MARRIAGE. 183 



Yet, though he urged his speed with fervid mind, 

 With feet and bosom bare, in rude attire, 



He seemed with tardy pace to lag behind 



O disregarded wealth; O bliss refined !" 



" Francesco e Poverta per due amanti 



La lor concordia e i lor lieti sembianti, 

 Amore e maraviglia, e dolce sguardo 

 Faceano esser cagion de' pensier santi ; 

 Tanto che '1 venerabile Bernardo 



Si scalzo prima, e dietro a tanta pace 

 Corse, e corresido gli pari' esser tardo. 

 O ignota ricchezza, O ben verace ! " 



Del Paradise, Canto XI. v. 75. 



This apostrophe to the sweets of self-inflicted destitution appears 

 a ray of light, reflected from a passage in Lucan ; 



" O vitae tuta facultas 



Pauperis, angustique lares ! O munera, nondum 

 Intellecta, Deum ! " 



Xenophon also indulged in a vein of panegyric on the luxury of a 

 mind at ease from the cares and perils of enviable distinction and 

 affluence. He probably conceived this jeu d'esprit in his rural se- 

 clusions at Scillus, in Elis ; where, an exile from Athens, he enjoyed 

 philosophic leisure with dignity; or in his last refuge at Corinth. 



Fanaticism is apt to imagine that piety, like the upas tree, makes 

 a desert where it grows ; that the mind, if not the body, needs a 

 cloister. The natural movements of the soul are repressed ; the so- 

 cial affections damped ; the grace and ornament and innocent exhila- 

 rations of life are frowned upon ; and a gloomy, repulsive superstition 

 is cultivated, which, by way of compensation for its privations, claims 

 a monopoly of God's favour, abandoning all to his wrath, who will 

 not assume its own sad livery, and echo its own sepulchral tones. 

 Would it were true that this revolting sketch portrayed the baleful 

 austerities of penance and commination that prevailed only in the 

 middle ages, without reminding us of the like exclusive, malevolent, 

 demoniac fiend ; which survives, and breathes its infuriate horror, 

 even in the nineteenth century. Ep. James, c. iii. v. 15. 



MARRIAGE. 



IN marriage the character and interest of two worthy persons 

 whom it may unite, are more entirely identified than in the relation 

 of friendship merely. It is the peculiar excellence of marriage that 

 its circumstances tend always to create a unity of character and in- 



