Of the same school, and not improbably a proselyte to the same doctrines,
was
H⸺ M⸺ W⸺.
What and how great a contrast is exhibited between this female’s first
appearance on the theatre of the public, and her last fatal ending!
Lively, elegant, accomplished, and agreeable, of pleasing person, simple
and gentle manners, without pride, or asserting any pretensions to
distinction, she received the respect and attention of many of the most
considerable persons in this country, both for talent and for rank. What
is she now? If she lives, (and whether she does or not, few know, and
nobody cares) she is a wanderer—an exile, unnoticed and unknown.
The moment that the torch of anarchy was displayed from the turrets of
the Thuilleries, she caught the flame, and, as it were by magic, the
form of every thing was changed to the visual ray of her understanding.
She forgot the lessons of her youth, despised the precepts of her early
instructors, and forsook the land of her forefathers. The perfectibility
of man, the rights of women, the cap of liberty, alone occupied and
overpowered her mind. She must needs go where alone these fascinating
idols received the culture and the homage which in her imagination they
deserved. To France then she hurried, connected herself instantaneously
with the great tragedians of the day, was initiated in their mysteries,
and adopted the whole of their gipsy jargon. She became in every
particular a French woman. Nothing was in her eyes fair, or wise, or
great, or good, but what was French; and as for poor old England, its
inhabitants, and its manners, nothing could be more paltry—nothing more
contemptible.
Her friend, Mrs. W. had taught her, by her example, that female modesty
might be laid aside without any compunctious visitations; and, like
her prototype, she formed an attachment to a Frenchman, who in Paris
was generally considered as a spy of the police; even if he did not
sometimes perform in a far less honourable character. This man had a
wife living at the time, and Miss W. probably knew it; but this opposed
but a trifling obstacle. The morality which then prevailed in the
French metropolis, found a very convenient confederate in the facility
with which divorces were obtained. But it is far from certain, that
even this slight ceremony was observed. Be this as it may, under this
paramour’s benignant auspices, she wrote about France, its politics, its
new-fangled manners, Robespierre, and Danton, and Marat, and all that
Stygian crew, with unrestrained volubility; and with a presumptuousness
and impertinence, a determination to palliate and excuse the horrid
atrocities she had witnessed, such as to excite a mixture of contempt and
resentment.
Perhaps the following may be exhibited as an accurate epitome of her
creed at this period, (we say at this period) for if she yet lives, she
must be a greater fool than we think her, to persist in some of the
articles of her political faith:—
“The guilt of the unfortunate king was clear.”—“The horrid murders and
massacres were partial evils.”—“The French Revolution was destined to
break the fetters of mankind throughout the world.”
This and far worse garbage than this, was the reader compelled to wade
through in the various publications of this perverted writer.
All this is wondrous pitiful, but pity ’tis, ’tis true. When accident
first introduced our Sexagenarian to H. M. W. she was young and lovely,
ingenuous and innocent. By the proper exercise of her talents, she
might have been an ornament to society, and useful to the world. Her
decline of life might have tranquilly been passed under the shadow of
her own vine, honoured and beloved. If she exists, she can have no other
reflections but those which must be truly mortifying. She cannot fail
now to be sensible, that she deserted substance for shadow, real liberty
for ideal dreams about its phantom, a long list of honourable friends,
comprehending some of the fairest names among us—for whom?—for Mrs. W.,
Thomas Paine, Danton, for her friend, or her lover, or her husband, (by
whichever name she wishes him to be distinguished) for Ramond, Madame
Roland, O’Connor, Santerre, &c. &c. To finish in a word, she exchanged
the prospect of honourable fame, for neglect and contempt.
There still remain a few more of this class of females, with whom an
introduction took place, by the means of common friends engaged in
literary pursuits. It may be as well to bring them together and get rid
of them at once. Recollection does not regard them with complacency.
Indeed, they were so amiable on first acquaintance, (and if the
expression may be allowed, they so degenerated afterwards) that memory is
oppressed with looking back upon them.
Another disciple of this fantastic school was—
M⸺ H⸺,
who really, when first known, appeared lively, ingenuous, innocent,
and interesting. It is not pretended to say who or what perverted her
principles, but she was a friend of the Wolstoncroft, a follower of
Helvetius, and a great admirer of Rousseau.
As ill luck would have it, she must needs write a novel, and as her evil
genius prompted, was induced to publish it. What thinkest thou, gentle
reader, was the outline of the story? Why this:—
The heroine, Emma Courtney Hight, falls in love, desperately in love,
with a youth whom she had never seen; at length, she encounters him—worse
and worse!—Passion now boils over, and she exercises every female
artifice to captivate his affection in return. But it will not do; all
her efforts prove ineffectual. What’s next to be done? Why take him by
storm; or, which is much the same thing, she voluntarily offers herself
to live with him as his mistress.
Make me mistress to the man I love.
But this will not do: his heart proves made of impenetrable stuff, at
length, the heroine, compelled by dire necessity, marries, contrary to
her inclination, a man she dislikes exceedingly. But still she retains
her first passion; and what is more, disregarding the obligations of
duty imposed by her new character, she attends on his dying bed, the man
for whom she first suffered love. The consequence is almost ludicrously
disastrous:—the husband attaches himself to a female domestic, and to
conclude and complete the catastrophe, he finally shoots himself through
the head.
