writings” was a disgrace to literary England, from which we conclude
that the reverend author outwore the patience of his readers. “Mature
in dulness from his earliest years,” he had wisely adopted a profession
which gave his qualities room for expansion. What his congregation must
have suffered when he addressed it with “condescending gentleness,” we
hardly like to think; but free-born Englishmen, who were so fortunate
as not to hear him, refused to make good their loss by reading the
“English Orator,” even after it had been revised by a bishop. Miss
Seward praised it highly; in return for which devotion she was hailed
as a “Parnassian sister” in six benedictory stanzas.
Still gratitude her stores among,
Shall bid the plausive poet sing;
And, if the last of all the throng
That rise on the poetic wing,
Yet not regardless of his destined way,
If Seward’s envied sanction stamps the lay.
The Swan, indeed, was never without admirers. Her “Louisa; a Poetical
Novel in four Epistles,” was favourably noticed; Dr. Johnson praised
her ode on the death of Captain Cook; and no contributor to the Bath
Easton vase received more myrtle wreaths than she did. “Warble” was the
word commonly used by partial critics in extolling her verse. “Long may
she continue to warble as heretofore, in such numbers as few even of
our favourite bards would be shy to own.” Scott sorrowfully admitted
to Miss Baillie that he found these warblings--of which he was the
reluctant editor--“execrable”; and that the despair which filled his
soul on receiving Miss Seward’s letters gave him a lifelong horror
of sentiment; but for once it is impossible to sympathize with Sir
Walter’s sufferings. If he had never praised the verses, he would never
have been called upon to edit them; and James Ballantyne would have
been saved the printing of an unsalable book. There is no lie so little
worth the telling as that which is spoken in pure kindness to spare a
wholesome pang.
It was, however, the pleasant custom of the time to commend and
encourage female poets, as we commend and encourage a child’s unsteady
footsteps. The generous Hayley welcomed with open arms these fair
competitors for fame.
The bards of Britain with unjaundiced eyes
Will glory to behold such rivals rise.
He ardently flattered Miss Seward, and for Miss Hannah More his
enthusiasm knew no bounds.
But with a magical control,
Thy spirit-moving strain
Dispels the languor of the soul,
Annihilating pain.
“Spirit-moving” seems the last epithet in the world to apply to Miss
More’s strains; but there is no doubt that the public believed her
to be as good a poet as a preacher, and that it supported her high
estimate of her own powers. After a visit to another lambent flame,
Mrs. Barbauld, she writes with irresistible gravity:
“Mrs. B. and I have found out that we feel as little envy and malice
towards each other, as though we had neither of us attempted to ‘build
the lofty rhyme’; although she says this is what the envious and the
malicious can never be brought to believe.”
Think of the author of “The Search after Happiness” and the author of
“A Poetical Epistle to Mr. Wilberforce” loudly refusing to envy each
other’s eminence! There is nothing like it in the strife-laden annals
of fame.
Finally there stepped into the arena that charming embodiment of
the female muse, Mrs. Hemans; and the manly heart of Protestant
England warmed into homage at her shrine. From the days she “first
carolled forth her poetic talents under the animating influence of
an affectionate and admiring circle,” to the days when she faded
gracefully out of life, her “half-etherealized spirit” rousing itself
to dictate a last “Sabbath Sonnet,” she was crowned and garlanded
with bays. In the first place, she was fair to see,--Fletcher’s bust
shows real loveliness; and it was Christopher North’s opinion that “no
really ugly woman ever wrote a truly beautiful poem the length of her
little finger.” In the second place, she was sincerely pious; and the
Ettrick Shepherd reflected the opinion of his day when he said that
“without religion, a woman’s just an even-down deevil.” The appealing
helplessness of Mrs. Hemans’s gentle and affectionate nature, the
narrowness of her sympathies, and the limitations of her art were all
equally acceptable to critics like Gifford and Jeffrey, who held strict
views as to the rounding of a woman’s circle. Even Byron heartily
approved of a pious and pretty woman writing pious and pretty poems.
Even Wordsworth flung her lordly words of praise. Even Shelley wrote
her letters so eager and ardent that her very sensible mamma, Mrs.
