Pen-portraits of literary women, Volume I (of 2): By themselves and others

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Title: Pen-portraits of literary women, Volume I (of 2): By themselves and others
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Pen-portraits of literary women, Volume I (of 2): By themselves and others" ***
WOMEN, VOLUME I (OF 2) ***

PEN-PORTRAITS OF

LITERARY WOMEN

BY THEMSELVES AND OTHERS

EDITED BY
HELEN GRAY CONE
AND
JEANNETTE L. GILDER

_WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES BY THE FORMER._

VOL. I.

CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED,
739 & 741 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

Press W. L. Mershon & Co.,
Rahway, N. J.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

HANNAH MORE, 9

FRANCES BURNEY (MME. D’ARBLAY), 45

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (GODWIN), 81

MARY W. GODWIN (SHELLEY), 109

MARY LAMB, 131

MARIA EDGEWORTH, 161

JANE AUSTEN, 195

JOANNA BAILLIE, 223

LADY BLESSINGTON, 245

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD, 269

PREFATORY NOTE.

_This book was suggested by Mr. Mason’s “Personal Traits of British
Authors,” published by Charles Scribner’s Sons. With a single
exception--Charlotte Brontë--the editor of that excellent work excluded
from his pages the literary women of England. The belief that the
public would find interest in a presentation of the characteristics and
surroundings of many of these women, has induced us to supplement Mr.
Mason’s volumes with the present series of “Pen Portraits.”_

_The distinction in title implies a slight change of plan. We have
not confined ourselves to the depicting of personal traits, but have
admitted a descriptive background; beyond the figures of Charlotte
and Emily Brontë, a glimpse is caught of the wild moors, purple with
heather; and the Mediterranean, dark with storm, appears behind
the graceful head of Mary Shelley. When a critical remark of some
fellow-worker seemed to have point, we have included it; such passages
may be regarded as pencillings, in various hands, on the margin of the
catalogue of our gallery._

_The plan of this work originally included English writers only. In
the course of its preparation, however, a certain amount of material
relative to two others (to the greatest of Frenchwomen and to that
American woman of letters who most notably represents an interesting
past phase of national growth), has presented itself and has not been
rejected._

_For the extracts used in these two volumes we give full credit, both
at the foot of the quotations and in an alphabetically arranged list
at the end of each volume. To these authors and to their publishers we
acknowledge our deep obligation, for, without the material they have
furnished, these “Pen Portraits” could never have been drawn._

_THE EDITORS._

HANNAH MORE.

1745-1833.

HANNAH MORE.

Hannah More was born on the 2nd of February, 1745, in the hamlet of
Fishponds in Stapleton parish, about four miles from Bristol. Her
father was the Master of the Free School of that place. His five
daughters grew up to follow his profession, opening, in 1757, a
boarding-school in Bristol, which was very successful. Hannah’s early
womanhood was passed at Bristol, with occasional visits to London,
where she was welcomed by the most brilliant society of the day. After
the death of her dear friend Garrick, in 1779, she gradually withdrew
herself from the world. In 1785 she went to live at Cowslip Green,
whence she removed in 1800 to Barley Wood, near Wrington, eight miles
from Bristol. Her sisters shared her home, devotedly laboring with her
among the poor. Death took them from her one by one, and at last, in
September, 1833, she followed them. She had removed to Clifton in order
to be under the care of friends.

It is sadly to be feared that some of her once very popular works,
which undoubtedly accomplished much good in their day, have passed with
modern readers into the category of “books which are no books,”--among
which Charles Lamb reckoned “court calendars, directories,
pocket-books, draught-boards, bound and lettered at the back, ... and
generally, all those volumes which ‘no gentleman’s library should be
without.’” The whirligig of time brings in new fashions of thought and
expression, and “the ways of literature are strewn all over with the
shells of books which the public has devoured and forgotten.” But to
turn from the works of Mrs. More’s pen and read of the works of her
helping hands among the poor, is as though, in some old-time garden
where the untrimmed box-borders have grown into sad confusion, and the
old flowers with the odd names have ceased to bloom, we came suddenly
upon the fresh wild-rose that is never out of fashion. The story of the
sturdy struggles of this delicate woman with the squalor, ignorance,
and indifference of that barbarous rural England of the eighteenth and
early nineteenth century, brings her near to us to-day, claiming a
respectful admiration which modern taste hardly accords to her writings.

* * * * *

The following is a list of her principal works:

Poems: _The Search After Happiness._ _Sir Eldred of the Bower and the
Legend of Sensibility._ _The Bas Bleu._ _Florio._ _Bleeding Rock._
_Bible Rhymes._

Dramas: PERCY, _A Tragedy_, performed at Covent Garden Theatre, 1777.
_Fatal Falsehood_, performed in 1779. _The Inflexible Captive._

Prose Works: _Thoughts on the Manners of the Great._ _Estimate of the
Religion of the Fashionable World._ _Strictures on Female Education._
CÆLEBS IN SEARCH OF A WIFE, 1808. _Practical Piety._ _Christian
Morals._ _Moral Sketches._

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her childhood.]

At an early age she evinced a large aptitude for learning, and a desire
for information. When her mother first began to think of teaching her
to read, she found Hannah had already made considerable progress, from
attending to the instructions bestowed on her elder sisters.

Her nurse having lived in the family of Dryden, the inquisitive mind of
the intelligent child was incessantly prompting her to ask for stories
about the poet; and to her father’s excellent memory she was indebted
for long stories from the Greek and Roman histories. Whilst sitting on
his knee, he would, to gratify her ear by the sound, repeat speeches of
her favorite heroes, in their original language, afterward translating
them into English.

Mr. More imparted to his daughters the rudiments both of Latin and
of the mathematics, and was afterward, it is said, alarmed at the
proficiency of his pupils.

MRS. ELWOOD: ‘Memoirs of the Literary Ladies of England.’ London: Henry
Colburn, 1843.

* * * * *

At this early period, too, the signs of that precarious health which
exercised her piety and virtue by so many trials in the course of her
long life, began to appear; and it was recorded in the family, that
pain and suffering were in her at that early period without their usual
attendants of fretfulness and impatience.

In her days of infancy, when she could possess herself of a scrap of
paper, her delight was to scribble upon it some essay or poem, with
some well-directed moral, which was afterward secreted in a dark corner
where the servant kept her brushes and dusters. Her little sister, with
whom she slept, was usually the repository of her nightly effusions;
who, in her zeal lest these compositions should be lost, would
sometimes steal down to procure a light, and commit them to the first
scrap of paper which she could find. Among the characteristic sports of
Hannah’s childhood, which their mother was fond of recording, we are
told that she was wont to make a carriage of a chair, and then call to
her sisters to ride with her to London to see bishops and booksellers;
an intercourse which we shall hereafter show to have been realized. The
greatest wish her imagination could frame, when her scraps of paper
were exhausted, was, that she might one day be rich enough to have
a whole quire to herself; and when, by her mother’s indulgence, the
prize was obtained, it was soon filled with supposititious letters to
depraved characters, to reclaim them from their errors, and letters in
return expressive of contrition and resolutions of amendment.

[Sidenote: A Puritan family.]

This branch of the family was attached to the established church,
Mr. More himself being a stanch Tory, and what is known as a High
Churchman; but the other members of the family were Presbyterians, and
the daughters of Mr. Jacob More had frequently heard their father say
that he had two great-uncles captains in Oliver Cromwell’s army. Jacob
More’s mother appears, from family tradition, to have possessed a mind
of more than ordinary vigor. She was a pious woman, and used to tell
her younger relatives that they would have known how to value gospel
privileges had they lived, like her, in the days of proscription and
persecution, when, at midnight, pious worshippers went with stealthy
steps through the snow, to hear the words of inspiration delivered by a
holy man at her father’s house; while her father, with a drawn sword,
guarded the entrance from violent or profane intrusion.

W. ROBERTS: ‘Memoirs of Hannah More,’ New York: Harper & Bros., 1834.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Puritan tendencies illustrated.]

I would wish you a Merry Christmas as well as a Happy New-Year, but
that I hate the word merry _so_ applied; it is a fitter epithet for a
_bacchanalian_ than a _Christian_ festival, and seems an apology for
idle mirth and injurious excess.

HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister from Hampton_ 1780, in ‘Memoirs,’ by
W. Roberts.

* * * * *

On Sunday evening I was a little alarmed; they were preparing for music
(sacred music was the _ostensible_ thing), but before I had time to
feel uneasy, Garrick turned round and said, “Nine,[1] you are a _Sunday
woman_; retire to your room--I will recall you when the music is
over.”

HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister, from Farnborough Place_, 1777, in
‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

We spent an agreeable evening at Dr. Cadogan’s, where Mrs. Montagu and
I, being the only two monsters in the creation who never touch a card
(and laughed at enough for it we are), had the fireside to ourselves;
and a more elegant and instructive conversation I have seldom enjoyed.

HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister from London_ 1777, in ‘Memoirs,’ by
W. Roberts.

* * * * *

I am going, to-day, to a great dinner; nothing can be conceived so
absurd, extravagant and fantastical as the present mode of dressing the
head. Simplicity and modesty are things so much exploded, that the very
names are no longer remembered. I have just escaped from one of the
most fashionable disfigurers; and though I charged him to dress me with
the greatest simplicity, and to have only a very distant eye upon the
fashion, just enough to avoid the pride of singularity; yet in spite of
all these sage didactics, I absolutely blush at myself.

HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister, from London_ 1776, in ‘Memoirs,’ by
W. Roberts.

* * * * *

Again I am annoyed by the foolish absurdity of the present mode of
dress. Some ladies carry on their heads a large quantity of fruit, and
yet they would despise a poor useful member of society who carried
it there for the purpose of selling it for bread. Some, at the back
of their perpendicular caps, hang four or five ostrich feathers, of
different colors, etc. Spirit of Addison! thou pure and gentle shade
arise! thou who, with such fine humor, and such polished sarcasm, didst
lash the cherry-colored hood and the party patches; awake! for the
follies thou didst lash were but the beginning of follies; and the
absurdities thou didst censure were but the seeds of absurdities!

HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister, from London_, 1776, in ‘Memoirs,’
by W. Roberts.

* * * * *

The other night we had a great deal of company, eleven damsels, to say
nothing of men. I protest I hardly do them justice, when I pronounce
that they had, among them, on their heads, an acre and a half of
shrubbery, besides slopes, grass-plots, tulip-beds, clumps of peonies,
kitchen-gardens, and green-houses.... I have no doubt that they held in
great contempt our roseless heads and leafless necks.

HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister, from Burgay_, 1777, in ‘Memoirs,’
by W. Roberts.

* * * * *

And now we are upon vanities, what do you think is the reigning mode
as to powder?--only turmeric, that coarse dye which stains yellow. The
Goths and Vandals, the Picts and Saxons, are come again. It falls out
of the hair, and stains the skin so that every pretty lady must look
as yellow as a crocus, which I suppose will become a better compliment
than as white as a lily.

HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister, from Hampton_, 1782, in ‘Memoirs,’
by W. Roberts.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A humorous situation.]

The other evening they carried me to Mrs. Ord’s assembly; I was quite
dressed for the purpose; Mrs. Garrick gave me an elegant cap, and
put it on herself; so that I was quite sure of being smart; but how
short-lived is all human joy! and see what it is to live in the
country! When I came into the drawing-rooms I found them full of
company, every human creature in deep mourning, and I, poor I, all
gorgeous in scarlet. I never recollected that the mourning for some
foreign Wilhelmina Jaquelina was not over. However, I got over it as
well as I could, made an apology, lamented the _ignorance_ in which I
had lately lived, and I hope this false step of mine will be buried in
oblivion.

HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister, from London_, 1780, in ‘Memoirs,’
by W. Roberts.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Dislike of public diversions.]

I find my dislike of what are called public diversions greater than
ever, except a play; and when Garrick has left the stage, I could be
very well contented to relinquish plays also, and to live in London,
without ever again setting my foot in a public place.

HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister, from London_, 1776, in ‘Memoirs,’
by W. Roberts.

* * * * *

I had no less than five invitations to dine abroad to-day, but
preferred the precious and rare luxury of solitude.

‘Percy’ is acted again this evening: do any of you choose to go? I can
write you an order: for my own part, I shall enjoy a much superior
pleasure--that of sitting by the fire, in a great chair.

HANNAH MORE: _Letters to her sister, from London_, 1777 and 1778, in
‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts.

* * * * *

On Monday I was at a very great assembly at the Bishop of St. Asaph’s.
Conceive to yourself one hundred and fifty or two hundred people met
together, dressed in the extremity of the fashion; painted as red as
bacchanals; poisoning the air with perfumes; treading on each other’s
gowns; making the crowd they blame; and not one in ten able to get a
chair; protesting they are engaged to ten other places, and lamenting
the fatigue they are not obliged to endure; ten or a dozen card-tables
crammed with dowagers of quality, grave ecclesiastics, and yellow
admirals; and you have an idea of an assembly. I never go to these
things when I can possibly avoid it, and stay, when there, as few
minutes as I can.

HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister, from Hampton_, 1782, in ‘Memoirs,’
by W. Roberts.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Anecdote illustrating her readiness.]

With the well-known writer, Dr. Langhorne, when vicar of Blagdon,
she long maintained a poetical and literary correspondence. The
introduction took place in 1773, while she was recovering from an
attack of ague, at Uphill, on the Somersetshire coast. The doctor was
at the time taking his recreation at the neighboring and better known
watering-place, Weston-Super-Mare. They often rode together upon the
sands; Miss More, as the custom then was, on the pillion behind her
servant; and when it happened that either chanced to miss the other, a
paper was placed in a cleft post near the water, generally containing
some quaint remark, or a few verses. On one of these occasions, the
doctor committed his wit and gallantry to the sand, on which he
inscribed with his cane:

“Along the shore
Walked Hannah More;
Waves! let this record last:
Sooner shall ye,
Proud earth and sea,
Than what she writes, be past.

JOHN LANGHORNE.”

Miss More, with her riding whip, wrote immediately beneath:

“Some firmer basis, polish’d Langhorne, choose,
To write the dictates of thy charming muse;
Thy strains in solid characters rehearse,
And be thy tablet lasting as thy verse.

HANNAH MORE.”

HENRY THOMPSON: ‘Life of Hannah More.’ Philadelphia: Carey and Hart,
1838.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her early engagement to Mr. Turner.]

