception of the garden-house and garden. It was proposed to conduct him thither immediately.

The extreme and almost primitive simplicity of the house in which Goethe had spent some of the happiest days of his life, seemed to astonish Strauss. He made few remarks to that effect, however, but there was no end to his eager questionings. He touched the walls, the doors, the locks—whatever it might be supposed Goethe had touched. He peeped into every corner, scrutinized even the minutest details; and all this with the utmost outward composure, so that, if I had not closely watched him, it might have escaped my notice! In the garden, I showed him Goethe's favorite walk, and some oaks and firs planted by the poet's own hand. He gathered an oak-leaf, and put it in his pocket-book. He did the same by the flower of a hollyhock, the only kind of flower remaining, which plant I knew for certain dated its existence from the time of Goethe. The pocket-book was already full of such relics. From this time forth, therefore, let no man say that Strauss is devoid of veneration! Man was made for adoration. He cannot help it. Pity, only, that he sometimes mistakes the object of it.

In the mean while Strauss and I had somehow drawn nearer to each other, and had begun to hold little dialogues apart together. We talked of England, where he had never been,—of English literature, which he knew chiefly through the medium of translation. Shakspeare of course was duly discussed,—for, like all educated Germans, Strauss was an enthusiast about Shakspeare. He asked me if I had read Gervinus's new work, and was evidently pleased with the way in which I spoke of it. By-and-by I ventured to allude to theLeben Jesu. It was not without considerable hesitation. He seemed, I think, to enjoy my embarrassment,—and told me he had seen several specimens of an English translation of theLeben Jesu, which a young lady, a Miss Brabant, was preparing for publication! There was somethingMephistophelianin the smile with which he told me this. Such a work, he continued, was, however, not likely to succeed in England: for there was Hennel, who had published an amazingly clever work of the same kind in London, and yet the British public seemed to have made a point of completelyignoringit. The work had, however, been translated into German, and he (Strauss himself) had written a preface to it. As I now perceived that the subject was any thing but a delicate one with Strauss, I determined upon accepting a proposal he had made me to accompany him on the morrow to Doornburg and Jena. There were inconsistencies in his system, which I had the vanity to think I might convince him of, and atête-à-têtelike the one in prospect was just what I wanted.

We returned toS—'sfor tea, with the addition to our party of a distinguished philologian of this town, whose presence seemed to call forth all the intellectual energies of Strauss, so that, in the course of the evening, I had more than one occasion to admire the variety and depth of the man's attainments. It is impossible to recollect every thing, butwhat especially excited my attention was, that in a very learned discussion concerning the comparative merits of the ancient and modern drama, Strauss suggested the character and fate of Tiberius as the best subject for a tragedy in the whole compass of history. I was struck, too, and with reason, I think, with a new and flagrant instance of the conservative tendency which his mind seems of late to have fallen into. In talking of Horace, whose works, and particularly whose odes, he appeared to have at his fingers' ends, he defended the elder state of the texts with amazing pertinacity, treating with contempt every change and suggestion of such, which the sacrilegious commentators of our times have ventured upon. Such opinions in the mouth of the author of theLeben Jesusounded strange enough, and again I could not help saying to myself, "Why the deuce did he publish that destructive work of his twenty-seventh year?"

The following day, being prevented by pressing engagements from leaving town, I prevailed upon Strauss to put off his journey for a day longer. I saw little of him in the mean time, and had therefore leisure to bring into some kind of order and method a series of objections which I had noted down during a second and more critical perusal of theLeben Jesu. On mature reflection, it had occurred to me that, after all, the Christian religion had, in the course of eighteen centuries, survived far worse things than even Strauss's book. This idea now gave me courage to look this Goliah in the face, and, though I was but a youth (so to speak), and he a "man of war," to go up against him, if occasion offered, even with my "scrip" and "sling," and my "five smooth stones out of the brook."

