Having examined some _literary blunders_, we will now proceed to the
subject of a _literary wife_, which may happen to prove one. A learned
lady is to the taste of few. It is however matter of surprise, that
several literary men should have felt such a want of taste in respect to
"their soul's far dearer part," as Hector calls his Andromache. The
wives of many men of letters have been dissolute, ill-humoured,
slatternly, and have run into all the frivolities of the age. The wife
of the learned Budæus was of a different character.
How delightful is it when the mind of the female is so happily disposed,
and so richly cultivated, as to participate in the literary avocations
of her husband! It is then truly that the intercourse of the sexes
becomes the most refined pleasure. What delight, for instance, must the
great Budæus have tasted, even in those works which must have been for
others a most dreadful labour! His wife left him nothing to desire. The
frequent companion of his studies, she brought him the books he required
to his desk; she collated passages, and transcribed quotations; the same
genius, the same inclination, and the same ardour for literature,
eminently appeared in those two fortunate persons. Far from withdrawing
her husband from his studies, she was sedulous to animate him when he
languished. Ever at his side, and ever assiduous; ever with some useful
book in her hand, she acknowledged herself to be a most happy woman. Yet
she did not neglect the education of eleven children. She and Budæus
shared in the mutual cares they owed their progeny. Budæus was not
insensible of his singular felicity. In one of his letters, he
represents himself as married to two _ladies_; one of whom gave him boys
and girls, the other was Philosophy, who produced books. He says that in
his twelve first years, Philosophy had been less fruitful than marriage;
he had produced less books than children; he had laboured more
corporally than intellectually; but he hoped to make more books than
men. "The soul (says he) will be productive in its turn; it will rise on
the ruins of the body; a prolific virtue is not given at the same time
to the bodily organs and the pen."
The lady of Evelyn designed herself the frontispiece to his translation
of Lucretius. She felt the same passion in her own breast which animated
her husband's, who has written, with such various ingenuity. Of Baron
Haller it is recorded that he inspired his wife and family with a taste
for his different pursuits. They were usually employed in assisting his
literary occupations; they transcribed manuscripts, consulted authors,
gathered plants, and designed and coloured under his eye. What a
delightful family picture has the younger Pliny given posterity in his
letters! Of Calphurnia, his wife, he says, "Her affection to me has
given her a turn to books; and my compositions, which she takes a
pleasure in reading, and even getting by heart, are continually in her
hands. How full of tender solicitude is she when I am entering upon any
cause! How kindly does she rejoice with me when it is over! While I am
pleading, she places persons to inform her from time to time how I am
heard, what applauses I receive, and what success attends the cause.
When at any time I recite my works, she conceals herself behind some
curtain, and with secret rapture enjoys my praises. She sings my verses
to her lyre, with no other master but love, the best instructor, for her
guide. Her passion will increase with our days, for it is not my youth
nor my person, which time gradually impairs, but my reputation and my
glory, of which, she is enamoured."
On the subject of a literary wife, I must introduce to the acquaintance
of the reader Margaret Duchess of Newcastle. She is known, at least by
her name, as a voluminous writer; for she extended her literary
productions to the number of twelve folio volumes.
Her labours have been ridiculed by some wits; but had her studies been
regulated, she would have displayed no ordinary genius. The
_Connoisseur_ has quoted her poems, and her verses have been imitated by
Milton.
The duke, her husband, was also an author; his book on horsemanship
still preserves his name. He has likewise written comedies, and his
contemporaries have not been, penurious in their eulogiums. It is true
he was a duke. Shadwell says of him, "That he was the greatest master of
wit, the most exact observer of mankind, and the most accurate judge of
humour that ever he knew." The life of the duke is written "by the hand
of his incomparable duchess." It was published in his lifetime. This
curious piece of biography is a folio of 197 pages, and is entitled "The
Life of the Thrice Noble, High, and Puissant Prince, William Cavendish."
His titles then follow:--"Written by the Thrice Noble, Illustrious, and
Excellent Princess, Margaret Duchess of Newcastle, his wife. London,
1667." This Life is dedicated to Charles the Second; and there is also
prefixed a copious epistle to her husband the duke.
In this epistle the character of our Literary Wife is described with all
its peculiarities.
