_Memorials of Mrs. Hemans, with Illustrations of her Literary
Character from her Private Correspondence. By Henry F. Chorley. New
York: Saunders and Otley._
Mr. Chorley is well known to American readers as a contributor to the
chief of the London Annuals, and still better as the author of the
stirring volumes entitled “Conti, the Discarded, with Other Tales and
Fancies.” We have long regarded him as one of the most brilliant among
the literary stars of England, as a writer of great natural and
cultivated taste, and of a refined yet vigorous and lofty imagination.
As a musical connoisseur, or rather as profoundly versed in the only
true philosophy of the science, he may be considered at unrivalled.
There are, moreover, few persons now living upon whose appreciation of
a poetical character we would look with a higher respect, and we had
consequently promised ourselves no ordinary gratification in his
“Memorials of Mrs. Hemans.” Nor have we been disappointed.
About fourteen months ago Mr. Chorley collected and published in the
London Athenæum some deeply interesting reminiscences of Mrs. H. of
which the volumes now before us are an extension. A variety of
materials, afforded him by friends, has enabled him to continue his
notices beyond the period of his own personal acquaintance, and, by
linking correspondence and anecdote, to trace out, with great facility
and beauty, the entire progress of the mind of the poetess. He has
exclusively confined himself, however, to this one object, and
refrained from touching upon such occurrences is her private life as
were not actually necessary in the illustrations of her mental and
literary existence. The “Memorials” therefore, it is right to state,
lay no claim to the entire fulness of Biography. The following brief
personal notice is to be found in the opening pages:
Felicia Dorothea Browne—the second daughter and the fourth child of a
family of three sons and three daughters—was born in Duke-street,
Liverpool, on the 25th of September, 1794. Her father was a native of
Ireland, belonging to a branch of the Sligo family; her mother, a Miss
Wagner, was a descendant of a Venetian house, whose old name, Veniero,
had in the course of time been corrupted into this German form. Among
its members were numbered three who rose to the dignity of Doge, and
one who bore the honorable rank of commander at the battle of Lepanto.
In the waning days of the Republic, Miss Browne's grandfather held the
humble situation of Venetian consul in Liverpool. The maiden name of
his wife was Haddock, a good and ancient one among the yeomanry of
Lancashire; three of the issue of this union are still surviving. To
these few genealogical notices it may be added that Felicia Dorothea
was the fifth bearing that christian name in her mother's family, that
her elder sister, Eliza, of whom affectionate mention is made in her
earliest poems, died of a decline at the age of eighteen; and that her
brother Claude, who reached manhood, died in America several years
ago. Two brothers older than herself, and one sister, her junior, are
therefore all that now survive.
It must not be supposed from what we say that Mr. Chorley has given us
nothing of personal history. The volumes abound delightfully in such
anecdotes of the poetess as go to illustrate her literary
peculiarities and career. These indeed form the staple of the book,
and, in the truly exquisite narration of Mr. Chorley, are {723}
moulded into something far more impressive than we can imagine any
legitimate biography. We cannot refrain from turning over one by one
the pages as we write, and presenting our readers with some mere
outlines of the many reminiscences which the author has so beautifully
filled up. We shall intersperse them with some of Mr. C's.
observations, and occasionally with our own.
The “stately names of her maternal ancestors” seem to have made an
early and strong impression upon the poetess, tinging her mind at once
with the spirit of romance. To this fact she would often allude half
playfully, half proudly. She was accustomed to say that although the
years of childhood are usually happy, her own were too visionary not
to form an exception. At the epoch of her death she was meditating a
work to be called “Recollections of a Poet's Childhood.”—When a child
she was exceedingly beautiful: so much so as to attract universal
attention. Her complexion was brilliant, her hair long and curling,
and of a bright golden color. In her latter years it deepened into
brown, but remained silken, profuse, and wavy to the last.—A lady once
remarked in her hearing, “That child is not made for happiness I know;
her color comes and goes too fast.” This remark our poetess never
forgot, and she spoke of it as causing her much pain at the
moment.—She took great delight, when young, in reciting aloud poems
and fragments of plays. “Douglas” was an especial favorite. The scene
of her rehearsals was generally an old, large, and dimly-lighted room,
an old nursery, looking upon the sea. Her memory is said to have been
almost supernatural.—When she was little more than five years old, her
father removed his family from Liverpool to North Wales. This
circumstance had great influence upon her imagination. The mansion
removed to was old, solitary, and spacious, lying close to the sea
shore, and shut in, in front, by a chain of rocky hills. In her last
illness she frequently alluded to the atmosphere of romance which
invested her here. The house bore the reputation of being haunted. On
one occasion, having heard a rumor concerning a “fiery grey hound
which kept watch at the end of an avenue,” she sallied forth at
midnight anxious to encounter the goblin. Speaking of this period, she
observed, that could she have been then able to foresee the height of
reputation to which she subsequently attained, she would have
experienced a far higher happiness than the reality ever occasioned.