His residence at Belmont was beautifully situated, and he had carriages
and horses and every thing to make a visit to Belmont agreeable. He
permitted his cousins to ask any young persons at the school to spend
their vacations with them. Their governesses being nearly of their
own age, they made choice of the two youngest of the sisters--Hannah
and Patty More. The consequence was natural. She was very clever and
fascinating, and he was generous and sensible; he became attached, and
made his offer, which was accepted. He was a man of large fortune, and
she was young and dependent; she quitted her interest in the concern of
the school, and was at great expense in preparing and fitting herself
out to be the wife of a man of large fortune. The day was fixed more
than once for the marriage, and Mr. Turner each time postponed it.
Her sisters and friends interfered, and would not permit her to be
so treated and trifled with. He continued in the wish to marry her;
but her friends, after his former conduct, and on other accounts,
persevered in keeping up her determination not to renew the engagement.

MRS. SIMMONS: _Letter_ in W. Roberts’ ‘Memoirs of Hannah More.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Miss More in London.]

Since I wrote last, Hannah has been introduced by Miss Reynolds to
Baretti, to Edmund Burke--the sublime and beautiful Edmund Burke!
From a large party of literary persons assembled at Sir Joshua’s she
received the most encouraging compliments; and the spirit with which
she returned them was acknowledged by all present, as Miss Reynolds
informed poor us.

... We have paid another visit to Miss Reynolds. She had sent to engage
Dr. Percy (Percy’s collection--now you know him), quite a spritely
modern, instead of a rusty antique, as I expected. He was no sooner
gone than Miss Reynolds ordered the coach to take us to Dr. Johnson’s
_very own house_; yes, Abyssinia’s Johnson! Dictionary Johnson!
Rambler’s, Idler’s, and Irene’s Johnson!

... Miss Reynolds told the doctor of all our rapturous exclamations on
the road. He shook his scientific head at Hannah and said, “She was a
_silly thing_.” When our visit was ended, he called for his hat (as
it rained), to attend us down a very long entry to our coach, and not
Rasselas could have acquitted himself more _en cavalier_.

... I forgot to mention, that not finding Johnson in his little parlor
when we came in, Hannah seated herself in his great chair, hoping to
catch a little ray of his genius; when he heard it he laughed heartily,
and said it was a chair on which he never sat.

Tuesday evening we drank tea at Sir Joshua’s with Dr. Johnson. Hannah
is certainly a great favorite. She was placed next him, and they had
the entire conversation to themselves. They were both in remarkably
high spirits; it was certainly her lucky night! I never heard her
say so many good things. The old genius was extremely jocular, and
the young one very pleasant. You would have imagined we had been at
some comedy had you heard our peals of laughter. They, indeed, tried
which could “pepper the highest,” and it is not clear to me that the
lexicographer was really the highest seasoner.

[Sidenote: Dr. Johnson’s rapture.]

It is nothing but “child,” “little fool,” “love,” and “dearest.” After
much critical discourse, he turns round to me, and with one of his most
amiable looks, which must be seen to form the least idea of it, he
says: “I have heard that you are engaged in the useful and honorable
employment of teaching young ladies,” upon which ... we entered upon
the history of our birth, parentage, and education; showing how we
were born with more desires than guineas; and how, as years increased
our appetites, the cupboard at home began to grow too small to gratify
them; and how, with a bottle of water, a bed, and a blanket, we
set out to seek our fortunes; and how we found a great house, with
nothing in it; and how it was like to remain so, till looking into our
knowledge-boxes, we happened to find a little learning, a good thing
when land is gone, or rather none: and so at last, by giving a little
of this little learning to those who had less, we got a good store
of gold in return; but how, alas! we wanted the wit to keep it.--“I
love you both,” cried the inamorato--“I love you all five--I never
was at Bristol--I will come on purpose to see you--what! five women
live happily together!--I will come and see you--I have spent a happy
evening--I am glad I came--God for ever bless you, you live lives to
shame duchesses.”

SALLY MORE: _Letters to her sisters, London_, 1774-5, 6, in ‘Memoirs of
Hannah More,’ by W. Roberts.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: ‘Sir Eldred’ and ‘Bleeding Rock.’]

Her ‘Search after Happiness’ had reached a sixth edition. An edition
was sent from _Philadelphia_, with two complimentary poems addressed to
the author; and the profits of the sale had netted £100. She thought,
therefore, not without reason, that she had established sufficient
literary reputation to justify her in setting a high pecuniary value
on her writings. She, therefore, offered at once to Mr. (afterwards
Alderman) Cadell two little poems, to form a thin quarto, after the
fashion of the day, requesting to know what he would give for them,
and stating at the same time that she would not part with them for
“a very paltry consideration.” Mr. Cadell, though he had not seen
the poems, was so well prepared to entertain high expectations, that
he immediately offered to give Miss More whatever Goldsmith might
have received for his ‘Deserted Village.’ This she was unable to
discover, and therefore she laid her demand at forty guineas, which the
popularity of the volume amply justified. It comprised ‘Sir Eldred of
the Bower,’ a tale which appears to have been suggested by her taste
for ballad literature, which Percy’s ‘Reliques of Ancient Poetry’ had
revived; and ‘The Legend of the Bleeding Rock’ before mentioned. The
former of these pieces was honored by the revision, and even more, by
the critical touch of Johnson, whose pen has furnished the stanza which
now appears in it:

“My scorn has oft the dart repell’d
Which guileful beauty threw;
But goodness heard, and grace beheld,
Must every heart subdue.”

HENRY THOMPSON: ‘Life of Hannah More.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Life with the Garricks in London.]

It is not possible for anything on earth to be more agreeable to my
taste than my present manner of living. I am so much at my ease; have
a great many hours at my own disposal, to read my own books and see my
own friends; and, whenever I please, may join the most polished and
delightful society in the world. Our breakfasts are little literary
societies; there is generally company at meals, as they think it saves
time, by avoiding the necessity of seeing people at other seasons. Mr.
Garrick sets the highest value upon his time of any body I ever knew.
From dinner to tea we laugh, chat, and talk nonsense; the rest of his
time is generally devoted to study.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Admiration for Garrick.]

To the most eloquent expression of the eye, to the handwriting of the
passions on his features, to a sensibility which tears to pieces the
hearts of his auditors, to powers so unparalleled, he adds a judgment
of the most exquisite accuracy, the fruit of long experience and close
observation, by which he preserves every gradation and transition of
the passions, keeping all under the control of a just dependence and
natural consistency.... It was a fiction as delightful as fancy, and as
touching as truth. A few nights before I saw him in _Abel Drugger_; and
had I not seen him in both, I should have thought it as possible for
Milton to have written ‘Hudibras,’ and Butler ‘Paradise Lost,’ as for
one man to have played _Hamlet_ and _Drugger_ with such excellence.

I’ll tell you the most ridiculous circumstance in the world. After
dinner Garrick took up the Monthly Review (civil gentlemen, by the way,
these monthly reviewers) and read ‘Sir Eldred’ with all his pathos
and all his graces. I think I never was so ashamed in my life; but he
read it so superlatively, that I cried like a child. Only think what a
scandalous thing, to cry at the reading of one’s own poetry! I could
have beaten myself; for it looked as if I thought it very moving,
which I can truly say is far from being the case. But the beauty of
the jest lies in this: Mrs. Garrick twinkled as well as I, and made as
many apologies for crying at her husband’s reading as I did for crying
at my own verses. _She_ got out of the scrape by pretending she was
touched at the story and I by saying the same thing of the reading.
It furnished us with a great laugh at the catastrophe, when it would
really have been decent to have been a little sorrowful.

HANNAH MORE: _Letters to her sisters, London_, 1776, in ‘Memoirs,’ by
W. Roberts.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Garrick’s pride in her.]

The sisters were one day dining at the Adelphi, at one of Garrick’s
small parties, at which was present “a young gentleman of family and
fortune, and greatly accomplished,” who had been visiting most of
the courts of Europe, and was just about to publish his travels in
Spain. The rest is in the writer’s own words: “Hannah sat mute; only
sometimes addressed herself to Mr. Garrick. However, this was not to
last forever. Mrs. G. threatened H. to discover who she was; but she
entreated she would be silent. At length the discovery was made by the
lady of the house saying, in her sweet, pretty, foreign accent, ‘Pray,
sir, why don’t you address your Spanish to this lady, and see if she
pronounces well?’ The gentleman stared, and instantly made violent love
to her in Italian, little thinking that in that language the lady was
his match; but when he made what he thought these vast discoveries, he
turned to Mr. Garrick--‘Why, sir, did you not tell me I was in company
with a learned lady?’ ‘With a learned lady, sir,’ replies the universal
enchanter; ‘why, sir, that lady is a great genius! Sir, she has
published more than you ever will with all your travelling! She is MY
DRAMATIC PUPIL, sir!’ Oh! the poor dear petrified gentleman! You never,
madam, saw a man so astonished; as he seems to think printing the _ne
plus ultra_ of all human perfection. He then paid vast attention to
miss, and was quite struck when he attended to her replies, as you know
she can find a pretty answer for most questions.”

HENRY THOMPSON: ‘Life of Hannah More.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Production of ‘Percy.’]

It is impossible to tell you of all the kindness and friendship of the
Garricks; he thinks of nothing, talks of nothing, writes of nothing
but ‘Percy.’... When Garrick had finished his prologue and epilogue
(which are excellent), he desired I would pay him. Dryden, he said,
used to have five guineas a piece, but as he was a richer man he would
be content if I would treat him with a handsome supper and a bottle of
claret. We haggled sadly about the price, I insisting that I could only
afford to give him a beefsteak and a pot of porter; and at about twelve
we sat down to some toast and honey, with which the temperate bard
contented himself.

_Mr. Garrick’s study, Adelphi; ten at night._--He himself puts the pen
into my hand, and bids me say that all is just as it should be. Nothing
was ever more warmly received. I went with Mr. and Mrs. Garrick; sat in
Mr. Harris’s box, in a snug, dark corner, and behaved very well; that
is, very quietly. The prologue and epilogue were received with bursts
of applause; so, indeed, was the whole; as much beyond my expectation
as my deserts!

* * * * *

I am just returned from the second night, and it was, if possible,
received more favorably than on the first. One tear is worth a thousand
hands, and I had the satisfaction to see even the men shed them in
abundance.

The critics (as is usual) met at the Bedford last night, to fix the
character of the play. If I were a heroine of romance, and was writing
to my confidante, I should tell you all the fine things that were
said; but as I am a real living Christian woman, I do not think it
would have been so modest.

HANNAH MORE: _Letters to her sisters, London_, 1777, in ‘Memoirs,’ by
W. Roberts.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Profits.]

I am very much pleased to find that ‘Percy’ meets with your
approbation. It has been extremely successful, far beyond my
expectation, and more so than any _tragedy_ has been for many years.
The profits were not so great as they would have been, had it been
brought out when the town was full; yet they were such as I have no
reason to complain of. The author’s nights, sale of the copy, etc.,
amounted to near six hundred pounds (this is _entre nous_); and as my
friend Mr. Garrick has been so good as to lay it out for me on the best
security, and at five per cent., it makes a decent little addition
to my small income. Cadell gave £150--a very handsome price, with
conditional promises. He confesses (a thing not usual) that it has had
a very great sale, and that he shall get a good deal of money by it.
The first impression was near four thousand, and the second is almost
sold.

HANNAH MORE: _Letter to Mrs. Gwatkin, Hampton_, 1778, in ‘Memoirs,’ by
W. Roberts.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Grief at Garrick’s death.]

“I went,” she says, “yesterday with the Wilmots to pay a visit to the
coffin. The last time the same party met in the room was--_to see him
perform Macbeth!_ ... there was room for meditation till the mind
burst with thinking. His new house is not so pleasant as Hampton, nor
so splendid as the Adelphi; but it is commodious enough for all the
wants of the inhabitant. Besides it is so quiet, that he never will
be disturbed till the eternal morning; and never till then will a
sweeter voice than his be heard.” From this moment Hannah More appears
to have resolved on the entire dedication of all her mental powers
and acquirements, of all her influence, her time, her efforts, to the
attainment of a crown which should not wither on her tomb.

HENRY THOMPSON: ‘Life of Hannah More.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Production of ‘Fatal Falsehood.’]

Just returned from the house; the applause was as great as her most
sanguine friends could wish. Miss Young was interrupted three different
times, in the speech on false honor, with bursts of approbation. When
Rivers, who was thought dead, appeared in the fifth act, they quite
shouted for joy. The curtain fell to slow music,--and now for the
moment when the fate of the piece was to be decided! The audience did
her the honor to testify their approbation by the warmest applause
that could possibly be given; for when Hull came forward to ask their
permission to perform it again, they did give leave by three loud
shouts, and by many huzzaings.

----[2] MORE: _Letter to her sisters, London_, 1779, in “Memoirs of
Hannah More,” by W. Roberts.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Life with Mrs. Garrick]

Mrs. Garrick and I read to ourselves _sans_ intermission.... We never
see a human face but each other’s. Though in such deep retirement, I am
never dull, because I am not reduced to the fatigue of entertaining
dunces, or of being obliged to listen to them. We dress like a couple
of Scaramouches, dispute like a couple of Jesuits, eat like a couple
of aldermen, walk like a couple of porters, and read as much as two
doctors of either university.

HANNAH MORE: _Letters to her sisters, Hampton_, 1780, in ‘Memoirs,’ by
W. Roberts.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Love of the country.]

We go to-morrow to smell the lilacs and syringas at Hampton. I long for
the sweet tranquillity of that delicious retreat.

HANNAH MORE: _Letter to Mrs. Gwatkin, London_, 1776, in ‘Memoirs,’ by
W. Roberts.

* * * * *

I did not think there could have been so beautiful a place [as
Wimbledon Park] within seven miles of London; the park has as much
variety of ground, and is as _un-Londonish_ as if it were a hundred
miles off; and I enjoyed the violets and the birds more than all the
marechal powder and the music of this foolish town.

HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister, from London_, 1780, in ‘Memoirs,’
by W. Roberts.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Home at Cowslip Green.]

The cottage, except by the growth of the trees then planted, is
little altered from its appearance in 1785, when Miss More first took
possession of it. It is only one story high; the roof is thatch; a
smooth lawn, with a few shrubs and trees, fronts the window of the
drawing-room, which looks toward the south. A border of flowers runs
nearly round the walls. Situate in the midst of the bright and fertile
vale of Wrington, Cowslip Green commands a variety of exquisite views.
On one side of the lawn rises the abrupt hill on which the noble
mansion of Aldwick Court has since been erected. To the south spreads
the rich and sylvan valley, bounded by the dark outline of the Mendips,
with their warm-tinted herbage and dusky woods, casting out in bold
relief the picturesque village of Blagdon, and the “Magick Garden” of
Mendip Lodge with its noble terraces of

“Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view;”

while between them the cottage roofs and venerable tower of Burrington
shelter in the leafy skirts of their bold and rocky coomb.

HENRY THOMPSON: ‘Life of Hannah More.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her charity: Episode of the Bristol milkwoman Ann Yearsley.]