"Certainly, my lord, you have had as many enemies and as many friends as
ever any one particular person had; nor do I so much wonder at it,
since I, a woman, cannot be exempt from the malice and aspersions of
spiteful tongues, which they cast upon my poor writings, some denying me
to be the true authoress of them; for your grace remembers well, that
those books I put out first to the judgment of this censorious age were
accounted not to be written by a woman, but that somebody else had writ
and published them in my name; by which your lordship was moved to
prefix an epistle before one of them in my vindication, wherein you
assure the world, upon your honour, that what was written and printed in
my name was my own; and I have also made known that your lordship was my
only tutor, in declaring to me what you had found and observed by your
own experience; for I being young when your lordship married me, could
not have much knowledge of the world; but it pleased God to command his
servant Nature to endue me with a poetical and philosophical genius,
even from my birth; for I did write some books in that kind before I was
twelve years of age, which for want of good method and order I would
never divulge. But though the world would not believe that those
conceptions and fancies which I writ were my own, but transcended my
capacity, yet they found fault, that they were defective for want of
learning, and on the other side, they said I had pluckt feathers out of
the universities; which was a very preposterous judgment. Truly, my
lord, I confess that for want of scholarship, I could not express myself
so well as otherwise I might have done in those philosophical writings I
published first; but after I was returned with your lordship into my
native country, and led a retired country life, I applied myself to the
reading of philosophical authors, on purpose to learn those names and
words of art that are used in schools; which at first were so hard to
me, that I could not understand them, but was fain to guess at the sense
of them by the whole context, and so writ them down, as I found them in
those authors; at which my readers did wonder, and thought it impossible
that a woman could have so much learning and understanding in terms of
art and scholastical expressions; so that I and my books are like the
old apologue mentioned in Æsop, of a father and his son who rid on an
ass." Here follows a long narrative of this fable, which she applies to
herself in these words--"The old man seeing he could not please mankind
in any manner, and having received so many blemishes and aspersions for
the sake of his ass, was at last resolved to drown him when he came to
the next bridge. But I am not so passionate to burn my writings for the
various humours of mankind, and for their finding fault; since there is
nothing in this world, be it the noblest and most commendable action
whatsoever, that shall escape blameless. As for my being the true and
only authoress of them, your lordship knows best; and my attending
servants are witness that I have had none but my own thoughts, fancies,
and speculations, to assist me; and as soon as I set them down I send
them to those that are to transcribe them, and fit them for the press;
whereof, since there have been several, and amongst them such as only
could write a good hand, but neither understood orthography, nor had any
learning, (I being then in banishment, with your lordship, and not able
to maintain learned secretaries,) which hath been a great disadvantage
to my poor works, and the cause that they have been printed so false and
so full of errors; for besides that I want also skill in scholarship and
true writing, I did many times not peruse the copies that were
transcribed, lest they should disturb my following conceptions; by which
neglect, as I said, many errors are slipt into my works, which, yet I
hope, learned and impartial men will soon rectify, and look more upon
the sense than carp at words. I have been a student even from childhood;
and since I have been your lordship's wife I have lived for the most
part a strict and retired life, as is best known to your lordship; and
therefore my censurers cannot know much of me, since they have little or
no acquaintance with me. 'Tis true I have been a traveller both before
and after I was married to your lordship, and some times shown myself at
your lordship's command in public places or assemblies, but yet I
converse with few. Indeed, my lord, I matter not the censures of this
age, but am rather proud of them; for it shows that my actions are more
than ordinary, and according to the old proverb, it is better to be
envied than pitied; for I know well that it is merely out of spite and
malice, whereof this present age is so full that none can escape them,
and they'll make no doubt to stain even your lordship's loyal, noble,
and heroic actions, as well as they do mine; though yours have been of
war and fighting, mine of contemplating and writing: yours were
performed publicly in the field, mine privately in my closet; yours had
many thousand eye-witnesses; mine none but my waiting-maids. But the
great God, that hitherto bless'd both your grace and me, will, I
question not, preserve both our fames to after-ages.
"Your grace's honest wife,
"and humble servant,
"M. NEWCASTLE."
The last portion of this life, which consists of the observations and
good things which she had gathered from the conversations of her
husband, forms an excellent Ana; and shows that when Lord Orford, in his
"Catalogue of Noble Authors," says, that "this stately poetic couple was
a picture of foolish nobility," he writes, as he does too often, with
extreme levity. But we must now attend to the reverse of our medal.
