possible to have any sort of esteem for a person one believes
capable of having such trifling inclinations? Mr. Bickerstaff
has very wrong notions of our sex. I can say there are some
of us that despise charms of show, and all the pageantry of
greatness, perhaps with more ease than any of the philosophers.
In contemning the world, they seem to take pains to contemn
it; we despise it, without taking the pains to read lessons
of morality to make us do it. At least I know I have always
looked upon it with contempt, without being at the expense of
one serious reflection to oblige me to it. I carry the matter
yet farther; was I to choose of two thousand pounds a year
or twenty thousand, the first would be my choice. There is
something of an unavoidable _embarras_ in making what is called
a great figure in the world; [it] takes off from the happiness
of life; I hate the noise and hurry inseparable from great
estates and titles, and look upon both as blessings that ought
only to be given to fools, for ’tis only to them that they are
blessings. The pretty fellows you speak of, I own entertain
me sometimes; but is it impossible to be diverted with what
one despises? I can laugh at a puppet-show; at the same time
I know there is nothing in it worth my attention or regard.
General notions are generally wrong. Ignorance and folly are
thought the best foundations for virtue, as if not knowing
what a good wife is was necessary to make one so. I confess
that can never be my way of reasoning; as I always forgive an
_injury_ when I think it not done out of malice, I can never
think myself _obliged_ by what is done without design. Give
me leave to say it (I know it sounds vain), I know how to
make a man of sense happy; but then that man must resolve to
contribute something towards it himself. I have so much esteem
for you, I should be very sorry to hear you was unhappy; but
for the world I would not be the instrument of making you so;
which (of the humour you are) is hardly to be avoided if I am
your wife. You distrust me—I can neither be easy, nor loved,
where I am distrusted. Nor do I believe your passion for me is
what you pretend it; at least I am sure was I in love I could
not talk as you do. Few women would have spoke so plainly as
I have done; but to dissemble is among the things I never do.
I take more pains to approve my conduct to myself than to
the world; and would not have to accuse myself of a minute’s
deceit. I wish I loved you enough to devote myself to be for
ever miserable, for the pleasure of a day or two’s happiness. I
cannot resolve upon it. You must think otherwise of me, or not
all.
‘I don’t enjoin you to burn this letter. I know you will. ’Tis
the first I ever writ to one of your sex, and shall be the
last. You must never expect another. I resolve against all
correspondence of the kind; my resolutions are seldom made, and
never broken.’
Mr. Wortley, however, still grumbled. He seems to have expected a young
lady to do something even more decisive than ask him to marry her. He
continued to hesitate and pause. The lady in the comedy says, ‘What right
has a man to intend unless he states his intentions?’ and Lady Mary’s
biographers are entirely of that opinion. They think her exceedingly
ill-used, and Mr. Wortley exceedingly to blame. And so it may have been;
certainly a love-correspondence is rarely found where activity and
intrepidity on the lady’s side so much contrasts with quiescence and
timidity on the gentleman’s. If, however, we could summon him before
us, probably Mr. Wortley would have something to answer on his own
behalf. It is tolerably plain that he thought Lady Mary too excitable.
‘Certainly,’ he doubtless reasoned, ‘she is a handsome young lady, and
very witty; but beauty and wit are dangerous as well as attractive.
Vivacity is delightful; but my esteemed friend Mr. Addison has observed
that excessive quickness of parts is not unfrequently the cause of
extreme rapidity in action. Lady Mary makes love to me before marriage,
and I like it; but may she not make love also to some one else after
marriage, and then I shall not like it.’ Accordingly he writes to her
timorously as to her love of pleasure, her love of romantic reading, her
occasional toleration of younger gentlemen and quicker admirers. At last,
however, he proposed; and, as far as the lady was concerned, there was no
objection.
We might have expected, from a superficial view of the facts, that there
would have been no difficulty either on the side of her father. Mr.
Wortley died one of the richest commoners in England; was of the first
standing in society, of good family, and he had apparently, therefore,
money to settle and station to offer to his bride. And he did offer both.