Browne, requested him to cease. And as for Scott, though he confessed
she was too poetical for his taste, he gave her always the honest
friendship she deserved. It was to her he said, when some tourists left
them hurriedly at Newark Tower: “Ah, Mrs. Hemans, they little know what
two lions they are running away from.” It was to her he said, when she
was leaving Abbotsford: “There are some whom we meet, and should like
ever after to claim as kith and kin; and you are of this number.”
Who would not gladly have written “The Siege of Valencia” and “The
Vespers of Palermo,” to have heard Sir Walter say these words?
THE LITERARY LADY
Out-pensioners of Parnassus.--HORACE WALPOLE.
In this overrated century of progress, when women have few favours
shown them, but are asked to do their work or acknowledge their
deficiencies, the thoughtful mind turns disconsolately back to those
urbane days when every tottering step they took was patronized and
praised. It must have been very pleasant to be able to publish
“Paraphrases and Imitations of Horace,” without knowing a word of
Latin. Latin is a difficult language to study, and much useful time
may be wasted in acquiring it; therefore Miss Anna Seward eschewed
the tedious process which most translators deem essential. Yet her
paraphrases were held to have caught the true Horatian spirit; and
critics praised them all the more indulgently because of their author’s
feminine attitude to the classics. “Over the lyre of Horace,” she wrote
elegantly to Mr. Repton, “I throw an unfettered hand.”
It may be said that critics were invariably indulgent to female
writers (listen to Christopher North purring over Mrs. Hemans!) until
they stepped, like Charlotte Brontë, from their appointed spheres, and
hotly challenged the competition of the world. This was a disagreeable
and a disconcerting thing for them to do. Nobody could patronize “Jane
Eyre,” and none of the pleasant things which were habitually murmured
about “female excellence and talent” seemed to fit this firebrand of a
book. Had Charlotte Brontë taken to heart Mrs. King’s “justly approved
work” on “The Beneficial Effects of the Christian Temper upon Domestic
Happiness,” she would not have shocked and pained the sensitive
reviewer of the “Quarterly.”
It was in imitation of that beacon light, Miss Hannah More, that
Mrs. King wrote her famous treatise. It was in imitation of Miss
Hannah More that Mrs. Trimmer (abhorred by Lamb) wrote “The Servant’s
Friend,” “Help to the Unlearned,” and the “Charity School Spelling
Book,”--works which have passed out of the hands of men, but whose
titles survive to fill us with wonder and admiration. Was there ever
a time when the unlearned frankly recognized their ignorance, and when
a mistress ventured to give her housemaids a “Servant’s Friend”? Was
spelling in the charity schools different from spelling elsewhere, or
were charity-school children taught a limited vocabulary, from which
all words of rank had been eliminated? Those were days when the upper
classes were affable and condescending, when the rural poor--if not
intoxicated--curtsied and invoked blessings on their benefactors all
day long, and when benevolent ladies told the village politicians
what it was well for them to know. But even at this restful period,
a “Charity School Spelling Book” seems ill calculated to inspire the
youthful student with enthusiasm.
Mrs. Trimmer’s attitude to the public was marked by that refined
diffidence which was considered becoming in a female. Her biographer
assures us that she never coveted literary distinction, although her
name was celebrated “wherever Christianity was established, and the
English language was spoken.” Royalty took her by the hand, and bishops
expressed their overwhelming sense of obligation. We sigh to think
how many ladies became famous against their wills a hundred and fifty
years ago, and how hard it is now to raise our aspiring heads. There
was Miss ---- or, as she preferred to be called, Mrs. ---- Carter, who
read Greek, and translated Epictetus, who was admired by “the great,
the gay, the good, and the learned”; yet who could with difficulty be
persuaded to bear the burden of her own eminence. It was the opinion of
her friends that Miss Carter had conferred a good deal of distinction
upon Epictetus by her translation,--by setting, as Dr. Young elegantly
phrased it, this Pagan jewel in gold. We find Mrs. Montagu writing
to this effect, and expressing in round terms her sense of the
philosopher’s obligation. “Might not such an honour from a fair hand
make even an Epictetus proud, without being censured for it? Nor let
Mrs. Carter’s amiable modesty become blameable by taking offence at the
truth, but stand the shock of applause which she has brought upon her
own head.”
