Learning, if she has a real taste for it, will not only make

her contented, but happy in it. No entertainment is so cheap

as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. She will not want new

fashions, nor regret the loss of expensive diversions, or variety

of company, if she can be amused with an author in her closet.

To render this amusement extensive, she should be permitted to

learn the languages. I have heard it lamented that boys lose so

many years in mere learning of words: this is no objection to a

girl, whose time is not so precious: she cannot advance herself

in any profession, and has therefore more hours to spare; and as

you say her memory is good, she will be very agreeably employed

in this way. There are two cautions to be given on this subject:

first, not to think herself learned when she can read Latin, or

even Greek. Languages are more properly to be called vehicles

of learning than learning itself, as may be observed in many

schoolmasters, who, though perhaps critics in grammar, are the

most ignorant fellows on earth. True knowledge consists in

knowing things, not words. I would wish her no further a linguist

than to enable her to read books in their originals, that are

often corrupted, and always injured by translations. Two hours

application every morning will bring this about much sooner than

you can imagine, and she will have leisure enough besides to run

over the English poetry, which is a more important part of a

woman's education than it is generally supposed.... If she has

the same inclination (I should say passion) for learning that I

was born with, history, geography, and philosophy will furnish

her with materials to pass away cheerfully a longer life than is

allotted to mortals. I believe there are few heads capable of

making Sir I. Newton's calculations, but the result of them is

not difficult to be understood by a moderate capacity. Do not

fear this should make her affect the character of Lady ----,

of Lady ----, or Mrs. ----: These women are ridiculous, not

because they have learning, but because they have it not. One

thinks herself a complete historian, after reading Echard's Roman

History; another a profound philosopher, having got by heart some

of Pope's unintelligible essays; and a third an able divine, on

the strength of Whitfield's sermons: thus you hear them screaming

politics and controversy.[297]

In the next letter Lady Mary shows some doubt as to the wisdom of

giving advice so outspoken on the subject of learning. She says:

I cannot help writing a sort of apology for my last letter,

foreseeing that you will think it wrong, or at least Lord Bute

will be extremely shocked at the proposal of a learned education

for daughters, which the generality of men believe as great a

profanation as the clergy would do if the laity should presume to

exercise the functions of the priesthood. I desire you would take

notice, I would not have learning enjoined them as a task, but

permitted as a pleasure, if their genius leads them naturally to

it.[298]

Later in the same letter she says:

There is nothing so like the education of a woman of quality as

that of a prince: they are taught to dance, and the exterior

part of what is called good breeding, which, if they attain,

they are extraordinary creatures in their kind, and have all the

accomplishments required by their directors. The same characters

are formed by the same lessons, which inclines me to think (if I

dare say it) that nature has not placed us in an inferior rank to

men, no more than the females of other animals, where we see no

distinction of capacity; though, I am persuaded, if there was a

commonwealth of rational horses (as Doctor Swift has supposed),

it would be an established maxim among them, that a mare could

not be taught to pace.

In October of the same year she wrote further on the subject of the

learned woman:

I confess I have often been complimented, since I have been in

Italy, on the books I have given the public. I used at first

to deny it with some warmth; but, finding I persuaded nobody,

I have of late contented myself with laughing whenever I heard

it mentioned, knowing the character of a learned woman is far

from being ridiculous in this country, the greatest families

being proud of having produced female writers; and a Milanese

lady being now professor of mathematics in the University of

Bologna, invited thither by a most obliging letter, wrote by the

present Pope, who desired her to accept of the chair, not as a

recompense for her merit, but to do honor to a town which is

under his protection. To say truth, there is no part of the world

where our sex is treated with so much contempt as in England.

I do not complain of men for having engrossed the government:

in excluding us from all degrees of power, they preserve us

from many fatigues, many dangers, and perhaps many crimes. The

small proportion of authority that has fallen to my share (only

over a few children and servants) always has been a burden and

never a pleasure, and I believe every one finds it so who acts

from a maxim (I think an indispensable duty), that whoever is

under my power is under my protection. Those who find a joy in

inflicting hardships and seeing objects of misery, may have

other sensations; but I have always thought corrections, even

when necessary, as painful to the giver as to the sufferer, and

am therefore very well satisfied with the state of subjection

we are placed in: but I think it the highest injustice to be

debarred the entertainment of my closet, and that the same

studies which raise the character of a man should hurt that of

a woman. We are educated in the grossest ignorance, and no art

omitted to stifle our natural reason; if some few get above their

nurse's instructions, our knowledge must rest concealed, and be

as useless to the world as gold in a mine. I am speaking now

according to our English notions, which may wear out, some ages

hence, along with others equally absurd.[299]

Lady Montagu died in London in 1762. Her _Turkish Letters_ were

published the next year. Her miscellaneous correspondence came

out in 1807. Nor was her real significance apparent until both

publications were accessible. It was then at once recognized that

no English letter-writer had surpassed Lady Mary in brilliancy and

wit. Her eye was so quick and accurate that no interesting details

of dress or manner escaped her. As a chronicler and critic of social

faults and foibles she was cool, keen, merciless. She was graphic in

phrase, homely and direct in figures of speech, racy and idiomatic.

The whole tone of her writing was free, lively, energetic, and she

could make any topic entertaining. As a person there seems to be

ground for two opposite opinions concerning Lady Mary. People admired

her and praised her, or they hated her and told scandalous stories

about her. But as a writer there could be but one opinion. She was

not the first woman of letters to be eulogized, but she was the first

woman, not in fiction or drama, whose writings every one wished to

read.

[Sidenote: Mrs. De la Rivière Manley (1672-1724)]

Mrs. Manley,[300] a gentlewoman of good family, the daughter

of Sir Roger Manley, was left an orphan while still young. Her

guardian, a cousin twenty years older than herself, tricked her

into a false marriage, and then, on the birth of a child, announced

the cheat and disappeared. Most of the fortune left by her father

had also vanished. The details of her life after this until she

began her career of authorship are but vaguely known. In 1696 she

made a threefold appeal to the public in _Letters written by Mrs.

Manley_;[301] _The Lost Lover_, a comedy written in seven days,

produced at Drury Lane, and not successful; and _The Royal Mischief_,

successfully brought out at Lincoln's Inn Fields. In the Preface

to her _Letters_ (1696) Mrs. Manley spoke of the eager contention

between the theaters as to which should bring her on the stage, but

drama was not her natural medium. When, after a silence of nine

years, she again appeared as an author, it was with _The Secret

History of Queen Zarah_ (1705), a precursor of the scandalous

personal and political memories for which she became known. In

1709 she published _Secret Memoirs and Manners of several Persons

of Quality of Both Sexes. From the New Atalantis, an Island in the

Mediterranean._ The popularity of this book brought a second volume

the same year. In 1710 appeared _Memoirs of Europe towards the Close

of the Eighth Century_. This and a second volume were afterwards

reprinted as the third and fourth volumes of _The New Atalantis_. The

sixth edition of _The New Atalantis_ had a _Key_ at the end of the

fourth volume.

This book purported to be by an Italian and put into English by an

anonymous translator. The plan of the romance is that of a journey

where Astræa (Mrs. Behn revisiting the earth), Fame, and Virtue are

conducted invisibly about while their guide, "Intelligence," tells

them the secret histories of the persons they meet. Under this thin

disguise the statesmen, wits, and beauties of the reign of William

and Mary and Queen Anne were at once recognized. Mrs. Manley, the

publisher, and the printer, were arrested. On her own testimony,

however, the blame was counted hers and she was examined before the

court, but after about three months she was discharged. And the later

volumes followed with no public expression of disapproval.

In 1711 Mrs. Manley succeeded Swift as editor of _The Examiner_. In

1714 appeared _The Adventures of Rivella, or, the History of the

Author of Atalantis, by Sir Charles Lovemore_. In 1724 Curll brought

this out as _Mrs. Manley's History of Her own Life and Times_, and

it was probably written by her. In 1720 _The Power of Love in Seven

Volumes, and Verses_, in Anthony Hammond's _New Miscellany_, close

her contributions to literature. She died at the house of Alderman

Barker whose mistress she had been for several years.

A fact of central interest about Mrs. Manley's personal and literary

career is her quarrel with Steele which kept up with long lulls and

acrimonious crises from before 1709 to 1717. In the first volume

of _The New Atalantis_[302] she gave an account of Steele as

"Monsieur le Ingrate," narrating in detail her aid in rescuing him

from the impostors who were leading him into ruinous expenses in

search of the philosopher's stone, and bitterly assailing him for

his later ingratitude in the time of her own distresses. In the same

year _The Tatler_, No. 35, possibly referred to Mrs. Manley under

the description of the snuff-eating lady. Certainly in September

Swift represented her, under the name of "Epicene," as one of the

professors in Madonella's college. Mrs. Manley, assuming that the

paper was by Steele, wrote a denunciatory letter, which he answered

in mild fashion, owning his former indebtedness to her and explaining

his inability to aid her when she appealed to him. In the third and

fourth volumes of _The New Atalantis_ (1710) were further attacks

on Steele.[303] This third volume was dedicated to him as "Isaac

Bickerstaffe." She quoted his letter, but omitted some of the

mitigating sentences. Of the "mighty Tatlers" leveled at her she

says: "A weak, unlearn'd Woman's Writings, to employ so great a Pen!

Heavens? how valuable am I? How fond of that _Immortality_, even of

_Infamy_, that you have promised! I am ravished at the Thoughts of

_living a Thousand Years hence_ in your indelible lines, tho' to

_give Offence_.... I shall be proud of furnishing Matter towards your

inexhaustible _Tatler_, and of being a perpetual Monument of Mr.

Bickerstaffe's Gallantry and Morality."

In August, 1713, (_The Guardian_, No. 128), Steele entered the

controversy concerning the demolition of Dunkirk. Mrs. Manley

answered with a pamphlet in which the "honour and Prerogative of the

Queen's Majesty" were defended "against the unexampled Insolence of

the Author of the Guardian." This closed the open hostilities, and

by 1717 there were handsome apologies and frank admissions of error

on both sides, and the reconciliation seems to have been complete.

The chief interest we find in Mrs. Manley's play is the fact that

Steele wrote the Prologue and that the play was dedicated to him. In

this Dedication she said, "I have not known a greater mortification

than when I have reflected upon the severities which have flowed

from a pen which is now, you see, disposed to celebrate and commend

you."[304]

[Sidenote: Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas (1677-1731)]

Dryden conferred upon Mrs. Thomas the title of "Corinna" and says, "I

would have called you Sapho, but that I hear you are handsomer." The

young poetess had received no regular education, but she improved her

mind by reading the politest authors, and finally, at twenty-two, she

ventured forth as a poet herself. She sent two poems to Mr. Dryden

asking his critical judgment of them. He responded with the following

letter:

_Fair Corinna_,

I have sent your two poems back again, after having kept them so

long from you: They were I thought too good to be a woman's; some

of my friends to whom I read them, were of the same opinion. It

is not very gallant I must confess to say this of the fair sex;

but, most certain it is, they generally write with more softness

than strength. On the contrary, you want neither vigour in your

thoughts, nor force in your expression, nor harmony in your

numbers; and methinks, I find much of Orinda in your manner, (to

whom I had the honour to be related, and also to be known) but I

am so taken up with my own studies, that I have not leisure to

descend to particulars, being in the meantime, the fair Corinna's

Most humble, and

Most faithful servant

JOHN DRYDEN.

