BLUESTOCKINGS AS AUTHORS
Much mischief to the cause of criticism is wrought by the
specialists. Investigators in the underworld of forgotten books,
to which scholarly competition too frequently drives them, often
become so accustomed to the darkness about them that they mistake
a glimmer for the glorious light of the upper world, and hasten to
inform an inattentive public that the dim by-ways and dark corners
of the realm of dead authors are by no means lacking in brilliancy.
But such assertions serve rather to darken counsel than to illuminate
the world. Enthusiasm for a subject sometimes coexists with a state
of delusion about it. It ought to be possible to discover that a
forgotten book is readable without trying to convince the public
that an acquaintance with it is indispensable to all who pretend to
culture.
The works of the bluestockings have all long since sunk into this
oblivion. The benevolent reader of them has the feeling which Dante
experienced so strongly when he met in hell the souls who had once
been famous in a brighter world. These books seem to appeal to the
reader to reëstablish something of their former fame, even though
this, in its turn, prove to be but transitory. Who now reads
Montagu? To many the question itself will be unintelligible; or will
be taken to refer to another; yet in 1770 all the world was reading
her. It is hardly too much to say that as a critic she was esteemed
almost as highly as Johnson himself. She was known as the woman who
had dared to challenge comparison with Lucian, as the defender and
even as the ‘patroness’ of Shakespeare; she was an Eve in the world
of critics, an armed Athena who had set her foot on the head of the
serpent Voltaire.
Mrs. Montagu’s career as a writer began with the composition of three
dialogues which were added to Lord Lyttelton’s _Dialogues of the
Dead_ when they appeared in 1760. The works were anonymous; but the
news that they were by Mrs. Montagu was soon spread abroad. Many had
no doubt inferred her authorship already from the enthusiastic words
in which the noble lord spoke of her: ‘I shall think,’ he says, ‘the
Public owes me a great Obligation for having excited a Genius so
capable of uniting Delight with Instruction, and giving to Knowledge
and Virtue those Graces which the Wit of the Age has too often
employed all its skill to bestow upon Folly and Vice.’ The public did
not disappoint the peer. Five editions were called for before 1768.
Mrs. Montagu’s dialogues might easily be dismissed by saying that
they do not reach the level of Lyttelton’s. But if it be required to
detect grades of value in work so uniformly flat, we may say that the
dialogue between Mercury and a Modern Fine Lady is the best, as that
between Hercules and Cadmus is the worst. They are all well called
Dialogues of the Dead, for despite all their inflation, they never
once betray any semblance of vitality. Of characterization they are
wholly innocent, but not of profundity. Cadmus, for example, gives
utterance to this: ‘The genuine glory, the proper distinction of the
rational Species, arises from the perfection of the mental powers.
Courage is apt to be fierce, and Strength is often exerted in acts of
Oppression. But Wisdom is the Associate of Justice; It assists her to
form equal Laws, to pursue right measures, to correct power, protect
weakness, and to unite individuals in a common Interest and general
Welfare.’ It is amazing the amount of such platitudinizing which the
eighteenth century consumed with relish. It is one of the marvels of
that marvellous era. The style derived its popularity in part from
Johnson, who himself achieved a bare victory over its deadliness by
the vivacity of his intellect.
In the dialogue between Mercury and Mrs. Modish, the author was at
once less pretentious and in closer touch with her subject. Yet even
here her desire to give instruction triumphs over any temptation
to depict human nature. Mrs. Modish, the frivolous butterfly,
explains the phrase _bon ton_ quite as seriously as Mrs. Carter the
bluestocking would have done: ‘It is—I can never tell you what it is;
but I will try to tell you what it is not. In conversation it is not
Wit; in manners it is not Politeness; in behaviour it is not Address;
but it is a little like them all. It can only belong to people of
a certain rank, who live in a certain manner, with certain persons
who have not certain virtues and who have certain Vices, and who
inhabit a certain Part of the Town.’ This is perhaps the best thing
in the dialogues. One great advantage of these works remains to be
mentioned. They triumph over the form in which they are written, for
they never once remind us of Lucian.
