Elizabeth Bury was another young woman whose bright, acquisitive

mind resented conventional inactivity and put out tentacles in all

directions for knowledge. Philology, philosophy, history, heraldry,

geography, mathematics, were among her interests. She contended

that souls were of no sex and that women were often "disposed to

an accurate search into things curious and profitable, as well as

others." She studied anatomy and medicine until she had gained "a

surprizing knowledge of the human body, and of the _Materia Medica_,"

so that she could state the symptoms of the most difficult and

intricate cases in the physician's own terms. She learned French that

she might talk with French refugees to whom she was a benefactress.

Her correspondence and conversation were both highly prized. But all

these interests must be counted merely as diversions. "Her constant

favourite and darling study was divinity." The Bible, Mr. Henry's

_Annotations_, a few works on practical divinity, and a competent

number of Hebrew books made up her working library. Hebrew because of

its scriptural importance was the subject on which she concentrated

her attention and she was reputed to have a critical knowledge of

its idioms and peculiarities. It was said that she could even quote

the original in common conversation if the elucidation of some text

were in question. As the years passed, books and writing, "morning

hours with God," and many arduous charitable duties so fully occupied

her that she found mere social life an unrewarded tax. Of ordinary

conversation she said that though one might strike fire "it always

fell on wet tinder." The mass of manuscripts found after her death

reflected the variety of her interests, but the majority were on

topics such as _Meditations on the Divinity of the Holy Scriptures_,

_The unreasonableness of Fretting against God_, and similar subjects.

She kept also a voluminous _Diary_, an abridgment of which was

published by her husband in Bristol in 1721. Mr. Watts's _Elegy_

indicates something of the reverence with which Mrs. Bury was

regarded by her contemporaries; and a woman of her personal charm,

executive ability, alert responsiveness to the calls of charity,

along with her quick mind, and multifarious, if not always profound,

learning would take an even higher place in any organized community

to-day.

[Sidenote: Susanna Hopton (1627-1709)]

Women also entered the less feminine fields of controversy. Susanna

Hopton is an interesting example. In her youth she had become a

Catholic, but under the influence of her husband she entered upon a

thorough study of the points at issue between the Catholics and the

Protestants. Dr. Hickes says of her: "She made herself as perfect

in the controversie, as English writers could make her, who managed

the controversie on both sides. I have (says he) above twenty popish

authors, which she left me, and some of them with marginal notes in

her own hand. She was well versed in Bishop Moreton's, Archbishop

Laud's and Mr. Chillingworth's works, and Ranchin's _Review of

the Council of Trent_, etc."[154] As a result of this reading she

drew up a long and learned letter to Father Tuberville, showing

him why she had renounced the Church of Rome. This letter was

published by Dr. Hickes immediately after her death in his volume of

_Controversial Letters_ in 1710. Mr. William said that she was an

excellent casuist and divine, and could encounter and confute all

enemies of the church. "Her discourse and stile upon serious matters

was strong, eloquent and nervous; upon pleasant subjects, witty

and facetious: and when it required an edge was sharp as a razor."

_Daily Devotions_, _Meditations on the Six Days Of Creation_, and

_Meditations on the Life of Christ_ were her other works. As a wife,

a neighbor, and a friend she seems to have been in high esteem, but

her life had the church as its center.

[Sidenote: Damaris Cudworth, Lady Masham (1658-1708)]

Damaris Cudworth and Mary Astell, two of the most gifted women of

the period, became involved in the theological discussion between

John Norris and John Locke. Miss Cudworth knew both disputants well.

As a young woman she had corresponded with Norris on the subject of

"Platonic Love," and in 1689 he had dedicated to her his _Reflections

upon the Conduct of Human Life, with reference to the study of

learning and knowledge_. But it was Locke who had a permanent

influence on her opinions. While she was still in Cambridge with her

father, Ralph Cudworth, Locke taught her divinity and philosophy.

After her marriage to Sir Francis Masham in 1685, Locke was a

frequent visitor at their home, and from 1691 till his death in 1704

he lived permanently with them. Her polemical articles were doubtless

written under his inspiration. In 1694 the correspondence between

Mary Astell and John Norris was published, under the title, _Letters

concerning the Love of God_. Two years later Lady Masham answered

their arguments in her _Discourse concerning the Love of God_,[155]

which was attributed to Locke and answered by Norris. In 1700 Lady

Masham published _Occasional Thoughts in reference to a virtuous

Christian Life_, which is her closing word in the controversy.

Damaris Cudworth was a woman of remarkable intellect. Her father

was delighted with the early manifestations of her power and he

took pride in securing for her the best possible education. The

curious epitaph on her tomb praises her learning, judgment, candor,

penetration, and love of truth, and credits her with being a devoted

and intelligent mother. It sums up her character in the statement,

that "to the Softness and Elegancy of her own Sex" she added "several

of the noblest Accomplishments and Qualities of the other," and that

"she possessed these advantages in a degree unusual to either." The

conventional eulogy on a tomb is always open to suspicion, but in

this case the vague generalities of the epitaph fall below the truth.

Locke, in a letter to Phillipp van Limborch, said of her: "The Lady

herself is so well versed in theological and philosophical studies

and of such an original mind that you will not find many men to whom

she is not superior in wealth of knowledge and ability to profit by

it. Her judgment is excellent, and I know few who can bring such

clearness of thought to bear upon the most abstruse subjects, or such

capacity for searching through and solving the difficulties. I do not

say of most women, but even of most learned men."[156]

Lady Masham was also recognized as one of the early champions for

woman's education, for when Mary Astell's _Serious Proposal_ appeared

anonymously in 1694 it was by some attributed to Lady Masham. She

took the subject up definitely in her _Occasional Thoughts_. After

commenting on the lack of knowledge of science, law, history,

politics, morals, and religion, of most English gentlemen, Lady

Masham continued:

Thus wretchedly destitute of all that Knowledge which they ought

to have, are, generally speaking, our English gentlemen, and

being so, what wonder can it be, if they like not that women

should have knowledge; for this is a quality that will give some

sort of superiority even to those who care not to have it?... But

such men as these would assuredly find their account much better

therein, if tenderness of that prerogative would teach them a

more legitimate way of maintaining it, than such a one as is a

very great impediment or discouragement at the least, to others

in the doing what God requires of them. For it is an undesirable

truth that a lady who is able to give an account of her faith,

and to defend her religion against the attacks of the cavilling

wits of the age, or the abuses of the obtruders of vain opinions:

that is capable of instructing her children in the reasonableness

of the christian religion, and of laying in them the foundations

of a solid virtue: that a lady, I say, no more knowing than this

does demand, can hardly escape being called learned by the men

of our days, and in consequence thereof, becoming a subject of

ridicule to one part of them, and of aversion to the other; with

but a few exceptions of some virtuous and rational persons. And

is not the incurring of general dislike one of the strongest

discouragements we can have to any thing?[157]

[Sidenote: Grace Norton, Lady Gethin (1676-1696)]

There was published soon after Lady Gethin's death, from loose papers

left by her, a work entitled _Reliquiæ Gethinianæ_. Congreve's poem,

entitled _Verses to the Memory of Lady Grace Gethin, occasioned by

reading her Book_, speaks in high praise of her. He says the book

shows all that study or time could teach.

But to what height must his amazement rise,

When, having read the work, he turns his eyes

Again to view the foremost opening page,

And there the beauty, sex, and tender age,

Of her beholds, in whose pure mind arose

Th' ethereal source, from whence the current flows.

Lady Gethin was counted a marvel of wisdom, but when we read her

_Apothegms_ and _Essays_ and _Witty Sayings_ we are more impressed by

her accurate memory of Bacon and other earlier essayists than by any

profound knowledge of life on her own part.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Eleanor James (fl. 1685-1715)]

Mrs. Eleanor James[158] was a writer on religious and political

topics. No complete list of her works has ever been compiled. She

gained publicity for her religious views by numerous single printed

sheets between 1685 and 1715. John Dunton described her husband as

being well known because he was an excellent printer, and "something

the better known for being the husband of that she-state-politician,

Mrs. Eleanor James." She is said to have constituted herself a sort

of "adviser to reigning sovereigns" from Charles II to George I, whom

she visited in turn for counsel and admonition. Her chief published

works are on religious controversy. Her _Vindication of the Church

of England_ (1687) created considerable antagonism. In answer to a

satirical _Address of thanks to Mrs. James on behalf of the Church

of England_ she wrote _Mrs. James's Defence_. A lady also appeared

in the lists against her in a book entitled _Elizabeth Rowe's Short

Answer to Eleanor James's Long Preamble or Vindication of the

new Test_. Mrs. James's _Apology_ (1694) and her _Reasons humbly

presented to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal_ (1715) complete the

list of her more important publications.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Newcome (fl. 1728)]

Mrs. Newcome's _Enquiry into the Evidences of the Christian Religion_

was published in 1728. Mr. Bowyer says that she was by every one

accounted a most excellent and worthy woman, and that her learning

was attested by more than one volume. Mr. Grey mentioned her in his

_Hudibras_ as "the very learned lady" who gave him the note about

Penguins in Book I. Nichols quotes a Mr. "T. F." who says that she

had great fame for learning, but adds cautiously: "All that I know

of that matter is, that as often as I have been in company with her,

and when things were thrown out designedly to tempt her to speak,

and discover herself, as the armour produced to Achilles, it never

took effect. So that I can not speak of her learning from my own

knowledge; but if she was not that, she was something better, a very

good woman."[159]

[Sidenote: Catherine Trotter, Mrs. Cockburn (1679-1749)]

The most distinguished woman in the field of polemics in the first

half of the eighteenth century was Catherine Trotter, better known as

Mrs. Cockburn. The contemporary recognition accorded Mrs. Cockburn

is to-day the most surprising fact about her. Her father was a

Scotchman, a commander in the royal navy, and highly thought of by

Charles II, but his death at sea in 1683, and many ensuing disastrous

business complications, left the family in serious financial

difficulties. Mrs. Trotter was, however, nearly related to the Duke

of Lauderdale and the Earl of Perth, a fact which secured her social

recognition no matter how narrow her circumstances. Catherine, her

youngest child, began writing poetry at a very early age. She also

early showed unusual mental alertness, for "she both learned to

write and made herself mistress of the _French_ language, by her own

application and diligence, without any instructor." In Latin and

Logic she had some guidance. Logic was so interesting to her that

while still young she drew up an abstract of its principles, for her

own use.

Catherine's first extant poem was a thanksgiving in heroic verse

for the recovery of Mr. Bevil Higgons from small-pox. She was then

fourteen, but the labored lines have a kind of heavy maturity

prophetic of her later verse. In her seventeenth year she entered

fully upon her literary career. For thirteen years she devoted

herself to study and writing, and if applause from high authorities

could justify her serious preoccupation with things of the mind, such

justification was hers in full measure. Before she was seventeen

her tragedy, _Agnes de Castro_, was acted at Drury Lane. It was by

the advice of the Earl of Dorset and Middlesex that she had allowed

"this little off-spring of her early muse"[160] to try its fortune in

the world, and such success as it had must be attributed largely to

the protection of influential patrons. But with or without patrons,

whatever Miss Trotter did was sure to win praise. When she wrote a

eulogistic poem to Congreve on his _Mourning Bride_, in 1697, he

expressed himself as heartily vexed that her lines came too late for

publication with his play, and said of her poetical commendation, "It

is the first thing, that ever happened to me, upon which I should

make it my choice to be vain."