Nov. 12, 1699.

The poetical career thus auspiciously begun with the praise of

the great poet ended in disaster. After the death of Mr. Gwinnet,

who had courted her for sixteen years, in 1717, and of her mother

in 1719, she was always in financial straits and used almost any

means to avoid her creditors. During the time when she was living

under the protection of Mr. Henry Cromwell, she gained possession

of twenty-five letters written to him by Mr. Pope. These she sold

to Curll, who published them in 1726, and she thus gained a

disgraceful place in _The Dunciad_. Her _Poems_ were published in

1722, 1726, 1727, but she does not seem to have been rewarded with

either fame or money. Besides other unimportant literary work she

wrote an autobiography entitled _Pylades and Corinna; or, Memoirs

of the Lives, Amours, and Writings of Richard Gwinnet, Esquire, and

Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas, junior.... To which is prefixed the Life of

Corinna, written by herself._ This was published in 1731 in two

volumes. The autobiography in an abridged form appears in Cibber's

_Lives of the Poets_.[305]

[Sidenote: Mrs. Eliza Haywood (1693-1756)]

Miss Eliza Fowler, the daughter of a small shopkeeper in London, was

married before she was twenty to the Reverend Valentine Haywood.[306]

In 1721 she left her husband[307] and thereafter she had her own

way to make. A few unimportant attempts as an actress[308] and some

occasional unsuccessful attempts as a playwright may be set aside

as not belonging to her real career. It was as a writer of romantic

tales and novels that she achieved success. This vein once tapped,

the ore, such as it was, seemed inexhaustible. From 1719 to 1756 Mrs.

Haywood published about seventy single works, nearly all of them

"fictitious tales."[309] If we should count various editions, the

numbers of times she was privileged to see some work by her issue

from the press during her thirty-seven years of authorship would

exceed one hundred and fifty. Her most prolific years were 1724 to

1728, thirty-three new books appearing during this short time.

This crowding of book after book through the press, the numerous

editions of the more popular novels, and the fact that four

"Collections" of her works had appeared by 1729, sufficiently attest

her extraordinary contemporary popularity. Mrs. Haywood's fecundity

is not a matter for great surprise. It is easy to understand that

if she could write one novel like _Love in Excess_, she could write

half a hundred more without seriously taxing her creative spirit. But

to the present-day reader her popularity seems incredible. Of what

sort was the reading public that stimulated her and her publishers to

such activity? According to Mr. Gosse's conjecture in "What Ann Lang

Read," "Eliza was read by servants in the kitchen, by seamstresses,

by basket-women, by prentices of all sorts, male and female, but

chiefly the latter."[310] But Mr. Whicher points out that Mrs.

Haywood's novels were never issued in cheap form, and that one to

three shillings for a slender octavo would put the books beyond the

purses of the servant class.[311] In all probability Ann Lang, the

milliner's apprentice, is less truly representative of Mrs. Haywood's

readers than is Polly in Colman's _Polly Honeycomb_ (1760). Polly did

not begin her career as a novel-reader till more than a decade after

the appearance of _Pamela_, so that a fairly wide range of fiction

was open to her, and Mrs. Haywood could be but one element of her

possible literary joys. But we know that _The History of Miss Betsy

Thoughtless_ was one of her favorites, and the extracts she gives

from Mrs. Haywood's previous novels and the names she cherishes,

read like satires on that lady's heroics. If Polly may be counted as

typical of Mrs. Haywood's public, we have readers distinctly above

the servant class. Mr. Honeycomb was a well-to-do tradesman with

clerks in the office and a fairly elaborate domestic establishment.

Polly may even have been to a finishing school. There are also

indications of a class of readers higher still. The ladies of fashion

who so attentively pursued Mrs. Manley's _New Atalantis_ could hardly

be supposed indifferent to the social scandal in Mrs. Haywood's

_Memoirs of a Certain Island_ and _The Court of Carimania_. In

Leonora's library there was a _Book of Novels_ which would doubtless

appeal to the same taste as Mrs. Haywood's tales. Furthermore, the

impassioned protests against novel-reading in all didactic addresses

to young ladies would indicate a widespread devotion to fiction in

the higher social ranks.

Mrs. Haywood's popularity was certainly contributed to by a lack

of important competitors. Before the advent of _Pamela_ the young

girl eager for stories must read French romances, Defoe's novels,

or Mrs. Haywood's novels. Defoe was not particularly attractive to

the Pollys of the age, and the taste for the many-volumed romances,

beloved of ladies from Dorothy Osborne and Mrs. Pepys to Biddy Tipkin

and Arabella,[312] was gradually dying out. So Mrs. Haywood had her

chance. Her "little Performances," as she called them, offered in

brief compass the love and adventure of the long romance without its

tax on the reader's patience.

Mrs. Haywood's short romances have but one theme. "Eliza writes, but

Love alone inspires," is a correct analysis by one of her admirers.

She is the self-appointed chronicler of Love and all its attendant

passions. She sets herself to trace "The Wild Career of untamed Love

in the proud Heart of Arbitrary Man"; to note the thrilling ardors,

the languishments, the ecstasies and violent agitations on the part

of the adored one; to depict with extravagant emphasis the jealousy,

rage, despair, of disappointed affections. These experiences of the

heart take place in the midst of adventures of the most melodramatic

sort. Flights over land and sea are complicated by storms and

shipwreck, by bandits and pirates. The heroic play itself is less

prolific in elopements, seductions, duels, murders, and suicides.

The sword, the dagger, and the poison cup play an active part in

cutting Gordian knots too intricately tied. There is small effort to

make the story probable. The whole effort is to make it exciting.

The reader is plunged from adventure to adventure with no breathing

place in which to be critical, and it is by this headlong speed that

the attention is held. But after reading several of the tales it

becomes apparent that to know one is to know all. The passions, the

situations, the obstacles, the dénouements recur. Nor are the people

differentiated. The ardent lovers, their yielding or temporarily

obdurate fair ones, the jealous lovers and mistresses, hard-hearted

fathers, faithless friends, and mercenary confidants, make up the

personnel of each story. Among the hundreds of characters there is

not one that remains in the memory as a real person. They are but

puppets through whose convulsive starts and unnatural tones Mrs.

Haywood vainly endeavors to make genuine passion speak.

Nor have these novels any additional points of interest such as might

come from witty dialogue, pungent comment, or beautiful description.

Mrs. Haywood's English is fluent, intelligible, and fairly correct,

but it never attains distinction. The total effect of these tales

of passion is one of almost stupefying dullness and monotony. It is

painful to reflect on the blunted moral, emotional, and æsthetic

sensibilities of a generation of readers who found their solace in

_The Excess of Love_ and its congeners.

Mrs. Haywood's activities suffered something of a check after 1729,

possibly owing to the savage attacks on her by Pope in _The Dunciad_

(1728).[313] At any rate, for some reason or combination of reasons,

no new original works of any importance by her appeared between

1729 and 1751. Among various expedients to earn a livelihood during

this period the most notable is her attempt to establish herself

as a publisher in 1742, but since only two books are recorded

as published by her she probably quickly found herself without

the business training for such an enterprise.[314] A more notable

undertaking is _The Female Spectator_ edited and at least partly

written by Mrs. Haywood in April, 1744--May, 1746.

She entered again the field of authorship with her best novels, _The

History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless_, in four volumes (1751), and _The

History of Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy_, three volumes (1752), which have

the merit of faintly foreshadowing the domestic novel of a later

day.[315]

The paper is professedly modeled on the work of Addison and Steele.

The writing purports to be by an editorial group of four ladies with

Mrs. Haywood as editor-in-chief. A vivacious widow in whom lovers

confide; Euphrosine, so called because of her brightness and charm;

and Mira, a lady of hereditary wit, complete the quadrumvirate. Their

avowed purpose is to give entertaining items of news, discuss dress,

decorum, and social foibles in friendly admonition, and analyze the

human heart. But there is no real emphasis except on the last of

these topics. The Tenderillas, Claribellas, Elismondas, Dorindas, and

the rest, pursue their amorous way from volume to volume, unconscious

that the world holds any interest but love, that "noblest, softest,

and the best" of all the passions.

[Illustration: THE SUPPOSED EDITORS OF _THE FEMALE SPECTATOR_ BY MRS.

ELIZA HAYWOOD

From Vol. I of the seventh edition, 1771

Mrs. Haywood is the scribe; the lady in black is the vivacious widow

of quality; the lady standing is "Euphrosine"; the other lady is

"Mira"]

But now and then the editors or some contributor break out of

the charmed circle, and we get a glimpse of women who, along with

their overworked hearts, have at least rudimentary minds. A certain

"Cleora" urges that women's best qualities are often stifled by a

wrong education, and that "the world would infallibly be happier

than it is if women were more knowing than they generally are." The

studies suggested are history, geography, some of the more agreeable

parts of mathematics, and "Enchanting Philosophy, its path strewd

with Roses." Music, poetry, dancing, and novels are suggested by

way of relaxation. For solid reading the recommendation includes

translations of Latin historians and French books of travel, and

closes with _Bailey's Dictionary_, "a library of itself since there

was never person, place or action of any note, from the creation

down to the time of its being published, but what it gives a general

account of." In another essay "Philo-Naturæ" spends impassioned

pages urging ladies to study natural history, but nullifies her

eloquence by the narrow limit she assigns to their work. "It is easy

to see, that it is not my ambition to render my sex what is called

deeply-learned." Women need only "a kind of general understanding"

of science, such as will enable them to take an agreeable part

in conversation. They are not called to abstruse and difficult

researches, but merely to those light and charming observations that

catch the watchful eye on little excursions such as ladies make in

fields, meadows, and gardens.

In _The Wife_ (1755) Mrs. Haywood is less liberal than in _The

Spectator_. The married lady is particularly warned against the

dangers of an active mind or speculative disposition. She may be so

misguided as to "attempt to investigate those things that Heaven has

hidden from human understanding," in which case her brain will be

distracted by books of controversy. Or she may strangely busy her

mind about the planets, wondering whether those vast and luminous

orbs are habitable, and if so, whether possessed by men or angels

or the ghosts of the departed. A lady so fantastically engaged is

likely to waste her time over such books as Fontanelle's _Plurality

of Worlds_.

A woman who once gets either of these fancies into her head,

is lost to everything besides; her husband, children, family,

friends, acquaintances, with all the necessary avocations and

duties of her station, seem altogether unworthy her regard; she

lives in the clouds, and it is with difficulty she is dragg'd

down to the performance of anything requir'd of her below.

Methinks it is down-right madness to waste any part of time in

seeking after things impossible to be attain'd; or if attain'd

could be of no real service:--a married woman, above all others,

should avoid this error:--it best becomes her to center her whole

studies within the compass of her own walls,--to enquire no

farther than into the humours and inclinations of her husband and

children, to the end she may know how to oblige those she finds

in him, and rectify whatever is amiss in them, and not attempt to

extend her speculations beyond her family, and those things which

are entrusted to her management.

Mrs. Haywood's programme reads like a combination from Molière's

Chrysal and Mrs. Barbauld.

