divorce. In its very nature, it is the full and enduring union of one man with one woman, according to the law of sexual difference and correspondence. Many outward reasons may be urged against the irregularities now mentioned; but the grand argument in the case at last is just this, that they contradict the true conception of the sexual union itself. This can never take place normally, except in the way of mutual self-surrendry and whole appropriation of each other, on the part of those who are its subjects, that is, in the way of marriage. Polygamy necessarily violates this law; and the same is true also of divorce, which is tolerated by Christianity accordingly only where the marriage bond has been already nullified in fact by the crime of adultery.

We cannot bring the whole subject to a conclusion better, perhaps, than by making use of it to expose, in a direct way, as has been done in some measure indirectly already, the entire theory of what is sometimes styled the emancipation of woman, as held with various modifications, by our modern Fourierites and Socialists of every description. Of all forms of agrarianism this is to be counted, as it is in some respects the most plausible, so also the most mischievous and false. No maxim, universally taken, can be more impudently untrue, than that which asserts the general liberty and equality of the human race in the sense of this disorganizing school. The freedom and independence of all, not only outwardly but inwardly also, is conditioned always by the position assigned to them of God in the social organism to which they belong. All are free only as comprehended in given social relations, and in the measure of their correspondence as parts with the idea of the whole. The proper unity of life, as an organic system, involves of necessity the conception not simply of manifold distinction, but of relative dependence also and subordination. Of this we have a broad, perpetual exemplification, in the constitution of the sexes. The school which we have now in view, affects to vindicate what it calls the rights of woman against the authority of the stronger sex, as though this had taken advantage of its accidental physical superiority in this view, to assert à primacy and lordship here,

which is in full violation of the original and proper equality of the race. The savage, it is said, turns his wife into a slave, the instrument of his own pleasure and convenience; and it is only a higher order of the same barbarism, by which, in the reigning structure of our present civilization, the whole sex is shorn of its political and public rights, and forced to devote itself to the service of man in the nursery and kitchen. We need in this respect, we are told, a reconstruction of society, in such a way that, among other abuses, this Mohammedan prejudice also may be fully abolished, admitting woman thus to a free participation in all public counsels and transactions, so far as she may show ability for the purpose; and placing her on full level with the opposite sex both at home and abroad. So runs the theory. It has the universal custom of the world against it, and also what would seem to be the most explicit testimony of the Bible. But of this we speak not at present. We meet it here with the moral geology, if we may so term it, of our human nature itself, drawn forth with overwhelming evidence from the everlasting mountains of its original constitution. The theory in question is just as unphilosophical as it is unbiblical and contrary to all history. violates morality and nature alike.

It

It is by no accident, or violent wrong merely, that woman is made to occupy a secondary rank in the economy of human society. Her outward weakness makes it necessary, to some extent; but this itself is only the index of a still deeper necessity for it, in her spiritual constitution. All the purposes of her being, all the conditions of her welfare and peace, all the laws of her interior organization, require this subordination to the other sex, and urge her towards it as the only possible way in which her personality can be made complete. This relation of dependence needs to be well fortified indeed against abuse; as it may run easily otherwise into vast tyranny and wrong; but still it remains forever indispensable in itself to woman's proper life, and under its normal character constitutes emphatically her spiritual salvation. It is not in her physical nature merely that she is formed to lean on man as her necessary prop and stay. He is the ultimate centre als

her personality, through which alone she can stand in right organic communication with the general world, and so attain to true and solid freedom in her own position. No agrarian radicalism can ever change the moral order of humanity here, for we may say of it precisely as the Psalmist does of the constitution of the planets: Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven!" The emancipation of these heavenly bodies from their appointed orbits, were just as rational an object of reforming zeal as the attempt to set woman free from her natural subordination to the headship of man. All such freedom is something monstrous in its very nature; and the wrong which it involves can never fail to avenge itself with terrible moral retribution on all concerned in it, wherever it may be allowed. Most disastrous will be its action on woman herself, if she can be tempted thus to forsake her own character and sphere. She must unsex herself, more or less, in the very step; and by doing so, she is necessarily shorn, to the same extent, of all her native dignity and strength. The more thoroughly masculine she may prove herself to be in this way, the more fully and certainly will it be at the cost of all true respect, whether public or private. The process of such unnatural self-dereliction exerts unavoidably, at the same time, a demoralizing influence on her own spirit. She becomes in reality coarse, and the fine gold of her nature is turned into what must be counted