Few in similar circumstances but have thought thus without expressing
it.—She was early a reader of Shakspeare, and was soon possessed with
a desire of personifying his creations. Imogen and Beatrice were her
favorites, neither of which characters, Mr. Chorley remarks, is
“without strong points of resemblance to herself.”—A freak usual with
her was to arise at night, when the whole family were asleep, and
making her way to the sea shore, to indulge in a stolen bath.—She was
_never at school_. “Had she been sent to one,” observes Mr. Chorley,
“she would more probably have run away.” The only things she was ever
regularly taught were English Grammar, French, and the rudiments of
Latin. Her Latin teacher used to deplore “that she was not a man to
have borne away the highest honors at college.”—Her attention was
first attracted to the literature and chivalry of Spain by the
circumstance of a near relation being engaged in the Peninsular war.
She shrunk with more than ordinary feminine timidity from bodily pain,
refusing even to have her ears pierced for rings, and yet delighted in
records of martial glory. One of her favorite ornaments was the Cross
of the Legion of Honor, taken on some Spanish battle-field. Campbell's
Odes were her delight; the lines, especially,
Now joy, old England! rise
In the triumph of thy might!
Yet she had little taste for mere pageantry.—An unkind review to which
her earliest poems gave occasion so preyed upon her mind as to confine
her for several days to bed.—During the latter part of her life a
gentleman called upon her and thanked her with great earnestness for
the serious benefit he had derived from “the Sceptic,” which he stated
to have been instrumental in rescuing him from gross infidelity.—The
first noted literary character with whom she became intimately
acquainted, was Bishop Heber, to whom she was introduced in her
twenty-fifth year. She confided her literary plans to him, and always
spoke of him with affection. It was at his instigation she first
attempted dramatic composition. He was her adviser in the “Vespers of
Palermo.” This play was brought forward at Covent Garden in December
1823, the principal characters being taken by Young, Charles Kemble,
Yates, Mrs. Bartley, and Miss Kelly. It was not well received, but the
authoress bore her disappointment cheerfully. The drama was afterwards
produced with much greater success in Edinburgh. Sir Walter Scott
wrote an epilogue for it, and from this circumstance arose the
subsequent acquaintance between the “Great Unknown” and Mrs. H——. Of
Kean, she said that “seeing him act was like reading Shakspeare by
flashes of lightning.”—She possessed a fine feeling for music as well
as for drawing.—Of the “Trials of Margaret Lindsay” she thus expresses
a just critical opinion: “The book is certainly full of deep feeling
and beautiful language, but there are many passages which, I think,
would have been better omitted; and although I can bear as much
fictitious woe as other people, I really began to feel it an
infliction at last.”—She compliments Captain Basil Hall's “temperate
style of writing.”—Speaking of the short descriptive _recitative_
which so frequently introduces a lyrical burst of feeling in the minor
pieces of our poetess, Mr. Chorley observes: “This form of composition
became so especially popular in America, that hardly a poet has arisen
since the influence of Mrs. Hemans' genius made itself felt on the
other side of the Atlantic, who has not attempted something of a
similar subject and construction.”—Among the last strangers who
visited her in her illness, were a Jewish gentleman and lady, who
entreated admittance to “the author of the ‘Hebrew Mother.’”—“There
shall be no more snow,” in the “Tyrolese Evening Hymn,” seems to have
been suggested by Schiller's lines in the “_Nadowessiche
Todtenklage_:”
Wohl ihm er ist hingegangen
Wo kein schnee mehr ist!—
The “Lays of Many Lands,” which appeared chiefly in the New Monthly
Magazine, were suggested, as she herself owned, by Herder's “_Stimmen
der Volker in Liedern_.” She spoke of the German language as “rich and
affectionate, in which I take much delight.”—She considered “The
Forest Sanctuary” as the best of her {724} works: the subject was
suggested by a passage in one of the letters of Don Leucadio Doblado,
and the poem was written for the most part in—a laundry. These verses
are pointed out by Chorley as beautiful, which assuredly they are.