It was very comforting to receive letters like this, to be called
upon to brace one’s self against the shock of applause, instead of
against the chilly douche of disparagement. Miss Carter retorted, as in
duty bound, by imploring her friend to employ her splendid abilities
upon some epoch-making work,--some work which, while it entertained
the world, “would be applauded by angels, and registered in Heaven.”
Perhaps the uncertainty of angelic readers daunted even Mrs. Montagu,
for she never responded to this and many similar appeals; but suffered
her literary reputation to rest secure on her defence of Shakespeare,
and three papers contributed to Lord Lyttelton’s “Dialogues of the
Dead.” Why, indeed, should she have laboured further, when, to the end
of her long and honoured life, men spoke of her “transcendent talents,”
her “magnificent attainments”? Had she written a history of the world,
she could not have been more reverently praised. Lord Lyttelton,
transported with pride at having so distinguished a collaborator, wrote
to her that the French translation of the “Dialogues” was as well
done as “the poverty of the French tongue would permit”; and added
unctuously, “but such eloquence as yours must lose by being translated
into _any_ other language. Your form and manner would seduce Apollo
himself on his throne of criticism on Parnassus.”
Lord Lyttelton was perhaps more remarkable for amiability than for
judgment; but Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, who wrote good letters himself,
ardently admired Mrs. Montagu’s, and pronounced her “the Madame du
Deffand of the English capital.” Cowper meekly admitted that she stood
at the head “of all that is called learned,” and that every critic
“veiled his bonnet before her superior judgment.” Even Dr. Johnson,
though he despised the “Dialogues,” and protested to the end of his
life that Shakespeare stood in no need of Mrs. Montagu’s championship,
acknowledged that the lady was well informed and intelligent.
“Conversing with her,” he said, “you may find variety in one”; and this
charming phrase stands now as the most generous interpretation of her
fame. It is something we can credit amid the bewildering nonsense which
was talked and written about a woman whose hospitality dazzled society,
and whose assertiveness dominated her friends.
There were other literary ladies belonging to this charmed circle
whose reputations rested on frailer foundations. Mrs. Montagu _did_
write the essay on Shakespeare and the three dialogues. Miss Carter
_did_ translate Epictetus. Mrs. Chapone _did_ write “Letters on the
Improvement of the Mind,” which so gratified George the Third and
Queen Charlotte that they entreated her to compose a second volume;
and she _did_ dally a little with verse, for one of her odes was
prefixed--Heaven knows why!--to Miss Carter’s “Epictetus”; and the
Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, even little Prince William, were
all familiar with this masterpiece. There never was a lady more
popular with a reigning house, and, when we dip into her pages, we
know the reason why. A firm insistence upon admitted truths, a loving
presentation of the obvious, a generous championship of those sweet
commonplaces we all deem dignified and safe, made her especially
pleasing to good King George and his consort. Even her letters are
models of sapiency. “Tho’ I meet with no absolutely perfect character,”
she writes to Sir William Pepys, “yet where I find a good disposition,
improved by good principles and virtuous habits, I feel a moral
assurance that I shall not find any flagrant vices in the same person,
and that I shall never see him fall into any very criminal action.”
The breadth and tolerance of this admission must have startled her
correspondent, seasoned though he was to intellectual audacity. Nor was
Mrs. Chapone lacking in the gentle art of self-advancement; for, when
about to publish a volume of “Miscellanies,” she requested Sir William
to write an essay on “Affection and Simplicity,” or “Enthusiasm and
Indifference,” and permit her to print it as her own. “If your ideas
suit my way of thinking,” she tells him encouragingly, “I can cool
them down to my manner of writing, for we must not have a hotchpotch
of Styles; and if, for any reason, I should not be able to make use of
them, you will still have had the benefit of having written them, and
may peaceably possess your own property.”