But after all, things might have been yet worse, with respect to this
same M. H. She might, like her friends, Mesdames W. and H. M. W. have
emigrated to France, and disgraced herself and her country.
She had the prudence to stay at home. She might have written other still
more mischievous, and still more foolish things. It pleased Providence to
remove her, and, as we earnestly hope to forgive her.
Some greater degree of reserve is felt necessary in speaking of
MISS P⸺.
The personal acquaintance, on the part of the Sexagenarian, with this
most prolific author, was but slight; but he ever and invariably
expressed the most unaffected regret, that one so endowed, so qualified
to contribute to the improvement of others, should, by pursuing one
undeviating path, have made herself generally obnoxious, to those alone
excepted, who considered all as deserving of the burning fiery furnace,
who did not fall prostrate before the shrine of Bonaparte, and adore the
Briarean Idol of the French Revolution.
The most extraordinary thing, with respect to each and every one of these
doughty females, appears to have been this:—The very moment that they had
made up their minds to acknowledge the wisdom of the French Revolution,
the goodness of its leaders, and the felicity of its operation, they
fancied themselves (as by some magic charm, some irresistible power of
enchantment) converted into grave, subtle, and profound politicians.
They knew every thing which was involved in the great questions of law,
and right, and equity, as it were by intuition, and they pronounced
their fiats _ex Cathedra_, as if it were both impious and treasonable
at all to question their wisdom, their knowledge, and their sagacity.
They became all at once, in their own foolish conceits, as subtle as
Machiavel, profound as Vattel, learned as Selden, and capable as Grotius
himself, to discuss the momentous question _de Jure Belli_ at Paris.
Oh for the good old times! when females were satisfied with feminine
employments, with cultivating their minds so far as to enable them
to instruct their children in useful learning only, and to regulate
their families with judicious economy; to learn those graces and that
demeanour, which obtained and secured love and esteem, nor suffered the
Laban images of foreign vanities to contaminate their tents. Daughters
of England, be not beguiled; be assured that the study of politics is
not essential to female accomplishments, that the possession of this
Machiavelian knowledge will neither make you better mothers, wives, or
friends; that to obtain it, a long life, severe study, and the most
laborious investigation, are indispensably necessary. Must it not excite
the strongest emotions of contempt, to hear pert misses, just escaped
from boarding-schools, harangue in a more peremptory language than
Selden would have assumed, and with the slightest reading, and most
superficial knowledge, presume to pass judgment on the political rights
and conditions of nations?
Miss P. was one of the daughters of a venerable clergyman, who was, at
the same time, Master of a College at Cambridge, and Prebendary of N⸺. It
may therefore be presumed, though nothing at all is known of the matter,
that her education was in every respect correct, and consistent with her
sphere of life.
On the death of her parents, and at the accursed crisis of the French
Revolution, she came to the metropolis. Here she immediately, with
unreserved confidence, threw herself into the kindred arms of H. M.
W. divided her enthusiasm, and partook of all her follies. France,
France, France! Liberty, Liberty, Liberty! occupied their waking
thoughts, and disturbed their midnight dreams. In a word, they became
totally Frenchified; and as Free-masons, when once initiated into their
mysteries, retain the Shibboleth, which admits them beyond the Tyler,
so did these females suffer themselves to be so intoxicated with the
Circean draught, that the phrenzy remained incurable and unalterable.
They determined to drink at the fountain-head, so up and away for Paris.
We have heard of the Englishman at Paris, his prodigality and folly, but
heaven bless us! our English women at Paris beat their countrymen hollow,
or, to use a homely phrase, “out and out.”
“Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever
things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, if
there be any praise.”
This emphatical and beautiful apostrophe of the apostle, in the judgment
of this lady and her clan, could alone be applied to the French nation,
under the benign influence of the Revolution, and to the Polar star of
all who exercised the supreme authority in France from Robespierre to
Bonaparte.
According to the sagacious and candid inferences of these subtle and
profound Female Machiavels, in this country of England there was no
wisdom, no foresight, no justice, and no public virtue; whilst on the
opposite side, the murders of the King, Queen, Princess Elizabeth,
and the Duke d’Enghein, were acts either of fair retribution, or of
unavoidable necessity; either the just consequences of the imbecility of
the sufferers, or provoked by their profligacy and crimes.
Reader, is not all this truly lamentable? Far other emotions are awakened
by the recollection of what this female, immediately under review, once
was, when she appeared as a candidate for honourable fame in the general
walks of literature. Her talents claimed respect—her diligence deserved
praise. The variety of her information, and the extent of her knowledge,
particularly of languages, qualified her to be useful, and entitled her
to esteem.
Whether she subsequently repented of and restrained the extreme
extravagance of her prejudices; whether Bonaparte, his glory, his wisdom,
his magnanimity, his _religion_, and his clemency, (and, for all these
qualities he had this lady’s praise) continued to any protracted period
the objects of her fond idolatry, could not possibly be known to him,
from whose collection the materials, which appear, in these pages, have
been extracted. It is hoped that she may have seen the error of her ways;
have discovered a less dangerous and obstructed path, and auspiciously
pursued it.
With pleasures too refined to please,
With too much spirit to be e’er at ease,
With too much quickness ever to be taught,
With too much thinking to have common thought.