Fairfax, of the well-known Yorkshire family of that name, which had
furnished a General to the Parliamentary army in the civil wars of the
reign of Charles I. This family was connected with that of the famous
American patriot, George Washington. During the American War of
Independence, Mary Somerville’s father, then Lieutenant Fairfax, was on
board his ship on an American station, when he received a letter from
General Washington, claiming cousinship with him, and inviting the young
man to pay him a visit. The invitation was not accepted, but Lieutenant
Fairfax’s daughter lived to regret that the letter which conveyed it had
not been preserved. Admiral Fairfax was concerned with Admiral Duncan in
the famous victory of Camperdown, and gave many proofs that he was in
every way a gallant sailor and a brave man. Mary Somerville’s mother was
of an ancient Scottish family named Charters. The pride of descent was
very strongly marked among her Scotch relatives. Lady Fairfax does not
seem much to have sympathised with her remarkable child. Mary, however,
inherited some excellent qualities from both parents. Lady Fairfax was,
in some ways, as courageous as her husband; notwithstanding a full
allowance of Scotch superstitions and a special terror of storms and
darkness, she had what her daughter called “presence of mind and the
courage of necessity.” On one occasion the house she was living in was
in the greatest danger of being burned down. The flames of a
neighbouring fire had spread till they reached the next house but one to
that which she occupied. Casks of turpentine and oil in a neighbouring
carriage manufactory were exploding with the heat. Lady Fairfax made all
the needful preparations for saving her furniture, and had her family
plate and papers securely packed. She assembled in the house a
sufficient number of men to move the furniture out, if needs were. Then
she quietly remarked, “Now let us breakfast; it is time enough for us to
move our things when the next house takes fire.” The next house, after
all, did not take fire, and, while her neighbours lost half their
property by throwing it recklessly into the street, before the actual
necessity for doing so had arisen, Lady Fairfax suffered no loss at all.
The same kind of cool courage was often exhibited by Mary Somerville in
later life. On one occasion she stayed with her family at Florence
during a severe outbreak of cholera there, when almost every one who
could do so had fled panic-stricken from the city.
During the long absences of Sir William Fairfax on foreign service, Lady
Fairfax and her children led a very quiet life at the little seaside
village of Burntisland, just opposite to Edinburgh, on the Firth of
Forth. As a young child, Mary led a wild, outdoor life, with hardly any
education, in the ordinary sense of the word, though there is no doubt
that in collecting shells, fossils, and seaweeds, in watching and
studying the habits and appearance of wild birds, and in gazing at the
stars through her little bedroom window, the whole life of this
wonderful child was really an education of the great powers of her mind.
However, when her father returned from sea about 1789 he was shocked to
find Mary “such a little savage”; and it was resolved that she must be
sent to a boarding school. She remained there a year and learned nothing
at all. Her lithesome, active, well-formed body was enclosed in stiff
stays, with a steel busk in front; a metal rod, with a semicircle which
went under the chin, was clasped to this busk, and in this instrument of
torture she was set to learn columns of Johnson’s dictionary by heart.
This was the process which at that time went by the name of education in
girls’ schools. Fortunately she was not kept long at school. Mary had
learned nothing, and her mother was angry that she had spent so much
money in vain. She would have been content, she said, if Mary had only
learnt to write well and keep accounts, which was all that a woman was
expected to know. After this Mary soon commenced the process of
self-education which only ended with her long life of ninety-two years.
She not only learnt all she could about birds, beasts, fishes, plants,
eggs and seaweeds, but she also found a Shakespeare which she read at
every moment when she could do so undisturbed. A little later her mother
moved into Edinburgh for the winter, and Mary had music lessons, and by
degrees taught herself Latin. The studious bent of her mind had now
thoroughly declared itself; but till she was about fourteen she had
never received a word of encouragement about her studies. At that age
she had the good fortune to pay a visit to her uncle and aunt at
Jedburgh, in whose house she had been born. Her uncle, Dr. Somerville,
was the first person who ever encouraged and helped her in her studies.