In 1698 there appeared, at the new theater in Lincoln's Inn Fields,

Miss Trotter's second tragedy entitled _The Fatal Friendship_.

Mr. Betterton, Mr. Verbruggen, Mr. Thurmond, Mrs. Barry, and Mrs.

Bracegirdle, took the chief parts. The play ran several nights and

was seen occasionally on the stage until far down in the eighteenth

century. Its immediate success was great and the praise that poured

in upon the nineteen-year-old author must have been bewilderingly

sweet. Mr. Higgons evened up the score for the small-pox poem by some

verses which declared her direct descent from Sappho. Mr. Harman said

that she maintained the true empire of the stage along with Congreve,

Granville, and a few others "well read in honour's school." From "an

unknown hand" came a poem addressed to "my much esteemed Friend."

This author writes of his consuming anxiety at the beginning of the

play, and of the joy that gushed forth as he observed its success.

The impression from his poem is that he had known the play intimately

before its appearance. According to "the elegant pen of Mr. John

Hughes" Miss Trotter's "virgin voice offends no virgin ear," her

chaste thoughts and clean expressions set her nobly apart as a

reformer of the stage, and she is a successful champion of her sex,

since her genius has destroyed the "Salique law of wit" established

by men. So pleased was Mr. Farquhar with _The Fatal Friendship_

that he sent his first comedy _Love and a Bottle_, which had "been

scandalously aspersed for affronting the ladies," "to stand its

tryal before one of the fairest of the sex, and the best judge." And

he adds his thanks for the "favour and honour" she showed him by

appearing on his third night. He concludes his letter with a double

compliment: "But humbly to confess the greatest motive, my passions

were wrought so high by representation of _Fatal Friendship_, and

since raised so high by a sight of the beautiful author, that I

gladly catched this opportunity of owning myself your most faithful

and humble servant." Mrs. Manly also gave a generous tribute to her

young fellow-aspirant for stage honors:

Orinda and the Fair Astrea gone

Not one was found to fill the Vacant Throne;

Aspiring Man had quite regain'd the Sway,

Again had Taught us humbly to Obey;

Till you (Nature's third start, in favour of our Kind)

With stronger Arms, their Empire have disjoyn'd, etc.

_Dela Manley_

After _The Fatal Friendship_ Miss Trotter's work for the stage need

not be particularly dwelt upon. She had a comedy brought out at Drury

Lane in 1701. A new tragedy in the same year at Drury Lane, and a

tragedy at the Haymarket in 1706, complete the list. Some occasional

poems appeared during this period. In 1700 she was one of the nine

ladies who wrote on the death of Dryden, under the title _The Nine

Muses; or Poems written by as many ladies on the death of the late

famous John Dryden, Esq._ In 1704 she entered the lists with Mr.

Addison and Mr. John Philips in celebrating the victory of Blenheim,

but she did not venture to publish her poem till the manuscript had

been submitted to the Duke of Marlborough. When the duke and the

duchess and the lord treasurer Godolphin declared themselves "greatly

pleased" she sent her lines to the press.

Besides her dramatic and poetical work Miss Trotter wrote in prose

on critical and theological subjects. An interesting disquisition on

"the poets of the last age" appeared in the dedication of her _The

Unhappy Penitent_ in 1701. Of Shakespeare, Dryden, Lee, and Otway she

speaks with independent judgment and considerable discrimination. But

none of the works so far listed are those on which her fame rested.

It was not in poetry, drama, or literary criticism that she found

satisfaction. Religion and philosophy were her true field. Locke's

_Essay concerning Human Understanding_ was published in 1690, and

among the antagonistic criticisms it called forth were three series

of _Remarks_ published anonymously in 1697 and 1699. Young as she was

Miss Trotter pursued the controversy with the keenest interest and in

1701 she drew up a _Defence of The Essay of Human Understanding_. Mr.

George Burnet of Kemney, then in Holland, and Mrs. Burnet, the wife

of Bishop Burnet, were entrusted with the secret of her _Defence_,

and both advised anonymous publication, agreeing with her that her

youth and sex would, if known, count against a work of that nature.

Her _Defence_ appeared in print in 1702. Mrs. Burnet on finding that

the Bishop, Mr. John Norris, and Mr. Locke himself, were highly

pleased with it, could keep the secret no longer.[161] Mr. Locke sent

Miss Trotter a present of books and a letter in which he expressed

his gratitude for "an opportunity to own you for my protectress,

which is the greatest honour my Essay could have procured me. Give

me leave therefore to assure you, that as the rest of the world take

notice of the strength and clearness of your reasoning, so I can not

but be extremely sensible, that it was employed in my behalf."[162]

A second pamphlet was entitled _A discourse concerning a guide in

Controversies_ and grew out of her own spiritual conflicts. Although

of a Protestant family she had become a Catholic early in life, but

had gradually found herself less and less in harmony with that church

till 1707 when, in this _Discourse_, she announced her return to the

Church of England.

The polemical years between 1701 and 1707 had been diversified by

several love affairs. Mr. George Burnet of Kemney, Mr. Fenn who was

an eloquent young clergyman,[163] Mr. Cockburn, "and some others,"

are indicated in her letters. Miss Trotter's letters to two of

these lovers, Mr. Fenn and Mr. Burnet, are nearly as polemical as

her _Defence_ and _Discourse_. She uses all her old Art of Logic

to reason her lovers into friends. She had, in fact, no particular

respect for the passion of love as a factor in human life. She

apologized for having given it so important a place in her plays,

for it was "not noble enough to fill a whole tragedy."[164] When

Mr. Burnet professed "the most passionate ardour of mind and soul"

for her,[165] she responded with a eulogy of "just and beneficent

friendship." "It is only that niggard passion, which is distinguish'd

by the name of love, that excludes all but one object from having a

part in it, and is not satisfied without monopolizing the affections

of the heart."[166] She offered Mr. Burnet "due gratitude" and she

surely owed him some return for the pains he took to spread the

fame of her works. He wrote so highly of her to the Princess Sophia

that the royal lady wrote in answer: "_Je suis charmée du portrait

avantageux, que vous me faites de la nouvelle Sappho Ecossoise, qui

semble meriter les eloges, que vous luy donnez_."[167]

Miss Trotter's letters to Mr. Cockburn, whom she married in 1708, are

also full of argument and business. If she had a deep affection for

him she certainly never allowed herself to speak out. She says that

their chief aim in marriage was to assist each other in performing

those duties that flow from the love of God.[168] Of the ensuing

twenty years she wrote in 1738 as follows: "Being married in 1708,

I bid adieu to the muses, and so wholly gave myself up to the cares

of a family, and the education of my children, that I scarce knew

there was any such thing as books, plays, or poems stirring in Great

Britain."[169] It was an attack on Mr. Locke that again drew her

into public controversy. Dr. Winch Holdsworth published in 1720 a

sermon on Mr. Locke's "false reasonings" against the resurrection

of the same body. The sermon came to her hands some years later

and she published in 1726-27 _A Letter to Dr. Holdsworth_. In 1727

he published _A Defence of the Doctrine of the Resurrection of the

same Body_. Her answer, _A Vindication of Mr. Locke's Christian

Principles_, remained in manuscript till the publication of her

works in 1751. She also wrote in 1739 _Remarks upon some Writers in

the Controversy concerning the Foundation of Moral Duty and Moral

Obligation_ which was published in 1743 in _The History of the

Works of the Learned_. In 1747 she entered upon a confutation of

Dr. Rutherforth's _Essay on the Nature and Obligations of Virtue_.

Her _Remarks_ on this _Essay_ was published by Mr. Warburton with a

laudatory Preface in which he spoke of her "fine genius," "clearness

of expression, strength of reason, precision of logic, and attachment

to truth."

From 1731 to 1748 there is a series of letters between Mrs. Cockburn

and Anne Hepburn (afterwards Mrs. Arbuthnot), her niece. It is

almost entirely a literary and religious correspondence and shows

that Miss Hepburn's interests were on almost as high a plane as her

aunt's. A list of the books they exchanged and commented on would

include most of the important new works in England during the first

half of the century. The most interesting literary taste revealed is

Mrs. Cockburn's partiality for Pope. In 1738 she wrote him a long

letter in which she said, "Your _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_, and

_Essay on Man_, gave me some idea of your morals. But when I read

your private letters, where, as you express it, you _throw yourself

out upon paper_, I thought I saw your heart open and undisguised. I

was charmed with the sincere, ingenuous, unsuspecting friend, the

unwilling enemy, the benevolent mind, extending to all parties, all

religions, all mankind; the filial piety, the tender concern for

a mother's approaching death, at an age, when most men would have

considered theirs only as a useless burden. In short, I saw so many

amiable qualities opening on every different occasion, that I began

as much to admire the valuable man as the great genius." She chides

him gently for thinking too lightly of his genius, for while he is

measuring syllables and coupling rhymes to such excellent moral

ends, she is ready to assure him of a final "_Well done, thou good

and faithful servant_." It is a pity this epistle was never sent. It

would doubtless have been almost as surprising to the wicked wasp

of Twickenham as to the crowd of enemies for whose benefit he was

preparing the _New Dunciad_.

Mr. Birch, who edited Mrs. Cockburn's _Works_ in 1751, said of her:

Posterity at least will be solicitious to know, to whom they

will owe the most demonstrative and perspicuous reasonings, upon

subjects of eternal importance; and her own sex is entitled to

the fullest information about one, who has done such honour to

them, and raised our ideas of their intellectual power, by an

example of the greatest extent of understanding and correctness

of judgment. Antiquity, indeed, boasted of its _female

philosophers_, whose merits have been drawn forth in an elaborate

treatise of _Menage_. [_Historia Mulierum Philosophorum_, 8vo.

Lyons, 1690.] But our own age and country may without injustice

or vanity oppose to those illustrious ladies the defender of

_Locke_ and _Clarke_; who, with a genius equal to the most

eminent of them, had the superior advantage of cultivating it in

the only effectual method of improvement, the study of a real

philosophy, and a theology worthy human nature, and its all

perfect author.

Mrs. Cockburn had a strong, clear, acute mind. The impression she

made on the best thinkers in her generation is due to this fact, and,

further, to the fact that she used her mentality on topics then

counted vital. She was didactic, she was morally irreproachable,

she was unassuming. That her editor's confident prediction of her

fame has been discredited by time, that she is in reality hardly

so much as a name to-day, is due partly to the oblivion that has

overtaken her subjects, but also, and even more justly, to the dead

level of her excellence. She has no wit, no fancy, no imagination,

no sprightliness of thought, no humor. Mary Astell and "Sophia" were

occasionally roused to picturesque indignation. But not so with Mrs.

