of the People of Victoria. Ill 



so that " Jerome saw at Rome (a.d. 321 to 34:0) a triumphant 

 husband bury his twenty -first wife;*" and so infatuated were 

 these unhappy people in their desire for licentious indulgenee^ 

 that the successor of Justinian had, we are told, to yield to 

 the prayers of his unhappy subjects, and restore the liberty of 

 divorce by mi\tual consent. f- 



To a state of things pregnant with so many evils, and which 

 irretrievably weakened the vast domains of the Ciesars, Eng- 

 land appeared to be verging from the times of Charles II.; 

 but fortunately the effects of licentiousness were felt at a 

 period Avhen a legislative remedy was practicable, and the 

 eloquence of a Fox, specious but unsound, failed to overthrow 

 a measure^ Avhich divested the marriage ceremony of the dis- 

 graceful associations which are attendant more or less upon 

 all that is clandestine — lifting it from a mere verbal promise 

 that might be denied to suit convenience, faithlessness, or 

 caprice, into a solemn public contract. To this reform we 

 cannot refuse to attribute a great improvement in the charac- 

 ter of parents. It was, as it were, a restoration of " the 

 family" — a term to the Anglo-Saxon mind fraught with 

 meaning — and the healtli, education, and career of the child 

 became more and more an object of solicitude to parents, 

 more united, more interested in each other's welfare, and 

 more -sirtuous. The quiet enjoyment of the domestic cii'cle 

 succeeded to the gin-palace, the gambling table, and the 

 " assembly room," where the Avoman, half Avife, half mistress, 

 endeavoured to seciu'e her liold upon a capriciovis lover by 

 blandishments and intrigue. Sober industry and thrift suc- 

 ceeded to habits Avasteful of time, exhaustive of energies, and 

 prodigal of earnings; and a smaller number of illegitimate 

 children — illegitimate, perhaps, only by the father liaAing 

 broken his plighted faith — became a Ijurden upon society, 

 to add in their turn to the evils of a community to Avhich tliey 

 Avere bound by no tie, Avith Avhich in fact their position made 

 them at Avar. 



But the poAver of the legislator to affect the social, moral, 

 and material circumstances of the governed, through the 

 institution of marriage, is not confined to the broad principles 

 of measures. The minutest details are not AA'ithout their 

 influence. For instance, a hiAV such as that of the TA^'^eh'e 



Gibbon, note, Chajiter xliv. + Gibbon, Chapter xliv. 



+ Lord HardAvickc'* Act, 1753. 