Her ingratitude to Miss More has been superlative. The latter labored
unweariedly to collect subscriptions for her, and was at expense
herself for the publication; and lest the husband, who is a dolt,
should waste the sum collected, placed it out at interest for her as
trustee, besides having washed and combed her trumpery verses, and
taught them to dance in tune. The foolish woman’s head, turned with
the change of fortune and applause, and concluding that her talent,
which was only wonderful from her sphere and state of ignorance, was
marvellous genius, she grew enraged at Miss More for presuming to
prune her wild shoots, and, in her passion, accused her benevolent
and beneficent friend of defrauding her of part of the collected
charity.... Am I in the wrong, madam, for thinking that these parish
Sapphos had better be bound ’prentices to mantua-makers, than be
appointed chambermaids to Mesdemoiselles the Muses?

HORACE WALPOLE: _Letter to the Countess of Ossory_, 1786, in ‘The
Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford.’ London: Henry G. Bohn, 1861.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Account of her work at Cheddar.]

Perhaps it is the best answer to your question, to describe the origin
and progress of one of our schools, detached from the rest. And I
select Cheddar, which you were the immediate cause of our taking up.
After the discoveries made of the deplorable state of that place, my
sister and I went and took lodging at a little public-house there, to
see what we could do, for we were utterly at a loss how to begin. We
found more than two thousand people in the parish, almost all very
poor; no gentry; a dozen wealthy farmers, hard, brutal, and ignorant.
We visited them all, picking up at one house (like fortune-tellers)
the name and character of the next. We told them we intended to set up
a school for their poor. They did not like it. We assured them we did
not desire a shilling from them, but wished for their concurrence, as
we knew they could influence their workmen. One of the farmers seemed
pleased and civil; he was rich, but covetous, a hard drinker, and
his wife a woman of loose morals, but good natural sense; she became
our friend sooner than some of the decent and formal, and let us a
house, the only one in the parish at £7 per annum, with a good garden.
Adjoining to it was a large ox-house; this we roofed and floored, and,
by putting in a couple of windows, it made a good school-room. While
this was doing, we went to every house in the place, and found every
house a scene of the greatest ignorance and vice. We saw but one Bible
in all the parish, and that was used to prop a flower-pot. No clergyman
had resided in it for forty years. One rode over, three miles from
Wells, to preach once on a Sunday, but no weekly duty was done, or sick
persons visited, and children were often buried without any funeral
service. Eight people in the morning and twenty in the afternoon, was a
good congregation. We spent our whole time in getting at the characters
of all the people, the employment, wages, and number of every family;
and this we have done in our other nine parishes. On a fixed day, of
which we gave notice in the church, every woman, with all her children
above six years old, met us. We took an exact list from their account,
and engaged one hundred and twenty to attend on the following Sunday.
A great many refused to send their children, unless we would pay
them for it; and not a few refused, because they were not sure of my
intentions, being apprehensive that at the end of seven years, if they
attended so long, I should acquire a power over them, and send them
beyond sea. I must have heard this myself in order to believe that so
much ignorance existed out of Africa. While this was going on, we had
set every engine at work to find proper teachers.... For the first year
these excellent women had to struggle with every kind of opposition, so
that they were frequently tempted to give up their laborious employ.
They well entitled themselves to £30 per annum salary, and some little
presents. We established a weekly school of thirty girls, to learn
reading, sewing, knitting, and spinning. The latter, though I tried
three sorts, and went myself to almost every clothing town in the
county, did not answer--partly from the exactions of the manufacturer,
and partly from its not suiting the genius of the place. They preferred
knitting after the school hours on week-days. The mother and daughter
[the teachers employed by Miss More] visited the sick, chiefly with a
view to their spiritual concerns; but we concealed the true motive at
first; and in order to procure them access to the houses and hearts
of the people, they were furnished not only with medicine, but with a
little money, which they administered with great prudence. They soon
gained their confidence, read and prayed to them; and in all respects
did just what a good clergyman does in other parishes. At the end of
a year we perceived that much ground had been gained among the poor;
but the success was attended with no small persecution from the rich,
though some of them grew more favorable. I now ventured to have a
sermon read after school on a Sunday evening, inviting a few of the
parents, and keeping the grown-up children. It was at first thought a
very Methodistical measure, and we got a few broken windows; but quiet
perseverance carried us through.

Finding the distresses of these poor people uncommonly great (for their
wages are but 1_s._ per day), and fearing to abuse the bounty of my
friends by too indiscriminate liberality, it occurred to me that I
could make what I had to bestow go much further, by instituting clubs
or societies for the women, as is done for men in other places. It was
no small trouble to accomplish this; for though the subscription was
only three half-pence a week, it was more than they could always raise;
yet the object appeared so important, that I found it would be good
economy privately to give widows and other very poor women money to
pay their club.... In some parishes we have one hundred and fifty poor
women thus associated.... We have an anniversary feast of tea, and I
get some of the clergy, and not a few of the better sort of people, to
come to it. We wait on the women, who sit and enjoy their dignity.

HANNAH MORE: _Letter to Mr. Wilberforce_, 1791, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W.
Roberts.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A visit from Southey.]

I visited Hannah More, at Cowslip Green, on Monday last, and seldom
have I lived a pleasanter day. She knew my opinions, and treated them
with a flattering deference; her manners are mild, her information
considerable, and her taste correct. There are five sisters, and each
of them would be remarked in a mixed company. They pay for and direct
the education of one thousand poor children.

ROBERT SOUTHEY: _Letter_, Oct., 1795, in ‘Life and Correspondence,’
edited by Rev. C. C. Southey, M. A. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and
Longman’s, 1849.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Obstacles to her work.]

We have in hand a new and very laborious undertaking, on account of its
great distance from home. But the object appeared to me so important,
that I did not feel myself at liberty to neglect it. It is a parish,
the largest in our county or diocese, in a state of great depravity and
ignorance. The opposition I have met with in endeavoring to establish
an institution for the religious instruction of these people would
excite your astonishment. The principal adversary is a farmer of
£1000 a year, who says the lower classes are _fated_ to be wicked and
ignorant, and that as wise as I am I cannot alter what is _decreed_. He
has labored to ruin the poor curate for favoring our cause, and says
he shall not have a workman to obey him, for I shall make them all as
wise as himself. In spite of this hostility, however, which far exceeds
anything I have met with, I am building a house, and taking up things
on such a large scale, that you must not be surprised if I get into
jail for debt (even should I escape it for my irregular proceedings,
which is the most to be feared).... Providence, I trust, will carry
me through the business of this new undertaking; for, in spite of the
active malevolence we experience, I have brought already between three
and four hundred under a course of instruction: the worst part of the
story is, that thirty miles there and back is a little too much these
short days; and when we get there, our house has as yet neither windows
nor doors; but if we live till next summer, things will mend, and in so
precarious a world as this is, a winter was not to be lost!

HANNAH MORE: _Letter to Mrs. Kennicott_, 1798, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W,
Roberts.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her friends.]

It was remarked by Mrs. More that she never lost a friend but by
death; and as she continued to the last enlarging the number of this
privileged order, she had, in her later years, and in her rural
seclusion, less time at command than she had enjoyed at Hampton,
when her evenings passed in the crowded saloons of the fashionable
and the literary. To save her own time, as well as to accommodate
her numerous visitors, she opened her house daily from twelve or
one o’clock to three, for what she not inappropriately termed her
“levee.” This, however, was far from securing the rest of her time for
solitude, as friends from distant quarters were frequently besetting
Barley Wood, and making importunate and irresistible demands on her
leisure. Ingenious, however, to do good, she now employed herself
in manufacturing little useful and ornamental articles, to be sold
at fancy fairs for charitable purposes; the fact that they were the
produce of her industry investing them with many times their intrinsic
value. The same energy which distinguished her literary pursuits, was
conspicuous in this humbler path of usefulness. On one occasion of this
sort, she knitted so assiduously as to produce an abscess in her hand.

[Sidenote: Her industry.]

HENRY THOMPSON: ‘Life of Hannah More.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her determination.]

The energy of her mind in carrying into execution any purpose which
had been adopted after sufficient consideration was very remarkable.
In conformity with this part of her character, her plan was, in any
new resolution which involved the exercise of self-denial, to contend
with the most difficult part of the undertaking first, after which she
used to say that she found the remaining sacrifices comparatively easy
to be submitted to. On this principle, having resolved to desist from
going to the theatre about the time her play of ‘Percy’ was revived,
she determined to make that the immediate occasion for carrying her
new resolution into practice. Mrs. Siddons was then at the height of
her glory, and was to act the part of the heroine of the tragedy, a
character which she was said to exhibit with remarkable success; and
Mrs. Hannah More was in the midst of a brilliant society of friends
and admirers, who all attended the representation; but here she was
determined to make her first stand against this particular temptation,
and to break the spell of the enchantment while standing in the centre
of the magic circle.

Another anecdote will show the same principle brought into exercise on
a very different occasion. As her limited income began to be sensibly
diminished at one time by her travelling expenses, she determined to
perform her journeys in stage-coaches; and in order to overcome at
once every obstacle that pride might interpose, she resolved to pay a
visit to a nobleman on which she was about to set out, in one of these
vehicles; which, as there was a public road through the park, set her
down at the door of the mansion. She has more than once described her
conflicting sensations when his lordship, proceeding through a line of
servants in rich liveries, came to hand her out of her conveyance--a
conveyance at that time much less used than at present by persons of
high respectability. Thus it was the policy of this able tactician to
commence her operations by a decisive blow, whereby the main strength
of the opposing foe was at once broken and dispersed, and her victory
made easy and secure.

WM. ROBERTS: ‘Memoirs of Hannah More.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Appearance in old age.]

Her form was small and slight, her features wrinkled with age; but
the burden of eighty years had not impaired her gracious smile, nor
lessened the fire of her eyes, the clearest, the brightest, and the
most searching I have ever seen. They were singularly dark--positively
black they seemed as they looked forth among carefully-trained tresses
of her own white hair; and absolutely sparkled while she spoke of those
of whom she was the venerated link between the present and the long
past. Her manner on entering the room, while conversing, and at our
departure, was positively spritely; she tripped about from console to
console, from window to window, to show us some gift that bore a name
immortal, some cherished reminder of other days--almost of another
world, certainly of another age; for they were memories of those whose
deaths were registered before the present century had birth.

She was clad, I well remember, in a rich dress of pea-green silk. It
was an odd whim, and contrasted somewhat oddly with her patriarchal age
and venerable countenance, yet was in harmony with the youth of her
step and her increasing vivacity, as she laughed and chatted, chatted
and laughed; her voice strong and clear as that of a girl.

S. C. HALL: ‘A Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of the Age.’
London: Virtue & Co., 1871.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Relations with Macaulay.]

She was a very kind friend to me from childhood. Her notice first
called out my literary tastes. Her presents laid the foundation of my
library. She was to me what Ninon was to Voltaire--begging her pardon
... and yours for comparing myself to a great man. She really was
a second mother to me. I have a real affection for her memory. I,
therefore, could not possibly write about her, unless I wrote in her
praise; and all the praise which I could give to her writings, even
after straining my conscience in her favor, would be far indeed from
satisfying any of her admirers.

T. B. MACAULAY: _Letter to W. Napier_, in the former’s ‘Life and
Letters,’ by G. Otto Trevelyan. New York: Harper & Bros., 1876.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A comment on ‘Cælebs.’]

Have you read ‘Cælebs’? It has reached eight editions in so many weeks,
yet literally it is one of the very poorest sort of common novels,
with the drawback of dull religion in it. Had the religion been high
and flavored, it would have been something. I borrowed this ‘Cælebs in
Search of a Wife,’ from a very careful, neat lady, and returned it with
this stuff written in the beginning:--

If ever I marry a wife
I’d marry a landlord’s daughter,
For then I may sit in the bar,
And drink cold brandy-and-water.

CHARLES LAMB: _Letter to Coleridge_, in ‘Final Memorials’ of the
former, by T. N. Talfourd. London: Edward Moxon, 1848.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: George Eliot’s opinion.]

I like neither her letters, nor her books, nor her character. She was
that most disagreeable of all monsters, a blue-stocking--a monster that
can only exist in a miserably false state of society, in which a woman
with but a smattering of learning or philosophy is classed along with
singing mice or card-playing pigs.

GEORGE ELIOT: _Letter to J. Sibree_, 1848, in ‘Life,’ edited by J. W.
Cross. New York: Harper & Bros., 1885.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Opinion of Sara Coleridge.]

Though I think that Mrs. More’s[3] very great notoriety was more the
work of circumstances, and the popular turn of her mind, than owing
to a strong original genius, I am far from thinking her an _ordinary_
woman. She must have had great energy of character, and a spritely,
versatile mind, which did not originate much, but which readily caught
the spirit of the day and reflected all the phases of opinion in the
pious and well-disposed portion of society in a clear and lively manner.

SARA COLERIDGE: _Letter to Miss E. Treveren_, 1834, in the former’s
‘Memoir and Letters,’ by her daughter. New York: Harper & Bros., 1874.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Hannah More’s earnings.]

Mrs. More and her sisters had accumulated by their industry handsome
competencies; by her pen alone she had realized £30,000.... Much of her
property was bequeathed to public institutions.

HENRY THOMPSON: ‘Life of Hannah More.’

FOOTNOTES:

[1] David Garrick used to call her “Nine,” and “Your Nineship,”
deriving the title from the Nine Muses.

[2] It is not stated which of the sisters wrote the letter from which
this extract is taken; Hannah was too ill to attend on the opening
night of ‘Fatal Falsehood.’

[3] In later life she was always called _Mrs._ More.

FRANCES BURNEY (MME. D’ARBLAY).

1752-1840.

FRANCES BURNEY (MME. D’ARBLAY).

Frances Burney was born at Lynn Regis, Norfolk. She was the daughter of
Dr. Charles Burney, a well-known professor of music, and the admiring
friend of Samuel Johnson. Her early associations are sufficiently
described in Macaulay’s lively essay, from which we have freely drawn.
In 1778, at twenty-six, she published her first novel, EVELINA, which
took the town by storm. Four years later it was followed by CECILIA.
In 1786 Frances was appointed Second Keeper of the Robes to Queen
Charlotte. She resigned the position in 1791. In 1793 she married M.
D’Arblay, a French refugee, an officer of noble family.

