Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1851-07-09
GREAT NEWS yy,vEs--no 2.

GREAT MEMS WIyES--HC S'
DR.. Richard Hooker, was very unfortu-
nate in his wife. He was betrayed into
marrying her by his extraordinary simple
ity and ignorance of the world. The cir
cumstances connected with the marriage
were these Having been appointed to
preach at St. Pauls 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 Oil
his arrival and experienced much kindness
from the housekeeper. She persuaded him
that he was man of very tender constitu-
ton, and urged that he ought, above all
things, to have 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
wife for him, and the artful woman present
ed her own daughter-"a silly, clownlsh
woman, and withal mere XantlpPe. =
Hooker, who had promised to marry whom
soever she should select, thought himself
bound to her, and he did so. They led
most uncomfortable life, but he resigned
himself as he best could, lamenting that
'.saints have usually 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 convers-
ing 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 thorn in
his side.
The famous Earl of Rochester appears in
very favorable light in his letters to his
wife they are remarkably tender, affec-
tionate, and gentle. In one ofthem, he says:
''Tis not an easy thing to be entirely hap
py; but to be kind is very easy, and that is
the greatest measure ofhappiness. Isay not
this to put you in mind of being kind to me-
you have pIactised that so long, that have
joyful confidence you will never forget it
but to show that myself have sense OF
what the method of my life seemed so ut
terly to contradict"
DRYDEN married Elizabeth Howard, ,daught-
er of the Earl of Berkshire. The match add
ed little to his wealth, and less to his hap
piness. 1t was an altogether unhappy un-
| ion. On one occasion, his wife wished to
be book, that she might enjoy more Of his
company. Driden's reply was "Be an al
manac, then, my dear, that may change
you once year" In his writings after
wards, he constantly inveighed against mat
rimony.
Addison also married discordin 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 ike lacquey. She never saw
in him more than her sons tutor. Swift (his
contemporary cruelty firted with two admi.
rable women he heartlessly killed one OF
them, and secretly married the other, but
never publicly recognised her; she, too,
shortly after died.
Sterne treated his wife with such sever
ity, that she abandoned him, and took re-
treat in convent with her daughter she
never saw him after. Who would have
suspected this from the author of "Lefevre"
and "The Sentimental Journey" :" Farqu-
har, the play-writer, married, early in life,
woman who deceived him by pretending
to be possessed of fortune, and he sunk,
victim to disappointment and over-exertlon,
in his thirtieth year, leaving behind him
"two helpless girls" his widow died in the
utmost indigence.
These are rather unhappy instances OF
the wives of great men? but their are others
of q happier kind. Indeed we hear but lit
tie ofthe happy unions: it is the brawllng
rocky brook that is the most noisy: the
slow, deep waters are dumb. Every one
will remember the wife of Lord VIM. Rus
sell, whose conduct by the side of her hus-
band 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 fare
well, all he could say was {: "The bitter
ness of death is now past - She lived many
years after the execution OF her husband,
and delightful collection of her letters has
since been published.
Bunyan speaks with the greatest tender
ness Of his wife, who helped to lead him in
the paths of peace. He says: "My mercy
was to light upon wife. whose father and
mother were counted godly this woman
and I, though we came together as poor
as poor mi ght be (not having so much
household stuff as dish or spoon betwixt
us both); yet this she had for her part,
The Plain Mans Pathway to heaven and
The Practice of Piety,' which her father
had left her when he died." And his pc
rusal 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.
Parnell and Steele were both happy in
their wives. The former married young
woman of beauty and merit, but she lived
only few years, and his grief at his loss so
preyed on his mind, that he never recover
his wonted spirits and health. Steele's let
ters 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
noble house, espousing the daughter OF the
Earl of Litchfeld ; but he was happier than
they. It was out of the melancholy pro-
duced by her death that his famous "Night
Thoughts" took their rise.
When Johnson married Mrs. Porter, her
age was twice his OWN; yet the union prov
l.