Cockburn. She is as cold, as orderly, as unstimulating as a formula.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Margaret Fell (1614-1702)]

Among dissenters there is less literary record. We find more among

the Quakers than elsewhere, yet even there not so much as might be

expected from the fact of their recognition of the equality of the

sexes. It was stated in their creed: "As we dare not encourage any

ministry but that which we believe to spring from the influence

of the Holy Spirit, so neither dare we attempt to restrain this

ministry to persons of any condition in life, or to the male sex

alone; but as male and female are one in Christ, we hold it proper

that such of the female sex as we believe to be endued with a right

qualification for the ministry should exercise their gifts for the

general edification of the Church."[170] As a rule, however, the

Quaker women were too busy on their preaching tours to have much

time for authorship. Margaret Fell is their chief representative

writer.[171] Her activities began before the Restoration. As the

wife of Judge Fell of Swarthmore Hall she was of distinct social

importance, and she showed unusual ability in the conduct of the

household affairs incident on her husband's wealth and large landed

properties. She was always exceedingly devout and Swarthmore Hall

was traditionally recognized as the home of "lecturing ministers."

Among these itinerant speakers, in 1652, was George Fox. His brief

sojourn at Swarthmore was epoch-making, for when Judge Fell returned

from a distant visit he was met as he crossed Ulverston Sands by a

solemn conclave of gentlemen on horseback whose purpose it was to

announce that his wife and most of his household had become Quakers.

On investigation he became himself at least sufficiently sympathetic

with the new views not to interfere with his wife's convictions.

For half a century she was identified with Quaker interests. The

great dining-room at Swarthmore was for many years the regular

meeting-place of the Friends. In 1669, eleven years after the death

of Judge Fell, Margaret married George Fox, and till his death in

1691 she gave her time, her thought, her money, to a defense of

persecuted Quakers. Three of her daughters became preachers. She

traveled from jail to jail, from house to house, to comfort the

imprisoned and their families, and from meeting to meeting to preach

the word. As the "nursing mother" of the church she had an immense

correspondence. The petitions to the king and to powerful noblemen

were often composed and personally presented by her. The importance

attached to her advice and opinions is indicated by the hundreds of

letters still extant addressed to her by the preachers who gathered

about George Fox. During her most active years the practical conduct

of church affairs occupied her to the exclusion of other work. But

earlier, especially during 1665-1668, she made use of the enforced

leisure consequent on various imprisonments to write in defense of

Quaker principles. Of the ten tracts thus produced one of the most

interesting was on the vexed question of the right of women to preach

and was entitled _Women's Speaking Justified, Proved and Allowed of

by the Scriptures_.

[Sidenote: Anne Finch, Lady Conway (d. 1679)]

Another important lady who, after long study in other religions came

finally into the Quaker faith, was Anne Finch, a daughter of Sir

Henry Finch. In 1651 she married Lord Conway and was established

as mistress of Ragley Castle in Warwickshire. As a young woman she

had been attracted by the teachings of Henry More, the Cambridge

Platonist. After she became Lady Conway he spent much time at Ragley

where he wrote several of his books. During his various absences Mr.

More and Lady Conway corresponded regularly on theological subjects.

The questions in her letters sufficiently indicate the metaphysical

perplexities that absorbed her thoughts. She knew the learned tongues

and read eagerly the works of "Plato, Plotinus, Philo Judæus, and the

Kabbala Denudata." She was a theosophist and a mystic. The esoteric,

the mysterious, the miraculous, captured her imagination. "Under

her inspiration Ragley became the home of religious marvels." One

chapter of _John Inglesant_, the novel in which Mr. Shorthouse so

sympathetically described Little Gidding, is said to be based on

the life at Ragley. Lady Conway suffered from headaches so severe

and persistent as to defy the best skill of London and Paris. Under

the influence of Mr. More, who said there might be "a sanative and

healing contagion as well as a morbid and venemous," she summoned to

Ragley the famous Valentine Greatrakes, "the Stroker," but the magic

of his hands failed in her case. Her headaches made of her life one

long disease, but never conquered her intellectual eagerness and

hardly abated her learned pursuits.

When she finally joined the Quakers it was against the advice of

Mr. More, but she was one, he said, "who never submitted all her

judgment to any one." Her friendship with Robert Barclay and William

Penn followed her acceptance of the new doctrines. While Lady Conway

was undoubtedly one of the most distinguished converts to the Quaker

faith, her invalidism and then her death in 1679 interfered with any

such active service as that of Margaret Fell. The two women were,

moreover, temperamentally unlike. Margaret Fell, a descendant of

Anne Askew, had the blood of the martyrs in her veins. A "cause"

could capture her mind and heart. She was energetic, an organizer

and administrator. Lady Conway, on the other hand, beyond almost any

woman of her time, lived in things of the mind.

Of Lady Conway's numerous works only one has been printed. In 1690

there appeared at Amsterdam a collection of philosophical treatises

written in Latin. The first one of the series was a translation of

"a work by a certain English countess, learned beyond her sex."

Leibnitz, on the authority of Van Helmont, attributed this to Lady

Conway. This treatise was re-translated into English in 1692.[172]

[Sidenote: Jane Ward, Mrs. Lead (1623-1704)]

Mrs. Jane Lead[173] was a mystic and the founder of a sect. She

was the daughter of Schildknap Ward, of a good Norfolk family, and

it is said that there were no external influences to account for

her unusual experiences. As a child in the midst of the Christmas

gayeties at her father's house, she heard a miraculous voice that

summoned her to a religious life. She became a widow while still

young and thereafter followed without hindrance, in the completest

seclusion, in London, her recognized vocation. She studied mystical

works and had nightly prophetic visions which she recorded in her

spiritual diary. Between 1681 and 1702 she published fifteen volumes

and another one appeared immediately after her death. In 1693 Mr.

Francis Lee, a young Oxford man and a medical student at Leyden,

visited her, gave allegiance to her doctrines, and devoted himself to

her service. Mr. Lee and Mrs. Lead became the center of an important

theosophical organization called _The Philadelphian Society_, which

existed till 1702. Mrs. Lead died in 1704 "in the 81st year of

her age and the 65th of her vocation to the inward life." Mr. Lee

wrote to the Countess Kniphausen and others in France and Germany

a letter entitled _The Last Hours of Jane Lead by an Eye and Ear

Witness_. Five years before her death Mrs. Lead's spiritual diary was

published under the title, _A Fountain of Gardens, watered by the

Rivers of Divine pleasure, and springing up in all the variety of

spiritual plants, blown up by the pure Breath into Paradise. To which

is prefixed, A Poem, introductory to the Philadelphia Age, called

Solomon's Porch, or The Beautiful gate to Wisdom's Temple_.

[Sidenote: Susannah Annesley, Mrs. Wesley (1670-1742)]

One of the most notable women of the early eighteenth century was

Susannah Wesley, the mother of John and Charles Wesley. She came of a

fine old Nottinghamshire family, and her father, Dr. Annesley, a man

of power and influence, "the St. Paul of the Nonconformists," secured

for his children an education suitable to their birth. At twenty-one

Susannah, a beautiful and gifted young woman, married Samuel Wesley

and entered upon her career as wife of a rector of humble position

and small means.

It is said that large families either submerge the individual, or

result in characters of exceptionally fine discipline. From this test

Susannah emerged triumphant. She was the twenty-fifth child of her

father, and in the first twenty-one years of her married life she had

nineteen children. So, as child and parent, she was always in close

touch with many varied personalities, an experience the conditions of

which demanded both firmness and flexibility.

Her married life seemed made up of difficulties. Most of it was

passed in a remote rectory, at Epworth, in the Lincolnshire

fens, among the crudest and most boorish people.[174] Not even

the strictest economy could hold the outgo within the meager

limits of the rector's stipend. There were fevers, small-pox, and

other diseases to combat, and five of the children died young.

There were also disasters through fire and flood and through the

hostility of malicious parishioners, but Mrs. Wesley held herself

steadfast to her ideals. Her spirit was never daunted. In the most

unpromising environment, under the most adverse conditions, she

created a family life remarkable for its order, serenity, good

breeding, and aspiration. Even as a child the quality of her mind

and character had been apparent. It is reported that at thirteen,

having heard at home much discussion of the points at issue between

the Nonconformists and the Church of England, she had reviewed

the questions for herself and had decided in favor of the Church.

Throughout her married life she showed the same independence and

self-reliance. Mr. and Mrs. Wesley were always very happy together,

but she was in no sense the ideal submissive wife of the eighteenth

century. She wrote to her son John when he was in Oxford, "'T is

a misfortune almost peculiar to our family that your father and I

seldom think alike."[175] She considered King William a usurper and

consistently refused to say Amen to the rector's prayers for the new

monarch. Mr. Wesley celebrated the victory of Blenheim in a poem,

but Mrs. Wesley disapproved of the war and she wrote: "Since I am

not satisfied of the lawfulness of the war, I cannot beg a blessing

on our arms till I can have the opinion of one wiser and a more

competent judge than myself in this point; namely, whether a private

person that had no hand in the beginning of the war but did always

disapprove of it may, notwithstanding, implore God's blessing on it,

and pray for the good success of those arms which were taken up, I

think unlawfully." And she declined to join in the worship on the day

appointed for prayers for the success of English troops.[176]

Mrs. Wesley had a natural genius for teaching and she became the

school-mistress of her family. Her methods were uniform and rigorous.

At five each child was given in one day, during two sessions of three

hours each, such effective tutoring in the alphabet that by night he

knew it and could begin reading the Book of Genesis the next day.

The various studies counted necessary followed in due order. Each

child was kept closely to the task in hand and the progress made was

surprising. Mrs. Wesley said, "It is almost incredible what a child

may be taught in a quarter of a year by a vigorous application if it

have but tolerable capacity and good health." The virtues inculcated

were prompt obedience, quiet manners, correct speech, and courtesy.

The religious training of the children received especial emphasis.

Mrs. Wesley wrote out for them a clear series of explanatory comments

on the Catechism and the Creed, she trained them to take part in

family devotions, and once a week she met each child for an hour of

private religious conversation and instruction. So precious were

these hours to the children that when John was a Fellow in Oxford,

he wrote urging his mother to devote her thought and prayer to him

during the Thursday evening hour that had been his.

Mrs. Wesley's devout ministrations to her own family, during her

husband's absence, became known to some of the neighbors who

desired to join her circle. The numbers increased so rapidly that

on the first Sunday of February, 1712, more than two hundred were

present and many went away for want of room. The curate objected to

these meetings and Mr. Wesley wrote in deprecation of them. Mrs.

Wesley, too, was seriously in doubt whether one of her sex could

find Scripture authority for thus breaking the bread of life to the

people. But the manifest needs of the poor parishioners and their

eagerness for the gospel prevailed over all doubts and the meetings

continued.

The power of Mrs. Wesley in her own home and immediate neighborhood

was, through her son John, felt throughout England. Mr. Winchester

says truly:

John Wesley was the son of his mother. From her he inherited his

logical cast of mind, his executive capacity, his inflexibility

of will, his union of independence of judgment with respect for

authority, his deep religious temper. And all the characteristics

were developed and fixed by his early training. His precision

and order, his gift of organization and mastery of details, his

notions of education, even some specific rules and customs of his

religious societies, can be traced to his mother's discipline. It

is often said that Methodism began in the University of Oxford:

with more truth it might be said that it began in Susannah

Wesley's nursery.[177]

The religious writers so far mentioned only partially represent the

great amount of similar literary activity. In many homes where rank

or wealth made social diversions an alluring possibility there was

carried on by wives and daughters not only a life of austere piety

and great practical benevolence, but a life also of intellectual

ambitions and instincts. The fact that many of the questions which

these ladies discussed are now dead issues cannot obscure the more

significant fact that on questions then counted vital they wrote

always with energy, often with logical acumen, and sometimes with

effectiveness. The home and social life that emerges from scattered

hints and records in these religious writings is as remote from

that portrayed in contemporary court memoirs or diaries as is the

general tone of _Paradise Lost_ or _Pilgrim's Progress_, and is worth

dwelling upon as illustrative of that body of almost unrecognized

solid morality that gave to Jeremy Collier a background of public

approval when he attacked the immorality of the stage, and through

the stage, the immorality of the stage-going people.