Next morning, then, in pursuance of our plan, Strauss and I started with the first train for Apolda, whence we went on foot across the fields to Doornburg. There we breakfasted in Goethe's room, saw the poet's handwriting on the wall, walked along his favorite terrace-walk, where I, for the time as much of a hero-worshipper as Strauss himself, recited aloud the beautiful song,Da droben auf jenem Berge, &c., which Goethe is said to have composed on this very spot. I expected Strauss to be moved almost to tears, instead of which he burst out in a most incontrollable fit of laughter, in which I as incontrollably joined when he told me the cause, which was this:—In Munich or Ludwigsburg, I forget which, there was once a house of public entertainment, called from its sign "The Lamb's Wool," as its proprietor was called "The Lamb's Wool landlord." This landlord had, it seems, been one of his own best customers, in consequence of which he soon became bankrupt, which sad event a poet of the same town, most probably another of the landlord's best customers, commemorated in a few stanzas entitled,Des Lamswollswirthes Klagelied(The Host of the Lamb's Wool's Lament), a parody on the above song of Goethe's, and suggested, doubtless, by these two lines—

"Ich binherunter gekommem,Und weiss doch selber nicht wie!"[9]

Nothing could exceed the humor with which Strauss told me this droll anecdote, and, for my part, I feel that I shall never again be able to recite Goethe's pathetic song with becoming gravity.

From Doornburg we walked to Jena, where we arrived to dinner. It rained torrents, but Strauss was not to be balked of what he came for. We trudged likeSchwarmer(enthusiasts), as he said, through mud and rain, to all the Goethe and Schiller relics, the library, the observatory, and, last of all, the Princess's garden, where the statue of the eagle with its three poetical inscriptions long detained us. Returned to our inn and about to take a final leave of Strauss; now, I thought, or never, was the time to fulfil the object for which I had accompanied him thus far. All day, hitherto, our talk had been of the poets—Greek, Roman, English, and German, and so much erudition, taste, and feeling, I had rarely found united. His mind seemed to have fed on poetry and nothing else; and I know not how it was, but I could not till now resolve to speak the word which I knew would disenchant him. Now, however, the probability that we should never see each other again on this side eternity gave a solemn, perhaps superstitious, turn to my thoughts. As he sat there in silence before me, like the sphinx of which he had spoken so mysteriously in descanting that morning on the master piece of Sophocles, I felt that now I must speak out, or else look to be devoured. I at once entered on the subject, therefore, and delivered myself of all the objections I had so elaborately arranged and prepared. His answer was evasive; and the topic was changed into an argument.

Strauss was to leave with the diligence at eight o'clock for Rudolstadt. I cordially shook hands with him, bade God bless him, and, hiring a conveyance, drove directly back to Weimar. On the way home, I conceived the plan of a poem, which, if it were completed, I would insert here. It will probably never be completed. Instead of it, therefore, I will communicate something far more interesting—a copy of verses written by Strauss himself, on returning from his pilgrimage to the tomb of the poets; and with which I conclude what I had to say regarding Dr. David Strauss in Weimar.

[Dr. Strauss, as a poet, being almost alusus naturæ, according to English ideas of him, we have thought it right to translate thispoem. Here, accordingly, is the best English version possible to us in the little time allowed by an inexorable printer:—]

On pilgrim staff I homeward come,Way worn, but still with pleasure warmed;At the great prophet's holy tomb,The pious rites I have performed.I, in his garden's shady walk,Recalled the prints of footsteps lost:And from the tree his care had raised,I plucked a greeting from his ghost.I saw in letters and in poems,His honored hand's laborious toil;And many loving recollections,Inquiry won me for my spoil.Through every chamber, small and homely,With holy reverence did I roam,Where oft the gods in radiant concourseCame thronging to their loved one's home.By the bed stood I where the poetIn placid sleep his eyes reposed,Till summoned to a nobler beingFor the last time their lids he closed.In reading of the holy places,Henceforth have I a doubled zeal,I have a being in the writing,For all of it I know and feel.

On pilgrim staff I homeward come,Way worn, but still with pleasure warmed;At the great prophet's holy tomb,The pious rites I have performed.

I, in his garden's shady walk,Recalled the prints of footsteps lost:And from the tree his care had raised,I plucked a greeting from his ghost.

I saw in letters and in poems,His honored hand's laborious toil;And many loving recollections,Inquiry won me for my spoil.

Through every chamber, small and homely,With holy reverence did I roam,Where oft the gods in radiant concourseCame thronging to their loved one's home.

By the bed stood I where the poetIn placid sleep his eyes reposed,Till summoned to a nobler beingFor the last time their lids he closed.