He was ready to settle an ample sum on Lady Mary, both as his wife and
as his widow, and was anxious that, if they married, they should live
in a manner suitable to her rank and his prospects. But nevertheless
there was a difficulty. The _Tatler_ had recently favoured its readers
with dissertations upon social ethics not altogether dissimilar to those
with which the _Saturday Review_ frequently instructs its readers. One
of these dissertations contained an elaborate exposure of the folly of
settling your estate upon your unborn children. The arguments were of
a sort very easily imaginable. ‘Why,’ it was said, ‘should you give
away that which you have to a person whom you do not know; whom you may
never see; whom you may not like when you do see; who may be undutiful,
unpleasant, or idiotic? Why, too, should each generation surrender its
due control over the next? When the family estate is settled, men of the
world know that the father’s control is gone, for disinterested filial
affection is an unfrequent though doubtless possible virtue; but so long
as _property_ is in suspense, all expectants will be attentive to those
who have it in their power to give or not to give it.’ These arguments
had converted Mr. Wortley, who is said even to have contributed notes
for the article, and they seem to have converted Lady Mary also. She
was to have her money, and the most plain-spoken young ladies do not
commonly care to argue much about the future provision for their possible
children; the subject is always delicate and a little frightful, and on
the whole, must be left to themselves. But Lord Dorchester, her father,
felt it his duty to be firm. It is an old saying, that ‘you never know
where a man’s conscience may turn up,’ and the advent of ethical feeling
was in this case even unusually beyond calculation. Lord Dorchester had
never been an anxious father, and was not now going to be a liberal
father. He had never cared much about Lady Mary, except in so far as he
could himself gain _éclat_ by exhibiting her youthful beauty, and he
was not now at her marriage about to do at all more than was necessary
and decent in his station. It was not therefore apparently probable
that he would be irritatingly obstinate respecting the income of his
daughter’s children. He was so, however. He deemed it a duty to see
that ‘_his_ grandchild never should be a beggar,’ and, for what reason
does not so clearly appear, wished that his eldest male grandchild
should be immensely richer than all his other grandchildren. The old
feudal aristocrat, often in modern Europe so curiously disguised in the
indifferent exterior of a careless man of the world, was, as became him,
dictatorial and unalterable upon the duty of founding a family. Though
he did not care much for his daughter, he cared much for the position of
his daughter’s eldest son. He had probably stumbled on the fundamental
truth that ‘girls were girls, and boys were boys,’ and was disinclined
to disregard the rule of primogeniture by which he had obtained his
marquisate, and from which he expected a dukedom.
Mr. Wortley, however, was through life a man, if eminent in nothing else,
eminent at least in obstinacy. He would not give up the doctrine of the
_Tatler_ even to obtain Lady Mary. The match was accordingly abandoned,
and Lord Dorchester looked out for and found another gentleman whom he
proposed to make his son-in-law; for he believed, according to the old
morality, ‘that it was the duty of the parents to find a husband for a
daughter, and that when he was found, it was the daughter’s duty to marry
him.’ It was as wrong in her to attempt to choose as in him to neglect
to seek. Lady Mary was, however, by no means disposed to accept this
passive theory of female obligation. She _had_ sought and chosen; and
to her choice she intended to adhere. The conduct of Mr. Wortley would
have offended some ladies, but it rather augmented her admiration. She
had exactly that sort of irritable intellect which sets an undue value
on new theories of society and morality, and is pleased when others do
so too. She thought Mr. Wortley was quite right not to ‘defraud himself
for a possible infant,’ and admired his constancy and firmness. She
determined to risk a step, as she herself said, unjustifiable to her own
relatives, but which she nevertheless believed that she could justify to
herself. She decided on eloping with Mr. Wortley.