WRITERS ON PRACTICAL BENEFICENCE

The piety that finds genuine expression in the writings of the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had almost as frequent

expression in the practical necessities of daily life. On the great

ladies of the land was laid the responsibility for the physical

well-being, the education, and the happiness of those beneath them in

birth and wealth. Responsibilities now provided for by multifarious

overworked organizations then devolved upon individuals. And many

women in the distribution of their money and leisure showed so much

insight and practical ability as to become ruling influences in

their communities. The fame of some of these women spread through

the nation. The combination which they showed of munificent giving,

on the one hand, and of rigid self-discipline, on the other, exalted

them almost into saints. The two ladies who most fully illustrate the

type are Mrs. Bovey and Lady Elizabeth Hastings. Their learning was

chiefly in the realm of theology.

[Sidenote: Catherine Riches, Mrs. Bovey (1670-1726)]

Mrs. Bovey,[178] the daughter of a London merchant, was a great

heiress and a great beauty and was consequently much sought after.

At fifteen she married William Bovey, Esq., Lord of the Manor of

Flaxley, Gloucestershire. After seven years of unhappiness she was

left a childless widow with a large fortune at her command. She

refused to marry again, but entered into a close friendship with Mrs.

Mary Pope. The two ladies lived together in retirement for thirty-two

years, making it the purpose of their lives to manage Mrs. Bovey's

fortune and estate and to dispose of most of the income in wisely

regulated charities. Mrs. Bovey was the subject of much praise from

all kinds of people. Mrs. Manley gives the following vivid picture of

her:

She is one of those lofty, black and lasting beauties that strike

with Reverence, and yet Delight; there is no Feature in her Face,

nor any thing in her Person, her Air and Manner, that could be

exchanged for any others, and she not prove a Loser: Then as to

her Mind and Conduct, her Judgment, her Sense, her Stedfastness,

her Reading, her Wit and Conversation, they are admirable; so

much above what is most lovely in the sex, shut but your Eyes,

(and allow for the Musick of her Voice) your Mind would be

charmed, as thinking yourself conversing with the most knowing,

most refined of ours; free from all Levity and Superficialness,

her Sense is sold [solid?] and perspicuous. Lovely Porcia is so

polite, so neat, so perfect an economist, that in taking in all

the greater Beauties of Life, she does not disdain to stoop to

the most inferiour; in short, she knows all that a Man can know,

without despising what, as a woman, she should not be ignorant of.

In 1714 Steele dedicated the second volume of his _Ladies' Library_

to her. With his genius for giving delightful compliments, he says:

"Thus with the charms of your own sex, and knowledge not inferior to

the more learned of ours, a closet, a bower, or some scene of rural

nature, has constantly robbed the world of a ladies appearance, who

never was beheld but with gladness to her visitants, nor ever admired

but with pain to herself."

Dr. Hickes, in the Preface to his _Linguarum Septentrionalium

Thesaurus_ (1702), eulogized this _præstantissima & honestissima

matrona_ as the _Angliæ nostræ Hypatia Christiana_. She had received

no formal education, yet by frequent converse with some of the most

learned men of the day and by intense application to study she

gained a great share of knowledge. She was interested in educational

matters, and she gave with particular pleasure to organizations for

the training of poor children. At her death Mrs. Pope, her executor,

was instructed to pay large sums to such charitable schemes as

the gray-coat school, the blue-coat school, the charity school of

Christ's Church Parish in Southwark, and a college to be founded in

the Island of Bermuda.

Mrs. Bovey's attractive personality may be further emphasized by the

persistence of the rumor identifying her with "the perverse widow"

whose charms and whose coldness destroyed the peace of Sir Roger de

Coverley's heart. Her beauty, her wealth, her learning, her kindness

of heart, her general beneficence, and, finally, her inaccessibility,

made her admired, loved, and longed for, till she was idealized into

something quite above human nature's daily food.

Catherine Riches's father belonged to the wealthy merchant class

of London. It would be interesting if we could know the kind of

home life and training given to this young city heiress. Was it the

unhappy disciplinary years of her married life that turned her so

decisively from the pomps and pleasures apparently awaiting one so

young and beautiful and rich?

[Sidenote: Lady Elizabeth Hastings (1688-1739)]

Lady Elizabeth Hastings was the daughter of Theophilus, seventh

earl of Huntingdon, by his first wife, through whom, in 1704,

she came into a fortune and the possession of Ledstone Park, an

estate near Pontefract, Yorkshire. From twenty-two to her death at

fifty-seven Lady Elizabeth lived almost continuously at Ledstone. Of

these thirty-five years not a striking event is recorded. Her days

were "bound each to each by natural piety" and her tranquil life

developed along an uninterrupted course of charity and devotion.

To live in Yorkshire, in the eighteenth century, was to be buried.

Social and intellectual life were alike without sustenance. Yet

from this remote home Lady Elizabeth's fame traveled to London and

she became the subject of remarkable eulogies. Number 42 of _The

Tatler_, written possibly by Congreve, appeared in 1709 when the

"divine Aspasia" had been but five years at Ledstone. She must have

gone there with well-formed ideas of life, for with no vacillations,

no period of experimentation, she seems to have entered immediately

on that career of religious contemplation and good works which

had, in five years, given her the reputation of being a "female

philosopher" of the most exalted type. _The Tatler_ paper says that

she put into practice the schemes and plans the ancient sages had

thought beautiful but inimitable. Steele, in _The Tatler_, number 49,

gave perfect expression to the reverent admiration with which Lady

Elizabeth had come to be regarded:

Aspasia must therefore be allowed to be the first of the

beauteous Order of Love, whose unaffected freedom, and conscious

innocence, give her the attendance of the graces in all her

actions. The awful distance which we bear towards her in all our

thoughts of her, are certain instances of her being the truest

object of love of any of her sex. In this accomplished lady, love

is the constant effect, because it is never the design. Yet,

though her mien carries much more invitation than command, to

behold her is an immediate check to loose behaviour; and to love

her is a liberal education.

A somewhat closer view of the life of the Lady Elizabeth comes from

casual notes by Thoresby who, in his travels about the northern

counties between 1711 and 1724, frequently spent a few days at

Ledstone. From the unconnected details scattered through his letters

and diaries there emerges a fairly clear picture of a great house

exactly ordered on the basis of the religious life. Private prayers,

family devotions in which all the servants were included, at several

stated hours each day, preparation for church festivals, frequent

assemblages for the reading of sermons and holy books, refreshing

conferences on mooted points of doctrine, friendly communion on the

present and future joys of the Christian, filled the days to the

exclusion of worldly interests. No mother superior could have felt a

responsibility more definite or have exerted a power more minutely

organized for the promotion of the spiritual welfare of those under

her charge.

Lady Hastings was also engaged in schemes of wider application. She

became as noted for her benefactions as for the saintliness of her

recluse life. "Human learning as the handmaid of religion" was the

basis on which her gifts were made. She therefore became definitely

associated with the new schemes springing up in England for the

education of poor boys and girls. In one of Thoresby's visits they

walked across the fields to see the new school she was building and

endowing for the absolute maintenance and education of fourteen poor

girls. The _Victoria History of the County of Yorkshire_ records

"Lady Hastings's Schools" at Thorp Arch, Ledsham, Collingham, and

Wick. The formal deeds conveying these schools to trustees are

dated in 1738, probably because at that time she knew she could not

recover from the cancerous affection of which she died the following

year. But some of these schools had been established and supported

by her much earlier. The account given of the Ledsham school is

typical of the others: "These schools are part of the general charity

founded by Lady Elizabeth Hastings by deed 14 December, 1738. In

a charity school for boys 20 scholars were to be taught and one

youth between the ages of 17 and 23 as a charity school-master. The

girls' school was for 20 scholars, who were to be clothed partly out

of the proceeds of their spinning. The boys' school is now public

and elementary, while the girls' school gives a free education in

elementary subjects and household duties. The expenses of this

school amount to about £400 a year, and this is wholly derived from

the endowment." Lady Elizabeth also left a large bequest to Queen's

College, Oxford, for poor scholars from schools in Yorkshire,

Westmoreland, and Cumberland.[179] Berkeley's missionary project

found in her one of its most generous supporters, and her name headed

many a list of charities for educational and religious purposes.

So well known did she become that in 1735 a remarkable tribute to

her was planned and partly executed. An anonymous donor offered to

_The Gentleman's Magazine_ a series of prizes for the four best poems

entitled _The Christian Hero_. The chief prize was to be a "GOLD

MEDAL (_intrinsic value about Ten Pounds) which shall have the_ HEAD

_of the Rt. Hon. the Lady_ ELIZABETH HASTINGS _on one Side, and that

of James Oglethorpe Esq. on the other, with this Motto_, ENGLAND MAY

CHALLENGE THE WORLD, 1736."[180] This announcement was in December,

1735. In the January number for 1736 the editor expressed his great

concern at having given offense to a Lady, whose name even they did

not venture to mention again, by the publication of the proposed Gold

Medal prize without her consent.[181] In February the donor humbly

asked her Ladyship's pardon for the uneasiness he had so undesignedly

caused her, saying that he had not the honor to know her personally,

but had been animated solely by the feeling of respect and deference

due to the eminence of her character.[182]

When Lady Hastings died, in 1739, _The Gentleman's Magazine_

published a memorial notice said to be by Dr. Johnson. In heavy,

analytic fashion it sums up her reputation for sanctity and

benevolence, and closes with the statement that "scarce any age

has afforded a greater Blessing to many, or a brighter Pattern to

all."[183] The year after her death, Law, the noted author of _The

Serious Call_, cited Lady Hastings as a sufficient refutation of the

charge that saintliness was not a natural product of the English

Church. In 1741 Wilford's stately folio contained a laudatory account

of Lady Hastings, and in 1742 Mr. Barnard published _An Historical

Character, relating to the holy and exemplary Life of the Right

Honourable Lady Elizabeth Hastings. To which are added, 1. One of the

Codicils of her last Will, setting forth her Devise of Lands to the

Provost and Scholars of Queen's College in Oxford, for the interest

of 18 Northern Schools. 2. Some Observations therefrom. 3. A Schedule

of her other perpetual Charities, with the Principal Rules for their

Administration._

Few of the people who praised Lady Hastings knew her personally.

Even more strongly than in the case of Mrs. Bovey there seems to

have grown up in the public mind a kind of idealized picture of her.

She was a saint set apart from the world, not only by a voluntary

isolation, but by virtue of her beauty, beneficence, and nobility.

She was enshrined. The reverence, affection, and praise accorded her

have a definite note of Platonism. She becomes an embodiment of the

highest charm and excellence, and the actual "Lady Betty" seems lost

in the process.