In reading of the holy places,Henceforth have I a doubled zeal,I have a being in the writing,For all of it I know and feel.

FOOTNOTES:[9]To explain this joke to the un-Germanized reader, it will be necessary to inform him that the title of Goethe's poem is "The Shepherd's Lament," wherein a shepherd, leaving his native hills, gives a lingering look up at the familiar mountain, and sings regretfully"I have to the valley descended,And how I cannot tell."Herunter kommen, means also to decline,to fail, and upon this turns the joke.

[9]To explain this joke to the un-Germanized reader, it will be necessary to inform him that the title of Goethe's poem is "The Shepherd's Lament," wherein a shepherd, leaving his native hills, gives a lingering look up at the familiar mountain, and sings regretfully"I have to the valley descended,And how I cannot tell."Herunter kommen, means also to decline,to fail, and upon this turns the joke.

"I have to the valley descended,And how I cannot tell."

Herunter kommen, means also to decline,to fail, and upon this turns the joke.

Probably, greatness does not conform with domesticity. The literary man is wrapped up in his books, and the wife does not brook a divided affection. He lives in the past or the future, and his mind can with difficulty be brought to condescend to the carking cares of the present—perhaps not even to its quiet daily life. His lofty meditations are disturbed by the puling infant, or it may be, by a call for house-rent, or the amount of the chandler's bill. Or, take the leader of some great political or social movement; or the commander of armies, at whose nod ten thousand swords are unsheathed, and the air made blatant with the discharge of artillery; can you expect such a person to subside into the quiet, husband-life, like any common, ordinary man, and condescend to inquire into the state of the children's teething, Johnny's progress at school, and the thousand little domestic attentions which constitute a wife's happiness?

We shall not, however, discuss the question of whether happiness in marriage be compatible with genius, or not, but proceed to set forth a few traits of the wives of great men.

We shall not dwell on Xantippe, the wife of Socrates, whose name has become familiar to us almost as a proverb. But she was not without her uses, for she taught her great husband at least the virtue of patience. Many of the great Greeks and Romans, like Socrates, were unhappy in their wives. Possibly, however, we have heard only of the bad ones among them; for the life of good wives is rarely made matter of comment by the biographer, either in ancient or modern times.

The advent of Christianity placed woman in a greatly improved position, as regarded marriage. Repudiation, as among the Greeks and Romans, was no longer permitted; the new religion enforced the unity and indissolubility of marriage; it became a sacrament, dispensed at the altar, where woman had formerly been a victim, but was now become an idol. The conjugal union was made a religious contract; the family was constituted by the priest; the wife was elevated to the function of Educator of the Family—thealma mater; and thus, through her instrumentality, was the regeneration of the world secured.

But it did not follow that all women were good, or that all were happy. Life is but a tangled yarn at the best; there are blanks and prizes drawn by women still, and not unfrequently "great men" have proved the greatest of blanks to them. Henry the Eighth was not, perhaps, entitled to the appellation of a great man, though he was an author, for which the Pope conferred on him the title, still retained by our monarchs, of "Defender of the Faith." The history of his six wives is well known. Nor was the married life of Peter the Great, and his three wives, of a more creditable complexion.

Luthermarried Catharine de Bora, an escaped nun—a remarkably handsome woman. In his letters to his friends, he spoke of her as "My rib Kitty, my loved Kitty, my Empress Kitty." A year after his marriage, when struggling with poverty, he said, in one of these letters, "Catharine, my dear rib, salutes you. She is quite well, thank God; gentle, obedient, and kind, in all things; quite beyond my hopes. I would not exchange my poverty with her, for all the riches of Crœsus without her." A dozen years after, he said, "Catharine, thou hast a pious man, who loves thee; thou art a very empress!" Yet Luther had his little troubles in connection with his married life. Catharine was fond of small-talk, and, when Luther was busily engaged in solving the difficulties of the Bible, she would interrupt him with such questions as—whether the king of France was richer than his cousin the emperor of Germany? if the Italian women were more beautiful than the German? if Rome was as big as Wittenberg? and so on. To escape these little inquiries, Luther saw no other way than to lock himself up in his study, with a quantity of bread and cheese, and there hold to his work. But Catharine still pursued him. One day, when he was thus locked up, laboring at his translation of the twenty-second Psalm, the door was assailed by the wife. No answer was given. More knocking followed, accompanied by Catharine's voice, shouting—"if you don't open the door, I will go fetch the locksmith." The Doctor entreated his wife not to interrupt his labors. "Open! open!" repeated Catharine. The doctor obeyed. "I was afraid," said she, on entering, "that something had vexed you, locked up in this room alone." To which Luther replied, "the only thing that vexes me now is yourself." But Luther, doubtless, entertained a steady, though sober affection for his wife; and in his will, in which he left her sole executrix, bequeathing to her all his property, he speaks of her as "always a gentle, pious, and faithful wife tome, and that has loved me tenderly. Whatever," he adds, "may happen to her after my death, I have, I say, full confidence that she will ever conduct herself as a good mother towards her children, and will conscientiously share with them whatever she possesses."

