both ignorant and vainglorious, yet keen-sighted in the detection of
blemishes, and disposed to avenge the wrongs of their fathers, who had
been trampled upon by pedants, with the help of a new pedantry, that of
the court and the mode. With great learning, they had a competent share
of good sense, but not, perhaps, a sufficiently discerning taste or
liveliness enough of style to maintain a cause that had so many
prejudices of the world now enlisted against it.
LADY MASHAM.
[1658.]
BALLARD.
Damaris, Lady Masham, the daughter of the famous Dr Cudworth, and second
wife of Sir Thomas Masham of Oates, in Essex, was born in 1658. Her
father, who soon perceived the bent of her genius, took particular care
in her tuition, and she applied herself with great diligence to the
study of divinity and philosophy, under the direction of the celebrated
Mr Locke, who was a domestic in her family for many years, and at length
died in her house at Oates.
Soon after she was married, the fame of her learning, piety, and
ingenuity, induced the celebrated Mr Norris to address and inscribe to
her, by way of letter, his "Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life."
This began a friendship between them, which, having its foundation in
religion, seemed very likely to be firm and lasting; but it seems to
have been in a great measure dissolved before it had been of any long
continuance, occasioned by this lady's contracting an indissoluble
friendship with Mr Locke, whose divinity and philosophy is well known to
have differed from that of Mr Norris. Not long after, the latter, in
certain published letters, maintained the proposition, that "mankind are
obliged strictly, as their duty, to love with desire nothing but God
only;" and Lady Masham published, without her name, her "Discourse
concerning the Love of God," wherein she applied herself to the
examination of Mr Norris's scheme, which included the proposition, that
every degree of love of any creature is sinful; a proposition defended
by him on the ground (borrowed from Father Malebranche) that God, not
the creature, is the efficient cause of our sensations. Mrs Masham
examined this hypothesis with great accuracy and ingenuity, and
represented in a strong light the evil consequences resulting from it.
About the year 1700, Lady Masham also wrote a treatise, "Occasional
Thoughts in reference to a Virtuous and Christian Life," the principal
design of which was to improve religion and virtue; and, indeed, it is
so full of excellent instruction, that, if carefully perused by both
sexes, it could not fail of obtaining much of its desired end. She
complains much of the too great neglect of religious duties, occasioned,
as she believed, by the want of being better acquainted with the
fundamentals of religion; and very justly reprehends and reproaches
persons of quality for so scandalously permitting their daughters to
pass that part of their youth, in which the mind is most ductile and
susceptible of good impressions, in a ridiculous circle of diversions,
which is generally thought the proper business of young ladies, and
which so generally engrosses them that they can find no spare hours
wherein to make any improvement in their understandings.
As Mrs Masham owed much to the care of Mr Locke for her acquired
endowments and skill in arithmetic, geography, chronology, history,
philosophy, and divinity, so, as he was a domestic in her family, she
returned the obligation with singular benevolence and gratitude, always
treating him with the utmost generosity--her friendship for him being
inviolable. It is recorded that, as she sat by Mr Locke's side the night
before he died, he exhorted her to regard this world only as a state of
preparation for a better; that she desired to sit up with him that
night, but he would not permit her. The next day, as she was reading the
Psalms in a low tone by him in his room, he desired her to read aloud.
She did so, and he appeared very attentive till the approach of death
prevented him. He then desired her ladyship to break off, and in a few
minutes afterwards expired. As a testimony of her gratitude to Mr
Locke's memory, she drew up that account of him which is printed in the
great Historical Dictionary.
[Illustration: Drawn by J. Thurston. Engraved by F. Engleheart.
ANNE KILLEGREW.
From a Miniature by Sir Peter Lely in the possession of Mr.
Winstanley.]
ANNE KILLIGREW.
[BORN 1660. DIED 1685.]
BALLARD.