What were the diversions at Ledstone? Lady Elizabeth's four younger

half-sisters, Anne, Frances, Catherine, and Margaret, usually lived

with her. After the death of Lady Elizabeth, Margaret, who had

become a convert to Methodism, married one of the leaders in that

new communion and it was through her influence that Selina, the

wife of Theophilus, the brother of these young ladies, was likewise

converted to Methodism. The five sisters were apparently a unit in

their predisposition to a religious life. But they were too young and

too free not to have had some other elements in their life. Had they

any such relief as the book-binding at Little Gidding? Our knowledge

of the life at Ledstone is tantalizingly incomplete because every

one who wrote about Lady Elizabeth took at once an exalted tone, and

generalized his picture into abstractions.

[Sidenote: Lady Huntingdon (1707-91)]

Closely connected with Lady Hastings and the life at Ledstone is

another leader in the religious world, the famous Lady Huntingdon,

the wife of Lady Hastings's brother Theophilus. Margaret Hastings had

accepted the doctrines of the Methodists and through her influence

Lady Huntingdon allied herself with the same obscure body. Lady

Huntingdon was from childhood introspective and religious. As the

daughter of Earl Ferrars and the wife of the Earl of Huntingdon, a

brilliant social career was almost inevitable. But in the midst of

the splendid scenes in which she took a vivacious and apparently

happy part she was spiritually aloof. She was always resisting the

encroachments of the world, and striving by self-denial, a rigid

course of devotional exercises, and systematic beneficences, to

secure inward peace. But she never came into a free and joyous

religious consciousness till she accepted the new doctrines taught

by the group of Oxford men known as Methodists.[184] In 1739 she

sent for John and Charles Wesley to visit her and she became a

fearless advocate of their views. After her husband's death in 1746

she devoted her time, her great wealth, and her influence to the

cause of Methodism. With several clergymen, her two daughters, her

sisters, Anne and Frances, and a few friends, she made a sort of

home missionary tour from Bath through Wales for the purpose of

studying the needs of the poor in the matter of religious education.

In 1748-49 she opened her fine mansion in Park Street, London, for

Methodist preaching services. The most distinguished men and women

of the time attended these services, but not always as reverent

listeners. The whole scheme was met with varying degrees of ridicule.

Coventry wrote a description of the meetings at Park Lane, it is

supposed, in his account of "Lady Harridan" and her assembly:

It was a sisterhood of the godly, met together to bewail the

vanities of human life, and congratulate one another on their

breaking from the enchantments of a sinful world.

The causes which had converted them to Methodism, were as various

as the characters of the converts. Some, the ill success of their

charms had driven to despair; others, a consciousness of too

great success had touched with repentance.... But the greater

part, like the noble president, were women fatigued and worn out

in the vanities of life, the superannuated jades of pleasure,

who, being grown sick of themselves, and weary of the world,

were now fled to Methodism, as the newest sort of folly that had

lately been invented.[185]

One particularly offensive element in Methodism to people who set

store by birth and breeding was its leveling effect. Social position

counted for little in the face of the all-important classification

into saints and sinners. The Duchess of Buckingham wrote in violent

protest: "The doctrines of these preachers are most repulsive, and

strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect towards their

superiors, in perpetually endeavoring to level all ranks and do away

with all distinctions. It is monstrous to be told that you have a

heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl upon the earth.

This is highly offensive and insulting, and I cannot but wonder that

your ladyship should relish any sentiments so much at variance with

high rank and good breeding."[186]

The fruition of Lady Huntingdon's remarkable work belongs later in

the century, but its inception is between 1739 and 1760 and is of

great importance.

DRAMATIC WRITERS

In July, 1867, there was dispersed at Sotheby's rooms the library

of the Reverend A. J. Stainforth. "The collection was formed

entirely of works of British and American poetesses and female

dramatic writers. The books were arranged in over three thousand

lots, and the catalogue extends to 166 pages." That Mr. Stainforth

spared neither money nor diligence in securing the books for this

collection is evident from a single illustration, namely, his search

for so obscure a book as _Eliza's Babes_. "When Mr. Stainforth was

forming his collection of _Female Poets_ without regard to cost,

he failed to procure a copy of _Eliza's Babes_, although the hue

and cry was circulated far and near."[187] I have not had access to

this catalogue and I do not know how many items the "three thousand

lots" contain, nor how many individual names are catalogued. If the

arrangement is chronological it would doubtless serve to indicate the

very rapid spread of female authors after about 1750. Yet even the

century from 1650 to 1750 is not without its large contribution. In

the preceding sections of this study there has been some indication

of the mass of devotional and polemical writing by women. Among

poets, playwrights, essayists, novelists, and letter-writers we shall

find not only an even greater volume of production, but work of

higher intrinsic value.

[Sidenote: The Duchess of Newcastle (cir. 1625-1673)]

The Duchess of Newcastle wrote numerous plays. Twenty-one were

published in 1662, and in 1668 five more appeared. They are

described as hardly more than allegorical dialogues arranged in

successive scenes, but without plot, and showing no power of dramatic

portrayal. The Duchess herself is evidently the original of several

of the characters. In her plays as in her scientific studies the

particular boast of the Duchess is that whatever she writes is spun

out of her own fancy:

But noble readers, do not think my plays

Are such as have been writ in former days;

As Johnson, Shakespear, Beaumont, Fletcher writ,

Mine want their learning, reading, language, wit.

The Latin phrases, I could never tell,

But Johnson could, which made him write so well.

Greek, Latin poets I could never read,

Not their historians, but our English Speed:

I could not steal their wit, nor plots out-take;

All my plays plots, my own poor brain did make.

From Plutarch's story, I ne'er took a plot,

Nor from romances, nor from Don Quixote.[188]

It goes without saying that these plays were not suited for stage

presentation, and, in point of fact, very few of them were ever put

into rehearsal. One of the plays that did appear drew a great crowd,

but the motive was curiosity to see the Duchess rather than any

interest in the play. Pepys, who went to hear this play March 30,

1667, wrote concerning it, and its author:

The whole story of this lady is a romance and all she does is

romantic. Her footmen in velvet coats, and herself in antique

dress, as they say; and was the other day at her own play, "The

Humorous Lovers"; the most ridiculous thing that ever was wrote,

but she and her Lord mightily pleased with it: and she at the

end, made her respects to the players, and did give them thanks.

There is as much expectation of her coming to Court, that so

people may come to see her, as if it were the Queen of Sheba.

[Sidenote: Aphra Amis, Mrs. Behn (1640-1689)]

The only important dramatic work by a woman during the second half

of the seventeenth century was by Mrs. Behn. She was born at Wye,

in Kent.[189] While she was still very young the Amis family went

to Surinam, West Indies, where Aphra's girlhood was spent. At about

twenty-three[190] she returned to England and soon thereafter married

Mr. Behn, a London merchant of Dutch parentage. At his death, before

1666, she was left nearly penniless. For a short time she was in

Holland as a secret political agent for the English court. But her

services received scant official recognition and the pay was so

meager and uncertain that she returned to England and began to look

about for other means of support. The new passion for the theater was

not yet exhausted and she turned instinctively to play-writing as

her most hopeful resource. During the years 1670-1689 her literary

output extended into many other fields and shows continuous work at

high pressure. Not only was she one of the chief assets of the Duke's

Theater as a playwright, but she also translated French verse and

prose; she wrote numerous occasional poems; she edited miscellanies;

and she wrote novels. Her comedies had a most flattering contemporary

vogue and some of them maintained their popularity well into the

next century. She satisfied the taste of the day for rapid, bustling

plots, with many and varied characters, and her intrigues were

cleverly manipulated, while she surpassed most of her contemporaries

in vivacious, easy, rapid dialogue. She is never dull or insipid. Her

plays show that she had a vigorous mind, an overflow of spirits, a

reckless mental energy. There is apparent a sense of power conscious

of itself and careless of precedents or restrictions. In defiance of

Ben Jonson, Dryden, and Shadwell she spoke contemptuously of "the

musty unities." The material for her plays she took wherever she

found it, from preceding plays, from romances, from real life, used

it, made it over, and often so improved it that she could justifiably

laugh at charges of plagiarism. One charge she could not evade

and that had to do with the immorality of her writings. Dryden,

Shadwell, Wycherley, and Etherege, and the audiences who applauded

their plays, seemed to find the _vis comica_ in an open indecency

of character, situation, and conversation that is to-day almost

unbelievable. And of Mrs. Behn it must be admitted that she vied with

the most corrupt. She said, in extenuation, as Dryden also said in

answer to Jeremy Collier's strictures, that she wrote to please. She

did not consider comedy "a reforming or converting agent," it was

meant to be "an entertainment." Her emphasis on the vicious elements

of the life about her was a clear case of supply and demand, but it

had an unhappy personal result. There early gathered about her name

a hostile tradition based on the fact that she was not only a woman

writer, but an eminently successful woman writer, and on the further

fact that, being a woman, she had not the modest reserve for which

the chaste Orinda was idolized, but presented debaucheries in the

bold and open manner characteristic of contemporary male playwrights.

This hostile tradition, crystallized by Pope in a witty couplet,[191]

became a commonplace of adverse criticism, and Astræa's undeniable

talents have sunk into oblivion. A general revival of Mrs. Behn's

comedies would be impossible, undesirable, but by the student of

social and political history in the Restoration period they cannot be

ignored.

[Illustration: MRS. APHRA BEHN

From a picture by Mary Beale in the collection of his Grace the Duke

of Buckingham. Drawn by T. Uwins. Engraved by J. Fittler, A.R.A. From

an engraving in _Effigies Poeticae_, London, 1824, Vol. II]

Mrs. Behn's novels are now as little known as her plays, but in her

own day were very popular. _Oroonoko_, the first and by far the

best, was based on her life in Surinam. At a time when French heroic

romances, with their high-flown adventures, unreal characters, and

stilted dialogue, were the only works of fiction, Mrs. Behn's short,

simple, vigorous, and affecting story of real life comes with a

startling sense of novelty.[192] The vivid portrayal of the cruelties

incident to the slave trade, though probably written without didactic

intent, gives the story a modern humanitarian note not unprophetic of

_Uncle Tom's Cabin_. And the description of the Indian Prince as

the ideal natural man, his innate virtues in their pristine purity

unvitiated by civilization, foreshadows the theories of Rousseau.

The descriptions of nature, however exaggerated, are vivid and

attractive, and show a delight in scenic detail not found again in

fiction before Mrs. Collyer in 1730. Thus in four ways, choice of

real life as a theme, interest in scenery, emphasis on the natural

man, and on humanitarianism, Mrs. Behn's little story links itself

with the novel of the future rather than with the romances of the

past. In the plays Mrs. Behn showed exceptional ability in a realm in

which women have seldom excelled. In her novels she marked out a path

where women have gained marked literary success.

In one other way she is an important, outstanding figure. She was

the first woman in England who made authorship a profession, the

first one who definitely set out to earn her living by her pen. It

is unfortunate that the first literary lady to achieve "economic

independence" should likewise be the first whose writings were

notably immoral. But it is a law of human nature that an unaccustomed

freedom seldom contents itself in its early exercise of power with

destroying merely the unjust bonds by which it has been confined.

Freedom is likely to begin by being license. And when Aphra Behn

so far defied convention as to compete with men as a playwright on

the public stage, when she openly criticized her contemporaries and

boasted that her comedies did not fall below most that she read, she

had so set herself apart in an unfeminine realm that prudishness and

decency fell together. Psychologically the actress and the writer of

comedies seem to have gone through similar experiences.