But Mrs. Montagu had yet to achieve her unique distinction. It
was nine years later that she delighted the world by appearing
as the champion of Shakespeare, redressing his wrongs,[312] and
vindicating him from the charges of Voltaire. She published a work
somewhat largely entitled, _An Essay on the Writings and Genius of
Shakespeare, Compared with the Greek and French Dramatic Poets, with
some Remarks upon the Misrepresentations of Mons. de Voltaire_.
The attacks upon Shakespeare which Mrs. Montagu felt it incumbent
upon herself to answer need no discussion here;[313] it may suffice
to say that her defence was more widely read in England than the
‘misrepresentations’ which called it into being. It was regarded as
a standard piece of criticism, and its fame penetrated to France and
even to Italy.[314] It is impossible to give adequate illustrations
of the esteem in which the book was held.[315] It conferred upon
Mrs. Montagu the reputation of a critic, and gave her an enviable
position among English writers for the space of thirty years. In the
chorus of praise with which this feeble book was greeted there was
but one discordant voice. When Reynolds remarked that Mrs. Montagu’s
essay did her honour, Dr. Johnson retorted: ‘Yes, Sir, it does _her_
honour, but it would do nobody else honour. I have indeed, not read
it all. But when I take up the end of a web, and find it packthread,
I do not expect by looking further to find it embroidery. Sir, I will
venture to say, there is not one sentence of true criticism in her
book.’[316]
It is to this view that posterity—when it has had any views at all
on the subject—has inclined. Professor Huchon naturally deplores
it,[317] and builds up a judicious defence of the defence. But the
modern reader will probably agree with Mr. Lounsbury that ‘it is in
many ways one of the most exasperating of books.’ Mrs. Montagu’s
ignorance of the Elizabethan era was both profound and extensive.
Her conception of Shakespeare’s environment may be deduced from the
following quotation:
The songs sung by our bards at feasts and merry-makings were of a
very coarse kind: as the people were totally illiterate, and only
the better sort could read even their mother tongue, their taste
was formed on these compositions. As yet our stage had exhibited
only those palpable allegories by which rude unlettered moralists
instruct and please the gross and ignorant multitude.[318]
A woman who conceived of Shakespeare as living ‘in the dark shades of
Gothic barbarism,’[319] and who lamented his lack of ‘the admonitions
of delicate connoisseurs’[320] had in effect yielded all that the
most virulent critic could demand. Mrs. Montagu’s enthusiasms seem
very pallid after her alarming concessions. She considers Falstaff
humorous and Macbeth tragic, and is, in general and as usual,
platitudinous. But her continuous apologies and concessions really
form the staple of her work. ‘She found,’ says Lounsbury, ‘the speech
of Brutus to the people in _Julius Cæsar_, quaint and affected. She
exhibited her utter incapacity to comprehend the rhetorical skill of
Antony by declaring that the repetition of the epithet “honorable”
in his speech was perhaps too frequent. The character of Pistol in
the second part of _Henry IV_ was too much for her to understand.
Following previous critics she found many bombast speeches in the
tragedy of _Macbeth_. Like her predecessors she unfortunately forgot
to particularize them; lapse of time has now made it difficult to
discover them.’
One of the features of Mrs. Montagu’s _Essay_ was a series of
comparisons between the Shakespearian drama and the ancient Greek.
Here she was indeed on dangerous ground, for she could not read the
language of Æschylus. This, however, did not discourage her from
expressing herself very decidedly on the characteristics of his art.