The great Genevese Reformer,Calvin, proceeded in his search for a wife in a matter-of-fact way. He wrote to his friends, describing to them what sort of an article he wanted, and they looked up a proper person for him. Writing to Farel, one of his correspondents, on this subject, he said,—"I beseech you ever to bear in mind what I seek for in a wife. I am not one of your mad kind of lovers, who dote even upon faults, when once they are taken by beauty of person. The only beauty that entices me is, that she be chaste, obedient, humble, economical, patient; and that there be hopes that she wilt be solicitous about my health. If, therefore, you think it expedient that I should marry, bestir yourself, lest somebody else anticipate you. But, if you think otherwise, let us drop the subject altogether." A rich young German lady, of noble birth, was proposed; but Calvin objected, on the ground of the high birth. Another was proposed to him, but another failure resulted. At last a widow, with a considerable family of children, Odelette de Bures, the relict of a Strasburg Anabaptist, whom he had converted, was discovered, suited to his notions, and he married her. Nothing is said about their wedded life, and, therefore, we presume it went on in the quiet, jog-trot way. At her death, he did not shed a tear; and he spoke of the event only as an ordinary spectator would have done.

The brothersCorneillemarried the two sisters Lampèrière; and the love of the whole family was cemented by the double union. They lived in contiguous houses, which opened into each other, and there they lived in a community of taste and sentiment. They worked together, and shared each other's fame; the sisters, happy in the love and admiration of their husbands, and in each other's sympathy. The poet Racine was greatly blessed in his wife; she was pious, good, sweet-tempered, and made his life happy. And yet she had no taste for poetry, scarcely knowing what verse was; and knew little of her husband's great tragedies except by name. She had an utter indifference for money. One day, Racine brought from Versailles a purse of a thousand golden louis; and running to his wife, embraced her: "Congratulate me," said he, "here is a purse of a thousand louis that the king has presented to me!" She complained to him of one of the children, who would not learn his lessons for two days together. "Let us talk of that another time," said he, "to-day we give ourselves up to joy." She again reverted to the disobedient child, and requested the parent to reprimand him; when Boileau (at whose house she was on a visit) lost patience, and cried, "what insensibility! Can't you think of a purse of a thousand louis?" Yet these two characters, though so opposite, consorted admirably, and they lived long and happily together.

To please his friends,La Fontainemarried Mary Hericat, the daughter of a lieutenant-general. It was a marriage of convenience, and the two preferred living separate,—he at Paris, she in the country. Once a year La Fontaine paid her a visit, in the month of September. If he did not see her, he returned home as happy as he had gone. He went some other day. Once, when he visited her house, he was told she was quite well, and he returned to Paris, and told his friends he had not seen his wife, because he understood she was in very good health. It was a state of indifference on both sides. Yet the wife was a woman of virtue, beauty, and intelligence; and La Fontaine himself was a man of otherwise irreproachable character. There were many such marriages of indifference in France in those days. Boileau and Racine both tried to bring the married pair together, but without success; and, in course of time La Fontaine almost forgot that he was married.

