Bunyan speaks 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.
Parnell and Steele were 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's letters 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.
When Johnson married 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.
A LEGEND OF ST. MARY'S.
BY ALICE CAREY.
One night, when bitterer winds than ours
On hill-sides and in valleys low,
Built sepulchres for the dead flowers,
And buried them in sheets of snow,—
When over ledges dark and cold,
The sweet moon rising high and higher,
Tipped with a dimly burning gold
St. Mary's old cathedral spire,—
The lamp of the confessional,
(God grant it did not burn in vain,)
After the solemn midnight bell,
Streamed redly through the lattice-pane.