She pronounces the supernatural element in _The Persians_ unfitted
to the piece, and finds ‘something of a comic and satirical turn’
in the ghost of Darius.[321] She asserts that the Eumenides of the
Oresteian trilogy ‘seem both acting out of their sphere and below
their character’;[322] but admits that the whole story ‘might be
allegorical.’ Such indeed she considered very nearly all of Æschylus
to be; for she had a peculiar notion that his materials were derived
at second-hand ‘from the hieroglyphic land of Egypt,’ and, though in
the grosser times of Greece literally understood by the vulgar, were
in more philosophic ages ‘again transmuted into allegory.’[323] But
it is idle longer to stir this forgotten dust.
* * * * *
A woman truly learned in the classics, whose abiding common sense
protected her from the ridicule freely poured out upon bluestockings,
was Miss (or, by courtesy, Mrs.) Elizabeth Carter, the spinster of
Deal. To Mrs. Montagu (patron of letters) she was an indulgent
preceptress, a very Pierian source of learning, and much that passed
as erudition in the ‘female Mæcenas’ was in reality derived at
second-hand from Mrs. Carter. Mrs. Montagu was never unwilling to
sit at the feet of the woman whose reading ranged from Aristotle to
Petrarch and from Diodorus Siculus to the _Sorrows of Werther_,[324]
who would correspond with her respecting the Newtonian mechanics or
the Stoic philosophers.
Mrs. Carter’s reputation was made by a translation of the extant
works of Epictetus, an elegant quarto put forth in 1758, provided
with an introduction and ample notes. The style of the translation
is, in a very high degree, chaste and pleasing, and nowhere suggests
the line-by-line method of the laborious translator. The introductory
essay is an admirable exposition of the Stoic philosophy. The
following specimen may show that Mrs. Carter was capable not only of
a spirited style, but of genuine critical treatment of her subject:
About the generality of mankind, the Stoics do not appear to have
given themselves any kind of trouble. They seemed to consider
all (except the few who were students in the intricacies of a
philosophic system) as very little superior to Beasts: and, with
great tranquillity, left them to follow the devices of their own
ungoverned appetites and passions.
With regard to the value of the book as a translation of Epictetus,
it is perhaps sufficient to point out that it was, in its own time, a
standard commentary, that it passed into a second edition in 1759,
and that it is the basis upon which a subsequent translator has been
content to build.[325] It has, moreover, renewed its youth in the
recent reprints of popular libraries of the classics.[326]
Mrs. Carter has, therefore, transferred to modern times something of
her scholarly fame. Yet she was not a pedant, and never gave herself
the airs of a _femme savante_. Johnson (who wrote a Greek epigram
in her honour that she might be celebrated in ‘as many different
languages as Lewis le Grand’[327]) used to say that she could ‘make
a pudding as well as translate Epictetus from the Greek, and work
a handkerchief as well as compose a poem.’[328] He paid her the
compliment of receiving two of her essays for the pages of _The
Rambler_,[329] and these, though dull, are not more unreadable than
the rest of that periodical.
Of her collected poems there were four editions during her own life.
But it must be frankly admitted that her reputation as an independent
author, though respectable in her own day,[330] has since suffered
total extinction. Yet the student may discover in her poems here and
there a point of antiquarian interest. For our purpose the volume is
significant as containing lyrics to Mrs. Vesey and Mrs. Montagu. Both
poems, though addressed to living ladies, contrive to belong to the
Churchyard School and to prolong faint echoes of Gray. Two of the
stanzas addressed to Mrs. Vesey are plainly intended to counteract
that lady’s rationalism, and may be quoted here as a specimen of Mrs.
Carter’s poetic powers:
Not for themselves the toiling Artists build;
Not for himself contrives the studious Sage:
To distant Views by mystic Force compelled,
All give the _present_ to the _future_ age....