Molierewas extremely unhappy in his marriage. He espoused an actress, and she proved a coquette. He became extremely jealous, and, perhaps, he had reason. Yet he loved her passionately, and bore long with her frailties. He thus himself describes her: "She has small eyes, but they are full of fire, brilliant, and the most penetrating in the world. She has a large mouth, but one can discern beauties in it that one does not see in other mouths. Her figure is not large, but easy and well-proportioned. She affects anonchalancein her speech and carriage; but there is grace in her every act, and an indescribable charm about her, by which she never fails to work her way to the heart. Her mental gifts are exquisite; her conversation is charming, and, if she be capricious more than any other can be, all sits gracefully on the beautiful,—one bears any thing from the beautiful." She was an excellent actress, and was run after by the town. Moliere, her husband, was neglected by her, and suffered agonies of torture. He strove against his passion as long as he could. At last, his patience was exhausted, and a separation took place.

We know nothing of the married life ofShakspeare; indeed, we know but little of any portion of that great man's life. But we know that he married young, and we know the name of his wife, Anne Hathawaye, the daughter of a yeoman, in the neighborhood of Stratford-on-Avon. He was little more than eighteen when he married her, and she was twenty-six. The marriage was hastened by circumstances which need not be explained here. He seems to have gone alone to London, leaving her with her little family of children at Stratford-on-Avon, (for her name does not once appear in his married life;) and yet she survived him seven years. In his willhe left her only his "second-best bed." Judging from his sonnets one would be disposed to infer that Shakspeare's life was not more chaste than that of his age; for we find him, in one of these, excusing his friend for robbing him of his mistress,—a married woman. One could almost wish, with Mr. Hallam, that Shakspeare had not written many of those sonnets, beautiful in language and imagery though they unquestionably are.

Miltonwas three times married,—the first time very unhappily. Mary Powell was the daughter of a royalist cavalier of Oxfordshire, and Milton was a zealous republican. He was, moreover, a studious man, whereas his wife was possessed by a love of gayety and pleasure. They had only been married a month, when she grew tired of the studious habits and philosophical seclusion of the republican poet, and requested his permission to return to her father's house. She went, but refused to return to him, preferring the dissipated society of the brawling cavaliers who surrounded her. He beseeched her to come back, but she persistently refused, treating his messengers with contumely and contempt. He bore this for a long time; but at last he grew angry, and repudiated her. He bethought himself of the social mischiefs resulting from ill-assorted marriages like his own; and, full of the subject, he composed and published his celebrated treatise on divorce. On public grounds he pleaded his own cause in this work, which contains, perhaps, the finest passages that are to be found in his prose writings. He proceeded to solicit the hand of another young and beautiful lady, the daughter of Dr. Dawes; but his wife, hearing of this, became repentant, and, returning to him, fell upon her knees, and entreated his forgiveness. Milton, like his own Adam, was "fondly overcome with female charms," and consented. Four children were born to them, but the wife died in child-bed of the fifth infant. It is to Milton's honor, that he behaved to his deceased wife's relatives with great generosity, when, a short time after, they became involved in ruin in the progress of the civil wars. His second wife, Catharine Woodcock, also died in child-bed, only a year after marriage. He seems to have loved her fondly, and most readers will remember his beautiful sonnet, consecrated to her memory.

With his third wife he seems to have lived happily; the young wife devoted herself to his necessities—for he was now blind—"in darkness, and with dangers compassed round, and solitude."

Dr. Richard Hooker, was very unfortunate in his wife. He was betrayed into marrying her by his extraordinary simplicity and ignorance of the world. The circumstances connected with the marriage were these: Having been appointed to preach at St. Paul's Cross, he went up to London from Oxford, and proceeded to the house set apart for the reception of the preachers. He was very wet and weary on his arrival, and experienced much kindness from the housekeeper. She persuaded him that he was a man of very tender constitution, and urged that he ought, above all things, to have a wife, to nurse and take care of him. She professed to be able to furnish him with such, if he thought fit to marry. Hooker authorized her to select a wife for him, and the artful woman presented her own daughter—"a silly, clownish woman, and withal a mere Xantippe." Hooker, who had promised to marry whomsoever she should select, thought himself bound to marry her, and he did so. They led a most uncomfortable life, but he resigned himself as he best could, lamenting that "saints have usually a double share in the miseries of this life." When Cranmer and Sandys went to see him at his rectory in Buckinghamshire, they found him reading Horace and tending sheep, in the absence of the servant. When they were conversing with him in the house, his wife would break in upon them, and call him away to rock the cradle and perform other menial offices. The guests were glad to get away. This unfortunate wife was long a thorn in his side.