The daughter of Dr Henry Killigrew, prebendary of Westminster, became
eminent in the arts of poetry and painting; and had it pleased
Providence to protract her life, she might probably have excelled most
of the professors in both. She was the Orinda of Mr Dryden, who seems
quite lavish in her commendation; but as we are assured by a writer of
great probity [Wood's "Athenae"] that she was equal to, if not superior
to that praise, let him be my voucher for her skill in poetry.
"Art she had none, yet wanted none,
For Nature did that want supply;
So rich in treasures of her own,
She might our boasted stores defy;
Such noble vigour did her verse adorn,
That it seemed borrowed where 'twas only born."
The great poet is pleased to attribute to her every excellence in that
science; but if she has failed of some of its excellences, still should
we have great reason to commend her for having avoided those faults by
which some have derived a reflection on the science itself, as well as
on themselves. Speaking of the purity and charity of her compositions,
he bestows on them this commendation,--
"Her Arethusian stream remains unsoiled,
Unmixed with foreign filth, and undefiled;
Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child."
She was also a great proficient in the art of painting, and drew King
James II. and his queen, which pieces are highly applauded by Mr Dryden.
These engaging and polite accomplishments were the least of her
perfections, for she crowned all with an exemplary piety towards God in
a due observance of the duties of religion, which she began to practise
in the early part of her life. But as her uncommon virtues are
enumerated on her monument-inscription, I shall only observe that she
was one of the maids of honour to the Duchess of York, and that she died
of the small-pox in the flower of her age, to the unspeakable grief of
her relations and all others who were acquainted with her excellences,
in her father's lodgings, within the cloister of Westminster Abbey, on
the 16th day of June 1685, in her twenty-fifth year.
Mr Dryden's muse put on the mourning habit on this sad occasion, and
lamented the death of our ingenious poetess in very moving strains, in a
long ode, from whence I shall take the liberty of transcribing the
eighth stanza; and the rather as it does honour to another female
character.
"Now all those charms that blooming grace
The well-proportioned shape and beauteous face,
Shall never more be seen by mortal eyes;
In earth the much-lamented virgin lies!
Not wit nor poetry could fate prevent,
Nor was the cruel destiny content
To finish all the murder at a blow,
To sweep at once her life and beauty too;
But, like a hardened felon, took a pride,
To work more mischievously slow,
And plundered first, and then destroyed.
O, double sacrifice, as things divine,
To rob the relique and deface the shrine!
But thus Orinda died:
Heaven by the same disease did both translate;
As equal were their souls, so equal was their fate."
[Illustration: Painted by Gole
(reproduction of signature of Queen Anne)]
QUEEN ANNE.
[BORN 1664. DIED 1714.]
MISS STRICKLAND.
Queen Anne "had a person and appearance not at all ungraceful, till she
grew exceeding gross and corpulent. There was something of majesty in
her look, but mixed with a sullen and constant frown, that plainly
betrayed a gloominess of soul and cloudiness of disposition within. She
seemed to inherit a good deal of her father's moroseness, which
naturally produced in her the same sort of stubborn positiveness in many
cases, both ordinary and extraordinary, and the same sort of bigotry in
religion." This passage, being written for insertion in a party work,
appeals to vulgar opinion. The slight contraction in the queen's eyes,
the writer perfectly well knew, had been occasioned by violent
inflammation in her childhood, and was not connected with temper. The
Duchess of Marlborough likewise well knew, and had experienced, that
excessive indulgence, and not moroseness, in his family circle, was the
fault of the unhappy James II., her own early benefactor. However, this
libel was to have been published under Bishop Burnet's mask. Thus does
the creature of the bounty of those she maligns pursue her theme: "Queen
Anne's memory was exceeding great, almost to a wonder, and had these two
peculiarities very remarkable,--that she could, when she pleased,
forget what others would have thought themselves bound by truth and
honour to remember, while she remembered all such things as others would
have thought it a happiness to forget. Indeed, she chose to exercise it
in very little besides ceremonies and customs of courts, and such-like
insignificant trifles. So that her conversation, which otherwise might
have been enlivened by so great a memory, was only made more empty and
trifling by its chiefly turning upon fashions and rules of precedence,
or some such poor topics. Upon which account, it was a sort of
misfortune to her that she loved to have a great crowd come to her,
having little to say to them, but 'that the weather was either hot or
cold;' and little to inquire of them, but 'how long they had been in
town?' or the like weighty matters. She never discovered any readiness
of parts, either in asking questions or in giving answers. In matters of
ordinary moment, her discourse had nothing of brightness or wit; in
weightier matters, she never spoke but in a hurry, and had a certain
knack of sticking to what had been dictated to her to a degree often
very disagreeable, and without the least sign of understanding or
judgment." As the duchess was considered the queen's "dictator" for
thirty years, she had ample opportunity of speaking on this trait of her
character; but it only became apparent to her when the dictatorship was
transferred for a few years to another person. "The queen's letters,"
she continues, "were very indifferent, both in sense and spelling,
unless they were generally enlivened with a few passionate expressions,
sometimes pretty enough, but repeated over and over again, without the
mixture either of diversion or instruction."