In 1729 Swift wrote from Dublin to Pope:

[Sidenote: Mrs. Mary Barber (1690?-1757])

There are three citizens' wives in this town; one of them whose

name is Grierson, a Scotch book-seller's wife. She is a very good

Latin and Greek scholar, and has lately published a fine edition

of Tacitus, with a Latin dedication to the Lord Lieutenant; and

she writes _Carmina Anglicana non Contemnenda_. The second is one

Mrs. Barber, wife to a woolen draper, who is our chief poetess,

and, upon the whole, has no ill genius. I fancy I have mentioned

her to you formerly. The last is the bearer hereof, and the

wife of a surly rich husband, who checks her vein; whereas Mrs.

Grierson is only well to pass, and Mrs. Barber, as it becomes the

chief poetess, is but poor. The bearer's name is Sykins. She has

a very good taste of poetry, has read much, and, as I hear, has

writ one or two things with applause, which I never saw, except

about six lines she sent me unknown, with a piece of sturgeon,

some years ago, on my birthday. Can you show such a triumfeminate

in London?[316]

Soon after Swift added Mrs. Pilkington to his list of Dublin writers,

but it still remains a triumfeminate, because we hear no more of Mrs.

Sykins, the surly rich husband having apparently been successful in

checking her vein. Her proposed visit to Pope was also a failure.

She went to Twickenham and delivered Swift's letter, but, for some

unknown reason, returned to London two hours before the time Pope

had appointed to receive her. His irritation found expression in the

reference to "an Irish poetess" as among his troublesome visitors in

one version of _The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_.[317]

Mrs. Mary Barber would hardly be so much as a name to-day were it not

for Swift. He first met her in about the year 1729, and from that

time to 1736 letters to and from him have much to say concerning

her career. She was then nearly forty, most of her poems existed

in manuscript, she was already something of a celebrity in Dublin,

and her one desire was a subscription publication of her work. In

pursuance of this wish she went to London late in 1730 and Swift

sent kindly letters in her behalf to several of his London friends.

In the summer of 1731 a mysterious letter to the Queen, purporting

to be from Swift, contained this passage: "Mrs. Barber, the best

female poet of this or perhaps any age, is now in your majesty's

capital; known to Lady Hertford, Lady Torrington, Lady Walpole,

etc.; a woman whose genius is honoured by every man of genius in

this kingdom, and either honoured or envied by every man of genius

in England."[318] Pope sent a copy of this letter to Swift, who

immediately and indignantly, in letters to Pope and the Countess of

Suffolk, disavowed it. Such a letter, he said, would be "a folly so

transcendent, that no man could be guilty of, who was not fit for

Bedlam." In his letter to Pope Swift said of Mrs. Barber:

Dr. Delany has been long her protector; and he, being many years

my acquaintance, desired my good office for her, and brought her

several times to the deanery. I knew she was poetically given,

and, for a woman, had a sort of genius that way. She appeared

very modest and pious, and I believe was sincere; and wholy

turned to poetry. I did conceive her journey to England was on

the score of her trade, being a woollen-draper, until Dr. Delany

said, she had a design of printing her poems by subscription,

and desired I would befriend her: which I did, chiefly by your

means, the doctor still urging me on: upon whose request I writ

to her two or three times, because she thought my countenancing

her might be of use. Lord Carteret very much befriended her, and

she seems to have made her way not ill.[319]

The perpetrator of the forged letter and the purpose in sending it

to the Queen have never been discovered, but the irritation arising

from it might well have destroyed Swift's interest in Mrs. Barber's

subscription list. He apparently recognized, however, that she was

innocent of offense and continued his efforts in her behalf. Dr.

Arbuthnot writes that he has shown "as much civility as he could" to

Mrs. Barber.[320] Gay has "made a visit to Mrs. Barber."[321] Lady

Betty Germain says Mrs. Barber "goes on in her subscription very

well."[322] But the list was incomplete by the summer of 1732 and

dragged slowly on till 1734 in spite of the aid of Mr. Barber, Lord

Mayor of London, Mrs. Worsley, Mrs. Cæsar, Mrs. Conduitt, Miss Kelly,

Lord Carteret, Lord Orrery, and the Duchess of Queensberry, all of

whom in response to applications from Swift wrote to him concerning

the progress of Mrs. Barber's affairs. In 1733 Mrs. Conduitt wrote

that "the town had already been so long invited into the subscription

that most people had already refused or accepted."[323] It was

not till 1734 that the list was considered long enough to make

publication safe.

Swift crowned his service by writing a dedicatory letter to Lord

Orrery. In this letter he spoke of Mrs. Barber as follows:

She desireth your protection on account of her wit and good

sense, as well as of her humility, her gratitude, and many

other virtues. I have read most of her poems; and believe your

Lordship will observe, that they generally contain something

new and useful, tending to the reproof of some vice or folly,

or recommending some virtue. She never writes on a subject with

general unconnected topics, but always with a scheme and method

driving to some particular end: wherein many writers in verse,

and of some distinction, are so often known to fail. In short,

she seemeth to have a true poetical genius, better cultivated

than could be expected, either from her sex, or the scene she

hath acted in, as the wife of a citizen. Yet I am assured, that

no woman was ever more useful to her husband in the way of his

business. Poetry hath only been her favorite amusement; for which

she hath one qualification that I wish all good poets possess'd a

share of; I mean, that she is ready to take advice, and submit to

have her verse corrected, by those who are generally allow'd to

be the best judges.[324]

But for the persistent efforts of Swift the subscription would never

have been completed. Yet Mrs. Barber had gained incidentally such

a retinue of supporting friends that her poems were republished in

1735 and 1736. There was apparently a touch of personal venom in the

passage where Mrs. Pilkington chronicles the generous aid given Mrs.

Barber and emphasizes the final small success of the poems:

Mrs. Barber ... was at this time writing a volume of Poems,

some of which I fancy might, at this Day, be seen in the

Cheesemungers, Chandlers, Pastry-cooks, and Second-hand

Book-sellers' Shops: However, dull as they were, they certainly

would have been much worse, but that Dr. Delany frequently held

what he called a _Senatus Consultum_, to correct these undigested

materials; at which were present sometimes the Dean, (in the

Chair) but always Mrs. Grierson, Mr. Pilkington, the Doctor, and

myself.[325]

A poem in which they were summoned to one of these meetings began:

Mighty _Thomas_ a solemn _Senatus_ I call,

To consult for _Saphira_, so come one and all.

In 1736 Mrs. Barber was again in financial straits. A scheme for

letting lodgings, and another scheme for selling Irish linens at

Bath having proved impracticable, she made a final appeal to Swift.

Dr. King of Oxford and Mrs. Cleland had spoken so warmly of Swift's

_Treatise on Polite Conversation_ that many people wished to see it,

and Lady Worsley with many other of Mrs. Barber's patronesses urged

her to ask Swift to let her publish it for her own benefit. After

apologies for asking such a favor she says:

I humbly beseech you, sir, if you do not think it proper not to

be offended with me for asking it; for it was others, that out of

kindness to me, put me upon it. They said you made no advantage

for yourself, by your writings; and that, since you honoured me

with your protection, I had all the reason in the world to think

it would be a pleasure to you, to see me in easy circumstances;

that everybody would gladly subscribe for anything Dr. Swift

wrote; and indeed, I believe in my conscience, it would be the

making of me.[326]

Dean Swift presented her with the copy and the sale proved

advantageous.

The career of a mediocre writer like Mrs. Barber would hardly justify

chronicling were it not for the interesting exemplification it

offers of the system of patronage. Swift and his influential friends

manifest no particular interest in Mrs. Barber's "moral and not

inelegant verse," but responsibility for her welfare seems to have

been accepted by them without demur, nor does she seem to have felt

any hesitancy about accepting any aid that might be forthcoming.

The most vivid introduction to Mrs. Grierson comes from the pen of

her early friend Mrs. Pilkington:

[Sidenote: Mrs. Constantia Grierson (1706?-33)]

About two years before this a young Woman of about eighteen

years of age, was brought to my Father, by a Stationer to be by

him instructed in Midwifery.[327] She was Mistress of _Hebrew_,

_Greek_, _Latin_, and _French_, understood the _mathematicks_,

as well as most men. And what made these extraordinary Talents

yet more surprizing was, that her Parents were poor illiterate

Country People; so that her learning appeared like the Gift

poured out on the Apostles, of speaking all languages, without

the Pains of Study; or, like the intuitive Knowledge of Angels:

Yet in as much as the Power of Miracles is ceased; we must allow

she used human Means for such great and excellent Acquirements:

And yet in a long Friendship and Familiarity with her, I could

never obtain a satisfactory Account from her on this Head;

only she said, "she had received some little Instruction from

the Minister of the Parish, when she could spare time from her

Needlework, to which she was closely kept by her Mother." She

wrote elegantly both in Verse and Prose; and some of the most

delightful Hours I ever past, were in the Conversation of this

female Philosopher.

My Father readily consented to accept her as a Pupil; and gave

her a general Invitation to his Table, so that she and I were

seldom asunder. My Parents were well pleased with our Intimacy,

as her Piety was not inferior to her Learning. Whether it was

owing to her own Desire, or the Envy of those who survived her,

I know not; but of her various and beautiful Writings except

one Poem of her's in Mrs. Barber's Works, I have never seen any

published; 't is true, as her turn was chiefly to philosophical

or divine Subjects, they might not be agreeable to the present

Taste.[328]

A eulogy of Mrs. Grierson was written by Henry Brooke (1703?-1783)

the author of a tragedy, _Gustavus Vasa_, and various popular novels,

in a poem on "The Art of Printing," and an account of her, derived

from his notes, was published in _Brookiana_ in 1804.

Mr. Brooke has celebrated the learning, piety, and virtue, of

Mrs. Grierson, in a poem which he wrote on the Art of Printing.

This lady was born in the city of Kilkenny. Such is the vanity

of man, that he thinks he pays a sufficient compliment to woman,

when he says, she has a masculine mind, when, in truth, it is

known that there are many females on record, who have rivalled

the lords of the creation in every branch of science, and

department of learning. In this constellation the name of Mrs.

Grierson will shine with increasing luster. Her father observed,

that his daughter, while yet a child, was very fond of books, and

not-withstanding his circumstances were narrow, he was determined

to furnish her with all those that he thought were suited to her

years; but he soon found, to his great joy, that her capacity was

not to be measured by her years, it flew before them; and that

her genius and inclination would triumph over every difficulty,

even without the aid of a master. In a time that is almost too

short to be mentioned, she was allowed by competent judges, to

be a perfect mistress of the Greek and Roman tongues; and whilst

other young women were proud of carrying the keys of closets,

etc., she carried the keys of science, which she unlocked and

surveyed, not with a transient eye, but with the warmth and

constancy of one that fell in love with their beauties, and could

duly appreciate their charms, so that all her attainments may be

said to have been dictated by nature, aided by laudable curiosity

and industry. She was early married to George Grierson, Esq., the

king's printer. As he had a good library, she had an opportunity

of indulging her literary pursuits.[329]

After her marriage Mrs. Grierson carried on her studies with such

ardor that at twenty-one she brought out an edition of Terence and at

twenty-three an edition of Tacitus. When she died at twenty-seven,

she left a partially completed edition of Sallust. Mrs. Barber

says that she also wrote an unpublished _Abridgment of the History

of England_. Her Tacitus has received high praise. Dr. Harwood, a

learned bibliographer, commented on it in the following terms:

This is one of the best edited books ever delivered to the world.

