"We must not omit an incident that occurred before the ceremony, which is very significant of Howard's frankness and firmness at this epoch. Observing that many unpleasantnesses arise in families, from circumstances trifling in themselves, in consequence of each individual wishing to have his own way in all things, he determined to avoid all these sources of domestic discord, by establishing his own paramount authority in the first instance. It is just conceivable that his former experience of the wedded life may have led him to insist upon this condition. At all events, he stipulated with Henrietta, that, in all matters in which there should be a difference of opinion between them, his voice should rule. This may sound very ungallant in terms, but it was found exceedingly useful in practice. Few men would have the moral honesty to suggest such an arrangement to their lady-loves at such a season; though, at the same time, few would hesitate to make the largest mental reservations in their own behalf. It may also be, that few young belles would be disposed to treat such a proposition otherwise than with ridicule and anger, however conscious they might be, that as soon as the hymeneal pageantries were passed, their surest means of happiness would lie in the prompt adoption of the principle so laid down.
"Would that men and women would become sincerer with each other! The great social vice of this age is its untrustfulness."
And Mr Dixon thereupon launches into we know not what heroics upon etiquette, upon English law, morals, and the constitution, all à propos of Henrietta's obedience! For our own part, we do not look with much respect upon this stipulation which calls forth the admiration of Mr Dixon, and apparently meets with his cordial sympathy. Such a stipulation would probably be a mere nullity; with, or without it, the stronger will would predominate; but if we are to suppose it a really binding obligation, forming the basis of the conjugal union, it presents to us anything but an attractive aspect. It was the harsh feature in Howard's character, or the mistaken principle that he had adopted—this love of an authority—this claim to a domestic absolutism—which was to give no reasons, and admit of no questioning.
In justice to the character of Howard, we must not leave this matter entirely in the hands of Mr Dixon. Everything he draws is, more or less, a caricature. The authority on which his narration is founded is the following statement of the Rev. S. Palmer, given in Brown, p. 55:—
"The truth is," says Mr Palmer, in his manuscript memoir of his distinguished friend, "he had a high idea (some of his friends may think, too high) of the authority of the head of a family. And he thought it right, because most convenient, to maintain it, for the sake of avoiding the unhappy consequences of domestic disputes. On this principle I have more than once heard him pleasantly relate the agreement he made with the last Mrs Howard, previous to their marriage, that, to prevent all altercation about those little matters which he had observed to be the chief grounds of uneasiness in families, he should always decide. To this the amiable lady readily consented, and ever adhered. Nor did she ever regret the agreement, which she found to be attended with the happiest effects. Such was the opinion she entertained, both of his wisdom and his goodness, that she perfectly acquiesced in all that he did, and no lady ever appeared happier in the conjugal bonds."
Here the matter has a much less repulsive aspect than in Mr Dixon's version, who has, in fact, exaggerated, in his zeal, a trait of Howard's character, which his best friends seem always to have looked upon with more or less of regret and disapproval.
As the only other circumstance connected with Howard's domestic life which we shall have space to mention, has also a peculiar reference to this trait in his character, we will depart from the chronological order of events, and allude to it here. His last wife left him one child, a son. This son grew up a dissolute youth; his ill-regulated life led to disease, and disease terminated in insanity. To this last malady, Mr Brown tells us he is authorised to say that there was a hereditary predisposition—we presume he means upon the mother's side.
Immediately on the death of Howard, there appeared, amongst the obituaries of the Gentleman's Magazine, a memoir of the deceased, in which the miserable fate of the son is directly charged upon the severity of the father. The whole memoir is full of errors. For this, the extreme haste in which it was necessarily written forms an excuse. But no excuse can be given for the perverse and malignant spirit it betrays. The very next number of the magazine opens with four or five letters addressed to Mr Urban, all remonstrating against, and refuting this baseless calumny; and every biographer has felt himself compelled to notice and repel the slander.
The fact is, that the writer or writers of the memoir—for several were engaged in concocting this very hasty and wretched performance—were quite ignorant, both of the education the son had received, and of the profligate course, and the consequent derangement of his health into which he had fallen. They knew only that the son was in a lunatic asylum, and that the father was a severe disciplinarian; and they most unwarrantably combined the two together, in the relation of cause and effect. "All prospects," they say, speaking of the youth, "were blasted by paternal severity, which reduced the young man to such an unhappy situation as to require his being placed where he now is, or lately was."
The vindication of Howard from this slander is complete; the origin of the son's malady is clearly traced; his affection for his child is amply demonstrated, and his unceasing anxiety to train him to virtue and piety is made equally manifest. But his most intimate friends entertained the opinion that his conduct towards his son was not judicious, and that his method of training up the youth was by no means so wisely, as it was conscientiously adopted. This is the sole charge, if such it can be called, to which the father is obnoxious; nor, from this, do we pretend to acquit him.
"It is agreed, on all hands," says Mr Brown, "that Howard entertained the most exalted notions of the authority of the head of a family—notions derived rather from the Scriptural history of patriarchal times than from any of our modern codes of ethics, or systems of education." Accordingly, we are told that he trained up his child from earliest infancy to an implicit obedience. Without once striking the child, but by manifesting a firmness of purpose which it was hopeless to think of shaking, he established such an authority over him that Howard himself, on one occasion, said, that "if he told the boy to put his finger in the fire, he believed he would do it." When he was an infant, and cried from passion, the father took him, laid him quietly in his lap, neither spoke nor moved, but let him cry on till he was wearied. "This process, a few times repeated, had such an effect, that the child, if crying ever so violently, was rendered quiet the instant his father took him." When he grew older, the severest punishment his father inflicted was to make him sit still in his presence, without speaking, for a time proportioned to the nature of the offence. But this impassive, statue-like firmness must have precluded all approach to companionship or confidence on the part of the son. It was still the obedience only of fear. "His friends," we quote from Mr Brown, "and amongst the rest the most intimate of them, the Rev. Mr Smith, thought that in the case of his son he carried those patriarchal ideas rather too far, and that by a lad of his temper (the son is described as of a lively disposition) he would have been more respected, and would have possessed more real authority over him, had he attempted to convince him of the reasonableness of his commands, instead of always enforcing obedience to them on his parental authority." We therefore may be permitted to say, that we look upon this aspect of Howard's character as by no means estimable. As a husband he claimed an unjust prerogative, and as a parent he divorced authority from persuasion, nor allowed obedience to mingle and ally itself with filial affection.