CAESAR'S WIFE.
[To THE EDITOR OE THE " SPECTATOR:1 SIB,—" Hyper Criticus " will perhaps permit me to say that it was the second, and not the first, wife of Caesar who gave rise to the oft-quoted saying. Both Suetonius and Plutarch agree in this. Caesar refused to divorce his first wife, Cornelia, in spite of all the threats of Syila. During the festival of Bona Dea, in connexion with which no man was allowed to be present, Publius Clodius, a young patrician of doubtful repu- tation, caused himself to be introduced in a woman's apparel into the house where Pompeia, the second wife of Caesar, was the directress of the feast. He was discovered and turned out of the house. Plutarch says, " Caesar immediately divorced Pompeia, although he declared that he knew nothing of what was alleged against Clodius. As this declaration appeared somewhat strange, he was asked why, if that was the case, be bad divorced his wife : Because,' said he, I would have my wife clear even of suspicion.'" Caesar, in order to further his ambitious political aims, shortly afterwards for his third wife, married Calpurnia, the daughter of Piso, and gave his own daughter, Julia, in marriage to Pompey, although she was betrothed to another. Cato vehemently declaimed against the degradation of the highest offices of the State which resulted from these matrimonial alliances. Our English Solomon, Henry VIII., had six, whilst Caesar had only three, wives, which in these modern times may be regarded perhaps as a moderate number, and as hardly entitling him to be described as " a very much married man."—I am, Sir, &c.,
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