_Mrs. Grierson_ was a lady possessed of singular erudition, and

had an elegance of taste and solidity of judgment, which justly

rendered her one of the most wonderful as well as amiable of her

sex. Prefixed to this edition of Tacitus, is a dedication to

_Lord Carteret_, in most elegant Latinity.[330]

Mrs. Grierson also wrote occasional verse a few specimens of which

appear in Mrs. Pilkington's _Memoirs_, in _Poems by Eminent Ladies_,

and in Mrs. Barber's edition of her own poems. Mrs. Barber in her

Preface praised Mrs. Grierson and gave many of the facts used by

later writers. Mr. Ballard was anxious to give a full account of

Mrs. Grierson, and he wrote in 1747 to Mrs. Barber for further

information. "I likewise," says Mr. Ballard, "got the same friend to

apply to a learned and eminent dignitary in the church in Ireland;

one who is thoroughly acquainted with all the various circumstances

of her life and is every way qualified for the performance." The

eminent churchman promised an account of her life, but it never came

to hand, so Mr. Ballard was obliged to content himself with a general

eulogy. He says, "If Heaven had spared her life, and blessed her with

health, which she wanted for some years before her death, there is

good reason to think she would have made as great a figure in the

learned world, as any of her sex are recorded to have done." Mrs.

Grierson, "the learned Nymph Whom Curiosity engaged every Person to

see,"[331] was on intimate terms with Swift, Thomas Sheridan, and

Dr. Delany, and it is singular that a more exact account of her life

should not have been preserved.

[Sidenote: Lætitia van Lewen Pilkington (1712-50)]

Lætitia Pilkington, the daughter of Dr. Van Lewen, a physician of

Dublin, was about twenty-two years younger than Mrs. Barber, but

Mrs. Barber's work came so late in her life and Mrs. Pilkington was

so precocious that they were in effect poetical contemporaries.

Lætitia's love for literature and her lively mind were in evidence

before she was five. She thus describes the beginning of her

education:

My mother strictly followed _Solomon's_ Advice, in never sparing

the Rod; insomuch that I have frequently been whipt for looking

blue of a frosty Morning; and whether I deserved it or not, I was

sure of Correction every Day of my life.

From my earliest Infancy I had a Disposition to Letters; but my

Eyes being weak after the Small-pox, I was not permitted to look

at a Book; my Mother regarding more the Beauty of my Face, than

the Improvement of my Mind; neither was I allowed to learn to

read: This Restraint, as it generally happens, made me but more

earnest in the Pursuit of what I imagined must be so delightful.

Twenty times a Day have I been corrected, for asking what such

and such Letters spelt; my Mother used to tell me the Word,

accompanying it with a good Box on the Ear, which, I suppose,

imprinted it on my Mind.... I do assure you, it had this Effect

on me, that I never forgot what was once told me; and quickly

arrived at my desired Happiness, being able to read before she

thought I knew all my Letters; but this Pleasure I was obliged to

enjoy by Stealth with Fear and Trembling.

I was at this Time about five Years of Age; and my Mother being

one Day abroad, I had happily laid hold on _Alexander's Feast_

and found something in it so charming, that I read it aloud; but

how like a condemned Criminal did I look, when my Father, softly

opening his Study-door, took me in the very Fact; I dropt my Book

and burst into Tears, begging Pardon and promising never to do

so again: But my Sorrow was soon dispelled, when he bade me not

to be frightened, but read to him, which to his great Surprize,

I did very distinctly, and without hurting the Beauty of the

Numbers. Instead of the whipping, of which I stood in dread,

he took me up in his Arms, and kissed me, giving me a whole

Shilling, as a Reward, and told me, "He would give me another as

soon as I got a Poem by Heart," which he put into my Hand, and

proved to be Mr. Pope's sacred Eclogue; which Task I performed

before my Mother returned Home. They were both astonished at my

Memory, and from that Day forward, I was permitted to read as

much as I pleased; only my Father took care to furnish me with

the best, and politest Authors; and took Delight in explaining to

me, whatever, by Reason of my tender Years, was above my Capacity

of Understanding.

But chiefly was I charmed and ravished with the Sweets of Poetry;

all my Hours were dedicated to the Muses; and, from a Reader, I

quickly became a Writer; I may truly say with Mr. _Pope_,

_I lisp'd in Numbers, for the Numbers came._

My Performances had the good Fortune to be looked on as

extraordinary for my Years; and the greatest and wisest Men in

the Kingdom did not disdain to hear the Prattle of the little

Muse, as they called me, even in my Childish Days. But as I

approached towards Womanhood a new Scene opened to me; and by the

Time I had looked on thirteen Years, I had almost as many Lovers.

At seventeen Lætitia married a penniless Irish parson, Mr. Matthew

Pilkington. Soon after their marriage they became well known in

the Dublin literary set. Constantia Grierson who was the first to

congratulate Lætitia on her marriage, and who witnessed the cruel

treatment the couple received from Mrs. Van Lewen, introduced them

to Dr. Delany who befriended them. Through Dr. Delany they met

Swift, who was much taken by the "little poetical parson and his

littler poetical wife." He called them "The Mighty Thomas Thumb

and her Serene Highness of Lilliput,"[332] and for a short time

they were evidently much at the deanery. The most famous portions

of her _Memoirs_ have to do with Swift. His early biographers were

apparently unwilling to own how much of their vivid, picturesque

material came from a source so little esteemed, but Mr. Craik credits

Mrs. Pilkington with "a picture of the Dean which is probably more

true to the life than many that are more pretentious."[333] The young

lady's wit, vivacity, courage, and independent mind brought a new

and piquant element into Swift's life. He scolded her till she fled

in tears, but at his imperious summons she always came back in new,

adoring subjection. On one occasion, after an exceptionally severe

castigation, he wrote sharply but with an underlying compliment: "You

must shake off the Leavings of your Sex. If you cannot keep a Secret,

and take a Chiding, you will quickly be out of my Sphere. Corrigible

People are to be chid; those who are otherwise, may be very safe

from any Lectures of mine: I should rather choose to indulge them in

their Follies, than attempt to set them right."[334] Usually her wit

could turn an impending quarrel into some sort of gay banter. On one

occasion Swift began to reprimand her for having copied out one of

his manuscript poems. But she interrupted, saying she did not copy

it, but knew it by heart from one reading. Whereupon there ensued a

memory contest. The test given her was from Shakespeare, all of whose

works she said she could repeat. "The Line he first gave me, he had

purposely picked out for its Singular Oddness: _But_ [sic] _rancours

in the Vessel of my Peace_. Macbeth. I readily went on with the whole

Speech, and did so several times, that he tried me with the different

Plays. The Dean then took down _Hudibras_, and ordered me to examine

him in it, as he had done me in _Shakespeare_; and, to my great

surprize, I found he remembered every Line from Beginning to End of

it."[335]

When Swift first saw little Mrs. Pilkington as a bride he exclaimed,

"What, this poor little Child married! God help her, she is early in

Trouble."[336] The words were prophetic, for the troubles began very

soon. They were engendered by literary jealousy, for Mr. Pilkington

was a poet on his own account. Compliments to the wife became as

wormwood to the husband, especially when such compliments were

accompanied by frank depreciation of his own talents. Swift once put

a question to Mrs. Pilkington and received her answer. Mr. Pilkington

then entered the room and was asked the same question and gave an

unsatisfactory answer. "P-x on you for a Dunce," said the Dean. "Were

your Wife and you to sit for a Fellowship, I would give her one,

sooner than admit you a Sizar." From that time on Mr. Pilkington

viewed his wife "with scornful yet with jealous eyes."[337]

On another occasion the two wrote odes in imitation of Horace.

Angered at her success Mr. Pilkington told her that a Needle was more

becoming to a Woman's Hand than a Pen, and was placated only when the

lady consigned her own ode to the flames and highly praised his. Her

comment is: "And here let me seriously advise every Lady, who has

the Misfortune to be poetically turned, never to marry a Poet.... If

a Man cannot bear his Friend should write, much less can he endure

it in his Wife; it seems to set them too much on a Level with their

Lords and Masters; and this I take to be the true Reason why even

Men of Sense discountenance Learning in Women, and commonly choose

for Mates the most illiterate and stupid of the Sex; and bless their

Stars their Wife is not a Wit."[338] Jealousy was, however, the least

of Mr. Pilkington's faults. He soon proved himself "the arrantest

rogue in England." The action he brought against his wife for divorce

was not sustained by the courts, but the outcome of it was that he

abandoned her and her two children, and she was left penniless. She

went to London where she lived a life compounded of misfortunes and

misdemeanors.

In the _Memoirs_ she gives _in extenso_ the various expedients

whereby she tried to get a living. One of the most successful was as

a public letter-writer for which she issued the following card:

_Letters written here on any Subject, except on the Law, Price

Twelvepence; Petitions also Drawn at the same Rate. Mem. Ready

Money, no Trust._[339]

Under cover of getting subscriptions for the _Memoirs_, she really

lived on the charities of the charitable and what she euphemistically

termed "contributions from the great." Colley Cibber[340] especially

befriended her and urged her to push forward the _Memoirs_. But

spite of all aid her course was downward. At one time she was even

imprisoned for debt.[341] On her release she tried to keep a print

and pamphlet shop,[342] but failed. And finally she wandered back to

Dublin where she died at thirty-eight.

The one book by which Mrs. Pilkington is known is her _Memoirs_, the

three volumes of which appeared in 1748. In 1754 a third edition

appeared with an additional volume by her son. Shortly after her

death there appeared a compilation entitled _The Celebrated Mrs.

Pilkington's Jests; or, The Cabinet of Wit and Humour_. In the

_Memoirs_ the early happy life in Dublin and the later tricks

and shifts and intrigues of the London life are described with

equal frankness. The result was a tarnished fame as a woman, but

an undisputed reputation as a clever writer. When the Earl of

Chesterfield wondered that she could write English so well, she sent

word to his lordship that Dr. Swift had been her tutor.

As a literary critic Mrs. Pilkington is especially severe on the

immorality of some contemporary women writers. Speaking of a lady who

had refused to subscribe to her book she said:

She would have purchased my Book sooner than the Bible, to

indulge her private Meditations, Especially if I had the wicked

Art of painting up Vice in attractive Colours, as too many of

our Female Writers have done, to the Destruction of Thousands,

amongst whom Mrs. Manly and Mrs. Haywood deserve the foremost

Rank.

But what extraordinary Passions these Ladies may have

experienced, I know not; far be such Knowledge from a Modest

Woman: Indeed Mrs. _Haywood_ seems to have dropped her former

luscious Stile, and, for Variety presents us with the insipid:

Her _Female Spectators_ are a Collection of trite Stories,

delivered to us in stale and worn-out Phrases: Bless'd Revolution!

_Yet of the two, less dang'rous is th' Offence_

_To tire the Patience, than mislead the Sense._

And here give me leave to observe, that amongst the Ladies that

have taken up the Pen, I never met with but two who deserved the

Name of a _Writer_; the first is Madam _Dacier_, whose Learning

Mr. Pope, while he is indebted to her for all the notes on

_Homer_, endeavoured to depreciate; the second is Mrs. Catherine

Philips, the matchless _Orinda_, celebrated by Mr. _Cowley_, Lord

_Orrery_, and all the Men of Genius who lived in her Time.