Before, however, taking this audacious leap, she looked a little. Though
she did not object to the sacrifice of the customary inheritance of her
contingent son, she by no means approved of sacrificing the settlement
which Mr. Wortley had undertaken at a prior period of the negotiation to
make upon herself. And, according to common sense, she was undoubtedly
judicious. She was going from her father, and foregoing the money which
he had promised her; and therefore it was not reasonable that, by going
_to_ her lover, she should forfeit also the money which _he_ had promised
her. And there is nothing offensive in her mode of expression. ‘’Tis
something odd for a woman that brings nothing to expect anything; but
after the way of my education, I dare not pretend to live but in some
degree suitable to it. I had rather die than return to a dependency upon
relations I have disobliged. Save me from that fear, if you love me. If
you cannot, or think I ought not to expect it, be sincere and tell me so.
’Tis better I should not be yours at all, than, for a short happiness,
involve myself in ages of misery. I hope there will never be occasion
for this precaution; but, however, ’tis necessary to make it.’ But true
and rational as all this seems, perhaps it is still truer and still more
rational to say, that if a woman has not sufficient confidence in her
lover to elope with him without a previous promise of a good settlement,
she had better not elope with him at all. After all, if he declines to
make the stipulated settlement, the lady will have either to return to
her friends or to marry without it, and she would have the full choice
between these satisfactory alternatives, even if she asked no previous
promise from her lover. At any rate, the intrusion of coarse money among
the refined materials of romance is, in this case, even more curious and
remarkable than usual.
After some unsuccessful attempts, Lady Mary and Mr. Wortley did elope
and did marry, and, after a certain interval, of course, Lord Dorchester
received them, notwithstanding their contempt of his authority, into
some sort of favour and countenance. They had probably saved him money
by their irregularity, and economical frailties are rarely judged
severely by men of fashion who are benefited by them. Lady Mary, however,
was long a little mistrusted by her own relations, and never seems to
have acquired much family influence; but her marriage was not her only
peculiarity, or the only one which impartial relations might dislike.
The pair appear to have been for a little while tolerably happy. Lady
Mary was excitable, and wanted letters when absent, and attention when
present: Mr. Wortley was heavy and slow; could not write letters when
away, and seemed torpid in her society when at home. Still, these are
common troubles. Common, too, is the matrimonial correspondence upon
baby’s deficiency in health, and on Mrs. Behn’s opinion that ‘the cold
bath is the best medicine for weak children.’ It seems an odd end to
a deferential perusal of Latin authors in girlhood, and to a spirited
elopement with the preceptor in after years; but the transition is only
part of the usual irony of human life.
The world, both social and political, into which Lady Mary was introduced
by her marriage was singularly calculated to awaken the faculties, to
stimulate the intellect, to sharpen the wit, and to harden the heart of
an intelligent, witty, and hard-headed woman. The world of London—even
the higher world—is now too large to be easily seen, or to be pithily
described. The elements are so many, their position is so confused, the
display of their mutual counteraction is so involved, that many years
must pass away before even a very clever woman can thoroughly comprehend
it all. She will cease to be young and handsome long ere she does
comprehend it. And when she at last understands it, it does not seem a
fit subject for concise and summary wit. Its evident complexity refuses
to be condensed into pithy sayings and brilliant _bons-mots_. It has
fallen into the hands of philosophers, with less brains perhaps than the
satirists of our fathers, but with more anxiety to tell the whole truth,
more toleration for the many-sidedness of the world, with less of sharp
conciseness, but, perhaps, with more of useful completeness. As are the
books, so are the readers. People do not wish to read satire nowadays.
The epigrams even of Pope would fall dull and dead upon this serious and
investigating time. The folly of the last age affected levity; the folly
of this, as we all know, encases itself in ponderous volumes which defy
refutation, in elaborate arguments which prove nothing, in theories which
confuse the uninstructed, and which irritate the well-informed. The folly
of a hundred years since was at least the folly of Vivien, but ours is
the folly of Merlin:
‘_You_ read the book, my pretty Vivien,
And none can read the text, not even I,
And none can read the comments but myself—
Oh, the results are simple!’
