CHAP. I.
1759–1775.
It has always appeared to me, that to give to the public some account of
the life of a person of eminent merit deceased, is a duty incumbent on
survivors. It seldom happens that such a person passes through life,
without being the subject of thoughtless calumny, or malignant
misrepresentation. It cannot happen that the public at large should be
on a footing with their intimate acquaintance, and be the observer of
those virtues which discover themselves principally in personal
intercourse. Every benefactor of mankind is more or less influenced by a
liberal passion for fame; and survivors only pay a debt due to these
benefactors, when they assert and establish on their part, the honour
they loved. The justice which is thus done to the illustrious dead,
converts into the fairest source of animation and encouragement to those
who would follow them in the same career. The human species at large is
interested in this justice, as it teaches them to place their respect
and affection, upon those qualities which best deserve to be esteemed
and loved. I cannot easily prevail on myself to doubt, that the more
fully we are presented with the picture and story of such persons as are
the subject of the following narrative, the more generally shall we feel
in ourselves an attachment to their fate, and a sympathy in their
excellencies. There are not many individuals with whose character the
public welfare and improvement are more intimately connected, than the
author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
The facts detailed in the following pages, are principally taken from
the mouth of the person to whom they relate; and of the veracity and
ingenuousness of her habits, perhaps no one that was ever acquainted
with her, entertains a doubt. The writer of this narrative, when he has
met with persons, that in any degree created to themselves an interest
and attachment in his mind, has always felt a curiosity to be acquainted
with the scenes through which they had passed, and the incidents that
had contributed to form their understandings and character. Impelled by
this sentiment, he repeatedly led the conversation of Mary to topics of
this sort; and, once or twice, he made notes in her presence, of a few
dates calculated to arrange the circumstances in his mind. To the
materials thus collected, he has added an industrious enquiry among the
persons most intimately acquainted with her at the different periods of
her life.
* * * * *
Mary Wollstonecraft was born on the 27th of April 1759. Her father’s
name was Edward John, and the name of her mother Elizabeth, of the
family of Dixons of Ballyshannon in the kingdom of Ireland: her paternal
grandfather was a respectable manufacturer in Spitalfields, and is
supposed to have left to his son a property of 10,000l. Three of her
brothers and two sisters are still living; their names, Edward, James,
Charles, Eliza, and Everina. Of these, Edward only was older than
herself; he resides in London. James is in Paris, and Charles in or near
Philadelphia in America. Her sisters have for some years been engaged in
the office of governesses in private families, and are both at present
in Ireland.
I am doubtful whether the father of Mary was bred to any profession;
but, about the time of her birth, he resorted, rather perhaps as an
amusement than a business, to the occupation of farming. He was of a
very active, and somewhat versatile disposition, and so frequently
changed his abode, as to throw some ambiguity upon the place of her
birth. She told me, that the doubt in her mind in that respect, lay
between London, and a farm upon Epping Forest, which was the principal
scene of the five first years of her life.
Mary was distinguished in early youth, by some portion of that exquisite
sensibility, soundness of understanding, and decision of character,
which were the leading features of her mind through the whole course of
her life. She experienced in the first period of her existence, but few
of those indulgences and marks of affection, which are principally
calculated to sooth the subjection and sorrows of our early years. She
was not the favourite either of her father or mother. Her father was a
man of quick, impetuous disposition, subject to alternate fits of
kindness and cruelty. In his family he was a despot, and his wife
appears to have been the first, and most submissive of his subjects. The
mother’s partiality was fixed upon the eldest son, and her system of
government relative to Mary, was characterized by considerable rigour.
She, at length, became convinced of her mistake, and adopted a different
plan with her younger daughters. When in the Wrongs of Woman, Mary
speaks of “the petty cares which obscured the morning of her heroine’s
life; continual restraint in the most trivial matters; unconditional
submission to orders, which, as a mere child, she soon discovered to be
unreasonable, because inconsistent and contradictory; and the being
obliged often to sit, in the presence of her parents, for three or four
hours together, without daring to utter a word;” she is, I believe, to
be considered as copying the outline of the first period of her own
existence.
But it was in vain that the blighting winds of unkindness or
indifference, seemed destined to counteract the superiority of Mary’s
mind. It surmounted every obstacle; and, by degrees, from a person
little considered in the family, she became in some sort its director
and umpire. The despotism of her education cost her many a heart-ache.
She was not formed to be the contented and unresisting subject of a
despot; but I have heard her remark more than once, that, when she felt
she had done wrong, the reproof or chastisement of her mother, instead
of being a terror to her, she found to be the only thing capable of
reconciling her to herself. The blows of her father on the contrary,
which were the mere ebullitions of a passionate temper, instead of
humbling her, roused her indignation. Upon such occasions she felt her
superiority, and was apt to betray marks of contempt. The quickness of
her father’s temper, led him sometimes to threaten similar violence
towards his wife. When that was the case, Mary would often throw herself
between the despot and his victim, with the purpose to receive upon her
own person the blows that might be directed against her mother. She has
even laid whole nights upon the landing-place near their chamber-door,
when, mistakenly, or with reason, she apprehended that her father might
break out into paroxysms of violence. The conduct he held towards the
members of his family, was of the same kind as that he observed towards
animals. He was for the most part extravagantly fond of them; but, when
he was displeased, and this frequently happened, and for very trivial
reasons, his anger was alarming. Mary was what Dr. Johnson would have
called, “a very good hater.” In some instance of passion exercised by
her father to one of his dogs, she was accustomed to speak of her
emotions of abhorrence, as having risen to agony. In a word, her conduct
during her girlish years, was such, as to extort some portion of
affection from her mother, and to hold her father in considerable awe.
In one respect, the system of education of the mother appears to have
had merit. All her children were vigorous and healthy. This seems very
much to depend upon the management of our infant years. It is affirmed
by some persons of the present day, most profoundly skilled in the
sciences of health and disease, that there is no period of human life so
little subject to mortality as the period of infancy. Yet, from the
mismanagement to which children are exposed, many of the diseases of
childhood are rendered fatal, and more persons die in that, than in any
other period of human life. Mary had projected a work upon this subject,
which she had carefully considered, and well understood. She has indeed
left a specimen of her skill in this respect in her eldest daughter,
three years and a half old, who is a singular example of vigorous
constitution and florid health. Mr. Anthony Carlisle, surgeon, of
Soho-square, whom to name is sufficiently to honour, had promised to
revise her production. This is but one out of numerous projects of
activity and usefulness, which her untimely death has fatally
terminated.