Now turn the medal, and read the reverse:--"Queen Anne had a person and
appearance very graceful; something of majesty in her look. She was
religious without affectation, and certainly meant to do everything that
was just. She had no ambition, which appeared by her being so easy in
letting King William come before her to the crown, after the king, her
father, had followed such counsels as made the nation see they could not
be safe in their liberty and lives without coming to the extremities
they did; and she thought it more for her honour to be easy in it, than
to make a dispute who should have the crown first that was taken from
her father. And it was a great trouble to her to be forced to act such a
part against him, even for security, which was truly the case; and she
thought those that showed the least ambition had the best character. Her
journey to Nottingham was purely accidental, never concerted, but
occasioned by the great fright she was in when King James returned from
Salisbury; upon which she said she would rather jump out of the window
than stay and see her father."
Those who have read the previous character drawn of Queen Anne by the
same person must think the contradictions between the two truly
monstrous, and the emanation of a bewildered brain. Some candid persons,
disposed to sentimentalise on the fierce duchess, have supposed that,
after a lapse of time, her mind had softened towards her benefactress,
and that she wrote the last character as a reparation for the first. But
such inferences vanish before the fact that the duchess herself favours
the world with her motives, in raising a statue at Blenheim to her
former royal mistress, and adorning it with the laudatory inscription,
the whole being avowedly not to do justice to Queen Anne, but to vex and
spite Queen Caroline, the consort of George II. Here are her words:
"This character of Queen Anne is so much the reverse of Queen Caroline,
that I think it will not be liked at court." In the middle of the last
century, the Duchess of Marlborough hated Queen Caroline more than she
did Queen Anne. Such is the real explanation of these discrepancies.
Other contemporary authors have mentioned traits of Queen Anne,
according to their knowledge. When all are collected and examined,
certain contradictions occur; for they do not enough distinguish between
the actions of Anne in her youth, as an uneducated and self-indulgent
woman, and the undeniable improvement in her character. Even the awful
responsibility of a reigning sovereign, whose practical duties were at
that era by no means clearly defined, awoke her conscience to trembling
anxiety for the welfare of her people. Much permanent good she assuredly
did, and no evil, as queen-regent, notwithstanding the ill-natured
sarcasms of a Whig politician, who, when mentioning her demise at an
opportune juncture for the Hanoverian succession, declared that "Queen
Anne died like a Roman, for the good of her country." But no sovereign
was ever more deeply regretted by the people. The office of regality
was, there is no doubt, a painful occupation to her; for her constant
complaint was, observes Tindal, "that she was only a crowned slave," the
originality of which expression savours not of the dulness generally
attributed to this queen.
