pears by her behaviour.

He says,

"that she

never rose from table without making him a curtsy, nor drank to him without bowing, and that his word was a law to her."

I was much surprised in looking over a correspondence of the times, that in 1590 the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry writing to the Earl of Shrewsbury on the subject of his living separate from his countess, uses as one of his arguments for their union the following curious one, which surely shows the gross and cynical feeling which the fair sex excited even among the higher classes of society. The language of this good bishop is neither that of truth, we hope, nor certainly that of religion.

"But some will saye in your Lordship's behalfe that the Countesse is a sharpe and bitter shrewe, and therefore licke enough to shorten your lief, if shee should kepe yow company. Indeede, my good Lord, I have heard some say so; but if shrewdnesse or sharpnesse may be a juste cause of separation between a man and wiefe, I thinck fewe men in Englande would keepe their wives longe; for it is a common jeste, yet trewe in some sense, that there is but one shrewe in all the worlde, and everee man hath her and so everee man must be ridd of his wiefe that wolde be ridd of a shrewe." It is wonderful this good bishop did not use another argument as cogent,

and which would in those times be allowed as something; the name of his lordship, Shrewsbury, would have afforded a consolatory pun!

The entertaining Marville says that the generality of ladies married to literary men are so vain of the abilities and merit of their husbands, that they are frequently unsufferable.

The wife of Barclay, author of "The Argenis," considered herself as the wife of a demigod. This appeared glaringly after his death: for Cardinal Barberini having erected a monument to the memory of his tutor, next to the tomb of Barclay, Mrs. Barclay was so irritated at this that she demolished his monument, brought home his bust, and declared that the ashes of so great a genius as her husband should never be placed beside so villanous a pedagogue.

Salmasius's wife was a termagant; and Christina said she admired his patience more than his erudition, married to such a shrew. Mrs. Salmasius indeed considered herself as the queen of science, because her husband was acknowledged as sovereign among the critics. She boasted that she had for her husband the most learned of all the nobles, and the most noble of all the learned. Our good lady always joined the learned conferences which he held in his study. She spoke loud, and decided with a tone of majesty. Salmasius was mild in conversation, but the reverse

in his writings, for our proud Xantippe considered him as acting beneath himself if he did not magisterially call every one names!

The wife of Rohault, when her husband gave lectures on the philosophy of Descartes, used to seat herself on these days at the door, and refused admittance to every one shabbily dressed, or who did not discover a genteel air. So convinced was she that, to be worthy of hearing the lectures of her husband, it was proper to appear fashionable. In vain our good lecturer exhausted himself in telling her that fortune does not always give fine clothes to philosophers.

The ladies of Albert Durer and Berghem were both shrews. The wife of Durer compelled that great genius to the hourly drudgery of his profession, merely to gratify her own sordid passion: in despair, Albert ran away from his Tisiphone; she wheedled him back, and not long afterwards this great artist fell a victim to her furious disposition. Berghem's wife would never allow that excellent artist to quit his occupations; and she contrived an odd expedient to detect his indolence. The artist worked in a room above her; ever and anon she roused him by thumping a long stick against the ceiling, while the obedient Berghem answered by stamping his foot, to satisfy Mrs. Berghem that he was not napping!

Ælian had an aversion to the marriage state.

Sigonius, a learned and well known scholar, would never marry, and alleged no inelegant reason; that "Minerva and Venus could not live together."

Matrimony has been considered by some writers as a condition not so well suited to the circumstances of philosophers and men of learning. There is a little tract which professes to investi- * gate the subject. It has for title, De Matrimonio Literati, an cælibem esse, an verò nubere conveniat, i. e. of the Marriage of a Man of Letters, with an inquiry whether it is most proper for him to continue a Bachelor, or to marry.

"The author alleges the great merit of some women; particularly that of Conzaga the consort of Montefeltro, duke of Urbino; a lady of such distinguished accomplishments, that Peter Bembus said, none but a stupid man would not prefer one of her conversations to all the formal meetings and disputations of the philosophers.

"The ladies perhaps will be surprised to find that it is a question among the Learned, Whether they ought to marry? and will think it an un accountable property of learning that it should lay the professors of it under an obligation to disregard the sex. But whatever opinion these gentlemen may have of that amiable part of the species, it is very questionable whether, in return for this want of complaisance in them, the generality of ladies would not prefer the beau,

and the man of fashion to the man of sense and learning. However, if the latter be considered as valuable in the eyes of any of them, let there be Gonzagas, and I dare pronounce that this question will be soon determined in their favour, and they will find converts enough to their charms."

The sentiments of Sir Thomas Browne, on the consequences of marriage, are very curious, in the second part of his Religio Medici, Sect. 9. When he wrote that work, he said, "I was never yet once, and commend their resolutions, who never marry twice."-He calls woman "the rib and crooked piece of man." He adds, " I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to procreate the world without this trivial and vulgar way." He means the union of sexes, which he declares" is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life, nor is there any thing that will more deject his cooled imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath committed." He afterwards declares he is not averse to that sweet sex, but naturally amorous of all that is beautiful; "I could look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of a horse." He afterwards disserts very profoundly on the music there is in beauty, "and the silent note which Cupid strikes is far sweeter than the sound