Lady Romilly died on the 29th of October, 1818, and the bereaved husband was unable to bear up under this terrible loss. The shock occasioned by her death deprived him of his senses, and in his despair he committed the fatal act which laid him in the same grave with his devoted wife. In life they were united, and in death they would not be separated.
Mackintosh married when only a young man in great pecuniary straits. He was living in the family of Dr. Fraser, London, where Miss Catherine Stuart, a young Scotch lady, was a frequent visitor. She was distinguished by a rich fund of good sense, and an affectionate heart, rather than for her personal attractions. An affection sprang up between them, and they got privately married at Marylebone Church, on February 18th, 1789, greatly to the offense of the relatives of both parties.
When composing his Vindiciæ Gallicæ at Little Ealing, his wife sat by him in the room; he could tolerate no one else, and he required her to be perfectly quiet—not even to write or work—as the slightest movement disturbed him. In the evening, by way of recreation, he walked out with his wife, reading to her as he went along. This amiable wife died in 1797, when slowly recovering from the birth of a child, and she left three daughters behind her. Mackintosh thus spoke of his departed wife, in a letter to Dr. Parr, written shortly after his sad bereavement, and we do not remember ever to have met with a more beautiful testimony to a deceased wife than this is:
"In the state of deep, but quiet melancholy, which has succeeded to the first violent agitations of my sorrow, my greatest pleasure is to look back with gratitude and pious affection on the memory of my beloved wife; and my chief consolation is the soothing recollection of her virtues. Allow me, in justice to her memory, to tell you what she was, and what I owed her. I was guided in my choice only by the blind affection of my youth. I found an intelligent companion and a tender friend, a prudent monitress, the most faithful of wives, and a mother as tender as children ever had the misfortune to lose. I met a woman who, by the tender management of my weaknesses, gradually corrected the most pernicious of them. She became prudent from affection; and though of the most generous nature, she was taught frugality and economy by her love for me. During the most critical period of my life, she preserved order in my affairs, from the care of which she relieved me. She gently reclaimed me from dissipation; she propped my weak and irresolute nature; she urged my indolence to all the exertions that have been useful and creditable to me; and she was perpetually at hand to admonish my heedlessness or improvidence. To her I owe whatever I am; to her, whatever I shall be. In her solicitude for my interest, she never for a moment forgot my feelings, or my character. Even in her occasional resentment, for which I but too often gave her cause (would to God I could recall those moments), she had no sullenness nor acrimony. Her feelings were warm and impetuous, but she was placable, tender, and constant. Such was she whom I have lost; and I have lost her when her excellent natural sense was rapidly improving, after eight years of struggle and distress had bound us fast together, and moulded our tempers to each other,—when a knowledge of her worth had refined my youthful love into friendship, before age had deprived it of much of its original ardor. I lost her, alas! (the choice of my youth, the partner of my misfortunes) at a moment when I had the prospect of her sharing my better days. If I had lost the giddy and thoughtless companion of prosperity, the world could easily repair the loss; but I have lost the faithful and tender partner of my misfortunes, and my only consolation is in that Being, under whose severe, but paternal chastisement, I am bent down to the ground."
Mackintosh married, about a year after the death of his first wife, Catherine, the second daughter of John Allen, of Cresselly, Co. Pembroke. She was an amiable and accomplished woman, and greatly contributed to his happiness in after life. She died in 1830, at Chêne, near Geneva, after a short illness; and her husband, speaking of her afterward, "in the deep sincerity of deliberate conviction," calls her "an upright and pious woman, formed for devoted affection, who employed a strong understanding and resolute spirit in unwearied attempts to relieve every suffering under her view."
CRIME DETECTED.—AN ANECDOTE OF THE PARIS POLICE.
Previously to the year 1789, but at what precise date can not say, the city of Paris possessed as guardian of its safety, and chief minister of police, a man of rare talent and integrity. At the same period, the parish of St. Germais, in the quarter of the Rue St. Antoine, had for its curé a kind venerable old man, whose whole life was spent in doing good to both the souls and bodies of his fellow-creatures, and whose holy consistency and dignified courage caused him to be loved by the good, and respected by even the most abandoned characters. One cold dark winter's night, the bell at the old curé's door was rung loudly, and he, although in bed, immediately arose and opened the door, anticipating a summons to some sick or dying bed.
A personage, richly dressed, with his features partly concealed by a large false beard, stood outside. Addressing the curé in a courteous and graceful manner, he apologized for his unseasonable visit, which, as he said, the high reputation of monsieur had induced him to make.
"A great and terrible, but necessary and inevitable deed," he continued, "is to be done. Time presses; a soul about to pass into eternity implores your ministry. If you come you must allow your eyes to be bandaged, ask no questions, and consent to act simply as spiritual consoler of a dying woman. If you refuse to accompany me, no other priest can be admitted, and her spirit must pass alone."