“The sisters of Shakespeare’s Ophelia, Otway’s Belvidera, Richardson’s
Pamela,” says M. Taine, “constitute a race by themselves, soft
and fair, with blue eyes, lily whiteness, blushing, of timid
delicacy, serious sweetness, framed to yield, bend, cling.” This
French generalization touching Englishwomen might have been drawn
from Fanny Burney. She had all the “sweetness, devotion, patience,
inextinguishable affection,” on which the brilliant Frenchman rings
his changes. Her gift of humor, of a keen mind, seems to have been
a thing apart, and not in the least to have affected her relations
with those immediately around her; she saw them always through a veil
of affection and reverence. Her father, whom Macaulay so censures for
his carelessness, to her is ever “my dearest father,” “gay, facile
and sweet”; she bows in spirit before plain, dull King George and his
“sweet queen”; is tremblingly anxious to please the princesses; finds
old Mrs. Delany a saint, an angel; cannot bring herself to refuse the
overwhelming favor of a court position which she does not want. Yet
this woman, who, as acute Mrs. Thrale phrased it, “loved the world
reverentially,” was as ready as the most unconventional of beings to
lose that world for love. She married D’Arblay in meek defiance of her
father’s wish (though indeed Dr. Burney was unresentful); in defiance
of public opinion--and it is difficult to realize the state of English
opinion concerning Frenchmen at that date; and on a pecuniary basis
which makes one smile--her pension of £100 per annum from the queen.
M. D’Arblay could not present himself with her at Windsor. She was
ecstatically joyful once because the king vouchsafed him recognition on
the terrace. Little touches like this throughout the diary show us that
she never ceased to value dross, but none the less, she was willing
instantly to give it up for gold.

The record of the Arcadian life and happiness of these young people of
forty-odd is delightful reading. How exquisite is D’Arblay’s romantic
reply to the offer of a commission in the French army, that he could
only accept it on condition that he should never be required to bear
arms against the countrymen of his wife! Conceive the reception of this
communication by Napoleon Bonaparte!

In 1802 the D’Arblays went, with their little son, to Paris. One would
like the romance to end with “they lived happy ever after.” Alas, it
is reality after all, not romance; and we must read Frances’s deeply
touching account of the death of D’Arblay at Paris in 1812. She
survived him twenty-eight years; survived, indeed, their son, her “dear
Alex,” who died in 1832. The mother lived on lonely in London till 1840.

She published after her marriage the following works:

_Brief Reflections Relative to the French Emigrant Clergy_, 1793.

_Edwin and Elgitha_, a tragedy, 1795.

_Camilla_, a novel, published by subscription in 1796, from which she
obtained 3,000 guineas.

_The Wanderer_, a tale, 1814.

_Memoir of Dr. Burney_, 1832.

The DIARY AND LETTERS, which would embalm her memory even if EVELINA,
CECILIA and _Camilla_ were lost, was published after her death, in
seven volumes. The somewhat unmerciful bulk of this work has lately
been judiciously reduced by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey in an edition
published by Messrs. Roberts Brothers.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her childhood.]

At Lynn, in June, 1752, Frances Burney was born. Nothing in her
childhood indicated that she would, while still a young woman, have
secured for herself an honorable and permanent place among English
writers. She was shy and silent. Her brothers and sisters called her
a dunce, and not altogether without some show of reason; for at eight
years old she did not know her letters.

[Sidenote: Education.]

... The progress of the mind of Frances Burney, from her ninth to her
twenty-fifth year, well deserves to be recorded. When her education
had proceeded no further than the horn-book, she lost her mother, and
thenceforward she educated herself. Her father appears to have been
as bad a father as a very honest, affectionate and sweet-tempered man
can well be. He loved his daughter dearly, but it never seems to have
occurred to him that a parent has other duties to perform to children
than that of fondling them. It would indeed have been impossible
for him to superintend their education himself. His professional
engagements occupied him all day.... Two of his daughters he sent to
a seminary at Paris; but he imagined that Frances would run some risk
of being perverted from the Protestant faith if she were educated in a
Catholic country, and he therefore kept her at home. No governess, no
teacher of any art or of any languages was provided for her. But one of
her sisters showed her how to write, and before she was fourteen she
began to find pleasure in reading.

[Sidenote: No novel reader.]

It was not, however, by reading that her intellect was formed. Indeed,
when her best novels were produced, her knowledge of books was very
small. It is particularly deserving of observation, that she appears
to have been by no means a novel reader. Her father’s library was
large, ... but in the whole collection there was only a single novel,
Fielding’s ‘Amelia.’

[Sidenote: Her peculiar opportunities.]

Dr. Burney’s attainments, the suavity of his temper, and the gentle
simplicity of his manners, had obtained for him ready admission to
the first literary circles.... It would be tedious to recount the
names of all the men of letters and artists whom Frances Burney had an
opportunity of seeing and hearing. This was not all. The distinction
which Dr. Burney had acquired as a musician, and as the historian of
music, attracted to his house the most eminent musical performers of
that age. It was thus in his power to give, with scarcely any expense,
concerts equal to those of the aristocracy. On such occasions the quiet
street in which he lived was blocked up by coroneted chariots, and his
little drawing-room was crowded with peers, peeresses, ministers, and
ambassadors.

With the literary and fashionable society which occasionally met under
Dr. Burney’s roof, Frances can scarcely be said to have mingled. She
was not a musician, and could therefore bear no part in the concerts.
She was shy almost to awkwardness, and scarcely ever joined in the
conversation. The slightest remark from a stranger disconcerted her;
and even the old friends of her father who tried to draw her out could
seldom extract more than a Yes or a No. Her figure was small, her face
not distinguished by beauty. She was therefore suffered to withdraw
quietly to the background, and, unobserved herself, to observe all that
passed.... Thus, while still a girl, she had laid up such a store of
materials for fiction as few of those who mix much in the world are
able to accumulate during a long life. She had watched and listened to
people of every class, from princes and great officers of state down
to artists living in garrets, and poets familiar with subterranean
cook-shops. Hundreds of remarkable persons had passed in review before
her, English, French, German, Italian, lords and fiddlers, deans of
cathedrals, and managers of theatres.

[Sidenote: ‘Evelina.’]

The impulse which urged Frances to write became irresistible; and the
result was the history of Evelina. Then came, naturally enough, a wish,
mingled with many fears, to appear before the public.... She had not
money to bear the expense of printing. It was therefore necessary that
some book-seller should be induced to take the risk.

Dodsley refused even to look at the manuscript unless he were trusted
with the name of the author. A publisher in Fleet Street, named
Lowndes, was more complaisant. Some correspondence took place between
this person and Miss Burney, who took the name of Grafton, and
desired that the letters addressed to her might be left at the Orange
Coffee-house. But, before the bargain was finally struck, Frances
thought it her duty to obtain her father’s consent. She told him that
she had written a book, that she wished to have his permission to
publish it anonymously, but that she hoped that he would not insist
upon seeing it.... He only stared, burst out a-laughing, kissed her,
gave her leave to do as she liked, and never even asked the name of her
work. The contract with Lowndes was speedily concluded. Twenty pounds
were given for the copyright, and were accepted by Fanny with delight.

LORD MACAULAY: ‘Essay on Mme. D’Arblay,’ _Edinburgh Review_, January,
1843. ‘Critical and Historical Essays.’ New York: Albert Mason, 1875.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Its publication.]

This year [1778] was ushered in by a grand and most important event!
At the latter end of January, the literary world was favored with the
first publication of the ingenious, learned, and most profound Fanny
Burney!... This admirable authoress has named her most elaborate
performance, ‘Evelina; or, A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World.’

Perhaps this may seem a rather bold attempt and title for a female
whose knowledge of the world is very confined, and whose inclinations,
as well as situation, incline her to a private and domestic life. All
I can urge is, that I have only presumed to trace the accidents and
adventures to which a “young woman” is liable; I have not pretended
to show the world what it actually _is_, but what it _appears_ to a
girl of seventeen: and so far as that, surely, any girl who is past
seventeen may safely do?... My Aunt Anne and Miss Humphries being
settled at this time at Brompton, I was going thither with Susan [her
sister] to tea, when Charlotte [another sister] acquainted me that
they were then employed in reading ‘Evelina’ to the invalid, my cousin
Richard. This intelligence gave me the utmost uneasiness--I foresaw a
thousand dangers of a discovery--I dreaded the indiscreet warmth of
all my confidants. In truth, I was quite sick with apprehension, and
was too uncomfortable to go to Brompton, and Susan carried my excuses.
Upon her return, I was somewhat tranquillized, for she assured me that
there was not the smallest suspicion of the author, and that they had
concluded it to be the work of a _man_!

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mrs. Thrale’s approval.]

Mrs. Thrale said she had only to complain it was too short. She
recommended it to my mother to read!--how droll!--and she told her she
would be much entertained with it, for there was a great deal of human
life in it, and of the manners of the present times, and added that it
was written “by somebody who knows the top and the bottom, the highest
and the lowest of mankind.” She has even lent her set to my mother, who
brought it home with her!

FRANCES BURNEY: ‘Diary and Letters,’ revised and edited by Sarah
Chauncey Woolsey. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1880.

* * * * *

Madame D’Arblay said she was wild with joy at this decisive evidence of
her literary success [Mrs. Thrale’s approval], and that she could only
give vent to her rapture by dancing and skipping round a mulberry tree
in the garden.

SIR WALTER SCOTT: _Diary_, November, 1826, in ‘Memoirs,’ by J. G.
Lockhart. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1871.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Frances experiments on the publisher.]

We introduced ourselves by buying the book, for which I had a
commission from Mrs. G----. Fortunately Mr. Lowndes himself was in the
shop; as we found by his air of consequence and authority, as well as
his age; for I never saw him before.

The moment he had given my mother the book, she asked if he could tell
her who wrote it. “No,” he answered; “I don’t know myself.” “Pho, pho,”
said she; “you mayn’t choose to tell, but you must know.” “I don’t,
indeed, ma’am,” answered he; “I have no honor in keeping the secret,
for I have never been trusted. All I know of the matter is, that it is
a gentleman of the other end of the town.” My mother made a thousand
other inquiries, to which his answers were to the following effect:
that for a great while, he did not know if it was a man or a woman; but
now, he knew that much, and that he was a master of his subject, and
well versed in the manners of the times.... I grinned irresistibly, and
was obliged to look out at the shop-door till we came away.

[While ill and absent at Chesington], I received from Charlotte a
letter, the most interesting that could be written to me, for it
acquainted me that my dear father was at length reading my book, which
has now been published six months. How this has come to pass, I am yet
in the dark; but, it seems, ... he desired Charlotte to bring him the
_Monthly Review_; she contrived to look over his shoulder as he opened
it, which he did at the account of ‘Evelina.’ He read it with great
earnestness, then put it down; and presently after snatched it up, and
read it again. Doubtless his paternal heart felt some agitation for his
girl in reading a review of her publication! _how_ he got at the name I
cannot imagine.

[Sidenote: Dr. Burney’s pleasure.]

Soon after, he turned to Charlotte, ... put his finger on the word
‘Evelina,’ and saying, _she knew what it was_, bade her write down the
name, and send the man to Lowndes’, as if for himself. When William
returned, he took the book from him, and the moment he was gone,
opened the first volume--and opened it upon the _ode_! [dedicating the
book to himself]. How great must have been his astonishment at seeing
himself so addressed! He looked all amazement, read a line or two with
great eagerness, and then, stopping short, he seemed quite affected,
and the tears started into his eyes: dear soul! I am sure they did into
mine.

* * * * *

My father, when he took the books back to Streatham, actually
acquainted Mrs. Thrale with my secret. He took an opportunity, when
they were alone together, of saying that, upon her recommendation, he
had himself, as well as my mother, been reading ‘Evelina.’

“Well!” cried she, “and is it not a very pretty book? and a very
clever book? and a very comical book?” “Why,” answered he, “’tis well
enough; but I have something to tell you about it.” “Well? what?” cried
she; “has Mrs. Cholmondely found out the author?” “No,” returned he,
“not that I know of; but I believe _I_ have, though but very lately.”
“Well, pray let’s hear!” cried she, eagerly; “I want to know him of all
things.”

How my father must laugh at the _him_! He then, however, undeceived her
in regard to that particular, by telling her it was “_our Fanny_!”

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Dr. Johnson’s comment.]

Mrs. Thrale ... at last ... mentioned ‘Evelina.’ [During F. B.’s first
visit to Streatham]. “Yesterday at supper,” said she, “we talked it all
over, and discussed all your characters; but Dr. Johnson’s favorite is
Mr. Smith. He declares the fine gentleman _manqué_ was never better
drawn, and he acted him all the evening, saying ‘he was all for the
ladies!’ He repeated whole scenes by heart. O, you can’t imagine how
much he is pleased with the book; he ‘could not get rid of the rogue,’
he told me.”

[Sidenote: Reynolds’ curiosity.]

Sir Joshua, who began it one day when he was too much engaged to go on
with it, was so much caught, that he could think of nothing else, and
was quite absent all the day, not knowing a word that was said to him;
and, when he took it up again, found himself so much interested in it,
that he sat up all night to finish it! Sir Joshua, it seems, vows he
would give fifty pounds to know the author!

FRANCES BURNEY: ‘Diary and Letters.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Frances meets Sheridan.]

And now I must tell you a little conversation which I did not hear
myself till I came home; it was between Mr. Sheridan and my father.
“Dr. Burney,” cries the former, “have you no older daughters? Can this
possibly be the authoress of ‘Evelina’?” And then he said abundance of
fine things, and begged my father to introduce him to me.

“Why, it will be a very formidable thing to her,” answered he, “to be
introduced to you.”

“Well, then, by and by,” returned he.

Some time after this, my eyes happening to meet his, he waived the
ceremony of introduction, and in a low voice said: “I have been telling
Dr. Burney that I have long expected to see Miss Burney a lady of the
gravest appearance, with the quickest parts.” I was never much more
astonished than at this unexpected address, as among all my numerous
puffers the name of Sheridan has never reached me, and I did really
imagine he had never deigned to look at my trash. Of course I could
make no verbal answer, and he proceeded then to speak of ‘Evelina’ in
terms of the highest praise; but I was in such a ferment from surprise
(not to say pleasure), that I have no recollection of his expressions.
I only remember telling him that I was much amazed he had spared time
to read it, and that he repeatedly called it a most surprising book.

FRANCES BURNEY: ‘_Letter to Susan Burney_,’ in ‘Diary and Letters.’

* * * * *

I often think when I am counting my laurels, what a pity it would have
been had I popped off in my last illness, without knowing what a person
of consequence I was!--and I sometimes think that, were I now to have a
relapse, I never could go off with so much _éclat_!... I have already,
I fear, reached the pinnacle of my abilities, and therefore to stand
still will be my best policy.

[Sidenote: ‘Cecilia.’]

My work is too long in all conscience for the hurry of my people to
have it produced. I have a thousand million of fears for it. The mere
copying, without revising and correcting, would take at least ten
weeks, for I cannot do more than a volume in a fortnight unless I
scrawl short hand and rough hand as badly as the original. Yet my dear
father thinks it will be published in a month!... I have copied one
volume and a quarter--no more! Oh, I am sick to think of it! Yet not
a little reviving is my father’s very high approbation of the first
volume, which is all he has seen. Would you ever believe, bigoted as he
was to ‘Evelina,’ that he now says he thinks this a superior design
and superior execution?... One thing frets me a good deal, which is,
that my book affair has got wind, and seems almost everywhere known,
notwithstanding my eagerness and caution to have it kept snug to the
last.... The book, in short, to my great consternation, I find is
talked of and expected all the town over.