Yet check that impious Thought, my gentle Friend,
Which bounds our Prospects by our fleeting Breath,
Which hopeless sees unfinished Life descend,
And ever bars the Prison Gates of Death.[331]
Over the whole volume is cast the shadow of the now-fashionable
melancholy, and much is made of the midnight moon, the evening dew,
the ‘Gothic pile,’ and the ivy bower of the bird of night. These
are worth mention as showing that Mrs. Carter’s interests were not
bounded by the school of Pope. Her tastes, like Mrs. Vesey’s,
grew increasingly romantic, and though she detested _Werther_[332]
and never doubted that Rousseau was mad,[333] she was always an
affectionate believer in Ossian.[334] She felt the new passion for
landscape. In thought she accompanies Mrs. Vesey to the cliffs
of Snowden,[335] and regrets that Mrs. Montagu cannot ascend the
heights of windy Morven.[336] At Eastry she dreams herself back to
the worship of Woden.[337] Her interest in Gothic architecture is
intense, and she writes about the demolition of old buildings like
a disciple of Ruskin: ‘It seems to me that when a fair inheritance
is transmitted to a family they ought to feel a certain degree of
tenderness to the abode of the ancestors from whom it is derived,
which ought at least to sink quietly by the silent depredations of
time, and not be torn down by the rude hand of human violence.’[338]
This interest in romance enabled her to understand the Celtic
imaginings of Mrs. Vesey as her learning and her knowledge of
philosophy gave her a control over Mrs. Montagu. Her friendship
with the two ladies was unruffled throughout, and she received an
annuity of £100 from the latter without any sacrifice of dignity.
She never lost her head about anything—least of all about herself.
She was a scholar and had a scholar’s love of the classics, yet she
was broad enough to know when the age was widening its horizon. In
an age of prudes, she dared to like _Tom Jones_. In an age of wits,
she appreciated wit, yet had the sense to see that it is a ‘squint
of the understanding which is mighty apt to set things in a wrong
place.’[339] She understood and approved what was best in the salons,
but could be happy without any pretensions to a career in them.
Thus her life was passed serenely without social rivalries, without
the attempt or desire to follow her ostentatious friends afar, and
while escaping the criticism so freely visited upon them, she had
the honour of contributing by her quiet, serious, and almost unseen
influence to whatever of solid worth they were to achieve.
* * * * *
Intimately associated with Miss Carter was ‘the admirable Mrs.
Chapone,’ who, when Miss Mulso, had been one of Richardson’s
‘Daughters.’ Her two chief works, _Letters on the Improvement of
the Mind_ and _Miscellanies in Prose and Verse_, were the result of
bluestocking patronage, and were dedicated to Mrs. Montagu and Mrs.
Carter respectively. The former, having seen Mrs. Chapone’s letters
to a favourite niece, recommended their publication, and assisted in
preparing them for the press by correcting them with her ‘elegant
pen.’[340] The preparation of the second volume was undertaken at the
instigation of Mrs. Carter and with the approval of Mrs. Montagu;
though Mrs. Delany claims the honour of having first put the plan
into the author’s head.[341]
Mrs. Chapone’s _Letters_ were supposed to have had an enormous
influence on the conduct of young women. According to Hannah More,
in _Sensibility_, Chapone ‘forms the rising age.’ In Samuel Hoole’s
_Aurelia_, the heroine has a vision of an ideal woman:
On the plain toilet, with no trophies gay,
CHAPONE’S instructive volume open lay.
But one is inclined to suspect that this volume belongs to that
large class of admonitory works less popular with the young than
with their parents and preceptors. The book was put into the hands
of every young girl from the Princess Royal downwards. Mrs. Delany
considered it next to the Bible as an entertaining and edifying
work for youthful females. She advises that not more than six lines
of it be read at one sitting, in order that it may be the more
deeply impressed on the attention, and thinks that the historical
and geographical parts of it should be got by heart. She hopes her
grand-niece will read it once a year, until she has a daughter to
read it to her.[342] Mrs. Chapone herself smiled at the popularity
of the book, and considered its success to be due principally to the
patronage of Mrs. Montagu, and in part to the ‘world’s being so fond
of being educated.’[343] It is probable that it was generally used
as an antidote to the _Letters_ of Chesterfield which appeared about
the same time, and had a very different reception.