I think this incomparable Lady was one of the first Refiners of

the _English_ Numbers. I cannot, except my own Country-woman

_Mrs. Grierson_, find out another female Writer, whose Works are

worth reading; she indeed had a happy and well-improved Genius!

The last glimpse we have of Mrs. Pilkington is most effective in the

dramatic contrast it presents. On Thursday, April 12, 1750, John

Wesley wrote in his Dublin Diary: "I breakfasted with one of the

Society, and found she had a lodger I little thought of. It was the

famous Mrs. Pilkington, who soon made an excuse for following me up

stairs. I talked with her seriously about an hour: we then sung,

'Happy Magdalene.' She appeared to be exceedingly struck: how long

the impression may last, God knows."[343]

[Sidenote: Mrs. Mary Davys (fl. 1725)]

Mrs. Mary Davys wrote a comedy produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields in

1716, and a didactic novel, _The Reform'd Coquet_, which appeared

in 1724. Her _Works_, in two volumes, appeared in 1725. Miss Morgan

says that the young lord who is the hero of _The Reform'd Coquet_,

is one of the earliest examples in fiction of "the perfect prig of

which Sir Charles Grandison is the consummate example."[344] She was

the wife of the Reverend Peter Davys, master of the free school of

St. Patrick's, Dublin, so she came into the circle of Swift. Dr. Ewen

of Cambridge formerly had thirty-six letters from Swift to Mr. and

Mrs. Davys. Mr. Davys died in 1698 and Mrs. Davys was "left to her

own endeavours." In 1713 she wrote to Swift complaining that he had

not written to her for four years. "I have honestly told her," he

said, "it was my way never to write to those whom I am never likely

to see, unless I can serve them, which I cannot her, etc. Davis the

schoolmaster's widow."[345] She was not so fortunate as Mrs. Grierson

and Mrs. Pilkington.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Mary Mitchell Collyer (1716?-1762?)]

Mrs. Collyer's publications were anonymous and she has been hardly

more than a name in literary history. Recent investigations have,

however, shown her to be of genuine importance, not merely as a

writer of considerable ability, but especially as an author in whom

romantic tendencies found early and well-defined statement.[346]

Mrs. Collyer was the wife of Joseph Collyer, a compiler, translator,

and publisher to whom her books have sometimes been attributed. Her

son was Joseph Collyer, an engraver of merit. Mr. Collyer's income

was apparently small, for Mrs. Collyer wrote for the support of her

family. In the Dedication to her _Death of Abel_ she said: "Placed

by the hand of Providence at an humble distance from the Great, my

cares and pleasures are concentrated within the narrow limits of my

little family, and it is in order to contribute to the support and

education of my children, I have taken up my pen."

The seven works attributed to Mrs. Collyer fall between 1743 and

1763. It is unnecessary to consider these works here in detail except

so far as may serve to indicate their historical significance.

For this purpose we may take up first the last of her books, the

translations from the German, for it is on these that her modicum

of fame has rested. When Mrs. Collyer translated Gesner's _Der Tod

Abels_ in 1761 and began Klopstock's _Messiah_ the year after, she

was a pioneer in a new kind of learning. The professed linguists

seldom included German in their list, and German literature was

practically unknown.[347] Mr. Haney, in his study of "German

Literature in England before 1790," gives William Taylor of Norwich

as "the first literary critic to attempt a systematic introduction of

German literature into England," and Mr. Taylor's period of literary

activity did not begin until 1790. Of the sporadic translations

before that period, aside from scientific and theological works and a

few hymns, Mr. Haney cites but two anterior to Mrs. Collyer's _Death

of Abel_. There were few more popular works in the eighteenth century

than this translation. There were eighteen editions in twenty-one

years, and many later editions. It satisfied alike the pious reader

and the lover of fiction. _The Quarterly Review_ for 1814[348] says:

"No book of foreign growth has ever become so popular in England as

the Death of Abel. Those publishers whose market lies among that

portion of the people who are below what is called the public, but

form a far more numerous class, include it regularly among their

'sacred classics': it has been repeatedly printed at country presses

with worn types and on coarse paper; and it is found at country

fairs, and in the little shops of remote towns almost as certainly

as the Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe." Miss Hughes quotes

numerous other testimonies to the same effect.

This remarkable popularity was due, of course, to the original author

rather than to the translator. Mrs. Collyer's version received high

contemporary praise, but according to modern ideas it would be

counted loose and inaccurate. Miss Reed characterizes the style as

unnatural and affected, and she thinks that while the translation

made Gesner widely known, it in reality injured his fame. But the

excellence of the work, or its defects, are not so significant in a

study of Mrs. Collyer as are the facts that she was sufficiently well

trained in German to give even a fairly adequate version, and that

she should be the first to present a German poet of the new school to

an English public.

Mrs. Collyer died before completing her translation of Klopstock and

her husband carried it to a conclusion. He said in his Preface that

his wife's fatal illness was brought on by her agitation of mind in

connection with her work on the _Death of Abel_.

Mrs. Collyer's _Christmas Box_ is another instance of pioneer work.

Its full descriptive title is _A Christmas Box, Consisting of Moral

Stories, adapted to the Capacities of Little Children and calculated

to give them early impressions of Piety and Virtue. Two volumes.

Adorned with cuts._ The _Christmas Box_ and Miss Fielding's _Little

Female Academy_ appeared in 1749, five years after Newbery's first

child's book, _The Little Pretty Pocket Book_, of 1744. In 1745

he brought out three volumes of _The Circles of the Sciences_,

and in 1751-52 _The Lilliputian Magazine_. Thus a new class of

literature was definitely started, with Mrs. Collyer and Miss

Fielding as important contributors to the spread of the idea at its

inception.[349]

Two of Mrs. Collyer's novels are translations from the French, and

are of slight importance in comparison with her one original novel

the full title of which is _Felicia to Charlotte: Being Letters

from a Young Lady in the Country, to her Friend in Town. Containing

A Series of the most interesting Events, interspersed with Moral

Reflections; chiefly tending to prove that the Seeds of Virtue are

implanted in the Mind of Every Reasonable Being._ Volume one appeared

in 1744 and a second volume in 1749. Miss Hughes in her analysis of

this novel[350] points out various elements that forecast ideas not

dominant till some decades later. It was a novel of purpose, written

for ethical and religious ends, and as such antedates _John Buncle_

by twelve years. It is also a novel of feeling. Its hero, Lucius,

must wait for Sterne before he can find his true kin. The courtship

of Lucius is punctuated with sighs and tears, with the overwrought

emotions of a sensitive heart. Steele's _Conscious Lovers_ offers an

early sentimental parallel, but the type was not fully developed till

in the seventies. The first volume ends with the marriage of Felicia

and Lucius. In the second volume the happy pair, now quite sane and

sensible, are able to discuss with fluency and precision their ideas

on the nurture and education of children. This volume was thus a

pedagogic romance of the sort that became popular after Rousseau.

The most interesting of all the new ideas brought forward by Felicia

and Lucius is their love of nature and of country life. They choose

the country as a place of residence and justify their choice on

rational grounds. And Mrs. Collyer has a surprising fullness and

ardor of description, and a sincere joy in nature not equaled

in fiction before _John Buncle_ (1756-66), and she is a decade

earlier.[351] It was only in poetry or in philosophical theory that

Mrs. Collyer could have found sources for her literary use of

nature. Spenser, Milton, and Thomson were well known to her and they

doubtless influenced her.

Connected with this love of nature are Mrs. Collyer's ideas on

gardening. When she and Lucius bought their estate it was in the

formal style, but they at once changed it to make it appear as much

like nature as possible. In this Mrs. Collyer was not entirely

original, for the _Spectator_ and the _Guardian_, Pope, Switzer, and

Batty Langley had decried the stiff regularity of the formal garden,

and Kent's great gardens came between 1730 and 1748. But Mrs. Collyer

promptly took up the new ideas and she ranks among their early

defenders.

Mrs. Collyer is very interesting because she showed herself in these

various ways so sensitive to new ideas. She seemed to know what was

in the air even before it had had any but the most casual expression.

She sat down very modestly and with much trepidation to write

anonymous translations and novels for the support of her family, but

she was, quite unconsciously it may be, treading the path of the

pioneer.

[Sidenote: Sarah Fielding (1710-1768)]

Sarah Fielding's first and most important novel, _The Adventures

of David Simple in search of a Faithful Friend_ (1744), received

extraordinary commendation from the two contemporary authors whose

judgments might be counted authoritative, Henry Fielding and Samuel

Richardson. Fielding's satiric picture of Mrs. Western in _Tom Jones_

is more than offset by his utterances in connection with his sister

Sarah's books. When _David Simple_ appeared, _Joseph Andrews_ had

been two years before the public, and it was natural that her popular

little book should be attributed to Fielding. But when the second

edition came out (also 1744) he took occasion to disavow his supposed

authorship, and likewise to commend the book.

A third, and indeed the strongest, reason which hath drawn me

into print, is to do justice to the real and sole author of this

little book; who, notwithstanding the many excellent observations

dispersed through it, and the deep knowledge of human nature it

discovers, is a young woman; one so nearly and dearly allied

to me, in the highest friendship as well as relation, that if

she had wanted any assistance of mine I would have been as ready

to have given it to her as I would have been just to my word in

owning it; but, in reality, two or three hints which arose on the

reading it, and some little direction as to the conduct of the

second volume, much the greater part of which I never saw till in

print, were all the aid she received from me. Indeed, I believe

there are few books in the world so absolutely the author's own

as this....

And as the faults of this work want very little excuse, so its

beauties want as little recommendation; though I will not say

but they may sometimes stand in need of being pointed out to the

generality of readers. For as the merit of this work consists

in a vast penetration into human nature, a deep and profound

discernment of all the mazes, windings, and labyrinths, which

perplex the heart of man to such a degree that he is himself

often incapable of seeing through them; and as this is the

greatest, noblest, and rarest of all the talents which constitute

a genius; so a much larger share of this talent is necessary even

to recognize these discoveries when they are laid before us than

fall to the share of a common reader....

As to the characters here described, I shall repeat the saying

of one of the greatest men in this age,--"That they were as

wonderfully drawn by the writer as they were by Nature herself."

There are many strokes in Orguiel, Spatter, Varnish, Levif, the

Balancer, and some others which would have shined in the pages of

Theophrastus, Horace, or La Bruyère. Nay, there are some touches

which I will venture to say might have done honour to the pencil

of the immortal Shakespeare himself.[352]

For a continuation of _David Simple_ in 1747,[353] Fielding wrote a

dedication and five letters. In this Preface he gave his opinion on

learning for women:

The objection to the sex of the author hardly requires an answer;

it will be chiefly advanced by those who derive their opinion of

women, very unfairly, from the fine ladies of the age; whereas,

if the behavior of their counterparts, the beaux, was to denote

the understanding of men, I apprehend the conclusion would be in

favour of the women, without making a compliment to that sex.