FRANCES BURNEY: ‘Diary and Letters.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Its success.]

What Miss Burney received for the copyright is not mentioned in the
‘Diary’, but we have observed several expressions from which we infer
that the sum was considerable. We have been told that the publishers
gave her two thousand pounds, and we have no doubt that they might have
given a still larger sum without being losers.

LORD MACAULAY: ‘Essay on Mme. D’Arblay.’

* * * * *

Oh! it beats every other book, even your own other volumes, for
‘Evelina’ was a baby to it. Such a novel! Indeed, I am seriously and
sensibly touched by it, and am proud of her friendship who so knows the
human heart.

MRS. THRALE: _Letter to Fanny Burney_, in the latter’s ‘Diary and
Letters.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Burke’s criticism.]

He very emphatically congratulated me upon its most universal success;
said, “he was now too late to speak of it, since he could only echo the
voice of the whole nation.”... He then told me that, notwithstanding
his admiration, he was the man who had dared to find some faults with
so favorite and fashionable a work. I entreated him to tell me what
they were, and assured him nothing would make me so happy as to correct
them under his direction.... He wished the conclusion either more happy
or more miserable; “for in a work of imagination,” said he, “there is
no medium.” I was not easy enough to answer him, or I have much, though
perhaps not good for much, to say in defense of following life and
nature as much in the conclusion as in the progress of a tale; and when
is life and nature completely happy or miserable?

FRANCES BURNEY: _Letter to Susan Burney_, in ‘Diary and Letters.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Accounts of Frances at this period.]

Next to the balloon [on exhibition in the Pantheon] Miss Burney is
the object of public curiosity; I had the pleasure of meeting her
yesterday. She is a very unaffected, modest, sweet, and pleasing
young lady: but you, now I think of it, are a Goth, and have not read
‘Cecilia.’ Read, read it, for shame!

ANNA L. BARBAULD: _Letter to her brother_, Jan., 1784, in ‘Memoir,’ by
Grace A. Ellis (Oliver). Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co., 1874.

* * * * *

I am sure you are acquainted with the novel entitled ‘Cecilia,’
much admired for its good sense, variety of character, delicacy of
sentiment, etc., etc. There is nothing good, amiable, and agreeable
mentioned in the book, that is not possessed by the author of it, Miss
Burney.

I have now been acquainted with her three years: her extreme diffidence
of herself, notwithstanding her great genius and the applause she has
met with, adds lustre to all her excellences, and all improve on
acquaintance.

MRS. DELANY: _Letter to Mrs. F. Hamilton_, 1786, in, the former’s
‘Autobiography and Correspondence,’ revised and edited by Sarah
Chauncey Woolsey. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1879.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: She meets King George III.]

In December, 1785, Miss Burney was on a visit to Mrs. Delany at
Windsor. The dinner was over. The old lady was taking a nap. Her
grand-niece, a little girl of seven, was playing at some Christmas
game with the visitors, when the door opened, and a stout gentleman
entered unannounced, with a star on his breast, and “What? what? what?”
in his mouth. A cry of “the king” was set up. A general scampering
followed. Miss Burney owns that she could not have been more terrified
if she had seen a ghost. But Mrs. Delany came forward to pay her duty
to her royal friend, and the disturbance was quieted. Frances was then
presented, and underwent a long examination and cross-examination about
all that she had written and all that she meant to write. The queen
soon made her appearance, and his majesty repeated, for the benefit of
his consort, the information which he had extracted from Miss Burney.
The good-nature of the royal pair could not but be delightful to a
young lady who had been brought up a Tory. In a few days the visit
was repeated. Miss Burney was more at ease than before. His majesty,
instead of seeking for information, condescended to impart it, and
passed sentence on many great writers, English and foreign. Voltaire
he pronounced a monster. Rousseau he liked rather better. “But was
there ever,” he cried, “such stuff as great part of Shakespeare? Only
one must not say so. But what think you? What? Is there not sad stuff?
What? What?”

[Sidenote: She enters the queen’s service.]

... Frances was fascinated by the condescending kindness of the two
great personages to whom she had been presented. Her father was even
more infatuated than herself. The result was a step of which we cannot
think with patience.... A German lady of the name of Haggerdorn, one
of the keepers of the queen’s robes, retired about this time, and her
majesty offered the vacant post to Miss Burney.... What was demanded of
her was, that she should consent to be almost as completely separated
from her family and friends as if she had gone to Calcutta, and almost
as close a prisoner as if she had been sent to jail for a libel; that
with talents which had instructed and delighted the highest living
minds, she should now be employed only in mixing snuff and sticking
pins; that she should be summoned by a waiting-woman’s bell to a
waiting-woman’s duties; that she should pass her whole life under the
restraints of paltry etiquette, should sometimes fast till she was
ready to swoon with hunger, should sometimes stand till her knees gave
way with fatigue; that she should not dare to speak or move without
considering how her mistress might like her words and gestures. Instead
of those distinguished men and women, the flower of all political
parties, with whom she had been in the habit of mixing on terms of
equal friendship, she was to have for her perpetual companion the chief
keeper of the robes, an old hag from Germany, of mean understanding,
of insolent manners, and of temper which, naturally savage, had now
been exasperated by disease. Now and then, indeed, poor Frances might
console herself for the loss of Burke’s and Windham’s society, by
joining in the “celestial colloquy sublime” of his majesty’s equerries.

And what was the consideration for which she was to sell herself into
this slavery? A peerage in her own right? A pension of two thousand a
year for life? A seventy-four for her brother in the navy? A deanery
for her brother in the church? Not so. The price at which she was
valued was her board, her lodging, the attendance of a man-servant, and
two hundred pounds a year.

LORD MACAULAY: ‘Essay on Mme. D’Arblay.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Life as Second Keeper of the Robes.]

I rise at six o’clock, dress in a morning gown and cap, and wait my
first summons, which is at all times from seven to near eight, but
commonly in the exact half hour between them. The queen never sends
for me till her hair is dressed. This, in a morning, is always done
by her wardrobe-woman, Mrs. Thielky. The queen’s dress is finished by
Mrs. Thielky and myself. No maid ever enters the room while the queen
is in it. Mrs. Thielky hands the things to me, and I put them on. ’Tis
fortunate for me I have not the handing them! I should never know which
to take first, embarrassed as I am, and should run a prodigious risk of
giving the gown before the hoop, and the fan before the neckerchief.
By eight o’clock, or a little after, for she is extremely expeditious,
she is dressed.... I then return to my own room to breakfast. I make
this meal the most pleasant part of the day; I have a book for my
companion, and I allow myself an hour for it. At nine o’clock I send
off my breakfast things, and relinquish my book, to make a serious
and steady examination of every thing I have upon my hands in the way
of business--in which preparations for dress are always included, not
for the present day alone, but for the court-days, which require a
particular dress; for the next arriving birthday of any of the royal
family, every one of which requires new apparel; for Kew, where the
dress is plainest; and for going on here, where the dress is very
pleasant to me, requiring no show nor finery, but merely to be neat,
not inelegant, and moderately fashionable.

That over, I have my time at my own disposal till a quarter before
twelve, except on Wednesdays, when I have it only to a quarter before
eleven. My rummages and business sometimes occupy me uninterruptedly to
those hours. When they do not, I give till ten to necessary letters ...
and from ten to the times I have mentioned, I devote to walking.

These times mentioned called me to the irksome and quick-returning
labors of the toilette. The hour advanced on the Wednesdays and
Saturdays is for curling and craping the hair, which it now requires
twice a week.

A quarter before one is the usual time for the queen to begin dressing
for the day. Mrs. Schwellenberg then constantly attends; so do I; Mrs.
Thielky, of course, at all times. We help her off with her gown, and
on with her powdering things, and then the hair-dresser is admitted.
She generally reads the newspapers during that operation.... She never
forgets to send me away while she is powdering, with a consideration
not to spoil my clothes, which one would not expect belonged to her
high station. I finish, if anything is undone, my dress, she then takes
‘Baretti’s Dialogues,’ or some such disjointed matter, for the few
minutes that elapse ere I am again summoned. I find her then always
removed to her state dressing-room. Then, in a very short time, her
dress is finished. She then says she won’t detain me, and I hear and
see no more of her till bedtime.

It is commonly about three o’clock when I am thus set at large. And
I have then two hours quite at my own disposal; but, in the natural
course of things, not a moment after! At five, we have dinner. Mrs.
Schwellenberg and I are commonly _tête-à-tête_: when there is anybody
added, it is from her invitation only. When we have dined, we go up
stairs to her apartment, which is directly over mine. Here we have
coffee till the _terracing_ is over: this is at about eight o’clock.
Our _tête-à-tête_ then finishes, and we come down again to the
eating-room. There the equerry, whoever he is, comes to tea constantly,
and with him any gentleman that the king or queen may have invited for
the evening; and when tea is over, he conducts them, and goes himself,
to the concert-room. This is commonly about nine o’clock.

From that time, if Mrs. Schwellenberg is alone, I never quit her for a
minute, till I come to my little supper at near eleven. Between eleven
and twelve my last summons usually takes place, earlier and later
occasionally. Twenty minutes is the customary time then spent with
the queen: half an hour, I believe, is seldom exceeded. I then come
back, and after doing whatever I can to forward my dress for the next
morning, I go to bed and to sleep, too, believe me, the moment I have
put out my candle and laid down my head.

FRANCES BURNEY: ‘Diary and Letters.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: An explanatory analysis.]

The ‘Diary’ reveals an exceptionally warm heart and a disposition
very strangely compounded of good sense and sensitiveness, quick
impulse and persistent loyalty, strong powers of judgment coupled with
an almost morbid self-distrust, and tastes so simple and domestic
that, in spite of all her friends felt at the time, and critics have
written since, about the years she wasted at court, it is difficult to
escape the conviction that wherever Frances Burney’s lot had fallen,
her quick womanly sympathies and active interest in the affairs of
life would have hindered her from giving her best time and energy to
literary work. She might have found a happier slavery, perhaps, in her
father’s house or in a home of her own than in the royal household,
but a slave to other people’s whims and fancies, as well as to their
tempers and serious necessities, she would probably have been wherever
she had lived, for the simple reason that she was above all things
affectionate, and cared more for the goodwill of those about her than
for any other worldly consideration. She wrote ‘Evelina’ because the
world amused her, and she was too shy to say in any other way how
much it amused her. She wrote ‘Cecilia’ because the world told her it
was amused by her, and that she could make her fortune by going on
amusing it. But even in this second book there were indications that
the natural spring was pretty nearly exhausted, while a deterioration
of style betrayed the fact that her mastery of the means of literary
expression was not sufficient to keep her works up to the mark when the
vivacity of the first spontaneous impulse should be spent. She might
have overcome this disadvantage by laborious training of her talent;
but for this she had no inclination, or at any rate not inclination
enough to conquer her fears of the contemporary prejudice against
learned women. Even in the house of Mrs. Thrale, she describes herself
as hiding a book under a chair-cushion, so as not to be caught in the
unfeminine act of reading; and when Johnson began to teach her Latin,
she was weak enough to back out of the lessons, fearing that they would
win her the reputation of a blue-stocking. Johnson liked her none
the less for her timidity, and neither need we. But it is as well to
remember these things when apportioning the blame for her falling away
from literature. She used her literary talent first as an outlet for
her surplus wit and wisdom, and next as a means of making money; but
she had not sufficient love of literature to induce her to sacrifice to
it a jot of even conventional esteem.

MARY ELIZABETH CHRISTIE: ‘Miss Burney’s Novels,’ in _Contemporary
Review_, December, 1882.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Frances’ ill health.]

The health of poor Frances began to give way; and all who saw her
pale face, her emaciated figure, and her feeble walk, predicted that
her sufferings would soon be over. Frances uniformly speaks of her
royal mistress and of the princesses with respect and affection. The
princesses ... were, we doubt not, most amiable women. But “the sweet
queen,” as she is constantly called in these volumes, is not by any
means an object of admiration to us.... She seems to have been utterly
regardless of the comfort, the health, the life of her attendants,
when her own convenience was concerned. Weak, feverish, hardly able
to stand, Frances had still to rise before seven, in order to dress
the sweet queen, and sit up till midnight, in order to undress the
sweet queen.... The whisper that she was in a decline spread through
the court. The pains in her side became so severe that she was
forced to crawl from the card-table of the old fury to whom she was
tethered, three or four times in an evening, for the purpose of taking
harts-horn. Had she been a negro slave, a humane planter would have
excused her from work. But her majesty showed no mercy. Thrice a day
the accursed bell still rang.... Horace Walpole wrote to Frances to
express his sympathy. Boswell, boiling over with good-natured rage,
almost forced an entrance into the palace to see her. Burke and
Reynolds, though less noisy, were zealous in the same cause. Windham
spoke to Dr. Burney.... At last paternal affection, medical authority,
and the voice of all London crying shame, triumphed over Dr. Burney’s
love of courts. He determined that Frances should write a letter of
resignation.... In return for all the misery which she had undergone,
and for the health which she had sacrificed, an annuity of one hundred
pounds was granted to her, dependent on the queen’s pleasure. Then the
prison was opened, and Frances was free once more.... Happy days and
tranquil nights soon restored the health which the queen’s toilette
and Madame Schwellenberg’s card-table had impaired.

LORD MACAULAY: ‘Essay on Mme. D’Arblay.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: M. D’Arblay described.]

He is tall, and a good figure, with an open and manly countenance;
about forty, I imagine.... He seems to me a true _militaire,
franc et loyal_--open as the day--warmly affectionate to his
friends--intelligent, ready, and amusing in conversation, with a great
share of _gaieté de cœur_, and at the same time of _naïveté_ and _bonne
foi_.

SUSAN BURNEY (Mrs. Phillips): _Letters to Frances Burney_, in the
latter’s ‘Diary and Letters.’

* * * * *

M. D’Arblay is one of the most singularly interesting characters
that can ever have been formed. He has a sincerity, a frankness, an
ingenuous openness of nature, that I had been unjust enough to think
could not belong to a Frenchman. With all this, which is his military
portion, he is passionately fond of literature, a most delicate critic
in his own language, well versed in both Italian and German, and a
very elegant poet. He has just undertaken to become my French master
for pronunciation, and he gives me long daily lessons in reading. Pray
expect wonderful improvements! In return, I hear him in English.

FRANCES BURNEY: _Letter to Dr. Burney_, February, 1793, in ‘Diary and
Letters.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: At work on ‘Camilla,’ after her marriage.]