She ventured to confide in him that she had been trying to learn Latin
by herself, but feared it was no use. He reassured her by telling her of
the women in ancient times who had been classical scholars. He moreover
read Virgil with her for two hours every morning in his study. A few
years later than this she taught herself Greek enough to read Xenophon
and Herodotus, and in time she became sufficiently proficient in the
language to thoroughly appreciate its greatest literature.
One of the most striking things about her was the many-sided character
of her mind. Some people—men as well as women—who are scientific or
mathematical seem to care for nothing but science or mathematics; but it
may be truly said of her that “Everything was grist that came to her
mill.” There was hardly any branch of art or knowledge which she did not
delight in. She studied painting under Mr. Nasmyth in Edinburgh, and he
declared her to be the best pupil he had ever had. Almost to the day of
her death she delighted in painting and drawing. She was also an
excellent musician and botanist. The special study with which her name
will always be associated was mathematics as applied to the study of the
heavens, but she also wrote on physical geography and on microscopic
science. It is sometimes thought that if women are learned they are
nearly sure to neglect their domestic duties, or that, in the witty
words of Sydney Smith, “if women are permitted to eat of the tree of
knowledge, the rest of the family will soon be reduced to the same
aerial and unsatisfactory diet.” Mrs. Somerville was a living proof of
the folly of this opinion. She was an excellent housewife and a
particularly skilful needlewoman. She astonished those who thought a
scientific woman could not understand anything of cookery, by her
notable preparation of black currant jelly for her husband’s throat on
their wedding journey. On one occasion she supplied with marmalade, made
by her own hands, one of the ships that were being fitted out for a
Polar expedition. She was a most loving wife and tender mother as well
as a devoted and faithful friend. She gave up far more time than most
mothers do to the education of her children. Her love of animals,
especially of birds, was very strongly developed. With all her devotion
to science she was horrified at the barbarities of vivisection, and
cordially supported those who have successfully exerted themselves to
prevent it from spreading in England to the same hideous proportions
which it has reached on the continent of Europe. Many pages of one of
her learned works were written with a little tame mountain sparrow
sitting on her shoulder. On one occasion, having been introduced to the
Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, she says he quite won her heart by
exclaiming, in reference to the number of little birds that were eaten
in Italy, “What! robins! Eat a robin! I would as soon eat a child.”
Her first husband, Mr. Samuel Greig, only lived three years after their
marriage in 1804. He appears to have been one of those men of inferior
capacity, who dislike and dread intellectual power in women. He had a
very low opinion of the intelligence of women, and had himself no
interest in, nor knowledge of, any kind of science. When his wife was
left a widow with two sons at the early age of twenty-seven, she
returned to her father’s house in Scotland, and worked steadily at
mathematics. She profited by the instructions of Professor Wallace, of
the University of Edinburgh, and gained a silver medal from one of the
mathematical societies of that day. Nearly all the members of her family
were still loud in their condemnation of what they chose to regard as
her eccentric and foolish behaviour in devoting herself to science
instead of society. There were, however, exceptions. Her Uncle and Aunt
Somerville and their son William did not join in the chorus of
disapprobation which her studies provoked. With them she found a real
home of loving sympathy and encouragement. In 1812 she and her cousin
William were married. His delight and pride in her during their long
married life of nearly fifty years were unbounded. For the first time in
her life she now had the daily companionship of a thoroughly sympathetic
spirit. Much of what the world owes to her it owes indirectly to him,
because he stimulated her powers, and delighted in anything that brought
them out. He was in the medical department of the army, and scientific
pursuits were thoroughly congenial to him. He had a fine and well
cultivated mind which he delighted in using to further his wife’s
pursuits. He searched libraries for the books she required, “copying and
recopying her manuscripts to save her time.” In the words of one of
their daughters, “No trouble seemed too great which he bestowed upon
her; it was a labour of love.” When Mrs. Somerville became famous
through her scientific writings, the other members of her family, who
had formerly ridiculed and blamed her, became loud in her praise. She
knew how to value such commendation in comparison with that which she
had constantly received from her husband. She wrote about this, “The
warmth with which my husband entered into my success deeply affected me;
for not one in ten thousand would have rejoiced at it as he did; but he
was of a generous nature, far above jealousy, and he continued through
life to take the kindest interest in all I did.” Mrs. Somerville’s first
work, _The Mechanism of the Heavens_, would probably never have been
written but at the instance of Lord Brougham, whose efforts were warmly
supported by those of Mr. Somerville. In March 1827 Lord Brougham, on
behalf of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, wrote a