I can, of my own knowledge and from my own acquaintance, bear

testimony to the possibility of those examples which history

gives of women eminent for the highest endowments and faculties

of mind. I shall only add an answer to the same objection,

relating to David Simple, given by a lady of very high rank,

whose quality, is however, less an honour to her than her

understanding. "So far," said she, "from doubting David Simple to

be the performance of a woman, I am well convinced it could not

have been written by a man."[354]

Miss Fielding's own views on the woman question are slightly

indicated in this story. In the course of his peregrinations David

Simple meets the charming Miss Cynthia, who tells him the story of

her life and leads him to reflect upon the irritation and unhappiness

which result from the undue restrictions imposed upon women. Miss

Cynthia had always been subject to repression. Whenever she asked

questions she was told, such things were not proper for girls of her

age to know. She was not allowed to read, for Miss Cynthia must not

inquire too far into things lest it should turn her brain. She was to

mind her needlework and such things as are useful to women. Reading

and poring over books would never get her a husband. Cynthia's

restlessness doubtless well represents the state of mind of many a

contemporary girl eager for learning, but not able to escape from the

feminine conventions.

In 1749 Miss Fielding published a work quite new in form and

intention. It was entitled _The Governess; Or, The Little Female

Academy. Calculated for the Entertainment and Instruction of Young

Ladies in their Education._ It was so popular that a seventh edition

appeared in 1760. This little book represents the happenings of nine

days in the school of Mrs. Teachum, a gentlewoman who taught young

ladies "in Reading, Writing, Working, and in all proper Forms of

Behavior." The oldest of her nine young ladies was fourteen, the

youngest was six, and the others between six and twelve. The book

was professedly written, not for the Mrs. Teachums of the age, but

for little girls under twelve. And the instruction embodied was

thrown into story form to make it more acceptable to young readers.

I know of no earlier similar attempt. Such books as had been

written for children were serious and religious in tone. But Miss

Fielding's book was lively and entertaining. Each little girl told

the history of her life and analyzed her adventures and emotions,

particularly her faults and their outcome, in true romance style.

But all is kept pretty near to a child's understanding. And there

are some occurrences--as a fracas in which the genteel young ladies

"fought and scratched and tore like young cats," for the possession

of an apple redder and bigger than its companions in the basket, a

collation at a dairy farm, sewing-parties in an arbor with Miss Jenny

Peace, the fourteen-year old girl, as story-teller and as umpire in

all disputes, that must have had extraordinary charm for young misses

who had never before seen even a semblance of their own lives in

print.

Miss Fielding's other works are of less significance except for her

translation of _Xenophon's Memoirs of Socrates; with the Defence of

Socrates before his Judges_ (1762), which indicates a knowledge of

Greek more exact than was common in her day.

The most interesting fact in Miss Fielding's life is her close

friendship with Richardson. She was one of the most ardent admirers

of his work. She says of Clarissa: "When I read of her I am all

sensation; my heart glows; I am overwhelmed; my only vent is

tears.... Often have I reflected on my own vanity in daring but to

touch the hem of her garment." In 1756 Richardson wrote to her:

Why did you not tell Lady Bradshaigh ... that you were my

much-esteemed Sally Fielding, the author of David Simple? She

knows my opinion of you, and of your writing powers.... I have

just gone through your two vols. of Letters. Have re-perused them

with great pleasure, and found many new beauties in them. What

a knowledge of the human heart! Well might a critical judge of

writing say, as he did to me, that your late brother's knowledge

of it was not (fine writer as he was) comparable to yours. His

was but as the knowledge of the outside of a clock-work machine,

while your's was that of all the finer springs and movements of

the inside.[355]

The most popular work by Miss Fielding was _The Little Female

Academy_. _David Simple_, to be sure, went through two editions in

1744. But the indications of contemporary recognition are not at all

commensurate with the praise from her brother and Richardson and

other high authorities. Of foreign appreciation of her work there

are more proofs. _David Simple_ was translated into German[356] in

1746 and into French in 1755,[357] and _The Countess of Gräfin_ was

translated into German in 1761.[358] The French translator of _David

Simple_ commented on the _approbation générale_ which this romance

had found.[359]

[Sidenote: Charlotte Lennox (1720-1804)]

Charlotte Rumsey was the daughter of Colonel James Rumsey,

Lieutenant-Governor of New York. At fifteen she was sent to England

as the protégé and probable heiress of an aunt. But the aunt became

insane, and the girl was left penniless. The only facts that emerge

concerning the difficult years before her marriage to Mr. Lennox in

about 1748 have to do with her very mediocre career as an actress.

Except for a volume of poems in 1747, it was not till after her

marriage that Mrs. Lennox came forward prominently as an author. Her

two-volume novel, _The Life of Harriet Stuart, Written by Herself_,

appeared in 1751. But in literary circles she was evidently well

known before this, for Johnson was her especial friend. When her

manuscript was ready for publication, he arranged a celebration at

his Club. The festivities were to last all night. Mrs. Lennox was

ceremoniously crowned with laurel, and there was a magnificent hot

apple-pie stuck with bay leaves.[360] This first novel is probably

in part autobiographical inasmuch as the heroine, Harriet Stuart,

is the daughter of a man of high official rank in America, and goes

to England at fifteen to live with an aunt who becomes insane and

leaves her penniless. But this is merely a slight framework for

a series of love adventures. Miss Stuart's wit and beauty gather

about her lovers of all varieties, army officers, sea-captains,

pirates, merchants; and the alarming crises of her fate put her

into close competition with Clarissa Harlowe herself. America,

France, and England are the far-separated scenes of Miss Stuart's

trials and victories, the emphasis being on her life in America.

There would be a chance for some interesting local color in this

representation of mid-eighteenth-century life in New York if the

young lady could have spared a moment from her adventures to observe

her surroundings. An Indian encampment, a visit to a fort, an

escapade to a "farm," a midnight row on the Hudson, are mentioned,

but with no comment. Towns and houses, roads, rivers, and seas, are

but localities for love scenes, means of transit from one episode

to another. The story is told with a deft manipulation of details

and an easy fluency that would seem to indicate something of a

previous literary apprenticeship. At any rate, in this novel she had

found her medium, and she was soon ready with a tale that gave her

genuine distinction. _The Female Quixote_ appeared in 1752 with a

Dedication written by Johnson, and it was reviewed by him in _The

Gentleman's Magazine_ for March. He said of it: "Mr. Fielding,

however emulous of Cervantes, and jealous of a rival, acknowledges

in his paper of the 24th, that in many instances, this copy excels

the original, and though he has no connection with the author, he

concludes his encomium on the work, by earnestly recommending it as

a most extraordinary, and most excellent performance. 'It is,' says

he, 'a work of true humour, and cannot fail of giving a rational, as

well as a very pleasing amusement, to a sensible reader, who will

at once be instructed, and highly diverted.'"[361] Johnson's name

is still more intimately connected with the book, for he wrote the

chapter which has the heading, "Being in the author's opinion, the

best chapter in this history."[362] _Harriet Stuart_ reads like an

echo of Richardson, but in _The Female Quixote_ Mrs. Lennox strikes

an original note. Comedy had already, a generation earlier, in Biddy

Tipkin, made sport of the romance-reading girls of the day. But the

satire was new in fiction. And it was carried out with a fullness

and accuracy of details possible only to one who had herself been a

traveler in enchanted realms. Mrs. Lennox must at some time have been

as devoted to French fiction as even Dorothy Osborne and Mrs. Pepys

in the preceding century. Her story is long-drawn-out and improbable,

but the cleverness with which Arabella and Lucy parody Don Quixote

and Sancho Panza gives the book a notable place among the English

followers of Cervantes. _The Spiritual Quixote_ (1773), a satire on

the Methodists, and _The Benevolent Quixote_ (1791), a satire on

mawkish ideas of charity, are inferior in vivacity and interest to

Mrs. Lennox's work.

In 1753-54 Mrs. Lennox brought out _Shakespeare Illustrated; or,

Novels and Histories on which the Plays are ... founded, collected

and translated_, an uncritical piece of work according to present

standards, but historically significant as one of the earliest

attempts to present Shakespeare's sources.[363] A two-volume novel,

_Henrietta_, in 1758, was dramatized as a didactic comedy under

the title _The Sister_,[364] and brought out at Covent Garden in

1769. Though Miss Mattocks played the chief part, and the Prologue

and Epilogue were respectively by Colman and Goldsmith, the play

met with but moderate success. In 1760-61 Mrs. Lennox edited _The

Ladies Museum_, in which were illustrated articles on natural

history written especially for ladies, philosophical discussions

simplified for ladies, and continued stories of the love-adventure

type evidently calculated for the same tastes. The most interesting

character drawing is that of an incipient Mrs. Malaprop in the person

of a Mrs. Gibbons.

If any annals were extant of Mrs. Lennox's life we should doubtless

find records of continuous study. At least we constantly get new

proofs of her learning. _The Memoirs of M. de Bethune, Duke of

Sully_, in three volumes in 1756,[365] _The Memoirs of the Countess

Berci_, in two volumes in the same year, and _Memoirs for the History

of Madame de Maintenon_, in 1757, show not only her mastery of

French, but very steady application to intellectual tasks. In 1759

she had what might be considered her crowning honor as a learned

lady. She was chosen to edit a translation of Brumoy's _Greek

Theatre_. In collaboration with her were Dr. Johnson, Dr. Gregory

Sharpe, Dr. Grainger, and John Bourrya, men of recognized standing as

scholars.[366]

Mrs. Lennox lived forty-four years after the close of the period

under discussion. But she belongs properly in the first half of

the century because all her important work comes between 1750 and

1760. After a decade of exceptional literary activity she sinks

into obscurity. In 1775 Dr. Johnson assisted in preparing proposals

for the publication of her collected works, in three quarto

volumes, by subscription. Had this plan been carried out there

would doubtless have been preserved much interesting information

concerning the social and literary life of an eminently successful

mid-eighteenth-century _bas bleu_. From the facts at hand it is easy

to see that she was countenanced by some of the best minds of her

time. Her portrait was painted by Reynolds and engraved by Bartolozzi.

[Sidenote: Miss Catharine Talbot (1721-1770)]

In 1770 Miss Elizabeth Carter gathered together and published

the _Works_ of her friend Miss Catharine Talbot. There had been

considerable urgency on the part of Miss Talbot's friends to secure

such a publication during her lifetime, but she was too timid, and,

though _The Green Book_ in which she kept sketches and fragments,

and "the considering drawer," constantly received accessions, her

modest opinion of her own worth and an exaggerated dread of general

criticism held her back from the ordeal of the printed page. But when

the _Works_ finally appeared they achieved immediate popularity.

The _Reflections on the Seven Days of the Week_ went through three

editions the first year and there was a tenth edition in 1784. Of

the _Works_ the eighth edition appeared within forty years. The

extravagant contemporary estimate of Miss Talbot as a moral and

religious writer, as a supporter of Christian ethics, can awake only

surprise in the modern reader. Even a reader whose mind has been

subdued to second-class eighteenth-century didacticism finds Miss

Talbot's moralizings pale and anæmic. But when we read her letters

we come upon a much more attractive and vital personality. A letter

descriptive of Mr. Browne Willis and his four daughters shows a gay

spirit and a talent for minute observation and social satire of the

Jane Austen type.[367]

From the age of five Miss Talbot lived in the family of Mr.

