150

Yi¥F# .. OOBDEN.

fod AF

1840. firm was for some time reasonably successful, and was eve"
air. 36, visited by gleams of genuine prosperity. But the unde’
taking was hardly launched, before its chief was drawn 8%
from effective interest in it by a strong vocation which k
could not resist, to be the leader of the great national caus
of the time.
Meanwhile within a few months of the re-settlement ©
his business, he took another momentous step in marryit8
(May, 1840). His wife was Miss Catherine Anne Willia®#
a young Welsh lady, whose acquaintance he had made
a school-friend of one of his sisters. She is said by al
who knew her to have been endowed with singular persons!
beauty, and with manners of perfect dignity and chsr®
Whether in Cobden’s case this union was preceded by mu?
deliberation, we do not know; perhaps experience sho®
that the profoundest deliberation in choosing a wife is little
better than the cleverness of people who boast of a scientifi’
secret of winning in a lottery. Although marriage is usually
so much the most important element in deciding whether #
life shall be heaven or hell, it is that on which in any give?
imstance it is least proper for a stranger to speak.
It would seem that to be the wife of a prominent publi’
man is not always an easy lot. As Goethe’s Leonora says ©’
men and women ‘e=—

Ibr strebt nach fernen Ghitern,
Und ewer Streben muss gewaltsam geyn.
Ihr wagt es, fiir die Ewigkeit zu handelu,
Wenn wir ein einzig nab besohrinktes (Gut
Anf dieser Hrde nur besitzen méchten,
Und wiinschen dass es nuns bestindig bliche.?

If the champion of great causes has to endure the loss Of
domestic companionship, he is at least compensated bY

! “Ye strive for far-off goals, and strenuous your battle, For immo"
tality to toil, do you aspire. But we one single narrow good, and that
nigh to vs, wonld fain possess upon thig oerth, and only ask 4 it ahonl
teed fant dwall' y ask that it eho