letter begging Mrs. Somerville to write an account of Newton’s
_Principia_ and of La Place’s _Mécanique Céleste_. In reference to the
latter book he wrote, “In England there are now not twenty people who
know this great work, except by name, and not a hundred who know it even
by name. My firm belief is that Mrs. Somerville could add two cyphers to
each of these figures.” Mrs. Somerville was overwhelmed with
astonishment at this request. She was most modest and diffident of her
own powers, and honestly believed that her self-acquired knowledge was
so greatly inferior to that of the men who had been educated at the
universities, that it would be the height of presumption for her to
attempt to write on the subject. The persuasions of Lord Brougham and of
her husband at last prevailed so far that she promised to make the
attempt; on the express condition, however, that her manuscript should
be put into the fire unless it fulfilled the expectations of those who
urged its production. “Thus suddenly,” she writes, “the whole character
and course of my future life was changed.” One is tempted to believe
that this first plunge into authorship was, to some extent, stimulated
by a loss of nearly all their fortune which had a short time before
befallen Mr. and Mrs. Somerville. Before authorship has become a habit,
the whip of poverty is often needed to rouse a student to the exertion
and labour it requires. The impediments to authorship in Mrs.
Somerville’s case were more than usually formidable. In the memoirs she
has left of this part of her life, she speaks of the difficulty which
she experienced as the mother of a family and the head of a household in
keeping any time free for her work. It was only after she had attended
to social and family duties that she had time for writing, and even then
she was subjected to many interruptions. The Somervilles were then
living at Chelsea, and she felt at that distance from town, it would be
ungracious to decline to receive those who had come out to call upon
her. But she groans at the remembrance of the annoyance she sometimes
felt when she was engaged in solving a difficult problem, by the entry
of a well-meaning friend, who would calmly announce, “I have come to
spend an hour or two with you.” Her work, to which she gave the name of
_The Mechanism of the Heavens_, progressed, however, in spite of
interruptions, to such good purpose that in less than a year it was
complete, and it immediately placed its author in the first rank among
the scientific thinkers and writers of the day. She was elected an
honorary member of the Astronomical Society, at the same time with
Caroline Herschel, and honours and rewards of all kinds flowed in upon
her. Her bust, by Chantrey, was placed in the great hall of the Royal
Society, and she was elected an honorary member of the Royal Academy of
Dublin, and of many other scientific societies. It was a little later
than this, in 1835, that Sir Robert Peel, on behalf of the Government,
conferred a civil list pension of £200 a year upon Mrs. Somerville; the
announcement of this came almost simultaneously with the news of the
loss of the remainder of her own and her husband’s private fortune,
through the treachery of those who had been entrusted with it. The
public recognition of her services to science came therefore at a very
appropriate time; the pension was a few years later increased to £300 a
year by Lord John Russell.
Throughout her life Mrs. Somerville was a staunch advocate of all that
tended to raise up and improve the lot of women. When quite a young girl
she was stimulated to work hard by the feeling that it was in her power
thus to serve the cause of her fellow-women. Writing of the period when
she was only sixteen years old, she says: “I must say the idea of making
money had never entered my head in any of my pursuits, but I was
intensely ambitious to excel in something, for I felt in my own breast
that women were capable of taking a higher place in creation than that
assigned to them in my early days, which was very low.” It is
interesting to observe that her enthusiasm for what are sometimes called
“women’s rights” was as warm at the end of her life as it had been at
its dawn. When she was eighty-nine, she was as keen as she had been at
sixteen for all that lifts up the lot of women. She was a firm supporter
of Mr. John Stuart Mill in the effort he made to extend to women the
benefit and protection of Parliamentary representation. She recognised
that many of the English laws are unjust to women, and clearly saw that
there can be no security for their being made just and equal until the
law-makers are chosen partly by women and partly by men. The first name
to the petition in favour of women’s suffrage which was presented to
Parliament by Mr. J. S. Mill in 1868 was that of Mary Somerville. She
also joined in the first petition to the Senate of the London
University, praying that degrees might be granted to women. At the time
this petition was unsuccessful, but its prayer was granted within a very
few years. One cannot but regret that Mrs. Somerville did not live to
see this fulfilment of her wishes. She showed her sympathy with the
movement for the higher education of women, by bequeathing her
mathematical and scientific library to Girton College. It is one of the
possessions of which the College is most justly proud. The books are
enclosed in a very beautifully designed case, which also forms a sort of
framework for a cast of Chantrey’s bust of Mrs. Somerville. The fine and
delicate lines of her beautiful face offer to the students of the
College a worthy ideal of completely developed womanhood, in which
intellect and emotion balance one another and make a perfect whole.