The rustic situation in which Mary had spent her infancy, no doubt
contributed to confirm the stamina of her constitution. She sported in
the open air, and amidst the picturesque and refreshing scenes of
nature, for which she always retained the most exquisite relish. Dolls
and the other amusements usually appropriated to female children, she
held in contempt; and felt a much greater propensity to join in the
active and hardy sports of her brothers, than to confine herself to
those of her own sex.
About the time that Mary completed the fifth year of her age, her father
removed to a small distance from his former habitation, and took a farm
near the Whalebone upon Epping Forest, a little way out of the
Chelmsford road. In Michaelmas, 1765, he once more changed his
residence, and occupied a convenient house behind the town of Barking in
Essex, eight miles from London. In this situation some of their nearest
neighbours were, Bamber Gascoyne, esquire, successively member of
parliament for several boroughs, and his brother, Mr. Joseph Gascoyne.
Bamber Gascoyne resided but little on this spot; but his brother was
almost a constant inhabitant, and his family in habits of the most
frequent intercourse with the family of Mary. Here Mr. Wollstonecraft
remained for three years. In September 1796, I accompanied my wife on a
visit to this spot. No person reviewed with greater sensibility, the
scenes of her childhood. We found the house uninhabited, and the garden
in a wild and ruinous state. She renewed her acquaintance with the
market-place, the streets, and the wharf, the latter of which we found
crowded with barges, and full of activity.
In Michaelmas, 1768, Mr. Wollstonecraft again removed to a farm near
Beverly in Yorkshire. Here the family remained for six years, and
consequently, Mary did not quit this residence, till she had attained
the age of fifteen years and five months. The principal part of her
school education passed during this period: but it was not to any
advantage of infant literature, that she was indebted for her subsequent
eminence; her education in this respect was merely such, as was afforded
by the day-schools of the place, in which she resided. To her
recollections Beverly appeared a very handsome town, surrounded by
genteel families, and with a brilliant assembly. She was surprized, when
she visited it in 1795, upon her voyage to Norway, to find the reality
so very much below the picture in her imagination.
Hitherto Mr. Wollstonecraft had been a farmer; but the restlessness of
his disposition would not suffer him to content himself with the
occupation in which for some years he had been engaged, and the
temptation of a commercial speculation of some sort being held out to
him, he removed to a house in Queen’s-Row, in Hoxton near London, for
the purpose of its execution. Here he remained for a year and a half;
but, being frustrated in his expectations of profit, he, after that
term, gave up the project in which he was engaged, and returned to his
former pursuits. During this residence at Hoxton, the writer of these
memoirs inhabited, as a student, at the dissenting college in that
place. It is perhaps a question of curious speculation to enquire, what
would have been the amount of the difference in the pursuits and
enjoyments of each party, if they had met, and considered each other
with the same distinguishing regard in 1776, as they were afterwards
impressed with in the year 1796. The writer had then completed the
twentieth, and Mary the seventeenth year of her age. Which would have
been predominant; the disadvantages of obscurity, and the pressure of a
family; or the gratifications and improvement that might have flowed
from their intercourse?
One of the acquaintances Mary formed at this time was a Mr. Clare, who
inhabited the next house to that which was tenanted by her father, and
to whom she was probably in some degree indebted for the early
cultivation of her mind. Mr. Clare was a clergyman, and appears to have
been a humourist of a very singular cast. In his person he was deformed
and delicate; and his figure, I am told, bore a resemblance to that of
the celebrated Pope. He had a fondness for poetry, and was not destitute
of taste. His manners were expressive of a tenderness and benevolence,
the demonstrations of which appeared to have been somewhat too
artificially cultivated. His habits were those of a perfect recluse. He
seldom went out of his drawing-room, and he shewed to a friend of Mary a
pair of shoes, which had served him, he said, for fourteen years. Mary
frequently spent days and weeks together, at the house of Mr. Clare.
CHAP. II.
1775–1783.
But a connection more memorable originated about this time, between Mary
and a person of her own sex, for whom she contracted a friendship so
fervent, as for years to have constituted the ruling passion of her
mind. The name of this person was Frances Blood; she was two years older
than Mary. Her residence was at that time at Newington Butts, a village
near the southern extremity of the metropolis; and the original
instrument for bringing these two friends acquainted, was Mrs. Clare,
wife of the gentleman already mentioned, who was on a footing of
considerable intimacy with both parties. The acquaintance of Fanny, like
that of Mr. Clare, contributed to ripen the immature talents of Mary.
The situation in which Mary was introduced to her, bore a resemblance to
the first interview of Werter with Charlotte. She was conducted to the
door of a small house, but furnished with peculiar neatness and
propriety. The first object that caught her sight, was a young woman of
a slender and elegant form, and eighteen years of age, busily employed
in feeding and managing some children, born of the same parents, but
considerably inferior to her in age. The impression Mary received from
this spectacle was indelible; and, before the interview was concluded,
she had taken, in her heart, the vows of an eternal friendship.
Fanny was a young woman of extraordinary accomplishments. She sung and
played with taste. She drew with exquisite fidelity and neatness; and by
the employment of this talent, for some time maintained her father,
mother, and family, but ultimately ruined her health by her
extraordinary exertions. She read and wrote with considerable
application; and the same ideas of minute and delicate propriety
followed her in these, as in her other occupations.
Mary, a wild, but animated and aspiring girl of sixteen, contemplated
Fanny, in the first instance, with sentiments of inferiority and
reverence. Though they were much together, yet, the distance of their
habitation being considerable, they supplied the want of more frequent
interviews by an assiduous correspondence. Mary found Fanny’s letters
better spelt and better indited than her own, and felt herself abashed.