at best but common brass. Society, too, is made to suffer necessarily, by the perversion. It requires a certain amount of moral fanaticism, in the first place, to endure at all any such aberration of the sex from its proper sphere, and the thing itself can never fail subsequently to aggravate the evil out of which it thus springs. The influence of woman, exercised in this form, is not at all to refine the face of life, but to render it vulgar and harsh. Such an "emancipation," made general in any community, would involve the overthrow ultimately of all taste and refinement, the downfall of all morality and civilization.

It deserves to be well considered, that this doctrine of the full co-ordination of the sexes in the social system, strikes necessarily at last at the sanctity of the marriage relation. It is the subordination

of the female nature to that of man precisely which makes room for that peculiar union of the two, in which the true idea of marriage consists. The possibility of such an inward personal oneness as it requires in the case of husband and wife, turns not simply on their difference of sex, but on the order also in which this relation is found actually to hold. The com mon personality which is thus created,

and

must have a real centre on which to rest; and the correspondence between the sexes is such that this is fully and necessarily determined to the one side only, and not to the other. The help which each needs here in the other, is not at all, in this respect, of parallel character. The whole nature of woman urges her towards man, as the necessary centre of her own being; her personality is so constituted, that it can be perfected only by falling over upon the deeper and broader consciousness of man, as its ultimate support. The personality of man, on the contrary, is constitutionaly formed to take this central position, and is | made complete by woman, not as the bass of his being, but as the necessary integra tion simply of its proper compass volume. So related, the two are suited to flow together in the power of one and the same life, and may be expected t do so, where the proper conditions ar present, by the mysterious union of mar riage; which, in such view, is no outward temporary contract of merely civil natur no simply moral partnership, however high and solemn, for purposes beyond itsel but a mystical, sacramental band rather that reaches into the inmost sanctuary life, and is thus of indissoluble force by very nature. All this, however, is made to assume a different aspect, as soon as lose sight of the order which holds in the original interior economy of the sexes, daži under the pretence of restoring her inborn rights, admit such a view nature as sets it in full parallel opposite nature of man. There is no then for the idea of marriage, as the ganic comprehension of two lives power of a single personal root. It impossible to withstand the fatal error. which it is resolved into the concept a simply outward compact between pendent parties for mutual conven and profit. Then of course its invi

Wome

sanctity is gone, and no good reason can be assigned why it should not become as free finally as social partnerships of any other kind. So it is, that all Socialism, having no sense of the true nature of the sexual union as the basis of all morality and society under a settled and necessary form, shows a tendency always in fact,

whether it be avowed or not, to run into that worst form of agrarian disorder, by which the marriage tie itself is proclaimed a mere social abuse. In its pretended regard for the dignity and freedom of woman, it robs her of the entire glory of her sex, and takes away the last bulwark of her independence and strength.

MR. TALFOURD very appropriately dedi- | cates this volume to Wordsworth, the most distinguished survivor of Lamb's intimate cotemporaries. In a brief preface, he refers to the hint given in the introduction to his former life of Lamb, that a period might arrive "when a more complete estimate might be formed of the singular and delightful character of the writer than was there presented." Twelve years having elapsed, several of Lamb's friends, to whom some of the sportive allusions in his letters might have given pain, having died, and poor Mary Lamb having been also released from suffering, it was thought the time had come when more complete justice might be done to his memory. Delicacy to hers, however, might still have forbidden this, had not the story of her insanity and its dreadful consequences reached the public through another channel. It is fortunate for us that this circumstance relieved Mr. Talfourd from the difficult task of concealing, and at the same time exhibiting, in the light it deserved to be seen, the heroism of his Friend.

