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264
Hereditary Genius
between an unusually devout disposition and a weak constitution.
The Divines seem to have been very happy in their domestic life. I
know of few exceptions to this rule: the wife of T. Cooper was
unfaithful, and that of poor Hooker was a termagant. Yet in many
cases, these simple-hearted worthies had made their proposals under
advice, and not through love. Calvin married on Bucer's advice; and
as for Bishop Hall, he may tell his own story, for it is a typical one.
After he had built his house, he says, in his autobiography, “The
uncouth solitariness of my life, and the extreme incommodity of my
single housekeeping, drew my thoughts after two years, to
condescend to the necessity of a married estate, which God no less
strangely provided for me, for walking from the church on Monday in
the Whitsun week with a grave and reverend minister, Mr.
Grandidge, I saw a comely and modest gentlewoman standing at the
door of that house where we were invited to a wedding-dinner, and
inquiring of that worthy friend whether he knew her, 'Yes,' quoth he,
'I know her well, and have bespoken her for your wife.' When I
further demanded an account of that answer, he told me she was the
daughter of a gentleman whom he much respected, Mr. George
Winniffe, of Bretenham; that out of an opinion had of the fitness of
that match for me, he had already treated with her father about it,
whom he found very apt to entertain it, advising me not to neglect the
opportunity, and not concealing the just praises of the modesty, piety,
good disposition, and other virtues that were lodged in that seemly
presence. I listened to the motion as sent from God; and at last, upon
due prosecution, happily prevailed, enjoying the company of that
meet-help for the space of forty-nine years.”
The mortality of the Divines follows closely the same order in those
who are mentioned in the earlier, as in the later volumes of
Middleton's collection, although the
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