I have a long work, which a long time has been in hand, that I mean to
publish soon--in about a year. Should it succeed ... it may be a little
portion to our Bambino. We wish, therefore, to print it for ourselves
in this hope; but the expenses of the press are so enormous, so raised
by these late Acts, that it is out of all question for us to afford
it. We have, therefore, been led by degrees to listen to counsel of
some friends, and to print it by subscription. This is in many--many
ways unpleasant and unpalatable to us both; but the real chance of real
use and benefit to our little darling overcomes all scruples, and,
therefore, to work we go!

FRANCES D’ARBLAY: _Letter to a friend_, 1795, in ‘Diary and Letters.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Its success.]

I am quite happy in what I have escaped of greater severity [from the
reviews], though my mate cannot bear that the palm should be contested
by ‘Evelina’ and ‘Cecilia’; his partiality rates the last as so much
the highest.... The essential success of ‘Camilla’ exceeds that of the
elders. The sale is truly astonishing. Five hundred only remain of four
thousand, and it has appeared scarcely three months.

FRANCES D’ARBLAY: Letter to Dr. Burney, 1796, in ‘Diary and Letters.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Walpole’s criticism.]

I will only reply by a word or two to a question you seem to ask; how I
like ‘Camilla’? I do not care to say how little. Alas! she has reversed
experience, which I have long thought reverses its own utility by
coming at the wrong end of our life when we do not want it. This author
knew the world and penetrated characters before she had stepped over
the threshold; and, now she has seen so much of it, she has little or
no insight at all.

HORACE WALPOLE: _Letter to Hannah More_, 1796.

* * * * *

Dr. Burney asked me about deplorable ‘Camilla.’ Alas! I had not
recovered of it enough to be loud in its praise.

HORACE WALPOLE: _Letter to Miss Berry_, 1796. ‘The Letters of Horace
Walpole, Earl of Oxford.’ London: Henry G. Bohn, 1867.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: ‘The Hermitage,’ West Hamble.]

We are going immediately to build a little cottage for ourselves. We
shall make it as small and as cheap as will accord with its being warm
and comfortable. We mean to make this a property salable or lettable
for our Alex.

FRANCES D’ARBLAY: _Letter to Dr. Burney_, 1796, in ‘Diary and Letters.’

* * * * *

I need not say how I shall rejoice to see you again, nor how charmed we
shall both be to make a nearer acquaintance with Mr. Broome; but, for
Heaven’s sake, my dear girl, how are we to give him a dinner?--unless
he will bring with him his poultry, for ours are not yet arrived; and
his fish, for ours are still at the bottom of some pond we know not
where; and his spit, for our jack is yet without one; not to mention
his table-linen;--and not to speak of his knives and forks, some ten of
our poor original twelve having been massacred in M. D’Arblay’s first
essays in the art of carpentering;--and to say nothing of his large
spoons, the silver of our plated ones having feloniously made off under
cover of the whitening brush;--and not to talk of his cook, ours being
not yet hired;--and not to start the subject of wine, ours, by some odd
accident, still remaining at the wine-merchants!

With all these impediments, however, to convivial hilarity, if he will
eat a quarter of a joint of meat (his share, I mean), tied up by a
packthread, and roasted by a log of wood on the bricks, and declare no
potatoes so good as those dug by M. D’Arblay out of our garden--and
protest our small beer gives the spirits of champagne--and pronounce
that bare walls are superior to tapestry--and promise us the first
sight of his epistle upon visiting a new-built cottage--we shall be
sincerely happy to receive him in our Hermitage.

FRANCES D’ARBLAY: _Letter to Mrs. Francis_, 1797, in ‘Diary and
Letters.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Poverty.]

[Sidenote: Generosity.]

For a considerable time the income on which she, her husband, and her
child subsisted, did not exceed £125 a year. They were too independent
in spirit to accept assistance from friends; too upright to rely on
contingencies; and Madame D’Arblay pursued, in all the minutiæ of
domestic life, a course of self-denial such as, she wrote to her
Susanna, “would make you laugh to see, though perhaps cry to hear.”
With all this, her mind and thoughts were never shut up in her economy.
It was at this period that she originated the invitation sent by her
and M. D’Arblay to his friend the Comte de Narbonne, to make their
cottage his home; and it was also during these straitened circumstances
that she withdrew her comedy of ‘Love and Fashion’ from rehearsal,
in dutiful compliance with the wishes of her father; although the
management of Covent Garden had promised her £400 for the manuscript.

[Sidenote: Fidelity.]

Queen Charlotte’s expression, that she was “true as gold,” was
abundantly verified in her friendship.

SARAH CHAUNCEY WOOLSEY, Edr.: ‘Diary and Letters of Frances Burney,
Mme. D’Arblay.’

* * * * *

The novels give an impression of a singularly keen, clever, observant
woman, with a sense of the ridiculous too much developed to be a very
sympathetic, or even safe, friend....

She is seen to best advantage in the book where she appears as
daughter, sister, friend, servant (there is really no other word for
the position she held at court), and finally wife and mother. In the
‘Diary and Letters’ we not only learn how largely voluntary were the
restrictions she imposed upon her literary work, but how much her
private life gained in charm and usefulness by the subordination of the
author’s part; and, learning this, we forgive her the more easily for
having partially hidden the talent which, well husbanded, might have
given us more ‘Evelinas’ and ‘Cecilias.’... Delightful as ‘Evelina’ and
‘Cecilia’ are to those whose taste they suit, it is doubtful whether
we should get more enjoyment out of a dozen novels of the same quality
than we do out of these two. And ... at the present moment these two
are more than enough for most people.

MARY ELIZABETH CHRISTIE: ‘Miss Burney’s Novels.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her old age.]

I attended her during the last twenty years of her long life. She
lived in almost total seclusion from all but a few members of her own
family; changed her lodgings more frequently than her dresses and
occupied herself laboriously in composing those later works which
retain so little of the charm of her earlier writings. Mr. Rogers was
the only literary man who seemed to know of her existence.

SIR HENRY HOLLAND: ‘Recollections of Past Life.’ New York: D. Appleton
& Co., 1872.

* * * * *

Was introduced by Rogers to Mme. D’Arblay, the celebrated authoress of
‘Evelina’ and ‘Cecilia’--an elderly lady, with no remains of personal
beauty, but with a simple and gentle manner, a pleasing expression of
countenance, and apparently quick feelings.

SIR WALTER SCOTT: _Diary_, November, 1826, in ‘Memoirs,’ by J. G.
Lockhart.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Miss Mitford’s criticism.]

I do not think very highly of Mme. D’Arblay’s books. The style is
so strutting. She does so stalk about on Dr. Johnson’s old stilts.
What she says wants so much translating into common English, and when
translated would seem so commonplace, that I have always felt strongly
tempted to read all the serious parts with my fingers’ ends.... A novel
should be as like life as a painting, but not as like life as a piece
of wax-work. Mme. D’Arblay has much talent, but no taste. Another fault
is the sameness of her characters; they all say one thing twenty times
over.... They have but one note.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letters to Sir W. Elford_, in ‘Life,’ edited by
Rev. A. G. L’Estrange. London: Richard Bentley, 1870.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: ‘A very woman.’]

Madame D’Arblay is quite of the old school, a mere common observer of
manners, and also a very woman. It is this last circumstance which
forms the peculiarity of her writings. She is a quick, lively, and
accurate observer of persons and things; but she always looks at them
with a consciousness of her sex, and in that point of view in which
it is the particular business and interest of women to observe them.
There is little in her works of passion or character, or even manners,
in the most extended sense of the word, as implying the sum total of
our habits and pursuits; her _forte_ is in describing the absurdities
and affectations of external behavior, or _the manners of people in
company_. Her characters, which are ingenious caricatures, are, no
doubt, distinctly marked, and well kept up; but they are slightly
shaded, and exceedingly uniform. Her heroes and heroines, almost all
of them, depend upon the stock of a single phrase or sentiment, and
have certain mottoes or devices by which they may always be known.
They form such characters as people might be supposed to assume for a
night at a masquerade.... The Braughtons are the best. Mr. Smith is an
exquisite city portrait. ‘Evelina’ is also her best novel, because it
is the shortest; that is, it has all the liveliness in the sketches of
character, and smartness of comic dialogue and repartee, without the
tediousness of the story, and endless affectation of sentiment which
disfigures the others.

WILLIAM HAZLITT: _Lecture on the English Novelists_, in ‘Lecture on
the English Poets, and the English Comic Writers,’ edited by Wm. Carew
Hazlitt. London: Bell & Daldy, 1869.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Accused of superficiality.]

She is sometimes accused of being superficial, because she dares
so little in the direction of the stronger and deeper passions and
interests of human nature. But this criticism is itself superficial:
the truer word for her is _reserved_. She shut the door upon the whole
range of bold speculation and unconventional feeling, because she
considered these things unfit for the novelist, and especially for the
female novelist, to treat of. But her own feelings were deep, and her
own interests and sympathies were wide; and in drawing her characters,
though she seldom attempts to paint much--save in conventional
outline--that goes below the surface, she yet shows at all times, by
the firmness and consistency of her creations, that she possessed the
root of the matter in understanding, if not in creative power and
courage of execution.

MARY ELIZABETH CHRISTIE: ‘Miss Burney’s Novels.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her art not the highest.]

We are forced to refuse Madame D’Arblay a place in the highest rank of
art; but we cannot deny that, in the rank to which she belonged, she
had few equals, and scarcely any superior. The variety of humors which
is to be found in her novels is immense; and though the talk of each
person separately is monotonous, the general effect is not monotony,
but a very lively and agreeable diversity. Her plots are rudely
constructed and improbable, if we consider them in themselves. But they
are admirably framed for the purpose of exhibiting striking groups of
eccentric characters, each governed by his own peculiar whim, each
talking his own peculiar jargon, and each bringing out by opposition
the peculiar oddities of all the rest.

Madame D’Arblay was most successful in comedy, and indeed in comedy
which bordered on farce. But we are inclined to infer from some
passages, both in ‘Cecilia’ and ‘Camilla,’ that she might have attained
equal distinction in the pathetic. We have formed this judgment less
from those ambitious scenes of distress which lie near the catastrophe
of each of these novels than from some exquisite strokes of natural
tenderness which take us here and there by surprise.

[Sidenote: Unique position of ‘Evelina.’]

It is not only on account of the intrinsic merit of Madame D’Arblay’s
early works that she is entitled to honorable mention. Her appearance
is an important epoch in our literary history. ‘Evelina’ was the
first tale written by a woman, and purporting to be a picture of life
and manners, that lived or deserved to live. Indeed, most of the
popular novels which preceded ‘Evelina’ were such as no lady would
have written; and many of them were such as no lady could without
confusion own that she had read. Miss Burney did for the English novel
what Jeremy Collier did for the English drama; and she did it in a
better way. She first showed that a tale might be written in which
both the fashionable and the vulgar life of London might be exhibited
with great force, and with broad comic humor, and which yet should
not contain a single line inconsistent with rigid morality. She took
away the reproach which lay on a most useful and delightful species of
composition. She vindicated the right of her sex to an equal share
in a fair and noble province of letters. The fact that she has been
surpassed gives her an additional claim to our respect and gratitude;
for, in truth, we owe to her, not only ‘Evelina,’ ‘Cecilia,’ and
‘Camilla,’ but also ‘Mansfield Park’ and the ‘Absentee.’

LORD MACAULAY: ‘Essay on Mme. D’Arblay.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Plan of work.]

[Sidenote: Her heroes and heroines.]

The very gift that first made Miss Burney’s reputation now stands in
the way of her popularity. She was so completely mistress of the art
of letting her personages reveal their own characters, that she could
afford to dispense to an unusual extent with the showman’s part. She
constructed her personages not from within (as is the modern fashion)
but by means of a thousand minute touches showing their conversation
and behavior in an infinite variety of such small circumstances as make
up the daily round of existence. She positively reveled in descriptive
_minutiæ_ of this sort. Nothing was too trivial for her, nothing too
intricate in the web of petty embarrassments and mortifications and
misunderstandings, that make the sum of a vast majority of human
lives, and a tremendous factor of the remainder. Thanks to unusually
buoyant spirits and a never-flagging sense of the ridiculous, she
was constantly amused where others are only bored; and according to
the infallible rule that, given the necessary powers of expression,
authors never bore till they are bored themselves, she was able to make
amusing to others the commonplace things that afforded entertainment to
herself. Moreover, her success in her own day was quite as much due to
the fact that her material was commonplace as to the keen perception
of character, and the racy humor she displayed in working it up. Only
the chosen few might appreciate her literary skill, but it needed no
special gifts of culture to enter into the agitations of Evelina’s
first ball. However, it is necessary to understand a situation or a
character before we can be amused by it. And as nothing in life changes
so fast as its surface, the author who gives most pains to the finish
of this, is also the first to become obsolete. Fashions in manner and
dress and speech are proverbially ephemeral, and except for those in
whom the antiquarian taste has been somehow developed, they lose charm
and even meaning in passing out of date. Heroes and heroines, whose
coats and gowns, and courtesies and bows, are all behind the time,
of whom the colloquial talk is a forgotten jargon, and the ceremony
as strange as the ritual of a foreign religion, stand no chance in
competition with the crowd of ladies and gentlemen who are daily turned
out by contemporary novelists, wearing costumes and talking a language
of which every fold and every phrase makes a claim upon the reader’s
sympathy, and an item in the general index to the author’s meaning.
Miss Burney’s personages, once so fashionable and so familiar, have
grown strange now that a century has passed over their heads; and
though underneath the disguise of their Old World costumes they are
still fresh and human, this is a secret only to be discovered at the
cost of more careful reading than the modern world is apt to give to
novels.

MARY ELIZABETH CHRISTIE: ‘Miss Burney’s Novels.’

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (GODWIN).

1759-1797.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (GODWIN).

Mary Wollstonecraft was born, it is supposed, in Epping Forest, on the
27th of April, 1759. The unhappy circumstances of her childhood and
youth are sufficiently sketched in the following extracts. In 1778
she obtained a position as companion to a widow in Bath, where she
continued for two years. In 1780, while the family were residing in
Enfield, her mother died, leaving six children: Edward, Mary, Everina,
Eliza, James and Charles. The younger ones were all, at some period of
their lives, indebted to Mary for sisterly encouragement and pecuniary
aid, for which they do not appear to have been duly grateful.