Perhaps people did not know then as much as they know now: indisputably
they knew nothing like so much in a superficial way _about_ so many
things; but they knew far more correctly where their knowledge began and
where it stopped; what they thought and why they thought it: they had
readier illustrations and more summary phrases; they could say at once
what it _came to_, and to what action it should lead.
The London of the eighteenth century was an aristocratic world, which
lived to itself, which displayed the virtues and developed the vices of
an aristocracy which was under little fear of external control or check;
which had emancipated itself from the control of the crown; which had
not fallen under the control of the _bourgeoisie_; which saw its own
life, and saw that, according to its own maxims, it was good. Public
opinion now rules, and it is an opinion which constrains the conduct,
and narrows the experience, and dwarfs the violence, and minimises the
frankness of the highest classes, while it diminishes their vices,
supports their conscience, and precludes their grossness. There was
nothing like this in the last century, especially in the early part of
it. The aristocracy came to town from their remote estates,—where they
were uncontrolled by any opinion or by any equal society, and where the
eccentricities and personalities of each character were fostered and
exaggerated,—to a London which was like a large county town, in which
everybody of rank knew everybody of rank, where the eccentricities
of each rural potentate came into picturesque collision with the
eccentricities of other rural potentates, where the most minute allusions
to the peculiarities and the career of the principal persons were
instantly understood, where squibs were on every table, and where satire
was in the air. No finer field of social observation could be found for
an intelligent and witty woman. Lady Mary understood it at once.
Nor was the political life of the last century so unfavourable to the
influence and so opposed to the characteristic comprehension of women
as our present life. We are now ruled by political discussion and by
a popular assembly, by leading articles, and by the House of Commons.
But women can scarcely ever compose leaders, and no woman sits in our
representative chamber. The whole tide of abstract discussion, which
fills our mouths and deafens our ears, the whole complex accumulation
of facts and figures to which we refer every thing, and which we apply
to every thing, is quite unfemale. A lady has an insight into what she
sees; but how will this help her with the case of the _Trent_, with
the proper structure of a representative chamber, with Indian finance
or parliamentary reform? Women are clever, but cleverness of itself
is nothing at present. A sharp Irish writer described himself ‘as
bothered intirely by the want of preliminary information;’ women are
in the same difficulty now. Their nature may hereafter change, as some
sanguine advocates suggest. But the visible species certainly have not
the intellectual providence to acquire the vast stores of dry information
which alone can enable them to judge adequately of our present
controversies. We are ruled by a machinery of oratory and discussion,
in which women have no share, and which they hardly comprehend: we are
engaged on subjects which need an arduous learning, to which they have no
pretensions.
In the last century much of this was very different. The Court still
counted for much in English politics. The House of Commons was the
strongest power in the State machine, but it was not so immeasurably the
strongest power as now. It was absolutely supreme within its sphere,
but that sphere was limited. It could absolutely control the money, and
thereby the policy of the State. Whether there should be peace or war,
excise or no excise, it could and did despotically determine. It was
supreme in its choice of _measures_. But, on the other hand, it had only
a secondary influence in the choice of _persons_. Who the Prime Minister
was to be, was a question not only theoretically determinable, but in
fact determined by the Sovereign. The House of Commons could despotically
impose two conditions: first, that the Prime Minister should be a man
of sufficient natural ability, and sufficient parliamentary experience,
to conduct the business of his day; secondly, that he should adopt the
policy which the nation wished. But, subject to a conformity with these
prerequisites, the selection of the king was nearly uncontrolled. Sir
Robert Walpole was the greatest master of parliamentary tactics and
political business in his generation; he was a statesman of wide views
and consummate dexterity; but these intellectual gifts, even joined to
immense parliamentary experience, were not alone sufficient to make him
and to keep him Prime Minister of England. He also maintained, during
two reigns, a complete system of court-strategy. During the reign of
George II. he kept a _queen-watcher_. Lord Hervey, one of the cleverest