Her person is represented differently by those who saw her daily. "Her
complexion was ruddy and sanguine; the luxuriance of her chestnut hair
has already been mentioned. Her face was round and comely, her features
strong and regular; and the only blemish in it was that defluxion which
had fallen on her eyes in her childhood, had contracted the lids, and
given a cloudiness to her countenance." Thus the frown that the Duchess
of Marlborough dwells on malevolently did not arise from ill-nature,
but from defect of vision. The duchess has likewise given a malignant
turn to a trifling incident arising from Anne's near-sightedness, quoted
in her early life. "Queen Anne was of a middle stature," observes
another contemporary; "not so personable and majestic as her sister,
Queen Mary. Her face was rather comely than handsome; it seemed to have
a tincture of sourness in it, and, for some years before she died, was
rubicund and bloated. Her bones were small, her hands extremely
beautiful, her voice most melodious, and her ear for music exquisite.
She was brought up in High Church principles, but changed her parties
according to her interest. She was a scrupulous observer of the outward
and visible forms of godliness and humility in public service; as, for
instance, she reproved once the minister of Windsor Castle for offering
her the Sacrament before the clergy present had communicated;" thus
forgetting her position and dignity as head of the church.
ESTHER JOHNSON.
[BORN 1684. DIED 1728.]
JEFFREY.
Esther Johnson, better known to the reader of Swift's works by the name
of Stella, was the child of a London merchant, who died in her infancy,
when she went with her mother, who was a friend of Sir William Temple's
sister, to reside at Moorpark, where Swift was then domesticated. Some
part of the charge of her education devolved upon him, and, though he
was twenty years her senior, the interest with which he regarded her
appears to have ripened into something as much like affection as could
find a place in his selfish bosom. Soon after Sir William Temple's death
he got his Irish livings, besides a considerable legacy; and as she had
a small independence of her own, it is obvious that there was nothing to
prevent their honourable and immediate union. Some cold-blooded vanity
or ambition, however, or some politic anticipation of his own possible
inconstancy, deterred him from this outward and open course, and led him
to an arrangement which was dishonourable and absurd in the beginning,
and in the end productive of the most accumulated misery.
He prevailed upon her to remove her residence from the bosom of her own
family in England to his immediate neighbourhood in Ireland, where she
took lodgings with an elderly companion of the name of Mrs
Dingley--avowedly for the sake of his society and protection, and on a
footing of intimacy so very strange and unprecedented, that, whenever he
left his parsonage-house for England or Dublin, these ladies immediately
took possession and occupied it till he came back. A situation so
extraordinary and undefined was liable, of course, to a thousand
misconstructions, and must have been felt as degrading by any woman of
spirit and delicacy; and, accordingly, though the master of this
Platonic seraglio seems to have used all manner of paltry and insulting
practices to protect a reputation which he had no right to bring into
question,--by never seeing her except in the presence of Mrs Dingley,
and never sleeping under the same roof with her,--it is certain both
that the connection was regarded as indecorous by persons of her own
sex, and that she herself felt it to be humiliating and improper.
Accordingly, within two years after her settlement in Ireland, it
appears that she encouraged the addresses of a clergyman of the name of
Tisdal, between whom and Swift there was a considerable intimacy, and
that she would have married him, and thus sacrificed her earliest
attachment to her freedom and her honour, had she not been prevented by
the private dissuasions of that false friend who did not choose to give
up his own claims to her, although he had not the heart or the honour to
make her lawfully his own. She was then a blooming beauty of little more
than twenty, with fine black hair, delicate features, and a playful and
affectionate character. It seems doubtful to us whether she originally
felt for Swift anything that could properly be called love; and her
willingness to marry another in the first days of their connection,
seems almost decisive on the subject; but the ascendancy he had
acquired over her mind, and her long habit of submitting her own
judgment and inclinations to his, gave him at last an equal power over
her, and moulded her pliant affections into too deep and exclusive a
devotion.