Mrs. Chapone’s _Letters_ consist almost entirely of advice; if
she ever wanders from this it is to give instruction. She treats
in turn of religion, the Bible, the affections, the temper,
economy, politeness, geography, and history. It is all admirable,
incontrovertible, wholesome, and heavy. It is like oatmeal—an
old-fashioned food which should be consumed in quantities by the
young, but for which they perversely seem to have no appetite. It
will be remembered that when Lydia Languish received an untimely
visit from Mrs. Malaprop, she wished to be found reading Mrs.
Chapone; though her interests were more seriously engaged by works
less uplifting. Of literary quality in these _Letters_ one can hardly
speak, for it is difficult to diffuse literary quality through two
hundred pages of solid advice.
The contents of Mrs. Chapone’s second volume are hardly different.
There are essays (‘Affectation and Simplicity’; ‘Conversation’), but
they are in the same hortatory strain as the _Letters_. There are
poems—fortunately few—several of which are addressed to Elizabeth
Carter. They are, in general, like that lady’s poems, save that they
reveal the influence of Collins rather than of Gray.
The most interesting things Mrs. Chapone wrote were her familiar
letters.[344] They contain many interesting remarks on Richardson,
and Johnson, both of whom were personally known to the author. They
have an independence, an ease, and a vivacity that are quite lacking
in the more solemn productions. The reader of them may find it in his
heart to regret that Mrs. Chapone was so filled with a sense of the
earnestness of life and of the importance of piety. A long indulgence
in frivolity might have saved her.
* * * * *
Miss Hannah More had larger ambitions and more varied talents than
the other bluestocking authors. She wrote poems lyrical, occasional,
and narrative; she wrote dramas tragic, classical, and sacred;
and she wrote essays and critiques of conduct. In all her earlier
work she was assisted and inspired by the bluestockings. She was
their chosen poet. She represented them in print as Mrs. Montagu
represented them in the salon. She celebrated them all in verse, and
dedicated in turn to Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Montagu, and Mrs. Vesey. It
is with this earlier period of her career that we are exclusively
concerned; the voluminous works which the lady produced after her
separation from the bluestockings form no proper part of our inquiry.
Miss More’s relations with the bluestockings began in 1774, soon
after her arrival in London. The exact date of her first visit to
the metropolis is uncertain. Her biographer, Roberts, who seldom
gives himself any concern with dates, says that this took place in
‘1773 or 4’; but inasmuch as Miss More dedicated her _Inflexible
Captive_ to Mrs. Boscawen as early as March 1, 1774, the former date
would appear the more probable. Her introduction to the _literati_
was due to Garrick, whose interest in Miss More had been roused by
her description of his acting in _Lear_.[345] By 1775 Hannah More
was a recognized member of the circle that surrounded Mrs. Montagu.
Her poems, _Bas Bleu_ and _Sensibility_, which have been noticed
elsewhere in this book, were composed directly in their honour; but
works of a more public appeal created no less enthusiasm among these
ladies. Thus her ballad, _Sir Eldred of the Bower_, which appeared in
1775, was greeted by Mrs. Montagu in her most extravagant manner. She
admired ‘the spirit and fire of the gothic character’ in the tale;
the simplicity of the plot, the depiction of ancient manners (save
the mark!), the primitive sentiments, and the characterization—all
these challenged the critical approval of Mrs. Montagu. The tale
of _The Bleeding Rock_, in the same volume, she esteemed no less
highly. ‘Your Rock,’ she wrote, ‘will stand unimpaired by ages as
eminent as any in the Grecian Parnassus.’[346] Such was the measure
of bluestocking praise. But the poems had a sanction more important
than this. They were read by a larger circle, Reynolds, Garrick,
and Johnson; they became the ‘theme of conversation in all polite
circles.’ Johnson could repeat all the best stanzas by heart.[347]
He read both poems with the author, made some alterations in _Sir
Eldred_, and even—as was his custom with poems submitted to his
judgment—added certain lines to it.[348]
The poems belong to the Gothic school, and may well have been
suggested by Percy’s _Reliques_; Johnson’s interest in them would be
hard to understand were they not the production of a woman whom he
playfully termed ‘the most powerful versificatrix’ in the language.