She had hitherto paid but a superficial attention to literature. She had
read, to gratify the ardor of an inextinguishable thirst of knowledge;
but she had not thought of writing as an art. Her ambition to excel was
now awakened, and she applied herself with passion and earnestness.
Fanny undertook to be her instructor; and, so far as related to accuracy
and method, her lessons were given with considerable skill.
It has already been mentioned that in the spring of the year 1776, Mr.
Wollstonecroft quitted his situation at Hoxton, and returned to his
former agricultural pursuits. The situation upon which he now fixed was
in Wales, a circumstance that was felt as a severe blow to Mary’s
darling spirit of friendship. The principal acquaintance of the
Wollstonecrofts in this retirement, was the family of a Mr. Allen, two
of whose daughters are since married to the two elder sons of the
celebrated English potter, Josiah Wedgwood.
Wales however was Mr. Wollstonecroft’s residence for little more than a
year. He returned to the neighbourhood of London; and Mary, whose spirit
of independence was unalterable, had influence enough to determine his
choice in favour of the village of Walworth, that she might be near her
chosen friend. It was probably before this, that she has once or twice
started the idea of quitting her parental roof, and providing for
herself. But she was prevailed upon to resign this idea, and conditions
were stipulated with her, relative to her having an apartment in the
house that should be exclusively her own, and her commanding the other
requisites of study. She did not however think herself fairly treated in
these instances, and either the conditions abovementioned, or some
others, were not observed in the sequel, with the fidelity she expected.
In one case, she had procured an eligible situation, and every thing was
settled respecting her removal to it, when the intreaties and tears of
her mother led her to surrender her own inclinations, and abandon the
engagement.
These however were only temporary delays. Her propensities continued the
same, and the motives by which she was instigated were unabated. In the
year 1778, she being nineteen years of age, a proposal was made to her
of living as a companion with a Mrs. Dawson of Bath, a widow lady, with
one son already adult. Upon enquiry she found that Mrs. Dawson was a
woman of great peculiarity of temper, that she had had a great variety
of companions in succession, and that no one had found it practicable to
continue with her. Mary was not discouraged by this information, and
accepted the situation, with a resolution that she would effect in this
respect, what none of her predecessors had been able to do. In the
sequel she had reason to consider the account she had received as
sufficiently accurate, but she did not relax in her endeavours. By
method, constancy and firmness, she found the means of making her
situation tolerable; and Mrs. Dawson would occasionally confess, that
Mary was the only person that had lived with her in that situation, in
her treatment of whom she felt herself under any restraint.
With Mrs. Dawson she continued to reside for two years, and only left
her, summoned by the melancholy circumstance of her mother’s rapidly
declining health. True to the calls of humanity, Mary felt in this
intelligence an irresistible motive, and eagerly returned to the
paternal roof which she had before resolutely quitted. The residence of
her father at this time, was at Enfield near London. He had, I believe,
given up agriculture from the time of his quitting Wales, it appearing
that he now made it less a source of profit than loss, and being thought
advisable that he should rather live upon the interest of his property
already in possession.
The illness of Mrs. Wollstonecroft was lingering, but hopeless. Mary was
assiduous in her attendance upon her mother. At first, every attention
was received with acknowledgements and gratitude; but, as the attentions
grew habitual, and the health of the mother more and more wretched, they
were rather exacted, than received. Nothing would be taken by the
unfortunate patient, but from the hands of Mary; rest was denied night
or day, and by the time nature was exhausted in the parent, the daughter
was qualified to assume her place, and become in turn herself a patient.
The last words her mother ever uttered were, “A little patience, and all
will be over!” and these words are repeatedly referred to by Mary in the
course of her writings.
Upon the death of Mrs. Wollstonecraft, Mary bid a final adieu to the
roof of her father. According to my memorandum, I find her next the
inmate of Fanny at Walham-Green, near the village of Fulham. Upon what
plan they now lived together, I am unable to ascertain; certainly not
that of Mary’s becoming in any degree an additional burthen upon the
industry of her friend. Thus situated, their intimacy ripened; they
approached more nearly to a footing of equality; and their attachment
became more rooted and active.
Mary was ever ready at the call of distress, and, in particular, during
her whole life was eager and active to promote the welfare of every
member of her family. In 1780 she attended the death-bed of her mother;
in 1782 she was summoned by a not less melancholy occasion, to attend
her sister Eliza, married to a Mr. Bishop, who, subsequently to a
dangerous lying-in, remained for some months in a very afflicting
situation. Mary continued with her sister without intermission, to her
perfect recovery.
CHAP. III.
1783–1785.
Mary was now arrived at the twenty-fourth year of her age. Her project,
five years before, had been personal independence; it was now
usefulness. In the solitude of attendance on her sister’s illness, and
during the subsequent convalescence, she had leisure to ruminate upon
purposes of this sort. Her expanded mind led her to seek something more
arduous than the mere removal of personal vexations; and the sensibility
of her heart would not suffer her to rest in solitary gratifications.
The derangement of her father’s affairs daily became more and more
glaring; and a small independent provision made for herself and her
sisters appears to have been sacrificed in the wreck. For ten years,
from 1782 to 1792, she may be said to have been, in a great degree, the
victim of a desire to promote the benefit of others. She did not foresee
the severe disappointment with which an exclusive purpose of this sort
is pregnant; she was inexperienced enough to lay a stress upon the
consequent gratitude of those she benefited; and she did not
sufficiently consider that, in proportion as we involve ourselves in the
interests and society of others, we acquire a more exquisite sense of
their defects, and are tormented with their untractableness and folly.
The project upon which she now determined, was no other than that of a
day-school, to be superintended by Fanny Blood, herself, and her two
sisters.
They accordingly opened one in the year 1783, at the village of
Islington; but in the course of a few months removed it to Newington
Green. Here Mary formed some acquaintances who influenced the future
events of her life. The first of these in her own estimation was Dr.
Richard Price, well known for his political and mathematical
calculations, and universally esteemed by those who knew him, for the
simplicity of his manners, and the ardour of his benevolence. The regard
conceived by these two persons for each other, was mutual, and partook
of a spirit of the purest attachment. Mary had been bred in the
principles of the church of England, but her esteem for this venerable
preacher led her occasionally to attend upon his public instructions.
