Seneca, the philosopher and tutor of Nero, was condemned to death by his pupil, in the decline of life, after having married Pompeia Paulina, a young and noble Roman lady, who loved and was loved devotedly by him. She too, in the plenitude of her grief and affection, nobly determined to die with her husband, and thus to encourage him by her example, quietly but firmly to bear the last struggle of humanity. She, however, was saved, after having opened her veins, by the emissaries of Nero, who feared the effect which this act of self-immolation might produce on the excitable populace of Rome.

Plutarch, in one of his most interesting Dialogues, makes Daphneus assert that there is something divine in the love of woman, and compares it to the sun that animates all nature. He places the greatest felicity in conjugal love, and gives us as an exemplification, the very interesting tale of the adventures of Eppopina, which passed before the eyes of Plutarch, as he was at that time living in the house of Vespasian. Sabinus, the husband of Eppopina, being vanquished by the troops of the Emperor Vespasian, concealed himself in a deep cavern between Franche Compté and Champagne. The unbounded affection of Eppopina and her untiring researches, soon enabled her to find the hiding place of him who commanded all the affections of her heart. She determined to be the consoler and the comforter of her husband, who was buried from the world. She accordingly shut herself up with him, attended on him in that dark cavern for many years, and bore children whilst there; and all this she encountered for his sake. When brought before Vespasian, who was astonished at her heroism and fortitude, she said to him, "I have lived more happily under ground, than thou in the light of the sun, and in the enjoyment of power."

But one of the most celebrated examples on record, of the ardent desire of woman to console and encourage her husband in the dismal hour of despair, is furnished by Arria, the wife of Cecina Pætus. This Pætus, after the defeat by the troops of the Emperor Claudius of the army of Scribonianus, whose party he had espoused, was condemned to death by the same emperor. It was the custom under the emperors, to leave condemned individuals to terminate their existence themselves, provided they could have the resolution to do it. Pætus wavered and hesitated. The dreadful struggle which it cost him, made a deeper impression upon the devoted and tender heart of Arria than even the sentence of death had inflicted. After caressing and encouraging him by the most tender offices to nerve himself to the act, she took the poniard which he wore by his side, and exclaiming, "Pætus, do thus!" she plunged it into her own bosom; then drawing it from the reeking wound, she presented the dagger to her husband "with this noble, generous, and immortal saying:" Pæte non dolet! "Pætus, it is not painful!"2

2 This death has afforded Martial the subject of one of his most elegant epigrams, which has been thus rendered:

"When to her husband Arria gave the sword,
Which from her chaste, her bleeding breast she drew,
She said, 'My Pætus, this I do not feel;
But, oh! the wound that must be made by you!'
She could no more—but on her Pætus still,
She fix'd her feeble, her expiring eyes;
And when she saw him raise the pointed steel,
She sunk—and seem'd to say, 'Now Arria dies!'"

Such instances as these we do not find in modern times, because the introduction of a more humane and rational religion, together with juster and more philosophical notions upon the subject of morality, have taught us that under no circumstances short of absolute necessity, can suicide be justified. But we are not to infer that woman is not as kind, as tender now as in the days of antiquity, when her religious creed did not forbid suicide. What, for example, can show more kind solicitude, more tender anxiety about the last moments of a condemned husband, than the letter written by Lady Jane Grey to her husband Lord Guilford Dudley, a short time previous to his execution, when she herself at the same time was lying under a sentence of condemnation. "Do not let us meet, Guilford," she says, "we must see each other no more, until we are united in a better world. We must forget our joys so sweet, our loves so tender and so happy. You must now devote yourself to none but serious thoughts. No more love, no more happiness here upon earth! We must now think of nothing but death! Remember, my Guilford, that the people are waiting for you, to see how a man can die. Show no weakness as you approach the scaffold; your fortitude would be overcome perhaps, were you to see me. You could not quit your poor Jane without tears; and tears and weakness must be left to us women. Adieu, my Guilford adieu! be a man—be firm at the last hour—let me be proud of you." Well then might Guilford die like a hero, when he had such a wife to encourage and be proud of him. And who was this tender, kind, consoling wife, in the hour of death? Her political history is known to all. Almost forced for a moment to wear the crown of England, she incurred the guilt of treason, was condemned to death at the very time when she forgets herself in trying to impart resignation and fortitude to her husband, and was executed a few days afterwards. She is described as having been lovely beyond measure. Her features were beautifully regular, and her large and mild eyes were the reflection of a pure and virtuous soul, peaceful and unambitious. Yet even she could forget blood and royalty, and all the weakness of her own nature, and the terrors of her own execution, to impart moral courage and resignation to a husband about to die.