Seeker, Bishop of Oxford and later Archbishop of Canterbury. Her

spiritual and mental training were constantly under the supervision

of the Archbishop, who loved her devotedly. And her education is

particularly interesting as an illustration of the desultory and

fragmentary character of the intellectual discipline provided for a

girl of active mind, even in one of the best families. One advantage

was hers from early life, and that was her association with the

learned guests at the deanery where there was always an atmosphere

of scholarly and serious discussion. And her position as a member

of the Archbishop's family not only gave her entrance into the best

social circles, but made it incumbent on her, as hostess or guest, to

cultivate the amenities of life. But she did comparatively little in

the way of exact studies. She was proficient in French and Italian,

but she knew no Hebrew or Greek and but little Latin. She had tutors

in geography and astronomy and found satisfaction in the conceptions

opened up to her by these subjects. Of her drawing and painting for

which she had considerable repute she wrote in 1745:

I learn of a good master but am much too impatient and too

volatile to give half the time and application that are necessary

to make anything tolerable, yet I undertake large pictures, like

an inconsiderate goose as I am, and then have the mortification

to leave them unfinished. This is actually the case with a fine

holy family of Carlo Maratti's, which I began last winter (and

two or three other pictures at the same time) in crayons, and

which must now want the perfecting touches till February or

March. At the same time I had undertaken to learn perspective of

Mr. Wright. I hope from all these things I shall in time learn

discretion at least, and not to be thus perpetually aiming _de

prendre la lune avec les dents_.[368]

This letter was written when she was twenty-five. A _Dialogue_

written at eighteen gives an earlier glimpse of her chaotic student

life. This _Dialogue_ is entitled "Enquiry how far Practice has kept

pace with Intention."

What have you done, this Summer?

Rode, and laughed, and fretted.

What did you intend to do?

To learn geography, mathematics; decimal fractions and good

humour: to work a screen, draw copies of two or three fine

prints, and read abundance of history: to improve my memory and

restrain my fancy: to lay out my time to the best advantage: to

be happy myself, and make everybody else so. To read Voltaire's

Newton, Whiston's Euclid, and Tillotson's Sermons.

Have you read nothing?

Yes: some of the Sermons; Mrs. Rowe's Works; The Tale of a Tub; a

book of Dr. Watt's; L'Histoire du Ciel; Milton, and abundance of

plays and idle books.

Archbishop Secker's household presents an agreeable picture of

lettered leisure. During the evenings there are long sessions known

as "the family readings." In 1751 they are reading Pope's _Works_,

evidently in the recent nine-volume edition by Warburton. They are

filled with mingled pride and shame as they reflect on his genius and

his failings. They have read Mrs. Cockburn's defense of him and they

love her for her zealous championship. But Pope is not their idol.

All their hero worship, at least all of Miss Talbot's hero worship,

goes to Richardson. She cannot subscribe to any criticism of him. In

a discussion of one of his essays in _The Rambler_, Miss Carter's

strictures bring a spirited protest from Miss Talbot:

He does not pretend to give a scheme (not an entire scheme)

of female education, only to say how when well educated they

should behave, in opposition to the racketing life of the

Ranelagh-education misses of these our days. Do read it over

again a little candidly. How can you ever imagine that the author

of Clarissa has not an idea of what women may be, and ought to be.

Richardson and Miss Talbot were personal friends and he thought

so highly of her judgment that when he contemplated creating the

character of a perfect gentleman as the hero of _Sir Charles

Grandison_, he consulted her concerning the traits of this superman.

She in turn consulted Miss Carter, and when the book appeared she

wrote to Miss Carter in great glee:

Oh! Miss Carter, did you ever call Pigmalion a fool, for making

an image and falling in love with it ... and do you know that

you and I are two Pigmalionesses? Did not Mr. Richardson ask us

for some traits of his good man's character? And did we not give

him some? And has not he gone and put these and his own charming

ideas into a book and formed a Sir Charles Grandison?

Beside the evening readings there were leisurely literary picnics,

where by some riverside they drank tea and read Madame de Sévigné's

_Letters_ and Miss Fielding. They read Mrs. Cockburn and Mrs. Jones,

and Mrs. Lennox, even the _Memoirs_ of Mrs. Constantia Phillips, and

the early verse of Miss Mulso. There is time for slow and meditative

reading, and for interested comment and question, back and forth, by

letter. It was a normal, unpretentious, and stimulating way to gain

an acquaintance with contemporary literature. And the great classics

were read, in translations, in the same manner. To read with a

learned man like Archbishop Secker was in itself an education.

It is thus that Miss Talbot had all the environment of education

with none of its disciplinary work. By twenty she was known as "the

celebrated Miss Talbot" without any basis of actual achievement. She

seems to have embodied an eighteenth-century ideal. Her religious

beliefs were beyond cavil, her conduct irreproachable. She had an

alert mind, wide interests, and considerable information on varied

topics. She had a high social rank, and she recognized social

obligations. She was affable, approachable, attentive. She had enough

learning to give her distinction, but not enough even to threaten

pedantry. And she exerted all her talents in home and church circles.

She was not a Lætitia Pilkington writing scandal for daily bread,

nor a Mary Astell protesting against the tyranny of man, nor an

Elizabeth Elstob delving in unfashionable research. She awakened no

antagonisms. She had the success and happiness that come from being

entirely in accord with one's environment.[369]

[Sidenote: Mary Leapor (1722-1746)]

A few mediocre poetesses at the end of the period may be cursorily

noticed because in their own day they attracted some attention. In

_Poems by Eminent Ladies_ Mary Leapor (1722-1746)[370] is given more

space than any other author. And in these decorous pages she stands

out as a distinct individuality. She is the daughter of a gardener,

but no such elegant creature as Tennyson's Rose. She has work to do

indoors and out, and her life is eminently prosaic. She has a plain

face, an awkward figure, and non-descript clothes. But she has no

quarrel with fate or her mirror. She seems to have been a shrewd,

sensible young woman, vivacious, quick-witted, with no illusions, no

sentimentality, no dreams. In her minor fashion she was a satirist of

the Pope school. Of the seventeen books in the little library she had

painfully gathered, the ones she valued most were by Pope and Dryden.

She manages the heroic couplet with considerable correctness and ease

and she follows Pope's method of illustrating a topic with verse

portraits. Her closely studied country scenes suggest that Gay's

_Shepherd's Week_ must have been among her books. Considering her

youth and contracted way of life, she had a remarkable insight into

social foibles, but she had none of Swift's scorn of the human race

nor of Pope's personal virulence. Her outlook on life was detached,

tolerant, and amused.

[Sidenote: Miss Mary Jones (fl. 1755)]

In 1755, when Miss Mary Jones was included in _Eminent Ladies_, she

was still living, and therefore the date of her birth was not given.

But the editorial comment says that Oxford was her home, and "hence

deservedly called the Seat of the Muses." Miss Jones corresponded

with a maid of honor, had many intimacies among the nobility, and

rejoiced in the friendship of Her Royal Highness, the Princess

of Orange. Her poems had, therefore, especial opportunities to

make their way. But the modest author long resisted the suggested

publication of her works. She felt that these "accidental ramblings

of her thoughts into rhyme" were of too slight value to be preserved

in print. But she finally, in 1752, came forward with a volume

which was greeted with high praise. _The Monthly Review_ for 1752

began an Appreciation of her in the following flattering fashion:

"To the applauded names of the ingenious _Molly Leapor_, and the

truly admirable Mrs. _Cockburn_ (see Review, _the preceding volumes_)

we have now the pleasure to add that of Mrs. Jones; whose name

will not be less an honour to her country, and to the republic of

letters, than her amiable life and manner are to her own sex: to

that sex whose natural charms alone are found sufficient to attract

our tenderest regards; but which, when joined to those uncommon

accomplishments and virtues this lady is mistress of, so justly

command our highest admiration, and most ardent esteem." _The

Review_ considers her compositions in verse as "superior to those

of any other of our female writers since _Catherine Phillips_"

and her prose as "superior to any pieces of the kind that our own

country has produced, from the pen of a woman." She was of a gay

and vivacious temperament, and social by nature. Her interest in

her friends' affairs brought forth many occasional poems. A spider

frightens Charlot, Mrs. East's canary bird dies, a hare is sent

to Mrs. Clayton, Lady Beauclerk desires an elegy in memory of her

husband,--each incident receives poetical commemoration. Epistles on

_Patience_, _Desire_, and _Hope_ are addressed to her friends among

the nobility.

Like Miss Leapor she is a satellite of Pope. She has studied him to

such effect that phrases and whole lines from his poems occur in

her verse, and to the best of her ability she copies his style. Her

_Epistle to Lady Bowyer_ is throughout curiously reminiscent of his

_Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_. Her verse essays are loosely constructed

amplifications of Pope's aphorism which she transforms into "Whatever

is, is Best."

[Sidenote: Mrs. Madan (fl. 1755)]

Mrs. Madan ("formerly Miss Cowper") was living in 1755. She was

reputed to have fine talents for poetry, an "extraordinary genius,"

in fact, but she could never be brought to publish any of her poems.

She is therefore known now only by her translation of Abelard's

Letter to Eloisa, a kind of companion piece to Pope's _Eloisa to

Abelard_. It is smooth, well-expressed, and shows some sympathetic

understanding of Abelard's emotions.

[Sidenote: Miss Mary Masters (fl. 1755)]

Miss Mary Masters, a native of Ottley near Leeds in Yorkshire,

had an early taste for poetry, but she was "always brow-beat and

discountenanced by her parents."[371] The chief poems by her in

_Eminent Ladies_ are trite paraphrases of the Psalms and need not

detain us.

In 1755 she brought out by subscription _Familiar Letters and Poems

on Several Occasions_. The letters between her as Maria and various

friends in 1755 are of considerable interest. The young ladies

discuss, in the main, questions of love and marriage, but some

letters at the end of the book concern themselves with the relative

powers of men and women. "Miss ----" sustains the conventional view

that they differ fundamentally, men having more strength of judgment,

and women quicker apprehension. She says that no woman has been great

as an orator, that the best women poets are inferior to Milton, and

that men have always managed the government. Maria maintains that the

difference is not in the faculties themselves, but in the training of

the faculties and in opportunities for their use. She cites a young

lady of twenty-two in France who had been admitted to the Academy

of Science. And one entire letter is a eulogy of Italian learned

ladies. She gives the name of Clelia Borromeo of Milan, counted by

the Italians "the greatest mathematician their country has produced,

except Galileo and Manfredi"; Gabriella Agnesi, also of Milan,

skilled in algebraic computations; Countess Tullia Francesca Bizetti

Imbonati, a "Lyrick Poetess," another Milanese lady; Laura Catterina

Bassi, Professor of Experimental Philosophy in the University of

Bologna, and many others. Maria is the earliest apologist for the

advancement of women to make such definite and intelligent use of

the learned Italian ladies as corroborative illustrations.[372]

[Sidenote: Miss Mary Chandler (1687-1745)]

Miss Mary Chandler (1687-1745), the daughter of a minister, was a

popular poetess of Bath, where she had at eighteen set up a little

shop. She was literary in her tastes and in spite of constant

ill-health and the hard work entailed by her shop she found time for

wide reading in poetry. She also wrote rhyming riddles and poems to

her friends. She became a favorite among the gentry and the literary

ladies in and about Bath, Lady Russell, the Duchess of Somerset, Mrs.