"When I reflected that the truth, while in no wise affecting the gentle excellence of one -f them, casts new and solemn lights on the haracter of the other; that while his frailties ave received an ample share of that indulence which he extended to all human weakesses, their chief exciting cause has been hid

den; that his moral strength and the extent of his self-sacrifice have been hitherto unknown to the world; I felt that to develop all which excellence, was due both to him and to the is essential to the just appreciation of his rare public. While I still hesitated as to the extent of disclosure needful for this purpose, my lingering doubts were removed by the appearance of a full statement of the melancholy event, with all the details capable of being collected from the newspapers of the time, in the British Quarterly Review, and the diffusion of the journals. After this publication, no doubt could sage, extracted thence, through several other remain as to the propriety of publishing the letters of Lamb on this event, eminently exalting the characters of himself and his sister, and enabling the reader to judge of the sacrifice which

followed it."

pas

It is hardly necessary to add that Mr. Talfourd has executed his task with the considerateness and right feeling indicated in these sentences. He has fully satisfied the curiosity naturally excited by the expectation of further letters of Lamb, and here made public what truly must give rise to "a more complete estimate of his singular and delightful character."

It is remarkable, while it shows at the same time what a feeling their friendship inspired, that the misfortunes of Lamb and his sister should have been so long kept a secret. In the circles of literary gossip, it may have been an old rumor that Mary Lamb killed her mother in a fit of madness, and was intermittently insane through

life, and that Charles was once in his youth visited by the same calamity; but to plain readers, and those whom circumstances

render little eager for the particulars of literary history, these facts were entirely unknown till they appeared in the Quarterly; and even then the story was so strange and shocking, it was hardly to be credited. There are no two names in literature with which it was more repugnant to the fancy to associate what was so frightful. But it is now necessary to believe the sad tale, and to think of one who seemed all gentleness and geniality as an iron-hearted man of strength.

We do not, however, propose to be drawn into an elaborate analysis of Lamb's character. We must yield, not only to the variety of his wit and his clearness of judgment, but to his happy disposition, and above all to his heroism. It is presumption to catalogue his various excellings and shortcomings, and construct a full inventory of his parts.

"He was a man, take him for all in all,
We shall not look upon his like again."

In the main purposes of his life, he did not differ from most of us, only he was a great deal truer, finer, and better. In his individualities and shining qualities, he resembled no one but himself; and as he has had the rare fortune to be known to the world in undress, chiefly through letters to his intimate friends, we see so much of him that it is easiest to consider him simply as an individual-CHARLES LAMB-Whom we esteem, and whose memory we cherish. The natural feeling, with respect to him, seems to be what is experienced in talking of one much-loved friend to another; it is more easy to praise in the general than to balance particulars. One cannot help reading his correspondence as if it were in a measure addressed to himself, and hence it is like breaking confidence to sit down coolly to anatomize him. In fine, it is his own words only that can denote him truly. This volume reveals some new traits of him, and brings into stronger relief those already well known. For the first time is here completely shown the causes of the gentle melancholy which so sets off the delicacy of his humor. We are let into a history of suffering almost unparalleled in terary biography.

"In the year 1795," says Mr. Talfourd, "Charles Lamb resided with his father, mother, and sister, in lodgings at No. 7 Little Queen street, Holborn. The father was rapidly sinking into dotage; the mother suffered under an infirmity which deprived her of the use of her limbs; and the sister not only undertook the office of daily and nightly attendance on her mother, but sought to add by needlework to their slender resources. Their income then elder derived from the old Bencher, Mr. Salt, consisted of an annuity which Mr. Lamb the whom he had faithfully served for many years, Charles's salary, which, being that of a clerk of three years' standing in the India House, could have been but scanty, and a small pay ment made for board by an old maiden aunt, who resided with them. In this year, Lanh being just twenty years of age, began to write verses, partly incited by the example of his only friend, Coleridge, whom he regarded with as much reverence as affection, and party spired by an attachment to a young lady resid ing in the neighborhood of Islington, who is commemorated in his early verses as the farhaired maid.""

How his love prospered we are not told; but it is to be inferred from the for lowing extracts from one of his letters to Coleridge, written in the early part of 1796, that the course of it ran anything but smoothly

"Coleridge, know not what suffering scenes you have gone through at Bristol. My has been somewhat diversified of late. The six weeks that finished last year and beg this, your very humble servant speut very agrecably in a mad-house at Hoxton. IS got somewhat rational now, and don't bite 15 But mad I was. And many a var my imagination played with me, enouga make a volume if all were told.

one.

