It is in the conjugal state where all the kind and humane attributes of woman are augmented and softened by the mighty influence of human love, that we most frequently behold her supporting and cheering her partner, when visited by the rough blasts of adversity; and sometimes, when all hope on this side the grave has fled, when his doom is fixed, and disease or the execution of the law is quickly to hurry him into another world, we find woman still his dearest solace, sometimes encouraging him by examples which mark so much devotion, so much self-sacrifice, as frequently to rise into the region of the moral sublime. It is well known that the stoic religion of the ancients justified suicide, when the individual, after a due consideration of all the circumstances, came to the conclusion that he had fulfilled all his more glorious destinies on earth. Hence it was frequently considered a duty incumbent on man to put an end to his existence, when calamity and misfortune seemed to mark him out as a nuisance on earth. Hence, too, according to Dr. Smith, this religion may be considered as "the noblest death-song ever sung by man." We must go back then, to antiquity, when this religion was prevalent, and of course when suicide was justified, to see what woman is capable of doing to console or encourage her husband in the midst of his calamities. Pliny the younger, tells us of a neighbor, in the humbler walks of life, who was visited by a loathsome, painful disease, of an incurable character. Himself and wife came to the conclusion that it would be better for him to end his existence; and in order that she might encourage him to execute this resolve, she determined to die with him. The death which she chose, was truly characteristic of that devoted affection which she had so constantly felt for him whilst alive. She was bound in his arms, and in this condition they precipitated themselves from a window into the sea beneath. Montaigne seems to have been particularly struck with this act of heroism on the part of a female who was of an humble and obscure family, and remarks, that "even amongst that condition of people, it is no very new thing to see some examples of uncommon good nature." ----"Extrema per illos Justitia excedens terris vestigia facit." Seneca, the philosopher and tutor of Nero, was condemned to death by his pupil, in the decline of life, after having married Pompeia Paulina, a young and noble Roman lady, who loved and was loved devotedly by him. She too, in the plenitude of her grief and affection, nobly determined to die with her husband, and thus to encourage him by her example, quietly but firmly to bear the last struggle of humanity. She, however, was saved, after having opened her veins, by the emissaries of Nero, who feared the effect which this act of self-immolation might produce on the excitable populace of Rome.