Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/312

300 fortunate wretch that I am," he cries out, "I who am a lover of universal peace! But to have peace I am obliged ever to be at war!" Poor Pasquier's assertion reminds us of the very married man who acknowledged that he enlisted as a soldier in our Mexican war for the sake of having peace!

In 1590, the Earl of Shrewsbury (how well named!), living apart from his wife, was made the recipient of a letter from the Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry, in which occurs this passage: "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 life, if shee should kepe yow. Indeede, my good Lord, I have heard some say so; but if shrewdnesse or sharpnesse may be a just 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 wife, that would be ridd of a shrewe." Connubial felicity must have been a rarity in England, then-a-days, if the worthy Bishop is to be believed. Perhaps, however, the prelate was thus neatly confessing that he "had her."

Albert Durer, the celebrated painter of Germany, upon whose tomb is found the inscription: "Light of the Arts—Sun of Artists—Painter, Engraver, Sculptor, without example," was the unfortunate victim of a shrewish mate, whose conduct at times compelled the Light of the Arts and Sun of Artists to hide himself under a bushel by running away from home. It is even stated that this woman's furious disposition and violent temper literally worried Durer to death. At least so says Pirkheimer. Burghen, too, the eminent Dutch landscape painter, endured a similar purgatory; for his Xantippe was wont to stir him up and prevent his sleeping, by thumping with a stick against the ceiling of the room directly beneath that in which the artist was expected to be always at work. Mrs. Berghen compelled her henpecked husband to prove the fact of his being awake by stamping his foot on the floor. Could domestic despotism further go? And á propos of artist married life, we ought not to omit mention of Fuseli's original and characteristic method of disarming his wife when her anger had got control of her discretion. She was, we are told, a spirited woman, and one day, when she had wrought herself into a towering passion, Fuseli launched this sarcastic shot at her: "Sophia; my love, why don't you swear? You don't know how much it would ease your mind!"

Was Shakespeare henpecked? This momentous question, if the great dramatist's last will and testament be made the respondent, would seem to be answerable affirmatively, for, while bequests were therein made to his daughters, Judith and Susanna, to his sister, Joan Hart, and his three nephews, William, Thomas and