Her religion was, in reality, little allied to any system of forms; and,
as she has often told me, was founded rather in taste, than in the
niceties of polemical discussion. Her mind constitutionally attached
itself to the sublime and the amiable. She found an inexpressible
delight in the beauties of nature, and in the splendid reveries of the
imagination. But nature itself, she thought, would be no better than a
vast blank, if the mind of the observer did not supply it with an
animating soul. When she walked amidst the wonders of nature, she was
accustomed to converse with her God. To her mind he was pictured as not
less amiable, generous and kind, than great, wise and exalted. In fact,
she had received few lessons of religion in her youth, and her religion
was almost entirely of her own creation. But she was not on that account
the less attached to it, or the less scrupulous in discharging what she
considered as its duties. She could not recollect the time when she had
believed the doctrine of future punishments. The tenets of her system
were the growth of her own moral taste, and her religion therefore had
always been a gratification, never a terror to her. She expected a
future state; but she would not allow her ideas of that future state to
be modified by the notions of judgment and retribution. From this
sketch, it is sufficiently evident, that the pleasure she took in an
occasional attendance upon the sermons of Dr. Price, was not accompanied
with a superstitious adherence to his doctrines. The fact is, that, so
far down as the year 1787, she regularly frequented public worship, for
the most part according to the forms of the church of England. After
that period her attendance became less constant, and in no long time was
wholly discontinued. I believe it may be admitted as a maxim, that no
person of a well furnished mind, that has shaken off the implicit
subjection of youth, and is not the zealous partisan of a sect, can
bring himself to conform to the public and regular routine of sermons
and prayers.
Another of the friends she acquired at this period, was Mrs. Burgh,
widow of the author of the Political Disquisitions, a woman universally
well spoken of for the warmth and purity of her benevolence. Mary,
whenever she had occasion to allude to her, to the last period of her
life, paid the tribute due to her virtues. The only remaining friend
necessary to be enumerated in this place, is the Rev. John Hewlet, now
master of a Boarding-school at Schecklewel near Hackney, whom I shall
have occasion to mention hereafter.
I have already said that Fanny’s health had been materially injured by
her incessant labours for the maintenance of her family. She had also
suffered a disappointment, which preyed upon her mind. To these
different sources of ill health she became gradually a victim: and at
length discovered all the symptoms of a pulmonary consumption. By the
medical men that attended her, she was advised to try the effects of a
southern climate; and, about the beginning of the year 1785, sailed for
Lisbon.
The first feeling with which Mary had contemplated her friend, was a
sentiment of inferiority and reverence; but that, from the operation of
a ten years’ acquaintance, was considerably changed. Fanny had
originally been far before her in literary attainments; this disparity
no longer existed. In whatever degree Mary might endeavour to free
herself from the delusions of self-esteem, this period of observation
upon her own mind and that of her friend, could not pass, without her
perceiving that there were some essential characteristics of genius,
which she possessed, and in which her friend was deficient. The
principal of these was a firmness of mind, an unconquerable greatness of
soul, by which, after a short internal struggle, she was accustomed to
rise above difficulties and suffering. Whatever Mary undertook, she
perhaps in all instances accomplished; and, to her lofty spirit,
scarcely any thing she desired, appeared hard to perform. Fanny, on the
contrary, was a woman of a timid and irresolute nature, accustomed to
yield to difficulties, and probably priding herself in this morbid
softness of her temper. One instance that I have heard Mary relate of
this sort, was, that, at a certain time, Fanny, dissatisfied with her
domestic situation, expressed an earnest desire to have a home of her
own. Mary, who felt nothing more pressing than to relieve the
inconveniencies of her friend, determined to accomplish this object for
her. It cost her infinite exertions; but at length she was able to
announce to Fanny that a house was prepared, and that she was on the
spot to receive her. The answer which Fanny returned to the letter of
her friend, consisted almost wholly of an enumeration of objections to
the quitting her family, which she had not thought of before, but which
now appeared to her of considerable weight.
The judgment which experience had taught Mary to form of the mind of her
friend, determined her in the advice she gave, at the period to which I
have brought down the story. Fanny was recommended to seek a softer
climate, but she had no funds to defray the expence of such an
undertaking. At this time Mr. Hugh Skeys of Dublin, but then resident in
the kingdom of Portugal, paid his addresses to her. The state of her
health Mary considered such as scarcely to afford the shadow of a hope;
it was not therefore a time at which it was most obvious to think of
marriage. She conceived however that nothing should be omitted, which
might alleviate, if it could not cure; and accordingly urged her speedy
acceptance of the proposal. Fanny accordingly made the voyage to Lisbon;
and the marriage took place on the twenty-fourth of February 1785.
The change of climate and situation was productive of little benefit;
and the life of Fanny was only prolonged by a period of pregnancy, which
soon declared itself. Mary, in the mean time, was impressed with the
idea that her friend would die in this distant country; and, shocked
with the recollection of her separation from the circle of her friends,
determined to pass over to Lisbon to attend her. This resolution was
treated by her acquaintance as in the utmost degree visionary; but she
was not to be diverted from her point. She had not money to defray her
expences: she must quit for a long time the school, the very existence
of which probably depended upon her exertions.
No person was ever better formed for the business of education; if it be
not a sort of absurdity to speak of a person as formed for an inferior
object, who is in possession of talents, in the fullest degree adequate
to something on a more important and comprehensive scale. Mary had a
quickness of temper, not apt to take offence with inadvertencies, but
which led her to imagine that she saw the mind of the person with whom
she had any transaction, and to refer the principle of her approbation
or displeasure to the cordiality or injustice of their sentiments. She
was occasionally severe and imperious in her resentments; and, when she
strongly disapproved, was apt to express her censure in terms that gave
a very humiliating sensation to the person against whom it was directed.
Her displeasure however never assumed its severest form, but when it was
barbed by disappointment. Where she expected little, she was not very
rigid in her censure of error.