Many most affecting instances of the same kind might be cited from the French revolution; but my limits will permit me to adduce no more. I hope then, all my readers are ready to acknowledge the justice of the celebrated eulogy which the Duke de Lioncourt passed upon the merits of woman in this particular—a eulogy whose justice and truth his condition and career in life, seem to have well befitted his head to comprehend and his heart to feel. "Their friendship," says he, "is inviolable, their fidelity unshaken, their courage invincible. They are intimidated by no difficulty, and bid defiance to dangers. Amiable woman! while man desponds, she animates him with new hopes. When he is sick, she ministers unto him; when in distress, she comforts him, bids him live, and makes him in love with himself. And well can she sooth and comfort him: she is all patience, she is all fortitude. The endearments of her smiles, the melting accents of her voice, and her bewitching softness, beguile him of his sorrows, and make his prison a palace." Enough has been said to prove the admirable adaptation of the sexes to each other in the particular under discussion, and to show what a kind ministering angel woman can become in the dark hour of adversity.

It has been truly remarked, that when a married man falls into adversity, he is more apt to retrieve his situation in the world than a single one, "because his spirits are soothed and relieved by domestic endearments, and his self-respect is kept alive by finding that though all abroad is darkness and humiliation, yet there is still a little world of love at home of which he is the monarch." He can truly say, "if I am unacceptable to all the world beside, there is one whom I entirely love, that will receive me with joy and transport, and think herself obliged to double her kindness and caresses of me, from the gloom with which she sees me overcast. I need not dissemble the sorrow of my heart to be agreeable there; that very sorrow quickens her affection." Let every husband then remember this, and never keep from his wife his misfortunes, no matter how heartrending they may be. Woman is always full of resources on these occasions, and will ever submit with cheerfulness to every privation, which her altered circumstances may demand. There is many a husband who has never known the true character and value of his wife, until he has seen her resignation, fortitude, and almost angelic cheerfulness under the dark clouds of misfortune. It is then "she openeth her mouth in wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness." Then may the husband well acknowledge that he has found a truly virtuous woman, and her price to him at least, is far above all rubies. One of the most beautiful tales of Washington Irving, is that which is entitled "The Wife," and owes its great merit to the singular beauty with which he describes the fortitude and encouraging cheerfulness of a young wife whose husband is ruined. Women even who have been reckless and dissipated, and have ruined their husbands by their extravagance, have frequently reformed in adversity, and become the stay and solace of their husbands when stript of all their possessions. It is then we may truly say of the reformed woman in the language of holy writ, "she looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness." Even Bulwer, in his England and the English, makes his fictitious Mrs. Thurston, after ruining her husband by her extravagance, occasioned by vanity and ambition, consent with cheerfulness to assume the coarser and more homely garments of penury, and forget her own proud self in the desire to console and comfort her ruined husband. And Miss Edgeworth too, in that beautiful romance, "The Absentee," after misfortune had visited the Clonbronny family, makes the vain and haughty Lady Clonbronny, who was so desirous to reside in London, and whose very heart and soul yearned after the society of the fashionable circles of that great metropolis, consent to return to her deserted castle in Ireland, on the reasonable condition that she might never be mortified with the sight of the old yellow damask curtains which hung in the windows of the hall. Well then may we truly say of woman what Cicero so beautifully asserted of the genuine friend. She doubles our enjoyments by the pleasures which they afford her, and she halves our sorrows by the comforts, and consolations, and sympathies which she affords us.

"'Tis woman's smiles that lull our cares to rest;
Dear woman's charms that give to life its zest:
'Tis woman's hand that smooths affliction's bed,
Wipes the cold sweat, and stays the sinking head."

Intellectual Differences between the Sexes.