[Sidenote: Plays between 1696 and 1706]

Mrs. Behn had no feminine contemporary rivals, but later in the

century a number of women attempted to write for the stage. In

Genest's record for Drury Lane and Lincoln's Inn Fields seven plays

by six women are listed in 1696. In the ensuing ten years at least

eighteen more plays by women appeared. This exceptional activity

did not pass without satiric comment. In 1697 "W. M.'s" _Female

Wits_,[193] with its attack on Miss Trotter, Mrs. Manley, and

Mrs. Pix, was acted six times without intermission, a run showing

exceptional popularity. In 1702 the hostility of the wits towards

women playwrights was again voiced in Gildon's _The Two Stages_.[194]

Genest says that about this time "prejudice against females rose

so high that Mrs. Centlivre in _Stolen Heiress_ and Mrs. Pix in

_Conquest of Spain_ spoke of their plays as if by men."[195] The

authors of these twenty-five plays were Miss Trotter, Mrs. Pix, Mrs.

Manley, Mrs. Centlivre, Mrs. Wiseman, "A Lady," "A Young Lady," "A

Lady of Quality," and "A Club of Ladies." Fourteen of the plays

were tragedies, the best one being, probably, Miss Trotter's _Fatal

Friendship_, almost the only one of the fourteen that survived on

the stage after its initial season. The writers of comedy were more

successful.

Few of these authors need particular notice. Miss Trotter's work

has already been discussed.[196] Mrs. Manley's three plays appeared

at ten-year intervals, 1696, 1706, 1717. They were unsuccessful on

the stage and they have no qualities that would claim the reader's

attention. It is in fiction, not in drama, that Mrs. Manley gained

her reputation.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Pix (1666-1720?)]

Mrs. Pix, daughter of the Reverend Roger Griffith, Vicar of

Nettlested in Oxfordshire, and wife of George Pix, a merchant tailor

of London, was thirty when she brought out her first play. During

the ensuing ten years she put on the stage five tragedies, one

comedy, and possibly other plays not under her name. Her tragedies,

though written in blank verse, yet belong to the heroic _genre_,

and their chief interest lies in the fact that they represent that

_genre_ in its dying throes. In Mrs. Pix's tragedies the heroic

play of Dryden's day could look upon its enfeebled and distorted

image. We have the war background, the remoteness of time and place,

the historical source with free alterations of persons and events,

that mark the heroic drama. The type characters are the same. The

heroine is unapproachable in beauty, unassailable in virtue. The

hero, godlike in personal prowess, the idol of the army, framed by

nature to be the darling joy of womankind, cares for glory only that

he may lay it at the feet of his beloved. Blest by her he will leave

unenvied monarchs to "fight for this Dunghil Earth." This noble pair,

joined by indissoluble vows or by a secret marriage, are subjected

by the plot to the machinations of the beautiful wicked woman in

whose heart has sprung into being a passion for the hero, and to the

arrogant demands of the tyrant who claims the heroine as his prey.

The result is disaster and the last act is a holocaust. Fights,

murders, and suicides carry off all the important _dramatis personæ_.

Disguises, mistaken identity, the ravings of sudden madness, ghosts,

and secret documents, determine the events of the play. Passion is

torn into exclamatory tatters from the first scene to the last. We

have rant and bluster and tortured similes, until taste, good sense,

and correct English suffer the same fate as the chief characters.

The description of Mrs. Pix as "a fat female author," appropriately

called "Mrs. Wellfed," would prepare us for something more placid

than the chaos into which she leads us.

The one possible explanation of Mrs. Pix's acceptance year after

year by the audiences of Drury Lane and Lincoln's Inn Fields is that

the business of her plays never lags. They are short, full of action

and surprising turns. An event is never delayed by a disquisition.

They also gave excellent opportunity for scenic effects of palaces,

prisons, and camps.

[Sidenote: Susanna Freeman, Mrs. Centlivre (1680?-1723)]

The only woman writer of plays of real importance in this period is

Susanna Centlivre.[197] She was the daughter of a Mr. Freeman of

Holbeach, Lincolnshire. He is said to have had a considerable estate

at the time of the Restoration, but being a zealous dissenter, he was

persecuted, his estates were confiscated, and he was obliged to seek

refuge in Ireland, where Susanna was born. Her early life is involved

in obscurity, but there cling to her name biographical details of

a picturesque and romantic sort, though of rather questionable

authenticity. Left an orphan at nine and subjected to the ill-usage

of a stepmother, the child, at twelve, finally escapes and makes her

way to London which she enters penniless, innocent, beautiful. She

is rescued by a Cambridge student, a Mr. Hammond, and disguised as

a boy she accompanies him to the University. Later she marries the

nephew of Stephen Fox, but is left a widow before she is sixteen. A

second marriage to a Mr. Carroll results in a second widowhood before

she is eighteen. At twenty her first tragedy is played at Drury Lane.

She appears soon after this as an actress in country theaters. Mrs.

Behn and Mrs. Haywood could ask no richer material for an adventure

novel. Then suddenly the scene changes. The buffeted Susanna marries

Mr. Centlivre, Queen Anne's chief pastry-cook, and settles down into

a comfortable, orderly, and apparently happy domestic life, of which,

however, we know in reality even less than of her early kaleidoscopic

career.[198] The events of her life are the presentation and

publication of her plays.

Before her marriage in 1706 she had begun the series of comedies of

which, between 1703 and 1722, she wrote seventeen. They were all

successful, and four of them, _The Gamester_ (1705), _The Busy Body_

(1709), _The Wonder: A Woman Keeps a Secret_ (1714), and _A Bold

Stroke for a Wife_ (1718), held a fairly prominent place on the stage

through the century.

In 1761 there was published a fine edition of her works in three

volumes. There is a preliminary address "To the World" in which an

anonymous woman endeavors to do justice to "The Manes of the never

to be forgotten Mrs. Centlivre." She thus recounts the difficulties

Mrs. Centlivre encountered as a female author:

She was even ashamed to proclaim her own great Genius, probably

because the Custom of the Times discountenanced poetical

Excellence in a Female. The Gentlemen of the Quill published it

not, perhaps envying her superior Talents; and her Bookseller,

complying with national Prejudices, put a fictitious Name to her

Love's Contrivance, thro' Fear that the Work shou'd be condemned

if known to be Feminine. With modest Diffidence she sent her

Performances, like Orphans, into the World, without so much as a

Nobleman to protect them; but they did not need to be supported

by Interest, they were admired as soon as known, their real

Standard, Merit, brought crowding Spectators to the playhouses,

and the female Author, tho' unknown, heard Applauses, such as

have since been heaped on that great Author and Actor _Colley

Cibber_.

Her play of the Busy Body, when known to be the Work of a Woman

scarce defray'd the Expences of the First Night. The thin

audience were pleased, and caused a full House the Second; the

Third was crowded, and so on to the Thirteenth, when it was

stopt, on account of the advanced Season; but the following

Winter it appear'd again with Applause, and for Six Nights

successively, was acted by rival Players, both at _Drury

Lane_ and at the _Hay-Market_ Houses. See here the Effects of

Prejudice, a Woman who did Honour to the Nation, suffer'd because

she was a Woman. Are these things fit and becoming a free-born

People, who call themselves polite and civilized! Hold! let my

Pen stop, and not reproach the present Age for the Sins of their

Fathers....

A Poet is born so, not made by Rules; and is there not an equal

Chance that the Poetical Birth should be female as well as

male?... I could wish that some young Ladies of my Acquaintance,

now in Boarding Schools, had classical Education, which would

improve their Minds, furnish them with a more general Knowledge,

and of course better fit them for Conversation, and the

Management of Business.

The author of "To the World" finds great satisfaction in the union

of Mrs. Lennox with "Lord Corke and Mr. Samuel Johnson" in the

translation of _Brumoy's Greek Theatre_.

This convinces me [she says] that not only that barbarous Custom

of denying Women to have Souls, begins to be rejected as foolish

and absurd, but also that foolish Assertion, that Female Minds

are not capable of producing literary Works, equal even to those

of _Pope_, now loses Ground, and probably the next Age may be

taught by our pens that our Geniuses have been hitherto cramped

and smothered, but not extinguished, and that the Sovereignty

which the male Part of the Creation have, until now usurped over

us, is unreasonably arbitrary: And, further, that our natural

Abilities entitle us to a larger Share, not only in Literary

Decisions, but that, with the present Directors, we are equally

entitled to Power both in Church and State....

In 1764 Baker, in _Biographia Dramatica_, gave an account of Mrs.

Centlivre's work, and most eighteenth-century dramatic collections

included plays by her. In 1776 _The New English Theatre_, which

professed to assemble "the most Valuable Plays which have been Acted

on the London Stage," published _The Busy Body_, _A Bold Stroke for

a Wife_, and _The Wonder_. Her plays were included by John Bell

in various collections from 1776 to 1792. Mrs. Inchbald, in her

_British Theatre_ (1808), and Oxberry, in _The New English Drama_,

1818-1824, carried the publication of her plays into the nineteenth

century. Such brief notices as occur are highly laudatory. Mr. Baker

says: "In a word we cannot help giving it as our opinion, that if

we do not allow her to be the very first of our female writers for

the stage, she has but one above her, and may justly be placed next

to her predecessor in dramatic glory, the great Mrs. Behn." Nearly

half a century later Mrs. Inchbald gave even stronger praise when

she said that Mrs. Centlivre "ranks in the first class of our comic

dramatists." Of the _Busy Body_ Mrs. Inchbald said: "This comedy is

by far her best work. In excellence of fable, strength of character,

and intricacy of occurrences, it forms one of the most entertaining

exhibitions the theatre can boast." Of _The Wonder_ she wrote:

"Garrick thought Don Felix worthy his most powerful exertions, in

describing the passion of jealousy; and his character was upon the

lists with the favorite parts he performed.... Mrs. Centlivre has

somewhere said 'the Muses, like most females, are least liberal

to their own sex.' She was ungrateful if she did not acknowledge

her obligation to them in the composition of this work; for they

presided with no niggardly influence over the whole production."

Modern study of Mrs. Centlivre's work has taken a surprising turn. It

has to do entirely with _Quellen_ and _Verhältnisse_. In 1900-1905

there were seven German dissertations dealing with the sources of her

plays.[199]

The impulse to play-writing seems to have expended itself with Mrs.

Centlivre. Hannah Cowley's popular _Belle's Stratagem_ (1782) is

the only other play of even moderate importance through the rest of

the century. The situation with regard to play-writing is rather

curious. Virtuous ladies were at liberty to write tragedies because

tragedies were supposed to be moral and elevating. But unfortunately

none of these ladies succeeded in tragedy. On the other hand, ladies

who were not virtuous wrote comedies and were eminently successful.

The realm between tragedy and comedy, the sentimental comedy, in its

combination of didacticism and morality with social studies from

middle-class life and the opportunity for rapid intrigue, might have

seemed the very medium in which women could most advantageously work.

But the successful sentimental comedies from _The Conscious Lovers_

to _False Delicacy_ were written by men playwrights.