After her mother’s death Mary lived for a short time at the home
of her friend, Fanny Blood, at Walham Green, supporting herself by
needle-work, but was soon called to the care of her sister Eliza, (then
Mrs. Bishop), who was temporarily insane. On Mrs. Bishop’s recovery
she left her husband, and the two sisters went to Islington, where
they endeavored to live by teaching. In a few months Mary removed to
Newington Green, where she was successful in setting up a school. In
the autumn of 1785, however, she was summoned to Fanny Blood (then Mrs.
Skeys), who was ill in Lisbon; and on her return, after Fanny’s death,
she found that it was impossible to regain her pupils. At this time she
wrote a small pamphlet called _Thoughts on the Education of Daughters_,
for which Mr. Johnson, a bookseller in Fleet Street, gave her ten
guineas. She applied the money to the relief of Fanny Blood’s parents.
A situation as governess being offered her, she went to Ireland, where
she remained until the autumn of 1788; she then came to London to earn
her living by her pen. At this period she wrote _Mary_, a tale drawn
from her own friendship with Fanny Blood, and not now to be found;
_Original Stories from Real Life_, a book for children, published
with cuts by William Blake; translated for Mr. Johnson ‘Necker on
Religious Opinions,’ Salzman’s ‘Elements of Morality,’ and Lavater’s
‘Physiognomy,’ and contributed to the Analytical Review. In 1791 she
put forth an answer to Burke’s ‘Reflections on the French Revolution,’
entitled _A Vindication of the Rights of Man_; this was followed by her
_magnum opus_, A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

In December, 1792, she went to Paris; was detained there by the state
of public affairs; and in 1793 became, says Mr. C. Kegan Paul, “the
wife” of Gilbert Imlay. Her modern biographer and defender has chosen
thus to mark unmistakably his fine reverence for her purity of motive;
but more than half the significance of the tragedy that followed is
lost by regarding Mary as Imlay’s wife. Their daughter, Fanny Imlay,
was born in the spring of 1794. Imlay gradually disengaged himself from
Mary; and on her return to London from a voyage to Norway and Sweden,
undertaken to assist him in business affairs, she had poignant proof
of his unfaithfulness and his intention to desert her. She attempted
to drown herself in the Thames. She was rescued, took up the burden of
life again for Fanny’s sake, and lived to marry William Godwin, the
author of ‘Caleb Williams’ and ‘Political Justice.’ On the 30th of
August, 1797, was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, afterwards the wife
of Shelley; and on the 10th of September the mother died.

Mary had previously published (1794) the first volume of _An Historical
and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution_,
and _Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and
Denmark_. After her death Godwin published _Posthumous Works by the
Author of A Vindication, etc._, comprising a horrible unfinished novel
called _Maria; or, the Wrongs of Woman_, her LETTERS TO IMLAY, and to
her friend, Mr. Johnson, an incomplete tale called _The Cave of Fancy_,
an _Essay on Poetry_, a series of _Lessons in Spelling and Reading_,
and a few fragmentary _Hints_ on various subjects.

Mary Wollstonecraft has a three-fold claim on our attention. She
was “the first of the new genus” of professional literary women, in
contradistinction to the old race of “blue-stockings.” She was the
author of the VINDICATION, which, despite its faults, is “remarkable
as the herald of the demand not even yet wholly conceded by all, that
woman should be the equal and friend, not the slave and toy of man.”
Lastly, as the writer of the heart-breaking LETTERS TO IMLAY, which,
notwithstanding her own views, form, as Lowell has said of her life,
“the most powerful argument possible against the doctrine of the
‘Elective Affinities’,”--Mary Wollstonecraft can never be forgotten.

Our mosaic portrait is doubtless far from perfect; yet who shall
paint her as she was, without distortion, without idealization? This
beautiful woman, with her “Titianesque” coloring, her careless dress,
and habits frugal that she might be generous--with her quick temper,
sensitiveness, pride, inconsistency, deep personal tenderness; with her
melancholy, and her misunderstood religious enthusiasm; this daughter
of the Revolution, her strong head crowded with theories--some of them,
one would think, to be beaten out of it by all the waves and billows
that went over her. But not so; the circumstances of her marriage with
Godwin, the tendency of the work done during the brief remainder of
her life, show us that we must add tenacity to her characteristics.
This creature, now coarse, now fine, now harsh, and now all pity,--who
shall explore her strength and weakness, her deeps and shallows? It is
natural that in an age better calculated to understand her motives than
that in which she lived, a vindicator should have arisen to call up
out of the past, by the name of Mary Wollstonecraft, a spirit radiant
and purified, like the soul of Ianthe in ‘Queen Mab,’ from every stain
of earthliness. But to make the woman herself live before us, as she
lived in Paris, in London, in those strange days of the close of the
eighteenth century--that would be a task for a pen that has dealt with
character under somewhat similar conditions--the pen of Ivan Turgenef.

Like Charlotte Brontë, she at last knew happiness before she died. But
thinking of Godwin, “with his great head full of cold brains,” one
cannot but wish that the gleam of sunshine at the close of her stormy
life had been less “winterly.”

* * * * *

With her very first years Mary Wollstonecraft began a bitter training
in the school of experience, which was in no small degree instrumental
in developing her character and forming her philosophy. There are few
details of her childhood, and no anecdotes indicating a precocious
genius. But enough is known of her early life to make us understand
what were the principal influences to which she was exposed. Her
strength sprang from the very uncongeniality of her home and her
successful struggles against the poverty and vice which surrounded her.

[Sidenote: Her parents.]

Her father was a selfish, hot-tempered despot, whose natural bad
qualities were aggravated by his dissipated habits. His chief
characteristic was his instability. He could persevere in nothing.
Apparently brought up to no special profession, he was by turns
a gentleman of leisure, a farmer, a man of business. It seems to
have been sufficient for him to settle in any one place to almost
immediately wish to depart from it. The history of the first fifteen
or twenty years of his married life is that of one long series of
migrations.

Mrs. Wollstonecraft was her husband’s most abject slave, but was in
turn somewhat of a tyrant herself. She approved of stern discipline for
the young. She was too indolent to give much attention to the education
of her children, and devoted what little energy she possessed to
enforcing their unquestioning obedience in trifles, and to making them
as afraid of her displeasure as they were of their father’s anger.

[Sidenote: Sad childhood.]

Mary was one of those children whose sad fate it is to weep “in the
play-time of the others.” Not even to the David Copperfields and Paul
Dombeys of fiction has there fallen a lot so hard to bear and so sad
to record, as that of the little Mary Wollstonecraft.... Overflowing
with tenderness, she dared not lavish it on the mother who should have
been so ready to receive it. Instead of the confidence which should
exist between mother and daughter, there was in their case nothing
but cold formality. Nor was there for her much compensation in the
occasional caresses of her father. Sensitive to a fault, she could not
forgive his blows and unkindness so quickly as to be able to enjoy his
smiles and favors. Moreover, she had little chance of finding, without,
the devotion and gentle care which were denied to her within her own
family. Mr. Wollstonecraft remained so short a time in each locality in
which he made his home that his wife saw but little of her relations
and old acquaintances; while no sooner had his children made new
friends, than they were separated from them.

[Sidenote: Friendship with Fanny Blood.]

Mary’s existence up to 1775 had been, save when disturbed by family
storms, quiet, lonely, and uneventful. As yet no special incident had
occurred in it, nor had she been awakened to intellectual activity. But
in Hoxton she contracted a friendship which, though it was with a girl
of her own age, was always esteemed by her as the chief and leading
event in her existence. This it was which first aroused her love of
study and of independence, and opened a channel for the outpouring of
her too long suppressed affections. Her love for Fanny Blood was the
spark which kindled the latent fire of her genius.... From the moment
they met until they were separated by poor Fanny’s untimely death,
Mary never wavered in her devotion and its active expression, nor could
the vicissitudes and joys of her later life destroy her loving loyalty
to the memory of her first and dearest friend. “When a warm heart has
strong impressions,” she wrote in a letter long years afterward, “they
are not to be effaced. Emotions become sentiments; and the imagination
renders even transient sensations permanent, by fondly retracing them.
I cannot without a thrill of delight recollect views I have seen, which
are not to be forgotten, nor looks I have felt in every nerve, which
I shall never more meet. The grave has closed over a dear friend, the
friend of my youth; still she is present with me, and I hear her soft
voice warbling as I stray over the heath.”

ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL: ‘Life of Mary Wollstonecraft.’ (Famous Women
Series.) Boston: Roberts Bros., 1884.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Unfortunate experience.]

It is singularly unfortunate that Mary Wollstonecraft was fated, as it
were, to see the unattractive side of almost all the great institutions
of society with which she was brought into contact: marriage,
education, particularly religious education as administered at Eton,
and aristocratic life. Her views on all these subjects were colored by
her own personal experiences. She generalized from particulars, and
never suspected that such a one-sided view must be partially unfair.

C. KEGAN PAUL: _Prefatory Memoir_ to Mary Wollstonecraft’s ‘Letters to
Imlay.’ London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1879.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Impressions of married life.]

[The family life of the Blood household, of which Mary was for a
time, after her mother’s death, an inmate, was as utterly unhappy as
that of the Wollstonecrafts: Mr. Blood being “a ne’er-do-well and a
drunkard.” Mary was “an immediate witness” of similar and still more
painful scenes in the home of her sister Eliza, who had married a Mr.
Bishop, a man described by one of his own friends as “either a lion or
a spaniel--” fawning abroad, tyrannical at home. I subjoin extracts
from two of Mary’s letters to her other sister, Everina, which seem to
me to illustrate her experience more forcibly than the narrative of her
biographers.]

December, 1783.

Poor Eliza’s situation almost turns my brain. I can’t stay and see this
continual misery, and to leave her to bear it by herself without anyone
to comfort her, is still more distressing.... Nothing can be done till
she leaves the house. I have been some time deliberating on this, for I
can’t help pitying B., but misery must be his portion at any rate till
he alters himself, and that would be a miracle.... I tell you she will
soon be deprived of reason.

January, 1784.

Here we are, Everina; but my trembling hand will scarce let me tell you
so. Bess is much more composed than I expected her to be; but ... I
was afraid in the coach she was going to have one of her flights, for
she bit her wedding-ring to pieces.... My heart beats time with every
carriage that rolls by, and a knocking at the door almost throws me
into a fit. I hope B. will not discover us, for I could sooner face a
lion.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letters_, in ‘William Godwin, His Friends and
Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1876.

* * * * *

[Mary spent some time at Eton as the guest of Mr. Prior, Assistant
Master, through whom she subsequently obtained a situation as governess
in the family of Lord Kingsborough.]

ETON, Oct., 1787.

[Sidenote: Impressions of Eton.]

I could not live the life they lead at Eton; nothing but dress and
ridicule going forward.... Witlings abound and puns fly about like
crackers, though you would scarcely guess they had any meaning in them,
if you did not hear the noise they create. So much company without any
sociability would be to me an insupportable fatigue.... Vanity in one
shape or other reigns triumphant.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to her sister_, in ‘William Godwin, His
Friends and Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul.

* * * * *

In great schools, what can be more prejudicial to the moral character
than the system of tyranny and abject slavery which is established
among the boys, to say nothing of the slavery to forms, which makes
religion worse than a farce? For what good can be expected from
the youth who receives the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to avoid
forfeiting a guinea, which he probably afterward spends in some sensual
manner?

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.’ London:
Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72 St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1792.

* * * * *

[The following letter was written in Ireland, while Mary was governess
to the daughters of Lord Kingsborough, at a salary of £40 a year.]

MITCHELSTOWN, Nov., 1787.

[Sidenote: Impressions of aristocratic society.]

Confined to the society of a set of silly females, I have no social
converse, and their boisterous spirits and unmeaning laughter exhaust
me, not forgetting hourly domestic bickerings. The topics of matrimony
and dress take their turn, not in a very sentimental style--alas, poor
sentiment! it has no residence here.... Lady K.’s passion for animals
fills up the hours which are not spent in dressing. All her children
have been ill--very disagreeable fevers. Her ladyship visited them in
a formal way, though their situation called forth my tenderness, and
I endeavored to amuse them, while she lavished awkward fondness on
her dogs. I think now I hear her infantine lisps. She rouges--and, in
short, is a fine lady, without fancy or sensibility,

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to her sister_, in ‘William Godwin, His
Friends and Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Adopts literature as a profession.]

Mr. Johnson [the publisher], whose uncommon kindness, I believe, has
saved me from despair and vexation I shrink back from, and fear to
encounter, assures me that if I exert my talents in writing, I may
support myself in a comfortable way. I am then going to be the first of
a new genus. I tremble at the attempt; yet if I fail _I_ only suffer;
and should I succeed, my dear girls [her sisters Eliza and Everina]
will ever in sickness have a home and a refuge, where for a few months
in the year they may forget the cares that disturb the rest.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to her sister_, 1788, in ‘William Godwin,
His Friends and Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Dress, etc., at this period.]

Fuseli found in her a philosophical sloven: her usual dress being a
habit of coarse cloth, black worsted stockings, and a beaver hat, with
her hair hanging lank about her shoulders.

When the Prince Talleyrand was in this country, in a low condition with
regard to his pecuniary affairs, and visited her, they drank their tea,
and the little wine they took, indiscriminately from tea-cups.[4]

JOHN KNOWLES: ‘The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli.’ London: Henry
Colburn & Richard Bentley, 1831.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Account of ‘A Vindication,’ etc.]

“The main argument” of the work “is built on this simple principle,
that if woman be not prepared by education to become the companion of
man, she will stop the progress of knowledge, for truth must be common
to all, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its influence on
general practice. And how can woman be expected to co-operate, unless
she know why she ought to be virtuous?--unless freedom strengthen
her reason till she comprehend her duty, and see in what manner it
is connected with her real good. If children are to be educated to
understand the true principle of patriotism, their mother must be
a patriot; and the love of mankind, from which an orderly train of
virtues springs, can only be produced by considering the moral and
civil interest of mankind; but the education and situation of woman at
present shuts her out from such investigations.”

In the carrying out of this argument the most noticeable fact is the
extraordinary plainness of speech, and this it was which caused all
or nearly all the outcry. For Mary Wollstonecraft did not, as has
been supposed, attack the institution of marriage, she did not assail
orthodox religion, she did not directly claim much which at the present
day is claimed for women by those whose arguments obtain respectful
hearing. The book was really a plea for equality of education, a
protest against being deemed only the plaything of man, an assertion
that the intellectual intercourse was that which should chiefly be
desired in marriage, and which made its lasting happiness.... It may,
however, be admitted that her frankness on some subjects is little less
than astounding.

C. KEGAN PAUL: ‘William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Plainness of speech.]

A plainness of speech, amounting in some places to coarseness, and a
deeply religious tone, are to many modern readers the most curious
features of the book. A century ago men and women were much more
straightforward in their speech than we are to-day. They were not
squeamish. Therefore, when it came to serious discussions for moral
purposes, there was little reason for writers to be timid.... Hers is
the plain speaking of the Jewish law-giver, who has for end the good
of man; and not that of an Aretino, who rejoices in it for its own sake.