And if she mingled with the festive train
It was but as some melancholy star
Beholds the dance of shepherds on the plain,
In its bright stillness present though afar.
He praises also with great justice the entire episode of “Queen-like
Teresa—radient Inez!”—She was so much excited by the composition of
“Mozart's Requiem,” that her physician forbade her to write for weeks
afterwards.—She regarded Professor Norton, who undertook the
publication of her works (or rather its superintendence) in this
country, as one of her firmest friends. A packet with a letter from
this gentleman to the poetess containing offers of service, and a
self-introduction was lost upon the Ulverstone sands. They were
afterwards discovered drying at an inn fire, and forwarded to their
address. With Dr. Channing she frequently corresponded. An offer of a
certain and liberal income was made her in the hope of tempting her to
take up her residence in Boston and conduct a periodical.—Mr. Chorley
draws a fine distinction between Mrs. Hemans and Miss Jewsbury. “The
former,” he says, “came through Thought to Poetry, the latter through
Poetry to Thought.” He cites a passage in the “Three Histories” of
Miss Jewsbury, as descriptive of the personal appearance of Mrs. H. at
the period of his first acquaintance with her. It is the portrait of
Egeria, and will be remembered by most of our readers. It ends thus:
“She was a muse, a grace, a variable child, a dependent woman—the
Italy of human beings.”—Retzsch and Flaxman were Mrs. H.'s favorites
among modern artists. She was especially pleased with the group in the
Outlines to Hamlet—of Laertes and Hamlet struggling over the corpse of
Ophelia.—In 1828 she finally established herself at Wavertree. “Her
house here,” says our author, “was too small to deserve the name; the
third of a cluster or row close to a dusty road, and yet too townish
in its appearance and situation to be called a cottage. It was set in
a small court, and within doors was gloomy and comfortless, for its
two parlors (one with a tiny book-room opening from it) were hardly
larger than closets; but with her harp and her books, and the flowers
with which she loved to fill her little rooms, they presently assumed
a habitable, almost an elegant appearance.”—Some odd examples are
given of the ridiculous and hyperbolical compliments paid the poetess,
e.g. “I have heard her requested to read aloud that ‘the visitor might
carry away an impression of the sweetness of her tones.’” “I have been
present when another eccentric guest, upon her characterizing some
favorite poem as happily as was her wont, clapped her hands as at a
theatre, and exclaimed, ‘O Mrs. Hemans! do say that again, that I may
put it down and remember it.’”—Among Spanish authors Mrs. H. admired
Herrera, and Luis Ponce de Leon. The lyrics in Gil Polo's Diana were
favorites with her. Burger's _Leonore_ (concerning which and Sir
Walter Scott see an anecdote in our notice, this month, of _Schloss
Hainfeld_) she was never tired of hearing, “for the sake of its
wonderful rhythm and energy.” In the power of producing awe, however,
she gave the preference to the _Auncient Mariner_. She liked the
writings of Novalis and Tieck. Possibly she did not love Goethe so
well as Schiller. She delighted in Herder's translation of the Cid
Romances, and took pleasure in some of the poems of A. W. Schlegel.
Grillpazzer and Oehlenschluger were favorites among the minor German
tragedians. Shelley's “Ode to the West Wind” pleased her. In her copy
of _Corinne_ the following passage was underscored, and the words
“C'est moi!” written in the margin. “De toutes mes facultés la plus
puissante est la faculté de souffrir. Je suis née pour le bonheur. Mon
caractére est confiant, mon imagination est animée; mais la peine
excite en moi Je ne sais quelle impetuosité qui peut troubler ma
raison, ou me donner de la mort. Je vous le repéte encore,
menagez-moi; la gaité, la mobilité ne me servent qu'en apparence: mais
il y a dans mon ame des abymes de tristesse dont Je ne pouvais me
defendre qu'en me preservant de l'amour.”—In the summer of 1829 Mrs.
