Howard now entered into matrimony a second time. On the 25th April 1758, he married Henrietta Leeds, second daughter of Edward Leeds, Esq. of Croxton, in Cambridgeshire. This alliance is pronounced by all his biographers to be in every respect suitable. Parity of age, harmony of sentiment, and, on the part of the lady, the charms of person and amiability of temper, everything contributed to a happy union. And it was so. Unfortunately, the happiness was as brief as it seems to have been perfect. His second wife also expired after a few years,--"the only years," Howard himself has said, "of true enjoyment he had known in life." On this occasion, Mr Dixon, after infusing into Howard "the bland and insinuating witchery of a virgin passion," proceeds to describe his Henrietta in the most approved language of the novelist: "Although her features were not cast in the choicest mould of Grecian beauty, she was very fair--had large impressive eyes, an ample brow, a mouth exquisitely _cut_," &c. Shall we never again get the chisel out of the human face? Connected with this second marriage of Howard, his biographers relate a trait of character which will be differently estimated by different minds--we relate it in the words of Mr Dixon:-- "We must not omit an incident that occurred before the ceremony, which is very significant of Howard's frankness and firmness at this epoch. Observing that many unpleasantnesses arise in families, from circumstances trifling in themselves, in consequence of each individual wishing to have his own way in all things, he determined to avoid all these sources of domestic discord, by establishing his own paramount authority in the first instance. It is just conceivable that his former experience of the wedded life may have led him to insist upon this condition. At all events, he stipulated with Henrietta, _that, in all matters in which there should be a difference of opinion between them, his voice should rule_. This may sound very ungallant in terms, but it was found exceedingly useful in practice. Few men would have the moral honesty to suggest such an arrangement to their lady-loves at such a season; though, at the same time, few would hesitate to make the largest mental reservations in their own behalf. It may also be, that few young belles would be disposed to treat such a proposition otherwise than with ridicule and anger, however conscious _they_ might be, that as soon as the hymeneal pageantries were passed, their surest means of happiness would lie in the prompt adoption of the principle so laid down. "Would that men and women would become sincerer with each other! The great social vice of this age is its untrustfulness."