A good temper is essential for matrimonial happiness. An habitually irritable or gloomy disposition is a source of misery to the possessor and to others. A dark and murky cave could as well throw out a cheerful lustre, as a surly person communicate happiness to those around him. Obstinacy must not be indulged by either party; for, as the bond of union cannot be easily broken, if one be perverse the other must bend. If two trees be bound tightly together, and both be stiff, the cords will probably break; if not immediately, they will when the cords become weaker: and thus with regard to matrimony, what God has joined together, the perversity of human beings will put asunder. Obstinacy in trifling matters in the marriage state is an evidence of little love and a bad heart; but if trifling matters appear important, and the gaining of every point be as the taking of a citadel, the person is wrong in his judgment; he is insane, or partially so. Many worthy women have been cursed with worthless husbands; but, unfortunately, the grievances of the female sex have been less frequently known than those of the men; for women are not authors, and men are frequently so; consequently, in all estimates of the comparative merit of the sexes, it must be remembered that more has been said on the one side than on the other. Home, however, is the castle of the wife, if she be a good one; here she keeps her permanent abode, agreeably with the injunction of St. Paul. The husband is absent the principal part of his time, may there not therefore, on some occasions, be too greet an inclination in the lady to consider herself as the governor of the establishment, while the husband may be deemed a visiter, rather than the master? This would not arise in the breast of an amiable and affectionate wife, but it has sometimes arisen; for, unfortunately, all wives have not been good ones. Jerome Cardan was so unfortunate as to have a wife who was proverbial for her ill temper and arbitrary conduct. John Knox said of Lord Erskine, "He has a very Jezebel to his wife." Salmasius, the opponent of Milton, was made perpetually uneasy by a similar thorn. The unfortunate husband was a Frenchman, and Milton said (as Dr Johnson observes,) "Tu es Gallus, et, ut aiunt, nimium gallinaceus." Milton himself seems to have suffered from a similar cause, for he evinces so much hostility to the female sex, that no other reason would so naturally account for it. He exclaims, "O why did God, Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven With spirits masculine, create at last This novelty on earth, this fair defect Of nature, and not fill the world at once With men and angels without feminine?"