GENERAL LEARNING AND LITERARY WORK

Besides the women whose work was sufficiently specialized to be

grouped under particular subjects or species there were many women

to whom learning was itself an avocation with no thought of any

literary outcome, and there were many more whose interests were in

the general field of _belles-lettres_ and who wrote either in verse

or in prose, and on such varied themes as the occasion might suggest.

Since no effective principle of classification suggests itself in

connection with these writers, it will probably be in the interests

of clearness to discuss them in an order as nearly chronological as

may be.

[Sidenote: Joan Philips (fl. 1679)]

An early, almost unknown, little volume of poems, published in 1679

under the title, _Female Poems on Several Occasions. Written by

Ephelia_, is the work of Joan Philips whose portrait accompanies the

poems. Such of Miss Philips's poems as can be dated belong but a year

or two before the publication of the book. She apparently had some

rather close connection with court circles. Her little volume is

dedicated to the "Most Excellent Princess Mary, Dutchess of Richmond

and Lennox"; she sends a congratulatory poem to Charles II on the

discovery of the Popish Plot; and she writes an elegy on Archbishop

Sheldon.

Her poems are not, however, usually concerned with court and state.

The "Several Occasions" calling forth her verse are chiefly amatory

or friendly. Her love-poems are highly personal. From poem to poem

the lady pursues the uneven and finally disastrous course of her love

for "Strephon," sometimes less poetically addressed as "F. G." From

"Love's First Approach" to Strephon's final decisive nuptials with

a wealthier Fair One the hopes and despairs of Ephelia are spread

before us. She can find no surcease from sorrow. Books fail her as

a resource, and her pen proves as recalcitrant as that of the White

King in Looking Glass Land.

Sometimes with Books I would divert my mind,

But nothing there but F's and G's I find.

Sometimes to ease my Grief, my Pen I take

But it no letters but F. G. will make.

Miss Philips's friendship poems, in their addresses to "the honoured

Eugenia," "the beauteous Marinda," to "Damon," and to "Phylocles

inviting him to friendship" show how definitely Ephelia formed

herself on the model of the great Orinda whom she praises as having

reached the summit of excellence.

Miss Philips also wrote in awe-struck admiration of "Madam _Behn_"

whose "strenuous polite lines" seemed to her a union of "Strong and

Sweet" such as might be envied by the wittiest men. And she followed

in the footsteps of Mrs. Behn to the extent of writing one comedy,

_The Pair-Royal of Coxcombs_ which had the humble success of being

acted at a dancing-school. The deprecatory Prologue and Epilogue were

included in her poems together with some of the love-songs in the

play.

Ephelia seems to spread her life before us, but as a personage in

the real world she escapes us. She and Strephon have faded into

obscurity. She is contemporary in comedy with Mrs. Behn. Had they

some literary comradeship? But twelve years separate the published

work of Joan Philips from that of Mrs. Katherine Philips. Were

the two poetesses perhaps related? Lady Winchilsea was eighteen

when the volume by Ephelia appeared. About fifteen years later we

find Lady Winchilsea as "Ardealia" writing on Friendship to one

"Ephelia." Could it possibly be this Ephelia? Did Ephelia publish

the poems herself with her own portrait as frontispiece? If so she

was strangely lacking in the reserve characteristic of Orinda and

Ardelia. But even with no biographical data whereby to substantiate

or correct the poems, the thin little volume holds its place of

interest because of its early date and because of the literary

ambitions it indicates.

[Sidenote: Anne Killigrew (1660-1685)]

Anne Killigrew came of a family prominent in the court of Charles

II. Her uncle Thomas, the "court wit," was given a patent for the

Theater Royal; her uncle Henry was admiral under James, Duke of York;

her father was chaplain to James and Master of the Savoy; and Anne

was maid of honor to Mary of Modena. She was born in St. Martin's

Lane and died at her father's lodgings within the Cloisters of

Westminster. London and the court were her habitat. Ballard says she

had "a polite education," but no details are given. She apparently

was taught the accomplishments counted necessary for a girl in her

social position. That she went beyond mediocrity in painting we

have already seen.[200] In poetry, also, according to Dryden, she

excelled. The thin volume of her published verse (1686) scarcely

justifies his eulogy, but Wood, in _Athenæ Oxoniensis_, says that

Dryden in no way exceeds the truth. Her poems sent anonymously from

hand to hand received high praise and were even at first attributed

to the best poets of the age. They gradually came to be known as

hers, but she gives no evidence of having suffered any contumely

as a poetess. She has nowhere any complaint of undue or irritating

feminine limitations. She is pessimistic, scornful, rather hard and

drastic, in her judgments, but it is greed for gold, ambition for

place or power, unbridled love, atheism, war, that are the subjects

of her invective. There is not a light or playful, or even a happy,

touch in her poems. They have a crude virility, what Dryden calls a

"noble vigour," and a contemptuous outlook on "the truly wretched

Human Race."

Personally Miss Killigrew must have been attractive. Her epitaph

eulogizes her as a daughter and a sister:

In a numerous race

And vertuous, the highest place

None envy'd her: sisters, brothers,

Her admirers were and lovers:

She was to all s' obliging sweet,

All in one love to her did meet.

And she was an acknowledged favorite at court, especially with her

royal master and mistress. Dryden emphasizes her beauty and charm.

The portrait she painted of herself shows her in no sense averse to

pomps and vanities of attire.[201] In actual life she must have moved

along in fairly smooth accord with the life about her, but there

could have been few ladies within the circle of the court more alien

to it in spirit than Anne Killigrew. It is difficult to place her

mentally amid the gayeties of London life. She presents an anomaly.

To be young, beautiful, gifted, high in social opportunities,

praised and loved, and yet to look out upon life with bitterness

and distaste, to be conscious at twenty-five that all this world

has to offer will turn to dust and ashes in the mouth--such is the

curious combination we find in her. While the few accessible details

concerning her indicate a considerable degree of lovableness, her

poems are those of an implacable moral censor.

Anne Killigrew was but four when Mrs. Philips died, but the spell of

the "Matchless Orinda" descended early upon her, and she gives one of

the earliest of the many eulogies written by women concerning their

distinguished ancestor among British Muses.

Orinda (Albion, and her sex's grace)

Ow'd not her glory to a beauteous face:

It was her radiant soul that shone within,

Which struck a lustre thro' her outward skin;

That did her lips and cheeks with roses dye,

Advanc'd her height, and sparkled in her eye.

Nor did her sex at all obstruct her fame.

But high'r 'mongst the stars it fixt her name;

What she did write, not only all allow'd,

But ev'ry laurel, to her laurel bow'd!

[Sidenote: Mrs. Evelyn (1635-1709) and Mary Evelyn (1665-85)]

John Evelyn's flattering letter to the Duchess of Newcastle,

already quoted, with its list of learned women, his suggestion to

Lord Cornbury that he add two ladies to his gallery of notables,

the trouble he took to conduct a party of ladies to see the girls'

"colleges" at Hackney, and various references in _Numismata_ (1697)

indicate a genuine interest in the intellectual achievements of

women. Mrs. Evelyn seems at first to have been of a different temper.

She wrote as follows to her son's tutor, Mr. Bohun, in 1672:

Women were not borne to reade authors, and censure the learned,

to compare lives and judge of virtues, to give rules of morality,

and sacrifice to the Muses. We are willing to acknowledge all

time borrowed from family duties misspent; the care of children's

education, observing a husband's commands, assisting the sick,

relieving the poore, and being serviceable to our friends, are of

sufficient weight to employ the most improved capacities amongst

us. If sometimes it happens by accident that one of a thousand

aspires a little higher, her fate commonly exposes her to wonder,

but adds little to esteeme. The distaffe will defend our quarrels

as well as the sword, and the needle is as instructive as the

penne. A heroine is a kind of prodigy: the influence of a blazing

starre is not more dangerous, or more avoyded. Though I have

lived under the roofe of the learned, and in the neighborhood of

science, it has had no other effect on a temper like mine, but

that of admiration.

But these very letters, in which Mrs. Evelyn disclaims learning,

would be a capital point in refutation of Macaulay's charge of

general feminine illiteracy. In subject-matter, in style, and in the

mechanics of writing they show a development not unworthy of that

"roofe of the learned" under which she dwelt. At the time Mrs. Evelyn

wrote the letter just quoted her daughter Mary was but six years old,

but her literary and artistic tastes must have soon become manifest,

for when she died of small-pox at nineteen she was an accomplished

young woman, on the road, apparently, to be the dangerous "blazing

starre" her mother decried, and her training must have been going on

for ten or twelve years in the home with the active connivance of her

parents. Her father was exceedingly proud, not only of her excellence

in dancing and music, but especially, it would seem, of her passion

for books. She had, he said, "read abundance of history, and all

the best poets, even Terence, Plautus, Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid;

all the best romances and modern poems." After her death they found

among her papers a commonplace book in which she had entered "an

incredible number of selections from historians, poets, travellers."

Her piety and her impulse towards expression were both shown in the

many "resolutions, contemplations, prayers and devotions" she left

in written form. Of the extent to which both Mrs. Evelyn and her

daughter carried their work in painting and enamel I have already

spoken.[202]

The Evelyn household may stand doubtless as one of many where,

without any tinge of pedantry or any especial outward manifestations

of learning, there was yet a natural interest in arts and letters, an

interest shared, in quite a simple, normal way by all the members of

the family.

[Sidenote: The Honorable Miss Dudleya North (1675-1712)]

The Honorable Miss Dudleya North was a niece of the Honorable Roger

North, and it is through the memorable _Lives of the Norths_ that

we come upon an account of her life. Dudleya and her two younger

brothers were brought up together. She learned the same lessons and

read the same books as her brothers, and joined in their amusements.

When they went to the University, she carried on her studies at

home and she became one of the most highly cultured and learned

women of her time. After she had conquered Greek and Latin she

advanced to Hebrew, and finally, "by a long and severe course of

study," she gained "a competent knowledge in the whole circle of

Oriental learning." Her uncle Roger laconically described her life as

follows: "The eldest sister, Catharine, died ... and the youngest,

named Dudleya, having emaciated herself with study whereby she had

made familiar to her, not only Greek and Latin, but the Oriental

languages, under the infliction of a sedentery distemper, died also."

The fine collection of Oriental books left by Miss North was given

by her brother, Lord North and Grey, to the parochial library at

Rougham in Norfolk. Her uncle wrote: "I have had a design to build a

parochial library at Rougham, and now shall finish it this summer,

and placing my niece's books there, entitle the Catalogue _Ex dono_,

etc., _e libris eruditissimæ virginis_, etc., which will be a

monument more lasting than marble."[203]

[Sidenote: Anne Lee, Lady Wharton (1632?-1685)]

Anne Lee, the daughter and co-heiress of Sir Henry Lee, married in

1673 Thomas Wharton, whose chief interest in her was based on the

large dowry she brought him. The unhappiness of her married life

received some alleviation from the wise and steadfast friendship of

Dr. Gilbert Burnet. In 1680-81, she was in France for her health

and during this time she corresponded regularly with Dr. Burnet.

He addressed to her various poems with titles such as _The Secrets

of Friendship_, _Friendship's Mysteries_, _Pure Love_, and _Love's

Magnetism_. She wrote a tragedy in blank verse on the love of Ovid

for Julia, a number of Scripture paraphrases, and some occasional

poems.[204] Some of these poems drew approving verses from Dryden in

his _Eleonora_, a panegyrical poem on the death of Mrs. Wharton's

elder sister, Lady Abingdon, in 1691, and from Waller, who, in his

old age, was still equal to flattering a new "Chloris," under which

name he celebrated her learning and her poetry.