men in England, the keenest observer, perhaps, in England, was induced,
by very dexterous management, to remain at court during many years—to
observe the queen, to hint to the queen, to remove wrong impressions
from the queen, to confirm the Walpolese predilections of the queen, to
report every incident to Sir Robert. The records of politics tell us few
stranger tales than that it should have been necessary for the Sir Robert
Peel of the age to hire a subordinate as safe as Eldon, and as witty as
Canning, for the sole purpose of managing a clever German woman, to whom
the selection of a Prime Minister was practically intrusted. Nor was this
the only court-campaign which Sir Robert had to conduct, or in which he
was successful. Lady Mary, who hated him much, has satirically described
the foundation upon which his court favour rested during the reign of
George I.:—
‘The new Court with all their train was arrived before I left
the country. The Duke of Marlborough was returned in a sort of
triumph, with the apparent merit of having suffered for his
fidelity to the succession, and was reinstated in his office of
general, &c. In short, all people who had suffered any hardship
or disgrace during the late ministry would have it believed
that it was occasioned by their attachment to the House of
Hanover. Even Mr. Walpole, who had been sent to the Tower for
a piece of bribery proved upon him, was called a confessor to
the cause. But he had another piece of good luck that yet more
contributed to his advancement; he had a very handsome sister,
whose folly had lost her reputation in London; but the yet
greater folly of Lord Townshend, who happened to be a neighbour
in Norfolk to Mr. Walpole, had occasioned his being drawn in to
marry her some months before the queen died.
‘Lord Townshend had that sort of understanding which commonly
makes men honest in the first part of their lives; they follow
the instructions of their tutor, and, till somebody thinks it
worth their while to show them a new path, go regularly on in
the road where they are set. Lord Townshend had then been many
years an excellent husband to a sober wife, a kind master
to all his servants and dependents, a serviceable relation
wherever it was in his power, and followed the instinct of
nature in being fond of his children. Such a sort of behaviour
without any glaring absurdity, either in prodigality or
avarice, always gains a man the reputation of reasonable and
honest; and this was his character when the Earl of Godolphin
sent him envoy to the States, not doubting but he would be
faithful to his orders, without giving himself the trouble of
criticising on them, which is what all ministers wish in an
envoy. Robotun, a French refugee (secretary to Bernstoff, one
of the Elector of Hanover’s ministers), happened then to be at
the Hague, and was civilly received at Lord Townshend’s, who
treated him at his table with the English hospitality, and he
was charmed with a reception which his birth and education did
not entitle him to. Lord Townshend was recalled when the queen
changed her ministry; his wife died, and he retired into the
country, where (as I have said before) Walpole had art enough
to make him marry his sister Dolly. At that time, I believe, he
did not propose much more advantage by the match than to get
rid of a girl that lay heavy on his hands.
‘When King George ascended the throne, he was surrounded by
all his German ministers and playfellows, male and female.
Baron Goritz was the most considerable among them both for
birth and fortune. He had managed the king’s treasury thirty
years with the utmost fidelity and economy; and had the true
German honesty, being a plain, sincere, and unambitious man.
Bernstoff, the secretary, was of a different turn. He was
avaricious, artful, and designing; and had got his share in the
king’s councils by bribing his women. Robotun was employed in
these matters, and had the sanguine ambition of a Frenchman. He
resolved there should be an English ministry of his choosing;
and, knowing none of them personally but Townshend, he had
not failed to recommend him to his master, and his master
to the king, as the only proper person for the important
post of Secretary of State; and he entered upon that office
with universal applause, having at that time a very popular
character, which he might possibly have retained for ever if he
had not been entirely governed by his wife and her brother R.
Walpole, whom he immediately advanced to be paymaster, esteemed
a post of exceeding profit, and very necessary for his indebted
estate.’
And it is indisputable that Lord Townshend, who thought he was a very
great statesman, and who began as the patron of Sir Robert Walpole,
nevertheless was only his Court-agent—the manager on his behalf of the
king and of the king’s mistresses.
We need not point out at length, for the passage we have cited of itself
indicates how well suited this sort of politics is to the comprehension
and to the pen of a keen-sighted and witty woman.