The famous Earl ofRochesterappears in very favorable light in his letters to his wife: they are remarkably tender, affectionate, and gentle. In one of them, he says: "'Tis not an easy thing to be entirely happy; but to be kind is very easy, and that is the greatest measure of happiness. I say not this to put you in mind of being kind to me—you have practised that so long, that I have a joyful confidence you will never forget it—but to show that I myself have a sense of what the method of my life seemed so utterly to contradict."

Drydenmarried Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Earl of Berkshire. The match added little to his wealth, and less to his happiness. It was an altogether unhappy union. On one occasion, his wife wished to be a book, that she might enjoy more of his company. Dryden's reply was: "Be an almanac, then, my dear, that I may change you once a year." In his writings afterwards, he constantly inveighed against matrimony.

Addisonalso "married discord in a noble wife." He was tutor to the young Earl of Warwick, and aspired to the hand of the Dowager Countess. She married him, and treated him like a lacquey. She never saw in him more than her son's tutor.Swift(his contemporary) cruelly flirted with two admirable women; he heartlessly killed one of them, and secretly married the other, but never publicly recognized her; she, too, shortly after died.

Sternetreated his wife with such severity, that she abandoned him, and took retreat in a convent with her daughter; she never saw him after. Who would have suspected this from the author of "Lefevre" and "The Sentimental Journey?"Farquhar, the play-writer, married, early in life, a woman who deceived him by pretending to be possessed of a fortune, and he sunk, a victim to disappointment and over-exertion, in his thirtieth year, leavingbehind him "two helpless girls;" his widow died in the utmost indigence.

These are rather unhappy instances of the wives of great men; but there are others of a happier kind. Indeed we hear but little of the happy unions: it is the brawling, rocky brook that is the most noisy: the slow, deep waters are dump. Every one will remember the wife of LordWilliam Russell, whose conduct by the side of her husband, on his trial, stands out as one of the most beautiful pictures in all history. How devotedly her husband loved her need not be said: when he had taken his final farewell, all he could say was: "The bitterness of death is now past!" She lived many years after the execution of her husband, and a delightful collection of her letters has since been published.

Bunyanspeaks with the greatest tenderness of his wife, who helped to lead him into the paths of peace. He says: "My mercy was to light upon a wife, whose father and mother were counted godly: this woman and I, though we came together as poor as poor might be (not having so much household stuff as a dish or a spoon betwixt us both); yet this she had for her part, 'The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven,' and 'The Practice of Piety,' which her father had left her when he died." And the perusal of these books, together with his good wife's kindly influence, at last implanted in him strong desires to reform his vicious life, in which he eventually succeeded.

ParnellandSteelewere both happy in their wives. The former married a young woman of beauty and merit, but she lived only a few years, and his grief at his loss so preyed on his mind, that he never recovered his wonted spirits and health.Steele'sletters to his wife, both before and after his marriage, are imbued with the most tender feeling, and exhibit his affection for her in the most beautiful light.Young, the poet, like Dryden and Addison, married into a noble house, espousing the daughter of the Earl of Litchfield; but he was happier than they. It was out of the melancholy produced by her death that his famous "Night Thoughts" took their rise.

WhenJohnsonmarried Mrs. Porter, her age was twice his own; yet the union proved a happy one. It was not a love-match, but it was one of inclination and of reciprocal esteem. Johnson was any thing but graceful or attractive, yet he possessed admirable qualities. Mrs. Porter was rather ungainly; but Johnson was very shortsighted, and could not detect personal faults. In his eyes, she was beautiful; and, in an affectionate epitaph which he devoted to her, he painted her in glowing colors. Indeed, his writings contain many proofs of the lively and sincere affection which he entertained for her.

While such have been the wives of a few of the great men of past times, it must be stated that, probably, the greatest of them all led a single life. The greatest of the philosophers were bachelors, such as Bacon, Newton, Gassendi, Galileo, Descartes, Bayle, Locke, Leibnitz, Hume, Gibbon; and many poets also as Pope, Goldsmith, and Thompson. Bacon says that wife and children are "impediments to great enterprises;" and that "certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men, which, both in affection and reason, have married and endowed the public." But these were the words of a bachelor, and, perhaps, not strictly correct. The great men of more recent times have generally been married; and, at another time, we shall probably complete this paper by a brief account of the more distinguished of their wives.

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