But the bluestockings loved romance[349] and the primitive world to
which they thought it introduced them. The fact that this world, as
conceived by Hannah More, has no remote similarity to our own made it
only the more conformable to bluestocking standards of the antique.
In reading this lady’s poems and plays one is constantly reminded of
those still-popular engravings of the eighteenth century, in which
distressed virgins, in carefully studied poses, cast their melting
eyes up to heaven. They live in bowers; refer to themselves in the
third person, as the ‘sad Elwina’ and ‘the distressed Julia’; and
when disappointed in love, or (to speak in their own idiom) when
their flame is not reciprocated, immediately go mad, and after a
painful scene before the footlights complete their career by sudden
death. Their lovers are of sterner stuff. They seek wars in distant
climes, disappear for long periods of time, and are reckoned dead,
only to reappear just as some domestic tragedy is reaching its
climax; they are for ever drawing their swords—frequently to plunge
them into their own bosoms. Miss More made full use of the poetic
license which governs this pasteboard world. Her characters are
burdened with no human motives, and it is idle to seek for related
cause and effect in their conduct. But morality flourishes. Thus in
_Sir Eldred_ we learn the dangers of jealousy:
The deadliest wounds with which we bleed
Our crimes alone inflict;
Man’s _mercies_ from God’s hand proceed,
His _miseries_ from his _own_.
But as the hero never once in the course of the poem acted like a
human being, the force of the moral is somewhat impaired.
In 1777 Miss More essayed a higher flight. She had written dramas
in her school-teaching days,[350] and now, with the assistance of
Garrick, produced a romantic tragedy, entitled _Percy_. Its title,
if not its contents, indicates the influence of Home’s _Douglas_.
The situation in this play, venerable in romance, deals with two
rival houses, those of Percy and Douglas, a heroine forced into an
unwilling marriage with the rival of her lover, who has been killed
in the Crusades. The distressed heroine and the returned lover (who
had not really been killed) meet in a garden-bower:[351]
_Percy._ Am I awake? Is that Elwina’s voice?
_Elwina._ Percy, thou most adored—and most deceived!
If ever fortitude sustained thy soul,
When vulgar minds have sunk beneath the stroke,
Let thy imperial spirit now support thee.—
If thou canst be so wondrous merciful,
Do not, O do not curse me!—but thou wilt,
Thou must—for I have done a dreadful deed,
A deed of wild despair, a deed of horror.
I am, I am—
_Percy._ Speak, say, what art thou?
_Elwina._ Married.
_Percy._ Oh!
It is unnecessary to follow the course of the tragedy; for the
reader’s own imagination will suggest it.
The play was a success in every way. It ran for twenty-one nights.
No tragedy for years had been so successful. Mrs. Barry was at
her finest in the mad-scene at the end. The author made nearly
six hundred pounds.[352] The play was translated into German, and
acted with success in Vienna. The bluestockings were triumphant.
Mrs. Montagu appeared repeatedly in her box at Covent Garden. Mrs.
Boscawen, who could carry Duchesses to the theatre with her, sent
the author a wreath of bay.[353] Mrs. Delany invited her to dinner.
Garrick, who had written the prologue, introduced her to Home, thus
presenting ‘Percy to the Douglas.’[354]
In _Percy_ Miss More reached the summit of her early achievement, and
the book is still sought by collectors. Readers, if in an indulgent
mood, will perhaps agree with Walpole, who found the play better
than he expected, and, though devoid of nature, not lacking in
good situations.[355] Severer folk will side with Mrs. Thrale, who
considered it foolish, and thought Fanny Burney ought to be whipped
if she did not write a better.[356] The truth probably lies between
the two opinions. To the eighteenth century the piece certainly
seemed to have merit. At any rate, it was popular enough to be
revived in order that Mrs. Siddons might appear as Elwina. Had it
survived to the mid-nineteenth century it might have proved useful as
a libretto for Bellini or Donizetti. In the coloratura woes of the
modern _diva_, the distressed Elwina would have found her perfect
interpretation.