Even before his appointment to the deanery of St Patrick's, it is
utterly impossible to devise any apology for his not marrying her, or
allowing her to marry another; the only one he ever appears to have
stated himself, viz., the want of a sufficient fortune to sustain the
expenses of matrimony, being palpably absurd in the mouth of a man born
to nothing, and already more wealthy than nine-tenths of his order; but
after he obtained that additional preferment, and was thus ranked among
the well-beneficed dignitaries of the Establishment, it was plainly an
insult upon common sense to pretend that it was the want of money that
prevented him from fulfilling his engagement. Stella was then
twenty-six, and he near forty-five, and both had hitherto lived very far
within an income that was now more than doubled. That she now expected
to be made his wife appears from the care he took in the Journal
indirectly to destroy that expectation; and though the awe in which he
continually kept her probably prevented her either from complaining or
inquiring into the cause, it is now certain that a new attachment, as
heartless, as unprincipled, and as fatal in its consequences as either
of the others, was at the bottom of this cruel and unpardonable
proceeding.
During his residence in London, from 1710 to 1712, regardless of the
ties that bound him to Stella, he allowed himself to be engaged by the
amiable qualities of Miss Esther Vanhomrigh; and, without explaining the
nature of those ties to his new idol, strove by his assiduities to
obtain a return of affection, while he studiously concealed from the
unhappy Stella the wrong he was consciously doing her. [The consequences
of this double connection form one of the most tragic stories in our
language--the formal ceremony by which he made Stella his wife, under
the cloud of secrecy, and still keeping her from the enjoyment of her
rights; the death of Miss Vanhomrigh of a broken heart, and the
miserable fate of Stella.] Vanessa (so he called Miss Vanhomrigh) was
now dead. The grave had heaped its tranquillising mould on her agitated
heart, and given her tormentor assurance that he should no more suffer
from her reproaches on earth; and yet, though with her the last pretext
was extinguished for refusing to acknowledge the wife he had so
infamously abused, we find him, with this dreadful example before his
eyes, persisting to withhold from his remaining victim that late and
imperfect justice to which her claim was so apparent, and from the
denial of which she was sinking before his eyes in sickness and sorrow
to the grave. For the sake of avoiding some small awkwardness or
inconvenience to himself,--to be secured from the idle talking of those
who might wonder why, since they were to marry, they did not marry
before, or perhaps merely to retain the object of his regard in more
complete subjection and dependence,--he could bear to see her pining
year after year in solitude and degradation, and sinking at last to an
untimely grave, prepared by his hard and unrelenting refusal to clear
her honour to the world even at her dying hour.
ESTHER VANHOMRIGH.
[1723.]
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
This unfortunate lady, when she first became acquainted with Swift, was
in her twentieth year, and joined to all the attractions of youth,
fashion, and elegance, the still more dangerous gifts of a lively
imagination, a confiding temper, and a capacity of strong and permanent
affection. Conscious of the pleasure which Swift received from her
society, and of the advantages of youth and fortune which she possessed,
and ignorant of the peculiar circumstances in which he stood with
respect to another, naturally (and surely without offence either to
reason or virtue) Miss Vanhomrigh gave way to the hope of forming a
union with a man whose talents had first attracted her admiration, and
whose attentions, in the course of their mutual studies, had by degrees
gained her affections, and seemed to warrant his own. The friends
continued to use the language of friendship, but with the assiduity and
earnestness of a warmer passion, until Vanessa (the poetical name
bestowed upon her by him) rent asunder the veil, by intimating to Swift
the state of her affections; and in this, as she conceived, she was
justified by her favourite, though dangerous maxim, of doing that which
seems in itself right, without respect to the common opinion of the
world. We cannot doubt that he actually felt the "shame,
disappointment, guilt, surprise," expressed in his celebrated poem,
though he had not courage to take the open and manly course of avowing
those engagements with Stella, or other impediments which prevented him
from accepting the hand and fortune of her rival. Without therefore
making this painful but just confession, he answered the avowal of
Vanessa's passion in raillery, and afterwards by an offer of devoted and
everlasting friendship, founded on the basis of virtuous esteem. Vanessa
seems neither to have been contented nor silenced by the result of her
declaration, but to the very close of her life persisted in
endeavouring, by entreaties and arguments, to extort a more lively
return to her passion than this cold proffer was calculated to afford.