Mrs. Somerville’s other works, written after _The Mechanism of the
Heavens_, were _The Connection of the Physical Sciences_, _Physical
Geography_, and _Molecular and Microscopic Science_. The last book was
commenced after she had completed her eightieth year. Her mental powers
remained unimpaired to a remarkably late period, and she also had
extraordinary physical vigour to the end of her life. She affords a
striking instance of the fallacy of supposing that intellectual labour
undermines the physical strength of women. Her last occupations,
continued till the actual day of her death, were the revision and
completion of a treatise on _The Theory of Differences_, and the study
of a book on _Quaternions_. Her only physical infirmity in extreme old
age was deafness. She was able to go out and enjoy life up to the time
of her death, which took place in 1872, at the great age of ninety-two
years.
She was a woman of deep and strong religious feeling. Her beautiful
character shines through every word and action of her life. Her deep
humility was very striking, as was also her tenderness for, and her
sympathy with, the sufferings of all who were wretched and oppressed.
One of the last entries in her journal refers again to her love of
animals, and she says, “Among the numerous plans for the education of
the young, let us hope that mercy may be taught as a part of religion.”
The reflections in these last pages of her diary give such a lovely
picture of serene, noble, and dignified old age that they may well be
quoted here. They show the warm heart of the generous woman, as well as
the trained intellect of a reverent student of the laws of nature.
“Though far advanced in years, I take as lively an interest as ever in
passing events. I regret that I shall not live to know the result of the
expedition to determine the currents of the ocean, the distance of the
earth from the sun determined by the transits of Venus, and the source
of the most renowned of rivers, the discovery of which will immortalise
the name of Dr. Livingstone. But I regret most of all that I shall not
see the suppression of the most atrocious system of slavery that ever
disgraced humanity—that made known to the world by Dr. Livingstone and
by Mr. Stanley, and which Sir Bartle Frere has gone to suppress, by
order of the British Government.” A later entry still, and the last,
gives another view of her happy, faithful spirit. The Admiral’s daughter
speaks in it: “The Blue Peter has been long flying at my foremast, and
now that I am in my ninety-second year I must soon expect the signal for
sailing. It is a solemn voyage, but it does not disturb my tranquillity.
Deeply sensible of my utter unworthiness, and profoundly grateful for
the innumerable blessings I have received, I trust in the infinite mercy
of my Almighty Creator.” She then expresses her gratitude for the loving
care of her daughters, and her journal concludes with the words, “I am
perfectly happy.” She died and was buried at Naples. Her death took
place in her sleep, on 29th November 1872. Her daughter writes, “Her
pure spirit passed away so gently that those around her scarcely
perceived when she left them. It was the beautiful and painless close of
a noble and happy life.” Wordsworth’s words about old age were fully
realised in her case—
Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,
Nor leave thee when gray hairs are nigh,
A melancholy slave;
But an old age, serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.