Garrick was so pleased with the success of _Percy_ that he urged Miss
More to write another tragedy. The result was _The Fatal Falsehood_,
a romantic tragedy of the same sort. It was acted late in the spring
of 1779, some months after the death of Garrick, and, though it did
not duplicate the success of the earlier play, was enthusiastically
received. With its production Miss More’s connection with the London
stage came to an end.[357]
_The Fatal Falsehood_ sinks far below the level of _Percy_. It
probably suffered from the lack of Garrick’s revising hand; though it
is doubtful if even his genius could have introduced any semblance
of reality into a series of situations so preposterous. Miss More is
usually content to depend upon accident as the source of her dramatic
effects; but in _The Fatal Falsehood_ she attempted to depict in
Bertrand a villain as subtle as Iago. Although he analyzes himself
and his motives in a series of soliloquies, he remains a tangle of
absurdities, and all the action of the piece, which flows from him,
must be similarly described.
Miss More’s dramas, as well as her poems and essays, were intended
to serve the cause of virtue, about which all bluestockings were
seriously concerned. Even the plays are filled with a sort of
portable morality in the shape of maxims:
The treacherous path that leads to guilty deeds
Is, to make vice familiar to the mind.
Miss More never escaped from the office of preceptress; the forming
spirit of all her work is that of the Young Ladies’ Academy.
In the same year which saw the production of _Percy_, she put forth
a volume entitled _Essays on Several Subjects, principally intended
for Young Ladies_. The book is of the same sort as Mrs. Chapone’s
_Letters_: it warns young women to be modest, to avoid envy, and
guard against the ‘obliquities of fraud’ in lovers. Allowing for its
hopelessly narrow view of life, it may be granted that the advice is
sound enough. But the bluestockings never realize that good advice is
the cheapest commodity in the world.
_Florio_, a tale somewhat inappropriately dedicated to Walpole, is
a sort of parable in verse, designed to enforce such lessons as
are conveyed in the _Essays_. The hero, once a slave to frivolous
society, is converted by reading Johnson’s _Idler_ and inspecting the
beauties of Nature under the direction of his mistress.
With _Florio_ we reach a period in Miss More’s literary career and
the end of what may be called the bluestocking influence on her work.
Her pietism, which had amused Garrick, was now becoming chronic.
She declined to go and see Mrs. Siddons as Elwina, because it is
wrong to attend the theatre. She deplored the singing, dancing, and
feasting in which London indulged after King George’s recovery of
his sanity.[358] She even objected to the phrase _merry Christmas_,
as being bacchanalian rather than Christian.[359] Walpole, who was
naturally distressed by all this, made a charming attack on Miss
More’s Low Church faith in the Ten Commandments, and pointed out to
her that she was guilty of the Puritanical heresy.[360] The truth
is that Miss More’s sense of responsibility to society at large was
weighing on her mind. In 1788 she published a serious call to a more
solemn view of life in her _Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners
of the Great to General Society_, and definitely embarked upon her
career as preceptress in public morality. Meanwhile she was drawing
steadily away from her fashionable friends. At last she came to think
any association with them almost wicked. On March 12, 1794, she wrote
in her diary:
Dined with friends at Mrs. ——. What dost thou here, Elijah? Felt
too much pleased at the pleasure expressed by so many accomplished
friends on seeing me again. Keep me from contagion![361]
Whatever may have been the influence of the bluestockings upon
others, there can be no doubt that for Hannah More it had been an
excellent corrective. It had at least prevented her from comparing
herself to Elijah.