But, to whatever the defects of her temper might amount, they were never
exercised upon her inferiors in station or age. She scorned to make use
of an ungenerous advantage, or to wound the defenceless. To her servants
there never was a mistress more considerate or more kind. With children
she was the mirror of patience. Perhaps, in all her extensive experience
upon the subject of education, she never betrayed one symptom of
irascibility. Her heart was the seat of every benevolent feeling; and
accordingly, in all her intercourse with children, it was kindness and
sympathy alone that prompted her conduct. Sympathy, when it mounts to a
certain height, inevitably begets affection in the person to whom it is
exercised; and I have heard her say, that she never was concerned in the
education of one child, who was not personally attached to her, and
earnestly concerned not to incur her displeasure. Another eminent
advantage she possessed in the business of education, was that she was
little troubled with scepticism and uncertainty. She saw, as it were by
intuition, the path which her mind determined to pursue, and had a firm
confidence in her own power to effect what she desired. Yet, with all
this, she had scarcely a tincture of obstinacy. She carefully watched
symptoms as they rose, and the success of her experiments; and governed
herself accordingly. While I thus enumerate her more than maternal
qualities, it is impossible not to feel a pang at the recollection of
her orphan children!
Though her friends earnestly dissuaded her from the journey to Lisbon,
she found among them a willingness to facilitate the execution of her
project, when it was once fixed. Mrs. Burgh in particular, supplied her
with money, which however she always conceived came from Dr. Price. This
loan, I have reason to believe, was faithfully repaid.
It was during her residence at Newington Green, that she was introduced
to the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson, who was at that time considered as
in some sort the father of English literature. The doctor treated her
with particular kindness and attention, had a long conversation with
her, and desired her to repeat her visit often. This she firmly purposed
to do; but the news of his last illness, and then of his death,
intervened to prevent her making a second visit.
Her residence in Lisbon was not long. She arrived but a short time
before her friend was prematurely delivered, and the event was fatal to
both mother and child. Frances Blood, hitherto the chosen object of
Mary’s attachment, died on the 29th of November, 1785.
It is thus that she speaks of her in her letters from Norway, written
ten years after her decease. “When a warm heart has received strong
impressions, they are not to be effaced. Emotions become sentiments; and
the imagination renders even transient sensations permanent, by fondly
retracing them. I cannot, without a thrill of delight, recollect views I
have seen, which are not to be forgotten, nor looks I have felt in every
nerve, which I shall never more meet. The grave has closed over a dear
friend, the friend of my youth; still she is present with me, and I hear
her soft voice warbling as I stray over the heath.”
CHAP. IV.
1785–1787.
No doubt the voyage to Lisbon tended considerably to enlarge the
understanding of Mary. She was admitted into the best company the
English factory afforded. She made many profound observations on the
character of the natives, and the baleful effects of superstition. The
obsequies of Fanny, which it was necessary to perform by stealth and in
darkness, tended to invigorate these observations in her mind.
She sailed upon her voyage home about the twentieth of December. On this
occasion a circumstance occurred, that deserves to be recorded. While
they were on their passage, they fell in with a French vessel, in great
distress, and in daily expectation of foundering at sea, at the same
time that it was almost destitute of provisions. The Frenchman hailed
them, and intreated the English captain, in consideration of his
melancholy situation, to take him and his crew on board. The Englishman
represented in reply, that his stock of provisions was by no means
adequate to such an additional number of mouths, and absolutely refused
compliance. Mary, shocked at his apparent insensibility, took up the
cause of the sufferers, and threatened the captain to have him called to
a severe account, when he arrived in England. She finally prevailed, and
had the satisfaction to reflect, that the persons in question possibly
owed their lives to her interposition.
When she arrived in England, she found that her school had suffered
considerably in her absence. It can be little reproach to any one, to
say that they were found incapable of supplying her place. She not only
excelled in the management of the children, but had also the talent of
being attentive and obliging to the parents, without degrading herself.
The period at which I am now arrived is important, as conducting to the
first step of her literary career. Mr. Hewlet had frequently mentioned
literature to Mary as a certain source of pecuniary produce, and had
urged her to make trial of the truth of his judgment. At this time she
was desirous of assisting the father and mother of Fanny in an object
they had in view, the transporting themselves to Ireland; and, as usual,
what she desired in a pecuniary view, she was ready to take on herself
to effect. For this purpose she wrote a duodecimo pamphlet of one
hundred and sixty pages, entitled, Thoughts on the Education of
Daughters. Mr. Hewlet obtained from the bookseller, Mr. Johnson in St.
Paul’s Church Yard, ten guineas for the copy-right of this manuscript,
which she immediately applied to the object for the sake of which the
pamphlet was written.
Every thing urged Mary to put an end to the affair of the school. She
was dissatisfied with the different appearance it presented upon her
return, from the state in which she left it. Experience impressed upon
her a rooted aversion to that sort of cohabitation with her sisters,
which the project of the school imposed. Cohabitation is a point of
delicate experiment, and is, in a majority of instances, pregnant with
ill humour and unhappiness. The activity and ardent spirit of adventure
which characterized Mary, were not felt in an equal degree by her
sisters, so that a disproportionate share of every burthen attendant
upon the situation, fell to her lot. On the other hand, they could
scarcely perhaps be perfectly easy, in observing the superior degree of
deference and courtship, which her merit extorted from almost every one
that knew her. Her kindness for them was not diminished, but she
resolved that the mode of its exertion in future should be different,
tending to their benefit, without intrenching upon her own liberty.
Thus circumstanced, a proposal was made her, such as, regarding only the
situations through which she had lately passed, is usually termed
advantageous. This was, to accept the office of governess to the
daughters of Lord Viscount Kingsborough, eldest son to the Earl of
Kingston of the kingdom of Ireland. The terms held out to her, were such
as she determined to accept, at the same time resolving to retain the
situation only for a short time. Independence was the object after which
she thirsted, and she was fixed to try whether it might not be found in
literary occupation. She was desirous however first to accumulate a
small sum of money, which should enable her to consider at leisure the
different literary engagements that might offer, and provide in some
degree for the eventual deficiency of her earliest attempts.