Many chagrins may corrode the nuptial state of literary men. Females
who, prompted by vanity, but not by taste, unite themselves to scholars,
must ever complain of neglect. The inexhaustible occupations of a
library will only present to such a most dreary solitude. Such a lady
declared of her learned husband, that she was more jealous of his books
than his mistresses. It was probably while Glover was composing his
"Leonidas," that his lady avenged herself for this _Homeric_ inattention
to her, and took her flight with a lover. It was peculiar to the learned
Dacier to be united to woman, his equal in erudition and his superior in
taste. When she wrote in the album of a German traveller a verse from
Sophocles as an apology for her unwillingness to place herself among his
learned friends, that "Silence is the female's ornament," it was a trait
of her modesty. The learned Pasquier was coupled to a female of a
different character, since he tells us in one of his Epigrams that to
manage the vociferations of his lady, he was compelled himself to become
a vociferator.--"Unfortunate wretch that I am, I who am a lover of
universal peace! But to have peace I am obliged ever to be at war."
Sir Thomas More was united to a woman of the harshest temper and the
most sordid manners. To soften the moroseness of her disposition, "he
persuaded her to play on the lute, viol, and other instruments, every
day." Whether it was that she had no ear for music, she herself never
became harmonious as the instrument she touched. All these ladies may be
considered as rather too alert in thought, and too spirited in action;
but a tame cuckoo bird who is always repeating the same note must be
very fatiguing. The lady of Samuel Clarke, the great compiler of books
in 1680, whose name was anagrammatised to "_suck all cream_," alluding
to his indefatigable labours in sucking all the cream of every other
author, without having any cream himself, is described by her husband as
entertaining the most sublime conceptions of his illustrious
compilations. This appears by her behaviour. He says, "that she never
rose from table without making him a curtsey, nor drank to him without
bowing, and that his word was a law to her."
I was much surprised in looking over a correspondence of the times, that
in 1590 the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, writing to the Earl of
Shrewsbury on the subject of his living separate from his countess, uses
as one of his arguments for their union the following curious one, which
surely shows the gross and cynical feeling which the fair sex excited
even among the higher classes of society. The language of this good
bishop is neither that of truth, we hope, nor certainly that of
religion.
"But some will saye in your Lordship's behalfe that the Countesse is a
sharpe and bitter shrewe, and therefore licke enough to shorten your
lief, if shee should kepe yow company, Indeede, my good Lord, I have
heard some say so; but if shrewdnesse or sharpnesse may be a juste cause
of separation between a man and wiefe, I thinck fewe men in Englande
would keepe their wives longe; for it is a common jeste, yet trewe in
some sense, that there is but one shrewe in all the worlde, and everee
man hath her: and so everee man must be ridd of his wiefe that wolde be
ridd of a shrewe." It is wonderful this good bishop did not use another
argument as cogent, and which would in those times be allowed as
something; the name of his lordship, _Shrewsbury_, would have afforded a
consolatory _pun_!
The entertaining Marville says that the generality of ladies married to
literary men are so vain of the abilities and merit of their husbands,
that they are frequently insufferable.
The wife of Barclay, author of "The Argenis," considered herself as the
wife of a demigod. This appeared glaringly after his death; for Cardinal
Barberini having erected a monument to the memory of his tutor, next to
the tomb of Barclay, Mrs. Barclay was so irritated at this that she
demolished his monument, brought home his bust, and declared that the
ashes of so great a genius as her husband should never be placed beside
a pedagogue.
Salmasius's wife was a termagant; Christina said she admired his
patience more than his erudition. Mrs. Salmasius indeed considered
herself as the queen of science, because her husband was acknowledged as
sovereign among the critics. She boasted that she had for her husband
the most learned of all the nobles, and the most noble of all the
learned. Our good lady always joined the learned conferences which he
held in his study. She spoke loud, and decided with a tone of majesty.
Salmasius was mild in conversation, but the reverse in his writings, for
our proud Xantippe considered him as acting beneath himself if he did
not magisterially call every one names!
The wife of Rohault, when her husband gave lectures on the philosophy of
Descartes, used to seat herself on these days at the door, and refused
admittance to every one shabbily dressed, or who did not discover a
genteel air. So convinced was she that, to be worthy of hearing the
lectures of her husband, it was proper to appear fashionable. In vain
our good lecturer exhausted himself in telling her, that fortune does
not always give fine clothes to philosophers.
The ladies of Albert Durer and Berghem were both shrews. The wife of
Durer compelled that great genius to the hourly drudgery of his
profession, merely to gratify her own sordid passion: in despair, Albert
ran away from his Tisiphone; she wheedled him back, and not long
afterwards this great artist fell a victim to her furious
disposition.[95] Berghem's wife would never allow that excellent artist
to quit his occupations; and she contrived an odd expedient to detect
his indolence. The artist worked in a room above her; ever and anon she
roused him by thumping a long stick against the ceiling, while the
obedient Berghem answered by stamping his foot, to satisfy Mrs. Berghem
that he was not napping.