VI
QUEEN VICTORIA[1]
A JUBILEE, or a fiftieth anniversary of the reign of a king or queen, is
a very rare event in our history. Rather more than a thousand years have
rolled away since the time when Egbert was the first king of all
England. And in all these thousand years there have only been _three_
jubilees before that now being celebrated, and these three have each
been clouded by some national or personal misfortune casting a gloom
over the rejoicings which would naturally have taken place on such an
occasion. It is rather curious that each of the three kings of England
who has reached a fiftieth year of sovereignty has been the third of his
name to occupy the throne. Henry III., Edward III., and George III. are
the only English sovereigns, before Victoria, who have reigned for as
long as fifty years. In the case of Henry the Third, the fifty years of
his reign are a record of bad government, rebellion, and civil war.
Edward the Third’s reign, which began so triumphantly, ended in
disaster; the king had fallen into a kind of dotage; Edward the Black
Prince had died before his father, and the kingdom was ruled by the
incompetent and unscrupulous John of Gaunt; the last years of this reign
were characterised by military disasters, by harsh and unjust methods of
taxation, and by subservience to the papacy. Those who thus sowed the
wind were not long in reaping the whirlwind; for these misfortunes were
followed by the one hundred years’ war with France, by the peasants’ war
under Wat Tyler, and by the persecution of heretics in England, when for
the first time in our history a statute was passed forfeiting the lives
of men and women for their religious opinions. Passing on to the reign
of George III., the jubilee of 1810 must have been a sad one, for the
poor king had twice had attacks of madness, and one of exceptional
severity began in the very year of the jubilee.
Happily, on the present occasion the spell is broken. The Queen is not
the third, but the first of her name, and although there are no doubt
many causes for anxiety as regards the outlook in our political and
social history, yet there are still greater causes for hopefulness and
for confidence that the marvellous improvement in the social, moral, and
material condition of the people which has marked the reign in the past
will be continued in the future.
It is not very easy at this distance of time to picture to one’s self
the passion of loyalty and devotion inspired by the young girl who
became Queen of England in 1837. To realise what was felt for her, one
must look at the character of the monarchs who had immediately preceded
her. The immorality and faithlessness of George IV. are too well known
to need emphasis. He was probably one of the most contemptible human
beings who ever occupied a throne; he was eaten up by vanity,
self-indulgence, and grossness. With no pretence to conjugal fidelity
himself, he attempted to visit with the severest punishment the supposed
infidelity of the unhappy woman who had been condemned to be his wife.
Recklessly extravagant where his own glorification or pleasure was
concerned, he could be penurious enough to a former boon companion who
had fallen into want. There is hardly a feature in his character, either
as a man or a sovereign, that could win genuine esteem or love. Mrs.
Somerville was present at the gorgeous scene of his coronation, when
something more than a quarter of a million of money was spent in
decorations and ceremonial. She describes the tremendous effect produced
upon every one by the knocking at the door which announced that Queen
Caroline was claiming admittance. She says every heart stood still; it
was like the handwriting on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast. Only by
contrast with such a man as George IV. could William IV. be regarded
with favour. Several prominent offices about the Court were occupied by
the Fitz Clarences, his illegitimate children. His manners were
described as “bluff” by those who wished to make the best of them;
“brutal” would have been a more accurate word. On one occasion a guest
at one of his dinner parties asked for water, and the king, with an
oath, exclaimed that no water should be drunk at his table. On another
occasion, on his birthday, he took the opportunity, in the presence of
the young Princess Victoria and her mother, the Duchess of Kent, to make
the most unmanly and ungenerous attack upon the latter, who was sitting
by his side. Greville speaks of this outburst as an extraordinary and
outrageous speech. The Princess burst into tears, and her mother rose
and ordered her carriage for her immediate departure.
It is no wonder that the Duchess of Kent was anxious, as far as
possible, to keep her daughter from the influence of such a Court as
this. Much of the Queen’s conscientiousness and punctual discharge of
the political duties of her station may be attributed to her careful
education by her mother and her uncle Leopold, the widower of Princess
Charlotte, and afterwards King of the Belgians. It is not possible to
tell from the published memorials what clouds overshadowed the Princess
Victoria’s childhood. She seems to have had a most loving mother,
excellent health and abilities, and a judicious training in every way;
yet she says herself, in reference to the choice of the name of Leopold
for her youngest son, “It is a name which is the dearest to me after
Albert, one which recalls the almost only happy days of my sad
childhood.”