The situation in the family of Lord Kingsborough, was offered to her
through the medium of the Rev. Mr. Prior, at that time one of the under
masters of Eton school. She spent some time at the house of this
gentleman, immediately after her giving up the school at Newington
Green. Here she had an opportunity of making an accurate observation
upon the manners and conduct of that celebrated seminary, and the ideas
she retained of it were by no means favourable. By all that she saw, she
was confirmed in a very favourite opinion of her’s, in behalf of
day-schools, where, as she expressed it, “children have the opportunity
of conversing with children, without interfering with domestic
affections, the foundation of virtue.”
Though her residence in the family of Lord Kingsborough continued
scarcely more than twelve months, she left behind her, with them and
their connections, a very advantageous impression. The governesses the
young ladies had hitherto had, were only a species of upper servants,
controlled in every thing by the mother; Mary insisted upon the
unbounded exercise of her own discretion. When the young ladies heard of
their governess coming from England, they heard in imagination of a new
enemy, and declared their resolution to guard themselves accordingly.
Mary however speedily succeeded in gaining their confidence, and the
friendship that soon grew up between her and Margaret King, now Countess
Mount Cashel, the eldest daughter, was in an uncommon degree cordial and
affectionate. Mary always spoke of this young lady in terms of the
truest applause, both in relation to the eminence of her intellectual
powers, and the ingenuous amiableness of her disposition. Lady
Kingsborough, from the best motives, had imposed upon her daughters a
variety of prohibitions, both as to the books they should read, and in
many other respects. These prohibitions had their usual effects;
inordinate desire for the things forbidden, and clandestine indulgence.
Mary immediately restored the children to their liberty, and undertook
to govern them by their affections only. The salutary effects of the new
system of education were speedily visible; and Lady Kingsborough soon
felt no other uneasiness than lest the children should love their
governess better than their mother.
Mary made many friends in Ireland, among the persons who visited Lord
Kingsborough’s house, for she always appeared there with the air of an
equal, and not of a dependent. I have heard her mention the ludicrous
distress of a woman of quality, whose name I have forgotten, that, in a
large company, singled out Mary, and entered into a long conversation
with her. After the conversation was over, she enquired whom she had
been talking with, and found, to her utter mortification and dismay,
that it was Miss King’s governess.
One of the persons among her Irish acquaintance, whom Mary was
accustomed to speak of with the highest respect, was Mr. George Ogle,
member of parliament for the county of Wexford. She held his talents in
very high estimation; she was strongly prepossessed in favour of the
goodness of his heart; and she always spoke of him as the most perfect
gentleman she had ever known. She felt the regret of a disappointed
friend, at the part he has lately taken in the politics of Ireland.
Lord Kingsborough’s family passed the summer of the year 1787 at Bristol
Hot-Wells, and had formed the project of proceeding from thence to the
Continent, a tour in which Mary purposed to accompany them. The plan
however was ultimately given up, and Mary in consequence closed her
connection with them, earlier than she otherwise had purposed to do.
At Bristol Hot-Wells she composed the little book which bears the title
of Mary, a Fiction. A considerable part of this story consists, with
certain modifications, of the incidents of her own friendship with
Fanny. All the events that do not relate to that subject are fictitious.
This little work, if Mary had never produced any thing else, would
serve, with persons of true taste and sensibility, to establish the
eminence of her genius. The story is nothing. He that looks into the
book only for incident, will probably lay it down with disgust. But the
feelings are of the truest and most exquisite class; every circumstance
is adorned with that species of imagination, which enlists itself under
the banners of delicacy and sentiment. A work of sentiment, as it is
called, is too often another name for a work of affectation. He that
should imagine that the sentiments of this book are affected, would
indeed be entitled to our profoundest commiseration.
CHAP. V.
1787–1790.
Being now determined to enter upon her literary plan, Mary came
immediately from Bristol to the metropolis. Her conduct under this
circumstance was such as to do credit both to her own heart, and that of
Mr. Johnson, her publisher, between whom and herself there now commenced
an intimate friendship. She had seen him upon occasion of publishing her
Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, and she addressed two or three
letters to him during her residence in Ireland. Upon her arrival in
London in August 1787, she went immediately to his house, and frankly
explained to him her purpose, at the same time requesting his assistance
and advice as to its execution. After a short conversation Mr. Johnson
invited her to make his house her home, till she should have suited
herself with a fixed residence. She accordingly resided at this time two
or three weeks under his roof. At the same period she paid a visit or
two of similar duration to some friends, at no great distance from the
metropolis.
At Michaelmas 1787, she entered upon a house in George-street, on the
Surry side of Black Friar’s Bridge, which Mr. Johnson had provided for
her during her excursion into the country. The three years immediately
ensuing, may be said, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, to have
been the most active period of her life. She brought with her to this
habitation, the novel of Mary, which had not yet been sent to the press,
and the commencement of a sort of oriental tale, entitled, the Cave of
Fancy, which she thought proper afterwards to lay aside unfinished. I am
told that at this period she appeared under great dejection of spirits,
and filled with melancholy regret for the loss of her youthful friend. A
period of two years had elapsed since the death of that friend; but it
was possibly the composition of the fiction of Mary, that renewed her
sorrows in their original force. Soon after entering upon her new
habitation, she produced a little work, entitled, Original Stories from
Real Life, intended for the use of children. At the commencement of her
literary career, she is said to have conceived a vehement aversion to
the being regarded, by her ordinary acquaintance, in the character of an
author, and to have employed some precautions to prevent its occurrence.
The employment which the bookseller suggested to her, as the easiest and
most certain source of pecuniary income, of course, was translation.
With this view she improved herself in her French, with which she had
previously but a slight acquaintance, and acquired the Italian and
German languages. The greater part of her literary engagements at this
time, were such as were presented to her by Mr. Johnson. She
new-modelled and abridged a work, translated from the Dutch, entitled,
Young Grandison: she began a translation from the French, of a book,
called, the New Robinson; but in this undertaking, she was, I believe,
anticipated by another translator: and she compiled a series of extracts
in verse and prose, upon the model of Dr. Enfield’s Speaker, which bears
the title of the Female Reader; but which, from a cause not worth
mentioning, has hitherto been printed with a different name in the
title-page.