66

-Coleridge, it may convince yo my regards for you when I tell you my ran on you in my madness, as much a... on another person, who I am inclined to was the more immediate cause of my temporary frenzy."

But probably his love affair was 51 the only cause of his affliction. In as r letter to Coleridge he says:

"When you left London, I felt a dist in my heart. I found myself cut of, at or and the same time, from two most dear

How blest with ye the path could I of quiet life! In your conversation y blended so many pleasant finers tra cheated me of my grief; but in your a the tide of melancholy rushed in agad, saa -

tion.

its worst mischief by overwhelming my reason. I have recovered, but feel a stupor that makes me indifferent to the hopes and fears of this life. I sometimes wish to introduce a religious turn of mind, but habits are strong things, and my religious fervors are confined, alas! to some fleeting moments of occasional solitary devoA correspondence, opening with you, has roused me a little from my lethargy, and made me conscious of existence. Indulge me in it; I will not be very troublesome. At some future time I will amuse you with an account, as full as my memory will permit, of the strange turns my frenzy took. I look back upon it at times with a gloomy kind of envy; for while it lasted, I had many, many hours of pure happiness. Dream not, Coleridge, of having tasted all the grandeur and wildness of fancy till you have gone mad. All now seems to me vapid, comparatively so."

In another of his letters at this period, he incloses some lines to Cowper, congratulating the poet on his recovery to sanity. It is pleasant to see how readily he sympathizes with one who had so much in common with himself. He foresees that Coleridge will think the line,

66

Cowper, of England's bards the wisest and the best,"

hardly just. The "inspired charity boy" was probably too full of dim aspirations to relish the homely beauties of the Task. It was fortunate for Lamb that his admiration for his lofty friend did not mislead his judgment. His letters at this time are generally made up of acute observations on books and poetry.

But the great blow which crippled him for life came upon him next year, and sadly interrupted his literary studies. It is briefly told in the following extract of a letter to Coleridge:

"My poor, dear, dearest sister, in a fit of insanity, has been the death of her own mother. I was at hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp. She is at present in a madhouse, from whence I fear she must be removed to an hospital. God has preserved me my senses; I eat, and drink, and sleep, and have my judgment, I believe, very sound. My poor father was slightly wounded, and I am left to take care of him and my aunt. Mr. Norris, of the Blue-coat School, has been very kind to us, and we have no other friend; but, thank God, I am very calm and composed, and able to do the best that remains to do. Write as religious a letter as possible, but no mention of

How perfectly sincere and resolute is this-" Write as religious a letter as possible, but no mention of what is gone and done with." For those who are disposed to nurse their afflictions, there is a volume of reproof in these few sentences.

The following extracts from other letters show the state of mind in which he continued to endure his grief :—

"God be praised, Coleridge, wonderful as it is to tell, I have never once been otherwise than collected and calm; even on the dreadful day, and in the midst of the terrible scene, I preserved a tranquillity which bystanders may have construed into indifference-a tranquillity not of despair. Is it folly or sin in me to say that it was a religious principle that most supported me? I allow much to other favorable circumstances. I felt that I had something

else to do than to regret."

"On the very second day, (I date from the day of horrors,) as is usual in such cases, there were a matter of twenty people, I do think, supping in our room; they prevailed with me to eat with them, (for to eat I never refused.) They were all making merry in the room! Some had come from friendship, some from busy curiosity, and some from interest; I was going to partake with them, when my recollection came that my poor dead mother was lying in the next room-the very next room; a mother who, through life, wished nothing but her children's welfare. Indignation, the rage of grief, something like remorse, rushed upon my mind. In an agony of emotion I found my way mechanically to the adjoining room, and fell on my knees by the side of her coflin, asking forgiveness of Heaven, and sometimes of her, for forgetting her so soon. Tranquillity returned, and it was the only violent emotion that mastered me, and I think it did me good."

The same letter contains a circumstantial statement of the condition of his affairs, how he hoped to dispose of his father, aunt, and sister, and their slender means of support for all which we must refer the reader to the volume. We only quote to show the spirit in which Lamb faced his dark present and hopeless future, and the effect his sufferings wrought upon him. Whenever he mentions his sister he writes as if she made a part of himself:—

"I hope that I shall through life never have