There are many ways of asking a favour; but to assume that you are
granting the favour that you ask shows spirit and invention. Had Mrs.
Chapone written nothing but this model of all begging letters, she
would be worthy to take high rank among the literary ladies of Great
Britain.
It is more difficult to establish the claim of Mrs. Boscawen, who looms
nebulously on the horizon as the wife of an admiral, and the friend of
Miss Hannah More, from whom she received flowing compliments in the
“Bas Bleu.”
Each art of conversation knowing,
High-bred, elegant Boscawen.
We are told that this lady was “distinguished by the strength of her
understanding, the poignancy of her humour, and the brilliancy of
her wit”; but there does not survive the mildest joke, the smallest
word of wisdom to illustrate these qualities. Then there was Mrs.
Schimmelpenninck, whose name alone was a guarantee of immortality;
and the “sprightly and pleasing Mrs. Ironmonger”; and Miss Lee,
who could repeat the whole of Miss Burney’s “Cecilia” (a shocking
accomplishment); and the vivacious Miss Monckton, whom Johnson called
a dunce; and Miss Elizabeth Hamilton, a useful person, “equally
competent to form the minds and manners of the daughters of a nobleman,
and to reform the simple but idle habits of the peasantry”; and Mrs.
Bennet, whose letters--so Miss Seward tells us--“breathed Ciceronean
spirit and eloquence,” and whose poems revealed “the terse neatness,
humour, and gayety of Swift,” which makes it doubly distressful that
neither letters nor poems have survived. Above all, there was the
mysterious “Sylph,” who glides--sylphlike--through a misty atmosphere
of conjecture and adulation; and about whom we feel some of the fond
solicitude expressed over and over again by the letter-writers of this
engaging period.
Translated into prose, the Sylph becomes Mrs. Agmondesham Vesey,--
Vesey, of verse the judge and friend,--
a fatuous deaf lady, with a taste for literary society, and a talent
for arranging chairs. She it was who first gathered the “Blues”
together, placing them in little groups--generally back to back--and
flitting so rapidly from one group to another, her ear-trumpet hung
around her neck, that she never heard more than a few broken sentences
of conversation. She had what Miss Hannah More amiably called “plastic
genius,” which meant that she fidgeted perpetually; and what Miss
Carter termed “a delightful spirit of innocent irregularity,” which
meant that she was inconsequent to the danger point. “She united,”
said Madame d’Arblay, “the unguardedness of childhood to a Hibernian
bewilderment of ideas which cast her incessantly into some burlesque
situation.” But her kind-heartedness (she proposed having her
drawing-room gravelled, so that a lame friend could walk on it without
slipping) made even her absurdities lovable, and her most fantastic
behaviour was tolerated as proof of her aerial essence. “There is
nothing of mere vulgar mortality about our Sylph,” wrote Miss Carter
proudly.
It was in accordance with this pleasing illusion that, when Mrs.
Vesey took a sea voyage, her friends spoke of her as though she were
a mermaid, disporting herself in, instead of on, the ocean. They not
only held “the uproar of a stormy sea to be as well adapted to the
sublime of her imagination as the soft murmur of a gliding stream to
the gentleness of her temper” (so much might at a pinch be said about
any of us); but we find Miss Carter writing to Mrs. Montagu in this
perplexing strain:--
“I fancy our Sylph has not yet left the coral groves and submarine
palaces in which she would meet with so many of her fellow nymphs on
her way to England. I think if she had landed, we should have had some
information about it, either from herself or from somebody else who
knows her consequence to us.”
The poor Sylph seems to have had rather a hard time of it after the
death of the Honourable Agmondesham, who relished his wife’s vagaries
so little, or feared them so much, that he left the bulk of his estate
to his nephew, a respectable young man with no unearthly qualities.