About the middle of the year 1788, Mr. Johnson instituted the Analytical
Review, in which Mary took a considerable share. She also translated
Necker on the Importance of Religious opinions; made an abridgement of
Lavater’s Physiognomy, from the French, which has never been published;
and compressed Salzmann’s Elements of Morality, a German production,
into a publication in three volumes duodecimo. The translation of
Salzmann produced a correspondence between Mary and the author; and he
afterwards repaid the obligation to her in kind, by a German translation
of the Rights of Woman. Such were her principal literary occupations,
from the autumn of 1787, to the autumn of 1790.
It perhaps deserves to be remarked that this sort of miscellaneous
literary employment, seems, for the time at least, rather to damp and
contract, than to enlarge and invigorate the genius. The writer is
accustomed to see his performances answer the mere mercantile purpose of
the day, and confounded with those of persons to whom he is secretly
conscious of a superiority. No neighbour mind serves as a mirror to
reflect the generous confidence he felt within himself; and perhaps the
man never yet existed who could maintain his enthusiasm to its full
vigour, in the midst of this kind of solitariness. He is touched with
the torpedo of mediocrity. I believe that nothing which Mary produced
during this period, is marked with those daring flights, which exhibit
themselves in the little fiction she composed just before its
commencement. Among effusions of a nobler cast, I find occasionally
interspersed some of that homily-language, which, to speak from my own
feelings, is calculated to damp the moral courage, it was intended to
awaken. This is probably to be assigned to the causes above described.
I have already said that one of the purposes which Mary had conceived, a
few years before, as necessary to give a relish to the otherwise
insipid, or embittered, draught of human life, was usefulness. On this
side, the period of her existence of which I am now treating, is more
brilliant, than in any literary view. She determined to apply as great a
part as possible of the produce of her present employments, to the
assistance of her friends and of the distressed; and, for this purpose,
laid down to herself rules of the most rigid economy. She began with
endeavouring to promote the interest of her sisters. She conceived that
there was no situation in which she could place them, at once so
respectable and agreeable, as that of governesses in private families.
She determined therefore in the first place, to endeavour to qualify
them for such an undertaking. Her younger sister she sent to Paris,
where she remained near two years. The elder she placed in a school near
London, first as a parlour-boarder, and afterwards as a teacher. Her
brother James, who had already been at sea, she first took into her
house, and next sent to Woolwich for instruction, to qualify him for a
respectable situation in the royal navy, where he was shortly after made
a lieutenant. Charles, who was her favourite brother, had been articled
to the eldest, an attorney in the Minories; but, not being satisfied
with his situation, she removed him; and in some time after, having
first placed him with a farmer for instruction, she fitted him out for
America, where his speculations, founded upon the basis she had
provided, are said to have been extremely prosperous. The reason so much
of this parental sort of care fell upon her, was, that her father had by
this time considerably embarrassed his circumstances. His affairs having
grown too complex for himself to disentangle, he had entrusted them to
the management of a near relation; but Mary, not being satisfied with
the conduct of the business, took them into her own hands. The exertions
she made, and the struggles which she entered into however, in this
instance, were ultimately fruitless. To the day of her death her father
was almost wholly supported by funds which she supplied to him. In
addition to her exertions for her own family, she took a young girl of
about seven years of age under her protection and care, the niece of
Mrs. John Hunter, and of the present Mrs. Skeys, for whose mother, then
lately dead, she had entertained a sincere friendship.
The period, from the end of the year 1787 to the end of the year 1790,
though consumed in labours of little eclat, served still further to
establish her in a friendly connection from which she derived many
pleasures. Mr. Johnson, the bookseller, contracted a great personal
regard for her, which resembled in many respects that of a parent. As
she frequented his house, she of course became acquainted with his
guests. Among these may be mentioned as persons possessing her esteem,
Mr. Bonnycastle, the mathematician, the late Mr. George Anderson,
accountant to the board of control, Dr. George Fordyce, and Mr. Fuseli,
the celebrated painter. Between both of the two latter and herself,
there existed sentiments of genuine affection and friendship.
CHAP. VI.
1790–1792.
Hitherto the literary career of Mary, had for the most part, been
silent; and had been productive of income to herself, without apparently
leading to the wreath of fame. From this time she was destined to
attract the notice of the public, and perhaps no female writer ever
obtained so great a degree of celebrity throughout Europe.
It cannot be doubted that, while, for three years of literary
employment, she “held the noiseless tenor of her way,” her mind was
insensibly advancing towards a vigorous maturity. The uninterrupted
habit of composition gave a freedom and firmness to the expression of
her sentiments. The society she frequented, nourished her understanding,
and enlarged her mind. The French revolution, while it gave a
fundamental shock to the human intellect through every region of the
globe, did not fail to produce a conspicuous effect in the progress of
Mary’s reflections. The prejudices of her early years suffered a
vehement concussion. Her respect for establishments was undermined. At
this period occurred a misunderstanding upon public grounds, with one of
her early friends, whose attachment to musty creeds and exploded
absurdities, had been increased, by the operation of those very
circumstances, by which her mind had been rapidly advanced in the race
of independence.
The event, immediately introductory to the rank which from this time she
held in the lists of literature, was the publication of Burke’s
Reflections on the Revolution in France. This book, after having been
long promised to the world, finally made its appearance on the first of
November 1790; and Mary, full of sentiments of liberty, and impressed
with a warm interest in the struggle that was now going on, seized her
pen in the first bursts of indignation, an emotion of which she was
strongly susceptible. She was in the habit of composing with rapidity,
and her answer, which was the first of the numerous ones that appeared,
obtained extraordinary notice. Marked as it is with the vehemence and
impetuousness of its eloquence, it is certainly chargeable with a too
contemptuous and intemperate treatment of the great man against whom its
attack is directed. But this circumstance was not injurious to the
success of the publication. Burke had been warmly loved by the most
liberal and enlightened friends of freedom, and they were proportionably
inflamed and disgusted by the fury of his assault, upon what they deemed
to be its sacred cause.