Ælian had an aversion to the married state. Sigonius, a learned and
well-known scholar, would never marry, and alleged no inelegant reason;
"Minerva and Venus could not live together."
Matrimony has been considered by some writers as a condition not so well
suited to the circumstances of philosophers and men of learning. There
is a little tract which professes to investigate the subject. It has for
title, _De Matrimonio Literati, an coelibem esse, an verò nubere
conveniat_, i.e., of the Marriage of a Man of Letters, with an inquiry
whether it is most proper for him to continue a bachelor, or to marry?
The author alleges the great merit of some women; particularly that of
Gonzaga the consort of Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino; a lady of such
distinguished accomplishments, that Peter Bembus said, none but a stupid
man would not prefer one of her conversations to all the formal meetings
and disputations of the philosophers.
The ladies perhaps will be surprised to find that it is a question among
the learned, _Whether they ought to marry?_ and will think it an
unaccountable property of learning that it should lay the professors of
it under an obligation to disregard the sex. But it is very questionable
whether, in return for this want of complaisance in them, the generality
of ladies would not prefer the beau, and the man of fashion. However,
let there be Gonzagas, they will find converts enough to their charms.
The sentiments of Sir Thomas Browne on the consequences of marriage are
very curious, in the second part of his Religio Medici, sect, 9. When he
wrote that work, he said, "I was never yet once, and commend their
resolutions, who never marry twice." He calls woman "the rib and crooked
piece of man." He adds, "I could be content that we might procreate like
trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to procreate the
world without this trivial and vulgar way." He means the union of sexes,
which he declares, "is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his
life; nor is there anything that will more deject his cooled
imagination, when he shall consider what an odd and unworthy piece of
folly he hath committed." He afterwards declares he is not averse to
that sweet sex, but naturally amorous of all that is beautiful: "I could
look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but
of a horse." He afterwards disserts very profoundly on the music there
is in beauty, "and the silent note which Cupid strikes is far sweeter
than the sound of an instrument." Such were his sentiments when
youthful, and residing at Leyden; Dutch philosophy had at first chilled
his passion; it is probable that passion afterwards inflamed his
philosophy--for he married, and had sons and daughters!
Dr. Cocchi, a modern Italian writer, but apparently a cynic as old as
Diogenes, has taken the pains of composing a treatise on the present
subject enough to terrify the boldest _Bachelor_ of Arts! He has
conjured up every chimera against the marriage of a literary man. He
seems, however, to have drawn his disgusting portrait from his own
country; and the chaste beauty of Britain only looks the more lovely
beside this Florentine wife.
I shall not retain the cynicism which has coloured such revolting
features. When at length the doctor finds a woman as all women ought to
be, he opens a new string of misfortunes which must attend her husband.
He dreads one of the probable consequences of matrimony--progeny, in
which we must maintain the children we beget! He thinks the father gains
nothing in his old age from the tender offices administered by his own
children: he asserts these are much better performed by menials and
strangers! The more children he has, the less he can afford to have
servants! The maintenance of his children will greatly diminish his
property! Another alarming object in marriage is that, by affinity, you
become connected with the relations of the wife. The envious and
ill-bred insinuations of the mother, the family quarrels, their poverty
or their pride, all disturb the unhappy sage who falls into the trap of
connubial felicity! But if a sage has resolved to marry, he impresses on
him the prudential principle of increasing his fortune by it, and to
remember his "additional expenses!" Dr. Cocchi seems to have thought
that a human being is only to live for himself; he had neither heart to
feel, a head to conceive, nor a pen that could have written one
harmonious period, or one beautiful image! Bayle, in his article
_Raphelengius_, note B, gives a singular specimen of logical subtlety,
in "a reflection on the consequence of marriage." This learned man was
imagined to have died of grief, for having lost his wife, and passed
three years in protracted despair. What therefore must we think of an
unhappy marriage, since a happy one is exposed to such evils? He then
shows that an unhappy marriage is attended by beneficial consequences to
the survivor. In this dilemma, in the one case, the husband lives afraid
his wife will die, in the other that she will not! If you love her, you
will always be afraid of losing her; if you do not love her, you will
always be afraid of not losing her. Our satirical _celibataire_ is gored
by the horns of the dilemma he has conjured up.
James Petiver, a famous botanist, then a bachelor, the friend of Sir
Hans Sloane, in an album signs his name with this designation:--
"From the Goat tavern in the Strand, London,
Nov. 27. In the 34th year of my _freedom_,
A.D. 1697."