[Sidenote: Ann Baynard (1672-1697)]

Ann Baynard had a natural propensity to learning and her father Dr.

Edward Baynard, Fellow of the College of Physicians, London, gave her

a very liberal education. Dr. Prude[205] says of her:

As for learning, whether it be to know and understand natural

causes and events, to know the courses of the sun, moon, and

stars; the qualities of herbs and plants; to be acquainted with

the demonstrable verities of the mathematicks; the study of

philosophy; the writings of the antients; and that in their own

proper language, without the help of an interpreter: These and

the like are the most noble accomplishments of the human mind,

and accordingly do bring great delight and satisfaction along

with them, these things she was not only conversant in, but

mistress of, and that to such a degree, that very few of her sex

did ever arrive at. She had from her infancy been trained up in

the knowledge of these things, and had made a great progress

therein; and even in her green years, at the age of 23, was

arrived to the knowledge of a bearded philosopher.[206]

She was a "nervous and subtle disputant" in the "hard and knotty

arguments of metaphysical learning." She was always coveting more

knowledge, saying that it was a sin to be contented with but a

little. She was exceedingly religious and learning was to her but a

handmaid of piety. Her last words were a recommendation to women to

study philosophy and the great book of nature which would give them

a sound basis for wisdom in practical life. Women, she said, are

capable of such study, and could accomplish much if they would "spend

of that time in study and thinking, which they do in visits, vanity

and folly." Mr. Collier, in the _Great Historical Dictionary_, says

of her that it is doubtful whether the first Ralph Baynard, who for

his conduct at the battle of Hastings was rewarded with eighty-five

lordships, did more honor to the name of Baynard or the last Anne.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Alicia D'Anvers (fl. 1691)]

_Academia: or the Humours of the University of Oxford in burlesque

verse_ is a thin quarto by Mrs. Alicia D'Anvers. It was printed in

May, 1691, and again with a fuller descriptive title in June of the

same year. The poem is an account given to his fellow-servants by

John who has recently visited Oxford. Mrs. D'Anvers puts herself

in John's place. She uses his crude and even rough language, she

gives his point of view, and relishes the misconceptions due to

his ignorance. Heavy and clumsy as the poem is there is something

refreshing and original in its tone. As an attempted realistic

portrayal of a servant's experiences it stands quite by itself,

except in comedies, in the decades before the novel widened human

interests. Mrs. D'Anvers is neither patronizing nor didactic.

She simply finds genuine humor and entertainment in the comic

juxtaposition of John's mind and the ancient customs and glories of

Oxford.

[Sidenote: Lady Chudleigh (1656-1710)]

Lady Chudleigh[207] was a lady of much repute in the eighteenth

century for her writings in both prose and verse. Her _Poems_ were

published in 1703 and her _Essays_ in 1710, but her chief literary

activities belong in the late seventeenth century. Her _Essays_ are

disquisitions on Pride, Humility, Self-love, Friendship, Death,

Anger, Avarice, Solitude, and kindred themes. Mr. Ballard says of

them: "They appear to be, not the excursions of a lively imagination

... so much as the deliberate results of a long exercise in the

world, improv'd with reading, regulated with judgment; softened by

good breeding, and heightened with sprightly thoughts and elevated

piety." Her prose style is fluent, energetic, and, for the most part,

correct. In her Preface to her _Song of Three Children Paraphrased_

she makes several points that indicate mental independence. In the

height of the dominance of the heroic couplet she chooses Pindaric

verse because she does not wish to be tied up to the rules of the

couplet, and because she desires to give her fancy greater scope.

She begs pardon for introducing into her poem ideas "not generally

received," such as Dr. Burnet's conception of the "Ante-diluvian

Earth as Smooth, regular, and uniform; without Mountains or Hills."

Concerning her poetic use of the doctrine of preëxistence she says,

"To me 't is indifferent which is true, as long as I know I am by

the Laws of Poetry allow'd the Liberty of chusing that which will

sound most gracefully in Verse." In regard to the stars she adopts

"the Cartesian Hypothesis" because it makes the universe "appear

infinitely larger, fuller, more magnificent." Her imagination is

as genuinely excited as was Tennyson's by her conception of the

"boundless Spaces" of the heavens and the splendor of the "huge

Globes which roll over our Heads." She believes also in a millennial

existence on "a new habitable earth." The poem itself is an unbroken

ecstasy ninety long stanzas in duration, and becomes undeniably

wearisome. But the woman who could spend months in a lonely country

place absorbed in such religious and scientific reflections, who

could maintain for so long a time so rapt and energetic a mental

attitude towards abstract subjects, was far enough removed from the

traditional _hausfrau_.

Though Lady Chudleigh rejoices in these learned topics she modestly

disclaims any accurate knowledge. "But 't is not reasonable to

expect that a Woman should be nicely skill'd in Physics: We are kept

Strangers to all ingenious and useful Studies, and can have but a

slight and superficial Knowledge of things." Two poems, _Resolution_

and _To Mr. Dryden on his excellent Translation of Virgil_, give

evidence of Lady Chudleigh's wide reading in poetry, history, drama,

and divinity. Her literary dicta are of little value, for they do

hardly more than echo the judgments of the day. According to her it

was the poet Waller who, coming after the "transient Glimm'rings of

Chaucer" and the "Lunar Beams of Spenser," announced the dawn of

a new Morn, and with Dryden came "The Triumphs of refulgent Day."

Taken as a whole the poems bitterly inveigh against life with its

blighting sorrows, its fleeting, unreal joys, its injustice, its

black despairs. The only break in the gloom comes in short periods of

absorption in books, or in occasional religious ecstasies.

The first poem by which Lady Chudleigh became known is _The

Ladies' Defence_: a sudden, angry outburst caused by a sermon on

_Conjugal Duty_ by a Mr. Sprint, a nonconformist in Sherbourn,

Dorsetshire.[208] The personal animus in a little poem _To the

Ladies_ warning them against marriage, apparently grew out of her own

matrimonial infelicities. And _The Ladies' Defence_ has the same ring

of indignant sincerity. The poem is in the form of a conversation

between the parson who preached the sermon; Sir William Loveall, who,

out of the ignorance of his unmarried state, endeavors to reconcile

the warring parties; Marissa, Lady Chudleigh herself; and Sir John

Brute, who thanks the parson for preaching against "those Terrors of

our Lives, those worst of Plagues, those Furies call'd our Wives."

The parson replies:

Not led by Passion, but by Zeal inspir'd,

I've told the Women what's of them requir'd:

Taught them their Husbands to Obey and Please,

And to their Humours sacrifice their Ease:

Give up their Reason, and their Wills resign,

And ev'ry look, and ev'ry thought confine.

Sure, this Detraction you can't justly call?

'T is kindly meant, and 't is address'd to All.

* * * * *

If you wou'd live as it becomes a Wife,

And raise the Honour of a marry'd Life,

You must the useful Art of wheedling try,

And with his various Humours still comply;

* * * * *

Whate'er he is, you still must think him best,

And boast to all that you are truly blest;

* * * * *

Also, to him you inward Reverence owe;

If he's a Fool, you must not think him so;

Nor yet indulge one mean contemptuous Thought,

Or fancy he can e'er commit a Fault.

Nor must your Deference be alone confin'd

Unto the hid Recesses of your Mind,

But must in all your Actions be display'd,

And visible to each Spectator made.[209]

After this sarcastic summary of Mr. Sprint's irritating sermon Lady

Chudleigh in the person of Marissa, depicts the general condition of

women and her own loftier ambitions:

'T is hard we should be by the Men despis'd

Yet kept from knowing what would make us priz'd.

Debarr'd from Knowledge, banish'd from the Schools,

And with the utmost Industry bred Fools.

Laugh'd out of Reason, jested out of Sense,

And nothing left but Native Innocence:

* * * * *

Or that my Sex would all such Toys despise;

And only study to be Good, and Wise:

* * * * *

Instead of Novels, Histories peruse,

And for their Guides the wise Ancients chuse,

Thro' all the Labyrinths of Learning go,

And grow more humble as they more do know.

* * * * *

Beauty's a Trifle merits not my Care.

I'd rather Æsop's ugly Visage wear,

Joyn'd with his Mind, than be a Fool, and Fair.

* * * * *

But spite of you, we'll to ourselves be kind:

Your censures slight, your little Tricks despise,

And make it our whole business to be wise.

The mean low trivial Cares of Life disdain,

And read and Think, and Think and read again,

And on our Minds bestow the utmost Pain.

[Sidenote: Anne Kingsmill, Lady Winchilsea (1661-1720)]

One of the important women of letters in the late seventeenth century

was Anne Kingsmill.[210] Of her early life we have no definite

details. That it was a gay and happy life may be inferred from one

of her retrospective poems in which she says that in her youth

"Pleasure's tempting Air" blew soft about her, and that she dedicated

her "Prime" to "vain Amusements." Later she coveted a place at court

which to her ambitious eye seemed "Paradice below." At what time this

desire was realized we have no record, but in 1683 we find her listed

as one of the maids of honor to Mary of Modena. Miss Strickland says

that Anne Killigrew and Anne Kingsmill were "ladies of irreproachable

virtue, members of the Church of England, and alike distinguished

for moral worth and literary achievements," and she adds that Anne

Kingsmill was "well-known as the beautiful and witty maid of honour."

In 1684 Anne married Mr. Finch, gentleman of the bedchamber to

the Duke of York. At the coming of William and Mary, Mr. and Mrs.

Finch went to the family place at Eastwell Park where they spent

the rest of their uneventful lives in a retirement, embittered at

first, doubtless, by their grief over Stuart disasters, but, as

the years passed, rendered more and more delightful by the joys of

country life, of books, and of friends. Mrs. Finch's best poems are

those inspired by Eastwell and its associations. The Elizabethan

house at Eastwell was set in a park of old yew trees and majestic

beeches, forming "the very ideal of an ancestral park of the ancient

noblesse," and it was by the extraordinary dignity and beauty of this

park that Mrs. Finch's most imaginative work was inspired. Within

doors the gathering of antiquities, the illuminating of books,

the formation of a great library, and free literary productivity

were the family interests. There were also many and close ties of

friendship founded on natural causes of union such as loyalty to the

Stuarts, devotion to the Church of England, high and even austere

ideals of life. And family ties and ties of friendship received

ardent acknowledgment. No woman of this period was more happily

circumstanced in her home for the unhampered pursuit of literary

tastes than was Lady Winchilsea. She began to write when she was a

maid of honor, but it was with a nervous sense of the ridicule that

would probably follow any disclosure of that fact. But at Eastwell

the case was different. There are charming pictures of evening

sessions when the authoress presented her work to an enthusiastic

circle. A scribe entered her writings in a fair and clerkly hand in a

majestic folio. With such encouragement the lady kept sedulously and

joyfully to her task. And when her husband's accession to the title

gave her a new position of dignity and authority she even ventured,

in 1713,[211] to publish a selection from her verse, first under the

pseudonym "Ardelia," and then, in a later impression, with her full

name and title.