The heir, however, behaved generously to his widowed aunt, giving her
an income large enough to permit her to live with comfort, and to keep
her coach. Miss Carter was decidedly of the opinion that Mr. Vesey made
such a “detestable” will because he was lacking in sound religious
principles, and she expressed in plain terms her displeasure with her
friend for mourning persistently over the loss of one who “so little
deserved her tears.” But the Sylph, lonely, middle-aged, and deaf,
realized perhaps that her little day was over. Mrs. Montagu’s profuse
hospitality had supplanted “the biscuit’s ample sacrifice.” People no
longer cared to sit back to back, talking platitudes through long and
hungry evenings. The “innocent irregularity” deepened into melancholy,
into madness; and the Sylph, a piteous mockery of her old sweet foolish
self, faded away, dissolving like Niobe in tears.
It may be noted that the mission of the literary lady throughout all
these happy years was to elevate and refine. Her attitude towards
matters of the intellect was one of obtrusive humility. It is recorded
that “an accomplished and elegant female writer” (the name, alas!
withheld) requested Sir William Pepys to mark all the passages in
Madame de Staël’s works which he considered “above her comprehension.”
Sir William “with ready wit” declined this invidious task; but agreed
to mark all he deemed “worthy of her attention.” We hardly know what
to admire the most in a story like this;--the lady’s modesty, Sir
William’s tact, or the revelation it affords of infinite leisure. When
we remember the relentless copiousness of Madame de Staël’s books, we
wonder if the amiable annotator lived long enough to finish his task.
In matters of morality, however, the female pen was held to be a
bulwark of Great Britain. The ambition to prove that--albeit a
woman--one may be on terms of literary intimacy with the seven deadly
sins (“Je ne suis qu’un pauvre diable de perruquier, mais je ne crois
pas en Dieu plus que les autres”) had not yet dawned upon the feminine
horizon. The literary lady accepted with enthusiasm the limitations
of her sex, and turned them to practical account; she laid with them
the foundations of her fame. Mrs. Montagu, an astute woman of the
world, recognized in what we should now call an enfeebling propriety
her most valuable asset. It sanctified her attack upon Voltaire, it
enabled her to snub Dr. Johnson, and it made her, in the opinion of
her friends, the natural and worthy opponent of Lord Chesterfield. She
was entreated to come to the rescue of British morality by denouncing
that nobleman’s “profligate” letters; and we find the Rev. Montagu
Pennington lamenting years afterwards her refusal “to apply her wit and
genius to counteract the mischief which Lord Chesterfield’s volumes had
done.”
Miss Hannah More’s dazzling renown rested on the same solid support.
She was so strong morally that to have cavilled at her intellectual
feebleness would have been deemed profane. Her advice (she spent the
best part of eighty-eight years in offering it) was so estimable that
its general inadequacy was never ascertained. Rich people begged her
to advise the poor. Great people begged her to advise the humble.
Satisfied people begged her to advise the discontented. Sir William
Pepys wrote to her in 1792, imploring her to avert from England the
threatened dangers of radicalism and a division of land by writing a
dialogue “between two persons of the lowest order,” in which should
be set forth the discomforts of land ownership, and the advantages
of labouring for small wages at trades. This simple and childlike
scheme would, in Sir William’s opinion, go far towards making English
workmen contented with their lot, and might eventually save the country
from the terrible bloodshed of France. Was ever higher tribute paid
to sustained and triumphant propriety? Look at Mary Wollstonecraft
vindicating the rights of woman in sordid poverty, in tears and shame;
and look at Hannah More, an object of pious pilgrimage at Cowslip
Green. Her sisters were awestruck at finding themselves the guardians
of such preëminence. Miss Seward eloquently addressed them as
sweet satellites that gently bear
Your lesser radiance round this beamy star;
and, being the humblest sisters ever known, they seemed to have liked
the appellation. They guarded their luminary from common contact with
mankind; they spoke of her as “she” (like Mr. Rider Haggard’s heroine),
and they explained to visitors how good and great she was, and what a
condescension it would be on her part to see them, when two peeresses
and a bishop had been turned away the day before. “It is an exquisite
pleasure,” wrote Miss Carter enthusiastically, “to find distinguished
talents and sublime virtue placed in such an advantageous situation”;
and the modern reader is reminded against his will of the lively old
actress who sighed out to the painter Mulready her unavailing regrets
over a misspent life. “Ah, Mulready, if I had only been virtuous, it
would have been pounds and pounds in my pocket.”