A few years after the marriage, when Thomas Jefferson came to the presidency, Mr. Madison was appointed secretary of state,an office which he continued to hold for eight years, during which Mrs. Madison was the centre of a brilliant circle of society in Washington. The gossips of the day were of opinion that her influence over her husband was greater than it should have been, and that it was sometimes her voice which decided appointments and influenced measures.

In 1809 Mr. Madison became the President of the United States, and his vivacious and beautiful wife enjoyed, for the next eight years, a splendid theatre for the exhibition of her charms.

It was during her husband's second term that the interesting event of her life occurred. In August, 1814, the news came to Washington that a British army had landed on the coast, within a hundred miles of the capital. A few days later the president and his cabinet were flying toward Virginia, while Mrs. Madison sat at a window of the presidential mansion, listening to the distant thunder of cannon on the disastrous field of Bladensburg. She held a telescope in her hands, with which she looked anxiously down the road by which her husband was expected to return; but she could see nothing but squads of militia wandering about without purpose or command. At the door of the house a carriage stood, filled with plate and papers, ready to leave at an instant's warning. The Mayor of Washington visited her in the course of that terrible afternoon, and advised her to leave the city; but she calmly refused, and said she would not leave her abode without the president's orders. A messenger from him at length arrived, bearing a note, written hurriedly with a lead-pencil, telling her to fly.

Among the precious articles in the White House was the fine portrait of Washington taken by Stewart from life. She seized a carving-knife from the table, cut the picture out of its frame, rolled it up, hurried with it into the carriage, and drove away. At Georgetown, two miles from the city, she met the president and cabinet, who were assembled on the banks of the Potomac about to cross. There was but one little boat on the shore, in which only three persons at a time could trust themselves. The president assigned to Mrs. Madison nine cavalrymen, and di

rected her to meet him on the following day at a certain tavern sixteen miles from Georgetown. In the dusk of the evening she began her march, accompanied by two or three ladies, while the president and his companions were rowed across the river.

When the British officers entered the president's house that evening, they found the dinner-table spread for forty guests, the president having invited a large dinner-party for that day. The wine was cooling on the sideboard; the plates were warming by the fire; the knives, forks, and spoons were arranged upon the snowy table-cloth. In the kitchen, joints of meat were roasting on spits before the fire; saucepans full of vegetables were steaming upon the range, and everything was in a state of forwardness for a substantial banquet. The officers sat down to the table, devoured the dinner, and concluded the entertainment by setting fire to the house. It was a terrible night. The capitol was burned, the treasury building, the president's house, all the principal public buildings, and the navy yard.

It was not until the evening of the following day that Mrs. Madison, in the midst of a violent storm of thunder, wind, and rain, approached the tavern to which the president had directed her. He had not yet arrived, and the landlady, terrified by the events around her, had barred the doors, and refused to admit the drenched and exhausted ladies. The troopers were obliged to force an entrance. Two hours later, the President of the United States reached the house, wet, hungry, and fatigued. The landlady could provide them with nothing but some bread and cold meat; after partaking of which they retired to a miserable bed, not without fears that the next morning would find them prisoners of the British general. It happened, however, that the English troops retired even more rapidly than they had advanced, and in a few days the president and his wife returned to Washington, which was still smoking from the recent conflagration. They found the best lodgings they could, and the government was soon performing its accustomed duties.

We have a pleasing glimpse of Mrs. Madison, in an old number of the "National Intelligencer," in which the editor describes the scene at the president's house on the evening when the news of peace arrived, in February, 1815:

"Late in the afternoon came thundering down Pennsylvania Avenue a coach and four foaming steeds, in which was the bearer of the good news. Cheers followed the carriage as it sped its way to the residence of the president. Soon after nightfall, members of Congress and others deeply interested in the event presented themselves at the president's house, the doors of which stood open. When the writer of this entered the drawing-room at about eight o'clock, it was crowded to its full capacity, Mrs. Madison (the president being with the cabinet) doing the honors of the occasion. And what a happy scene it was! Among the members present were gentlemen of opposite politics, but lately arrayed against one another in continual conflict and fierce debate, now with elated spirits thanking God, and with softened hearts cordially felicitating one another upon the joyful intelligence which (should the terms of the treaty prove acceptable) should re-establish peace. But the most conspicuous object in the room, the observed of all observers, was Mrs. Madison herself, then in the meridian of life and queenly beauty. She was in her person, for the moment, the representative of the feelings of him who was in grave consultation with his official advisers. No one could doubt, who beheld the radiance of joy which lighted up her countenance and diffused its beams around, that all uncertainty was at an end, and that the government of the country had, in very truth (to use an expression of Mr. Adams on a very different occasion), 'passed from gloom to glory.' With a grace all her own, to her visitors she reciprocated heartfelt congratulations upon the glorious and happy change in the aspect of public affairs; dispensing with liberal hand to every individual in the large assembly the proverbial hospitalities of that house."

From 1817 to 1836, when her husband died, she lived in retirement at Mr. Madison's seat in Virginia, dispensing a liberal hospitality, and cheering her husband's life by her gayety and humor. Her last years were spent in the city of Washington. She retained much of her beauty and vivacious grace to her eightieth year, and was much courted by the frequenters of the capital. She died in the year 1849, aged eighty-two.

According to the philosophers, this was a very ill-assorted

marriage, since she was a peculiarly physical woman and he a singularly intellectual man; and this difference was aggravated by the disparity in their ages, the husband being eighteen years older than the wife. Nature accorded with the philosophers, and they had no children. Nevertheless, the excellent temper of Mr. Madison and the good sense of his wife appear to have prevailed over their discordant constitutions; they are thought to have lived very happily together, and both died past fourscore. Mr. Madison was jocular to the last. Some friends having come to see him, a short time before his death, he apologized for falling back upon the pillow of his bed by saying, with his old smile:

"I always talk more easily when I lie."

They get en

Old men, who have lived for forty years unhappily at home, are not likely to joke upon their dying bed. tirely out of the habit of joking by that time.

THE WIFE OF DANIEL WEBSTER.

DANIEL WEBSTER was twice married. It is of his first wife, who was the mother of all his children, that I write to-day.

In colonial times the clergy were the aristocracy of New England. Their incomes were indeed exceedingly small, compared with those of our day; but, as they were generally men of learning, virtue, and politeness, and as all the people were religiously disposed, they were held in the highest respect, and exercised great influence. Small as their revenues were (seldom more than five hundred dollars a year), they generally lived in very good style, and, in many instances, accumulated property. Their salaries were increased by the bountiful gifts of the people, and they usually had a piece of land sufficient for the keeping of a cow and a horse, and for the raising of their vegetables. Besides this, all the minister's family assisted in its support; the sons tilled the garden and took care of the animals; the daughters assisted their mother in spinning the wool for the clothing of the household. Peter Parley, whose father was a New England clergyman of the olden time, mentions in his "Recollections," that for fifty years the salary of his father averaged three hundred dollars a year, upon which, with the assistance of a few acres of land, he reared a family of eight children, sent two sons to college, and left at his death tw> thousand dollars in money.

The family of the clergyman was expected to be, and usually was, the model family of the parish. The children generally had the benefit of their father's instruction, as well as access to his little library; and, if his daughters did not learn French nor play the piano, they had the benefit of hearing intelligent con