The following is a Frenchman's expression of homage to our modern female
poets, in which we excel all the world:--
It is remarkable, that in the latter years of the eighteenth century, and
also during the whole course of our revolution, there appeared in England
a whole school, as it were, of female authors, whose pure and graceful
productions are disfigured by no exaggerations, nor are they of that
sombre character which distinguishes the modern literature of their
country. Of the lady-authors of England, the most celebrated is Lady
Wortley Montagu, the contemporary of Pope, who has left poems, but more
especially letters, highly remarkable for their talent and philosophy. It
is impossible to give here the names of the authoresses who appeared all
on a sudden about half a century after Lady Wortley Montagu. One of the
earliest of them was a lady of the same name, Mrs. E. Montagu, the author
of the Essays on Shakspeare, and Mrs. Anna Laetitia Barbauld, who wrote
numerous poems and admirable hymns for children. There is great beauty in
the Epistle of Mrs. Barbauld to Wilberforce, on the subject of the
Abolition of the Slave Trade (1781.) Mrs. Hannah More has also written
several works of _religious fiction_, and above all, some charming poems;
Florio (1786,) and the Blue Stocking, or Conversation. The Blue Stocking
is a burlesque name given to a lady's coterie, in which several females
attempted to start a sort of _bureau d'esprit_ under the direction of
Mesdames Robinson and Piozzi, a coterie innocent enough, but which excited
the wrath of Mr. Gifford, the Editor of the _Quarterly Review_, who
fulminated against it several satires in excessively bad taste, and
written in a tone of disgusting pedantry. The verses of Mr. Gifford are
infinitely more ridiculous than those he pretends to correct. Amongst the
English ladies who have written romance, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Inchbald,
and Lady Morgan, are worthy of especial note. Several ladies, without
having written works of great importance, have still produced poetical
pieces of graceful beauty; in this number it is but justice to distinguish
Mrs. Opie. And lastly, in order to finish this hasty catalogue, we may
remark that there have appeared in England, in our days, several ladies of
a high order of literary, poetical, and at the same time, philosophical
talent. Lady Morgan herself has contrived to mix up history and romance
in her writings, with great ability; but among the ladies, who inscribed
their fame on monuments more durable than romantic stories, we must select
for honourable mention the names of Joanna Baillie, Aikin, Benger, and
Helen Maria Williams. Miss Baillie, sister of the celebrated Dr. Baillie,
the physician, is a woman of the highest talent. It is not your pretty
nothings, your elegant trifles, which occupy her genius; on the contrary,
she has attempted in a series of dramatic pieces, to paint the most
energetic passion of the human heart; and her pieces, written in the most
elevated and _Shakspearian_ tone, will always be regarded as the work of a
superior mind. John Kemble, in the part of _Montfort_, reached the sublime
of agony. In the writings of Miss Baillie there is a combination of the
solemn and the poetical, which is rarely observed in women. Miss Aikin has
written some charming poems, far more beautiful than any I have met with
in the writings of Miss Landon and Miss Mitford. The _Mouse's Petition_,
by Miss Aikin, is a _chef-d'oeuvre_. Miss Benger has published some
historical works of great interest, which place her in the same line with
Miss Aikin. Lastly, there is Helen Maria Williams, whose muse, half
English, half French, has published poems, sonnets, and other pieces of
verse, besides several political and historical works. This superior woman,
at the same time that she gave birth, under the influence of sensibility
and fancy, to works of inspiration, portrayed the details of the events of
the French revolution, in the centre of which she threw herself, in 1792,
from pure enthusiasm for liberty.--_Foreign Quarterly Review._
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