149 



SOCRATES AND XANTIPPE. 



STRANGE and unaccountable is it that these two names, each in 

 itself a proverb, each an antithesis to the other, should, after a lapse 

 of more than two thousand years, have come down to the present 

 time under auspices as different as were the characters of the in- 

 dividuals whom they once served to designate ! How comes it that 

 Socrates should still be held forth as an example to men, of virtue, to 

 husbands, of forbearance, while his unfortunate lady serves but as a 

 current bye-word for every thing violent in women, usurping and 

 domineering in wives ? May not a suspicion be entertained, that too 

 easy a credence has been given alike to the virtues of the philoso- 

 pher, and the failings of his consort? To remove the prejudice which 

 time has strengthened in favour of the one and in disparagement of 

 the other, appears a hopeless attempt. But some advantages may 

 be derived from contemplating the life of this extraordinary couple, 

 from whose history we learn, that rash and impolitic marriages were 

 not unknown before the Christian era ; as an abstract matrimonial 

 speculation, and from its antiquity we may consider it such, this 

 question of respective merit and demerit between Socrates and 

 Xantippe may prove of considerable importance. 



History has not left us in doubt as to the philosopher's personal 

 appearance. He was an ugly little man, with a Calmuck nose, 

 twinkling gray eyes, and a bad expression of countenance. Of his 

 own deformities he was aware, and, in his professional capacity of 

 philosopher, affected to derive considerable amusement from his want 

 of external beauty. 



Nothing we believe is recorded of Xantippe on this score ; but 

 there can be little doubt that if a painter, even one whose name 

 delights in the affix of R. A., were desired to sketch a fancy portrait 

 of her, he would invest her with about as many charms as would 

 barely suffice to redeem a Gorgon from her native loathsomeness ; 

 nor is it highly improbable that the critics who frequent the picture 

 galleries would declare his performance to be, to the best of their 

 judgment, a faithful and accurate likeness of the illustrious proto- 

 type. And yet how widely would both he and they wander from 

 the truth ! Before her marriage, there can be no donbt that Xan- 

 tippe's face and person were eminently lovely : in the absence of all 

 proof to the contrary, we may even conclude that she was, if not the 

 belle, at least one of the leading belles of Athens ; for her husband 

 yielded to no man in ugliness, and when do we see men of his phy- 

 siognomical stamp marry any but the prettiest women ? Her tem- 

 per was warm and generous, her disposition lively, andjier manners 

 gay and playful. In raillery she was an adept, a thorough mistress 