Barber, and Elizabeth Rowe being among her friends. She often visited

at great houses and her poems were handed about with much praise. She

was finally advised to make a collection of these occasional verses

and publish them. They appeared under the title _A Description of

Bath_, and the book was so favorably received that it went through

six editions by 1744, and a seventh and an eighth edition in 1755

and 1767. Our knowledge of Miss Chandler comes mainly from Cibber's

_Lives of the Poets_. The account published by Cibber was written by

Miss Chandler's brother Samuel.[373]

[Sidenote: Mary Granville (Mrs. Delany) (1700-1788)]

Mary Granville was sent at six to the private school of Mdlle.

Puelle. From eight to seventeen she was educated at home according to

the established programme for girls destined for marriage and social

position. "Music, reading, writing, French, work, and whist" are the

occupations she enumerates. At seventeen she was married to Alexander

Pendarves, a match counted advantageous though the bridegroom was

sixty and detested by the bride. After the wedding--"conducted with

much pomp and misery"--there came seven years on an isolated estate

where all the skill and patience of the young wife were called into

action by the jealous fancies and the hypochondriac whims of her

invalid husband. At twenty-four, a beautiful widow, she entered upon

a gay period of London life. Socially a success she had many offers

of marriage, but her affections were entirely centered upon Lord

Baltimore. His impassioned love was not, however, equal to the strain

put upon it by her small dowry, and he suddenly married a rich wife.

After the long illness that followed this destruction of her hopes

Mrs. Pendarves went to Ireland to recuperate. There she met Patrick

Delany whom, years later, when she was forty-three, she married.

The most satisfying years of her life came after this marriage. Dr.

Delany belonged to the best literary set of Dublin, and he was in

full accord with his wife's literary and artistic interests. For

a quarter of a century her life was one of leisure, stimulating

companionship, much reading and discussion, much social variety, and

long hours of entertaining hand-work. After Dr. Delany's death in

1768 Mrs. Delany lived in an honored, dignified, but not inactive

retirement. She was loved and visited by the King and Queen and by

many devoted friends. There had gathered about her name a tradition

of love and admiration. A sketch of her entitled "Maria," by Dr.

Delany, does not exceed the general impression we get of her charm.

He wrote:

Maria was early initiated into every art, with elegance and

condition, that could form her into a fine lady, a good woman,

and a good Christian. She read and wrote two languages correctly

and judiciously. She soon became a mistress of her pen in every

art to which a pen could be applied. She wrote a fine hand in the

most masterly manner, she drew, and she designed with amazing

correctness and skill....

With a person finely proportioned, she had a lovely face of great

sweetness set off with a head of fair hair, shining and naturally

curled, with a complexion which nothing could equal, in which the

lilies and the roses contended for the mastery. Her eyes were

bright ... indeed, I could never tell the colour they were of,

but to the best of my belief they were what Solomon calls "Dove's

eyes," and she is almost the only woman I ever saw whose lips

were scarlet and her bloom beyond comparison.

Mr. Ballard dedicated the second part of the _Memoirs of Learned

Ladies_ to her as "the truest judge, and the brightest pattern of

all the accomplishments which adorn her sex." Burke called her "the

highest bred woman of the world and the woman of fashion of all ages."

These citations but faintly indicate the impression made by Mrs.

Delany on her contemporaries. It is not, however, an impression

sustained by any existing work of hers. The seventy-two pictures

she painted were copies of old masters with occasional portraits

of relatives and friends, and they were highly prized at the time,

but no one of them was of sufficient excellence to secure permanent

recognition. Her wide and diversified reading is evidenced by her

letters which are full of references to the histories, novels, plays,

criticism, and devotional works occupying her eager attention. She

carried books on every journey. She read or was read to every spare

moment. But none of this miscellaneous devotion to books resulted in

anything like learning or even in a critically discriminating taste.

Her two real achievements were letter-writing and hand-work. Over

a thousand of her letters have been published. They are lively and

entertaining and are valuable for the study of mid-eighteenth-century

social life. Especially vivid are her accounts of festivities. The

rooms and their furnishings, the gowns and jewels of the ladies,

the refreshments served, the guests and their idiosyncrasies, are

effectively sketched in. There is humorous appreciation, but no touch

of malice, and almost no gossip. The refinement and sweetness of

tone in the letters never becomes vapid or mawkish. There is always

a counter-balancing gayety and buoyancy of mood. Mrs. Delany must

have made letter-writing nearly as much a matter of business as did

Miss Seward, but the heavy "epistolary solicitudes" of the Swan of

Lichfield are at the other end of the scale from Mrs. Delany's bright

naturalness. Mrs. Delany's letters are but a clear medium revealing

"the fine lady, the good woman, and the good Christian" of Dr.

Delany's picture of "Maria."

The most surprising element of Mrs. Delany's life is her hand-work.

In October, 1750, she wrote: "I am going to make a very comfortable

closet, to have a dresser, and all manner of working tools, to keep

all my stores for painting, carving, and gilding, etc., for my own

room is now so clean and pretty that I cannot suffer it to be strewed

with litter, only books and work, and the closet belonging to it to

be given up to prints, drawings, and my collections of fossils and

minerals."

With almost any tool she had instinctive dexterity, and she had taste

and originality. She apparently enjoyed every kind of hand-work that

came to her notice. She never wasted a minute. The knotting-shuttle

and the embroidery needle were constant attendants on her tea-table

hours, and she accomplished almost unbelievable amounts in

designing and working fancy gowns, coverings for chairs and sofas,

bed-curtains, etc. She made a carpet and other elaborate pieces in

double cross-stitch; she did "shell lustres" and chenille work; she

designed and executed a chapel ceiling in cards and shells. Most

remarkable of all is her herbal begun when she was seventy-two and

completed when she was eighty-five. The flowers were made of colored

papers and were so accurate as hardly to be distinguished from

the flowers themselves. This paper mosaic was left to the Duchess

of Portland with a selection of twenty of the flowers to Queen

Charlotte. The herbal is now in the British Museum.

A review of the achievements of Mrs. Delany--her painting, her

hand-work, her letter-writing, her multifarious reading--shows that

these are but incidental to her personal charm. Her beauty, and the

loveliness of her nature, made a fine commendatory background for

whatever she did. A friend's portrait, a design for a gown, a bit

of turning in ivory, a letter--every trifle gained in value when

illumined by the "dove's eyes" of so high-bred and elegant a lady.

Her character was marked by uprightness, dignity, and good judgment.

She was delicate in her feelings, gentle, courteous, and most

sincerely kind. All of her qualities made her a desirable member of

any family or social group. It is as a fine lady of the best type

that she is remembered, not as a learned woman.

[Sidenote: Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806)]

Elizabeth Carter lived nearly half a century after the close of

the period now under consideration, and her fame as a learned lady

belongs chiefly in the second half of the century, but the work on

which that fame was based belongs before 1760. Our knowledge of

her life comes mainly from two sources, her _Memoirs_ published in

1807 by her nephew and executor, Montagu Pennington, and a series

of letters between Miss Carter and Miss Talbot written in the years

1741-1770 and published in 1809. There are also many allusions to

Miss Carter in contemporary writings.[374]

Miss Carter's linguistic tastes were early in evidence, but she

was discouragingly slow and dull in mastering language details. It

was by sheer force of industry that she developed her remarkable

aptitude for foreign tongues. Latin, Greek, and Hebrew she learned

from her father. Italian, Spanish, and German she taught herself.

French she had learned as a child from a Huguenot refugee minister

in Canterbury. She also gained some knowledge of Portuguese, and

she finally studied Arabic. She began her career as an author at

seventeen with verses signed "Eliza" in _The Gentleman's Magazine_.

At twenty-one her slender little volume of poems appeared. It is all

occasional verse and nowhere rises to any particular excellence.

But its moralizing and reflective tone proved acceptable to many

readers and there were new editions in 1762, 1766, 1776, 1777, with a

translation into French in 1706.

In 1739 Miss Carter's knowledge of French and Italian, her wide

reading, and her interest in philosophical questions were shown by

her translation from the French of an attack on Pope's _Essay on

Man_, by M. Crousaz,[375] and a translation from the Italian of

Algarotti's _Newtonianismo per le dame_.[376] At thirty-two she began

her translation of _Epictetus_ at the request of Miss Talbot and

Archbishop Secker. She kept rather fitfully at this task for three

years, from time to time forwarding completed sheets to the deanery.

She had not made the translation with any thought of publication and

it was with much difficulty that she could be brought to consider the

thought of presenting her work to a general public. But consensus of

authoritative opinion as to the ethical value of the original and

the excellence of the translation led her finally to consent to a

subscription publication at a guinea a volume in 1758. The success

was unprecedented. Her share of the profits was one thousand guineas

and her fame was established beyond cavil.

After _Epictetus_ we hear of no more work by Miss Carter. Her

intellectual life was not, however, at a standstill. She kept up her

languages by daily assigned readings, she read much in ancient and

modern history, she shows thorough familiarity with new books of

science, poetry, and letters. She practiced on the spinet and German

flute. She was an admirable housekeeper, being in especial repute for

puddings, cakes, and pastries. All odd minutes were given to work

with the needle and the shuttle. And she was guide and teacher to her

young half-brothers and sisters. But we get no more poems, no more

learned translations.

Her growing reputation as the most distinguished _bas bleu_ in

England, her social success during London winters, the awe with

which her country neighbors regarded her as "the greatest schollard

in the world," her travels in England and on the Continent, her

literary and artistic friendships--all these given in vivid detail in

her letters--belong in the picture of the brilliant life after the

mid-century mark.

[Illustration: MISS ELIZABETH CARTER

From an engraving in _The Works of Elizabeth Carter_, 1806]

But in whatever period, from whatever point of view, Miss Carter

presents us with a career almost unexampled in the annals

of learned ladies. She chose learning young and pursued it

undeviatingly, with no hesitancies and no retrospective regrets.

There were no disapproving friends or relatives to interpose

obstacles in her path. Few girls, even to-day, could have greater

freedom in the determination of their own hours, occupations, and

pleasures. Her father, though disheartened by her slow progress,

was her faithful teacher. Even her stepmother aided and abetted

her extravagant devotion to study. She was allowed to determine

the momentous question of marriage entirely according to her own

inclinations. Her published work met with immediate praise. She was

but twenty-two when Johnson published epigrams in Greek and Latin in

her honor, and said she should be praised in as many languages as

Lewis the Grand. And by middle life she had achieved independence,

money, and fame.

Nor was her career merely an external success brilliantly masking

unsatisfied inner desires. On the contrary, to the end her

eighty-nine years seemed rich and gracious to her. She did not covet

other women's lovers or husbands or children or homes. She set

possible honors lightly aside. When her friends were urging upon her

a place at court, she dreamed that she had cut off her head for the

greater convenience of curling her hair, and she declared this dream

symbolic of the fatal cost at which honors were often bought. Her

joys were of an unambitious, quiet, perennial sort. She loved nature

in all its moods of storm and shine. Her genius for friendship nearly

equaled the "Matchless Orinda's." She loved reading and had many

books. She enjoyed reflection and had many hours of happy solitude.

She was domestic in her tastes and found herself loved and needed in

her father's home. She had a sound, sweet, sensible, modest nature

that not only disarmed criticism, but preserved her from any undue or

arrogant emphasis on her position as the most distinguished literary

woman of her time. And she had an unfailing sense of humor that sent

an undercurrent of enjoyment through even the prosaic and dreary

parts of life.