Short as was the time in which Mary composed her Answer to Burke’s
Reflections, there was one anecdote she told me concerning it, which
seems worth recording in this place. It was sent to the press, as is the
general practice when the early publication of a piece is deemed a
matter of importance, before the composition was finished. When Mary had
arrived at about the middle of her work, she was seized with a temporary
fit of torpor and indolence, and began to repent of her undertaking. In
this state of mind, she called, one evening, as she was in the practice
of doing, upon her publisher, for the purpose of relieving herself by an
hour or two’s conversation. Here, the habitual ingenuousness of her
nature, led her to describe what had just past in her thoughts. Mr.
Johnson immediately, in a kind and friendly way, intreated her not to
put any constraint upon her inclination, and to give herself no
uneasiness about the sheets already printed, which he would cheerfully
throw a side, if it would contribute to her happiness. Mary had wanted
stimulus. She had not expected to be encouraged, in what she well knew
to be an unreasonable access of idleness. Her friend’s so readily
falling in with her ill humour, and seeming to expect that she would lay
aside her undertaking, piqued her pride. She immediately went home; and
proceeded to the end of her work, with no other interruptions but what
were absolutely indispensible.
It is probable that the applause which attended her Answer to Burke,
elevated the tone of her mind. She had always felt much confidence in
her own powers; but it cannot be doubted, that the actual perception of
a similar feeling respecting us in a multitude of others, must increase
the confidence, and stimulate the adventure of any human being. Mary
accordingly proceeded, in a short time after, to the composition of her
most celebrated production, the Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
Never did any author enter into a cause, with a more ardent desire to be
found, not a flourishing and empty declaimer, but an effectual champion.
She considered herself as standing forth in defence of one half of the
human species, labouring under a yoke which, through all the records of
time, had degraded them from the station of rational beings, and almost
sunk them to the level of the brutes. She saw indeed, that they were
often attempted to be held in silken fetters, and bribed into the love
of slavery; but the disguise and the treachery served only the more
fully to confirm her opposition. She regarded her sex in the language of
Calista, as
“In every state of life the slaves of men:”
the rich as alternately under the despotism of a father, a brother, and
a husband; and the middling and the poorer classes shut out from the
acquisition of bread with independence, when they are not shut out from
the very means of an industrious subsistence. Such were the views she
entertained of the subject; and such the feelings with which she warmed
her mind.
The work is certainly a very bold and original production. The strength
and firmness with which the author repels the opinions of Rousseau, Dr.
Gregory, and Dr. James Fordyce, respecting the condition of women,
cannot but make a strong impression upon every ingenuous reader. The
public at large formed very different opinions respecting the character
of the performance. Many of the sentiments are undoubtedly of a rather
masculine description. The spirited and decisive way in which the author
explodes the system of gallantry, and the species of homage with which
the sex is usually treated, shocked the majority. Novelty produced a
sentiment in their mind, which they mistook for a sense of injustice.
The pretty soft creatures that are so often to be found in the female
sex, and that class of men who believe they could not exist without such
pretty, soft creatures to resort to, were in arms against the author of
so heretical and blasphemous a doctrine. There are also, it must be
confessed, occasional passages of a stern and rugged feature,
incompatible with the true stamina of the writer’s character. But, if
they did not belong to her fixed and permanent character, they belonged
to her character _pro tempore_; and what she thought, she scorned to
qualify.
Yet, along with this rigid, and somewhat amazonian temper, which
characterised some parts of the book, it is impossible not to remark a
luxuriance of imagination, and a trembling delicacy of sentiment, which
would have done honour to a poet, bursting with all the visions of an
Armida and a Dido.
The contradiction, to the public apprehension was equally great, as to
the person of the author, as it was when they considered the temper of
the book. In the champion of her sex, who was described as endeavouring
to invest them with all the rights of man, those whom curiosity prompted
to seek the occasion of beholding her, expected to find a sturdy,
muscular, raw-boned virago; and they were not a little surprised, when,
instead of all this, they found a woman, lovely in her person, and, in
the best and most engaging sense, feminine in her manners.
The Vindication of the Rights of Woman is undoubtedly a very unequal
performance, and eminently deficient in method and arrangement. When
tried by the hoary and long-established laws of literary composition, it
can scarcely maintain its claim to be placed in the first class of human
productions. But when we consider the importance of its doctrines, and
the eminence of genius it displays, it seems not very improbable that it
will be read as long as the English language endures. The publication of
this book forms an epocha in the subject to which it belongs; and Mary
Wollstonecraft will perhaps hereafter be found to have performed more
substantial service for the cause of her sex, than all the other
writers, male or female, that ever felt themselves animated in the
behalf of oppressed and injured beauty.
The censure of the liberal critic as to the defects of this performance,
will be changed into astonishment, when I tell him, that a work of this
inestimable moment, was begun, carried on, and finished in the state in
which it now appears, in a period of no more than six weeks.
It is necessary here that I should resume the subject of the friendship
that subsisted between Mary and Mr. Fuseli, which proved the source of
the most memorable events in her subsequent history. He is a native of
the republic of Switzerland, and has spent the principal part of his
life in the island of Great Britain. The eminence of his genius can
scarcely be disputed; it has indeed received the testimony which is the
least to be suspected, that of some of the most considerable of his
contemporary artists. He has one of the most striking characteristics of
genius, a daring, as well as persevering, spirit of adventure. The work
in which he is at present engaged, a series of pictures for the
illustration of Milton, upon a very large scale, and produced solely
upon the incitement of his own mind, is a proof of this, if indeed his
whole life had not sufficiently proved it.
Mr. Fuseli is one of Mr. Johnson’s oldest friends, and was at this time
in the habit of visiting him two or three times a week. Mary, one of
whose strongest characteristics was the exquisite sensations of pleasure
she felt from the associations of visible objects, had hitherto never
been acquainted, with an eminent painter. The being thus introduced
therefore to the society of Mr. Fuseli, was a high gratification to her;
while he found in Mary, a person perhaps more susceptible of the
emotions painting is calculated to excite, than any other with whom he
ever conversed. Painting, and subjects closely connected with painting,
were their almost constant topics of conversation; and they found them
inexhaustible. It cannot be doubted, but that this was a species of
exercise very conducive to the improvement of Mary’s mind.