H. visited Scotland, and became acquainted with Sir Walter Scott. One
anecdote told by her of the novelist is highly piquant and
characteristic of both. “Well—we had reached a rustic seat in the
wood, and were to rest there—but I, out of pure perverseness, chose to
establish myself comfortably on a grass bank. ‘Would it not be more
prudent for you, Mrs. Hemans,’ said Sir Walter, ‘to take the seat?’ ‘I
have no doubt that it would, Sir Walter, but, somehow or other, I
always prefer the grass.’ ‘And so do I,’ replied the dear old
gentleman, coming to sit there beside me, ‘and I really believe that I
do it chiefly out of a wicked wilfulness, because all my _good
advisers_ say it will give me the rheumatism.’”—Speaking of Martin's
picture of _Nineveh_ Mrs. H. says: “It seems to me that something more
of gloomy grandeur might have been thrown about the funeral pyre; that
it should have looked more like a thing apart, almost suggesting of
itself the idea of an awful sacrifice.” She agrees with Wordsworth,
that Burns' “Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled” is “wretched stuff.” She
justly despised all allegorical personifications. Among the books
which she chiefly admired in her later days, are the Discourses of
Bishop Hall, Bishop Leighton, and Jeremy Taylor; the “Natural History
of Enthusiasm;” Mrs. Austin's Translations and Criticisms; Mrs.
Jameson's “Characteristics of Women;” Bulwer's “Last Days of Pompeii;”
Miss Edgeworth's “Helen,” and Miss Mitford's Sketches. The Scriptures
were her daily study.—Wordsworth was then her favorite poet. Of Miss
Kemble's “Francis” she thus speaks. “Have you not been disappointed in
Miss Kemble's Tragedy? To me there seems a _coarseness_ of idea and
expression in many parts, which from a woman is absolutely startling.
I can scarcely think it has sustaining power to bear itself up at its
present height of popularity.”
We take from Volume I, the following passage in regard to Schiller's
“Don Carlos,” a comparison of which drama with the “Filippo” of
Alfieri, will be found in this number of the Messenger. The words we
copy are those of Mrs. Hemans.
The interview between Philip the Second and Posa, is certainly very
powerful, but to me its interest is always destroyed by a sense of
utter _impossibility_ which haunts me throughout. Not even Schiller's
mighty spells can, I think, win the most “unquestioning spirit” to
suppose that such a voice of truth and freedom _could_ have been
lifted up, and endured, in the presence of the cold, stern, Philip the
Second—that he would, even for a {725} moment, have listened to the
language thus fearlessly bursting from a noble heart. Three of the
most impressive scenes towards the close of the play, might, I think,
be linked together, leaving out the intervening ones, with much
effect—the one in which Carlos, standing by the body of his friend,
forces his father to the contemplation of the dead; the one in which
the king comes forward, with his fearful dreamy remorse, alone amidst
his court,
Gieb diesen Todten mir heraus, &c.
and the subsequent interview between Philip and the Grand Inquisitor,
in which the whole spirit of those fanatic days seems embodied.
In perusing these volumes the reader will not fail to be struck with
the evidence they contain of a more than ordinary _joyousness_ of
temperament in Mrs. Hemans. He will be astonished also in finding
himself able to say that he has at length seen a book, dealing much in
strictly personal memoirs, wherein no shadow of vanity or affectation
could be discerned in either the Memorialist or his subject. In
concluding this notice we must not forget to impress upon our friends
that we have been speaking altogether of the work issued by Saunders
and Otley, publishers of the highest respectability, who have come
among us as strangers, and who, as such, have an undeniable claim upon
our courtesy. Their edition is embellished with two fine engravings,
one of the poetess's favorite residence in Wales, the other of the
poetess herself. We shall beg our friends also to remember that this
edition, and this exclusively, is printed for the benefit of the
children of Mrs. Hemans. To Southerners, at least, we feel that
nothing farther need be said.