Even more remarkable than this boldness of expression is the strong
vein of piety running through her arguments. Religion to her was as
important as it was to a Wesley or a Bishop Watts. The equality of
man, in her eyes, would have been of small importance had it not been
instituted by man’s Creator.... If women were without souls, they
would, notwithstanding their intellects, have no rights to vindicate.
If the Christian heaven were like the Mahometan paradise, then they
might indeed be looked upon as slaves and playthings of beings who are
worthy of a future life, and hence are infinitely their superiors.
But, though sincerely pious, she despised the meaningless forms of
religion as much as she did social conventionalities, and was as free
in denouncing them.

ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL: ‘Life of Mary Wollstonecraft.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mary’s view of marriage.]

At this period a man whose name is now forgotten wished to make Mary
his wife. Her treatment of him was characteristic. He could not have
known her very well, or else he would not have been so foolish as to
represent his financial prosperity as an argument in his favor. For a
woman to sell herself for money, even when the bargain was sanctioned
by the marriage ceremony, was, in her opinion, the unpardonable sin.
Therefore, what he probably intended as an honor, she received as an
insult. She declared that it must henceforward end her acquaintance,
not only with him, but with the third person through whom the offer
was sent. Her letters in connection with this subject bear witness
to the sanctity she attached to the union of man and wife. Her view
in this relation cannot be too prominently brought forward, since,
by manifesting the purity of her principles, light is thrown on her
subsequent conduct. In her first burst of wrath she unbosomed herself
to her ever-sympathetic confidant, Mr. Johnson:

“Mr. ---- called on me just now. Pray did you know his motive for
calling? I think him impertinently officious. He had left the house
before it had occurred to me in the strong light it does now, or I
should have told him so. My poverty makes me proud. I will not be
insulted.... Pray tell him that I am offended, and do not wish to see
him again.... I can force my spirit to leave my body, but it shall
never bend to support that body. God of heaven, save thy child from
this living death! I scarcely know what I write. My hand trembles; I am
very sick--sick at heart.”

ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL: ‘Life of Mary Wollstonecraft.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her relations with Fuseli.]

There is no reason to doubt that if Mr. Fuseli had been disengaged at
the period of their acquaintance, he would have been the man of her
choice.... One of her principal inducements to this step [her visit to
France in 1792] related, I believe, to Mr. Fuseli. She had at first
considered it as reasonable and judicious to cultivate what I may be
permitted to call a platonic affection for him; but she did not, in
the sequel, find all the satisfaction in this plan, which she had
originally expected from it.... She conceived it necessary to snap
the chain of this association in her mind; and, for that purpose,
determined to seek a new climate, and mingle in different scenes.

WILLIAM GODWIN: ‘Memoir of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of
Woman,’ quoted in ‘Life of Mary Wollstonecraft,’ by E. R. Pennell.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: With Gilbert Imlay.]

The American community in Paris did not of course share the suspicion,
dislike and danger which were the lot of the English. One of these
Americans, Captain Gilbert Imlay, became acquainted with Mary in
the spring of 1793.... Imlay had entered into various commercial
speculations, of which the centre appears to have been Havre, and his
trade was with Norway and Sweden, presumably in timber, since that
industry had mainly attracted him in America. At the time of which we
speak he was successful in commerce, and he had considerable command
of money. The kindness he showed Mary Wollstonecraft disposed her to
look on him favorably; she soon gave him a very sincere affection, and
consented to become his wife.

I use this word deliberately, although no legal ceremony ever passed
between them. Her view was that a common affection was marriage, and
that the marriage tie should not bind after the death of love, if love
should die. It is probable, however, that only a series of untoward
circumstances made her act upon her opinions. A legal marriage with
Imlay was certainly difficult, apparently impossible. Her position as
a British subject was full of danger--a marriage would have forced
her openly to declare herself as such. It is a strong confirmation
of the view here taken to find that Madame de Staël, who, if any
one, knew the period of which we are speaking, makes a like fact the
sole obstacle to the marriage of Lord Nelvil and Madame D’Arbigny.
(‘Corinne, ou l’Italie,’ _vol. ii, p. 63_. 8th Edition. Paris: 1818.)
It may be doubted whether the ceremony, if any could have taken place,
would have been valid in England. Passing as Imlay’s wife, without such
preparatory declaration, her safety was assured, and as his wife she
was acknowledged by him. Charles Wollstonecraft wrote from Philadelphia
that he had seen a gentleman who knew his sister in Paris, and that he
was “informed that she is married to Captain Imlay, of this country.”
Long after the period at which we have now arrived, when Imlay’s
affection had ceased, and his desertion of Mary had practically begun,
he entrusted certain important business negotiations to her, and speaks
of her in a legal document as “Mary Imlay, my best friend and wife,”
a document which in many cases and countries would be considered as
constituting a marriage. She believed that his love, which was to her
sacred, would endure. No one can read her letters without seeing that
she considered herself, in the eyes of God and man, Imlay’s wife.
Religious as she was and with a strong moral sense, she yet made the
grand mistake of supposing that it is possible for one woman to undo
the consecrated custom of ages, to set herself in opposition to the
course of society, and not be crushed by it. And she made the no less
fatal mistake of judging Imlay by her own standard, and thinking that
he was as true, as impassioned, as self-denying as herself.

C. KEGAN PAUL: _Prefatory Memoir_ to ‘Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters to
Imlay.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her farewell to Imlay.]

I never wanted but your heart--that gone, you have nothing more to
give. Had I only poverty to fear, I should not shrink from life.
Forgive me then, if I say, that I shall consider any direct or indirect
attempt to supply my necessities, as an insult which I have not
merited, and as rather done out of tenderness for your own reputation,
than for me.

My child may have to blush for her mother’s want of prudence, and may
lament that the rectitude of my heart made me above vulgar precautions;
but she shall not despise me for meanness. You are now perfectly free.
God bless you!

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: ‘Letters to Imlay.’ (London: November, 1795.)

* * * * *

[Sidenote: She meets Godwin.]

Godwin met her at the moment when she was deeply depressed by the
ingratitude of one utterly incapable of appreciating her excellence;
who had stolen her heart, and availed himself of her excessive and
thoughtless generosity and lofty independence of character, to plunge
her in difficulties and then desert her. Difficulties, worldly
difficulties, indeed, she set at nought, compared with her despair of
good, her confidence betrayed, and when once she could conquer the
misery that clung to her heart, she struggled cheerfully to meet the
poverty that was her inheritance, and to do her duty by her darling
child.

MARY SHELLEY: quoted in ‘William Godwin, His Friends and
Contemporaries.’

* * * * *

The partiality we conceived for each other was in that mode which I
have always considered as the purest and most refined style of love.
It grew with equal advances in the mind of each. It would have been
impossible for the most minute observer to have said who was before and
who after. One sex did not take the priority which long-established
custom has awarded it, nor the other overstep that delicacy which is so
severely imposed. I am not conscious that either party can assume to
have been the agent or the patient, the toil-spreader or the prey in
the affair. When, in the course of things the disclosure came, there
was nothing in a manner for either party to disclose to the other. It
was friendship melting into love.

WILLIAM GODWIN: ‘Memoir of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of
Woman,’ quoted in ‘William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries,’ by
C. Kegan Paul.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mary’s appearance.]

Like her mind, her beauty would appear to have ripened late. In
July, 1792, Mrs. Bishop says in a letter to Everina that Charles
[their brother] informs her “that Mrs. Wollstonecraft had grown quite
handsome.” [Mary “took the brevet rank of _Mrs._” after the issue of
‘The Rights of Woman,’ “which had made her in some degree a public
character.”] The grudging admission is more than confirmed by her
portrait by Opie, now in the possession of Sir Percy Shelley, which
was painted for Godwin during the brief period of her marriage; long,
therefore, after she had reached mature age, and when all the waves
and storms of her sorrows had gone over her. More than one print was
engraved of that portrait, in which is well preserved its tender,
wistful, childlike, pathetic beauty, with a look of pleading against
the hardness of the world, which I know in one only other face, that of
Beatrice Cenci. But those prints can give no notion of the complexion,
rich, full, healthy, vivid, of the clear brown eyes and masses of
brownish auburn hair. The fault of the face was that one eyelid
slightly drooped.

C. KEGAN PAUL: _Prefatory Memoir_ to ‘Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters to
Imlay.’

* * * * *

Mr. Kegan Paul, in the spring of 1884, showed the author of this life a
lock of Mary Wollstonecraft’s hair. It is wonderfully soft in texture,
and in color a rich auburn, turning to gold in the sunlight.

ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL: ‘Life of Mary Wollstonecraft.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her conscientiousness.]

I return you the Italian manuscript; but do not hastily imagine that
I am indolent. I would not spare any labor to do my duty; that single
thought would solace me more than any pleasures the senses could enjoy.
I find I could not translate the manuscript well.... I cannot bear
to do anything I cannot do well; and I should lose time in the vain
attempt.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to Mr. Johnson_, in ‘Posthumous Works of
the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.’

London: Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72 St. Paul’s Churchyard; and G. G.
and J. Robinson, Paternoster Row, 1798.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Independent spirit.]

I long for a little peace and _independence_! Every obligation we
receive from our fellow-creatures is a new shackle, takes from our
native freedom and debases the mind, makes us mere earth-worms. I am
not fond of grovelling!

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to Mr. Johnson_, 1788, in ‘Posthumous
Works.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Craving for love.]

I have dearly paid for one conviction. Love, in some minds, is an
affair of sentiment, arising from the same delicacy of perception (or
taste) as renders them alive to the beauties of nature, poetry, etc.,
alive to the charms of those evanescent graces that are, as it were,
impalpable--they must be felt, they cannot be described. Love is a want
of my heart.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: ‘Letters to Imlay.’

* * * * *

I can not live without loving my fellow-creatures; nor can I love them
without discovering some merit.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to Mr. Johnson_, in ‘Posthumous Works.’

* * * * *

It is ... an affection for the whole human race that makes my pen dart
rapidly along to support what I believe to be the cause of virtue.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Dedication_ of ‘A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Tenderness.]

I will own to you that, feeling extreme tenderness for my little girl,
I grow sad very often when I am playing with her, that you are not here
to observe with me how her mind unfolds, and her little heart becomes
attached! These appear to me to be true pleasures, and still you suffer
them to escape you.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: ‘Letters to Imlay.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Inconsistency.]

She was, I have been told by an intimate friend, very pretty and
feminine in manners and person; much attached to those very observances
she decries in her works; so that if any gentleman did not fly to open
the door as she approached it, or take up the handkerchief she dropped,
she showered on him the full weight of reproach and displeasure; an
inconsistency she would have doubtless despised in a disciple.

MRS. ELWOOD (quoting a communication from “a well-known living
writer”): ‘Memoirs of the Literary Ladies of England.’ London: Henry
Colburn, 1843.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Irritability]

Previous to your departure, I requested you not to torment me by
leaving the day of your return undecided. But whatever tenderness you
took away with you seems to have evaporated on the journey.... In
short, your being so late to-night, and the chance of your not coming,
shows so little consideration, that unless you suppose me to be a stick
or a stone, you must have forgot to think, as well as to feel, since
you have been on the wing.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (GODWIN): _Letter to Wm. Godwin_, in ‘William
Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Religious spirit.]

It gives me the sincerest satisfaction to find that you look for
comfort where only it is to be met with, and that Being in whom you
trust will not desert you. Be not cast down, while we are struggling
with care, life slips away, and, through the assistance of Divine
grace, we are obtaining habits of virtue that will enable us to relish
those joys that we cannot now form any idea of.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to George Blood_, 1785.

* * * * *

[After Fanny’s death:] Could I not look for comfort where only ’tis
to be found, I should have been mad before this, but I feel that I am
supported by that Being who alone can heal a wounded spirit.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Letter to her sister_, 1785. In ‘William Godwin,
His Friends and Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul.

* * * * *

Love to man leads to devotion--grand and sublime images strike the
imagination--God is seen in every floating cloud, and comes from
the misty mountain to receive the noblest homage of an intelligent
creature--praise. How solemn is the moment, when all affections and
remembrances fade before the sublime admiration which the wisdom and
goodness of God inspires, when he is worshipped in a _temple not made
with hands_, and the world seems to contain only the mind that formed,
and the mind that contemplates it! These are not the weak responses of
ceremonial devotion.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Essay on Poetry, and our Relish for the Beauties
of Nature_, in ‘Posthumous Works.’

* * * * *

Few can walk alone. The staff of Christianity is the necessary support
of human weakness. An acquaintance with the nature of man and virtue,
with just sentiments on the attributes, would be sufficient, without a
voice from heaven, to lead some to virtue, but not the mob.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: _Hints_, in ‘Posthumous Works.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her character sketched by her daughter.]

Mary Wollstonecraft was one of those beings who appear once perhaps
in a generation, to gild humanity with a ray which no difference
of opinion nor chance of circumstances can cloud. Her genius was
undeniable. She had been bred in the hard school of adversity, and
having experienced the sorrows entailed on the poor and the oppressed,
an earnest desire was kindled within her to diminish these sorrows.
Her sound understanding, her intrepidity, her sensibility, and eager
sympathy, stamped all her writings with force and truth, and endowed
them with a tender charm that enchants while it enlightens. She was
one whom all loved who had ever seen her.... “Open as day to melting
charity,” with a heart brimful of generous affection, yearning for
sympathy, she had fallen on evil days, and her life had been one course
of hardship, poverty, lonely struggle, and bitter disappointment.

MARY SHELLEY: quoted in ‘William Godwin, His Friends and
Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Appearance.]

Of all the lions or _literati_ I have seen here, Mary Imlay’s
countenance is the best, infinitely the best: the only fault in it
is an expression somewhat similar to what the prints of Horne Tooke
display--an expression indicating superiority; not haughtiness, not
sarcasm, in Mary Imlay, but still it is unpleasant. Her eyes are light
brown, and although the lid of one of them is affected by a little
paralysis, they are the most meaning I ever saw.... As for Godwin
himself, he has large, noble eyes, and a _nose_--oh, most abominable
nose! Language is not vituperatious enough to describe the effect of
its downward elongation.

ROBERT SOUTHEY: _Letter to J. Cottle, March, 1797_, in the former’s
‘Life and Correspondence,’ edited by Rev. C. C. Southey, M. A. London:
Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1849.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mary and Godwin.]

Coleridge asked me if I had ever seen Mary Wollstonecraft, and I said,
I had once for a few moments, and that she seemed to me to turn off
Godwin’s objection to something she advanced with quite a playful, easy
air. He replied that “this was only one instance of the ascendency
which people of imagination exercised over those of mere intellect.”...
He had a great idea of Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s powers of conversation;
none at all of her talents for book-making.

WILLIAM HAZLITT: _My First Acquaintance with Poets_, in ‘Sketches and
Essays,’ edited by Wm. Carew Hazlitt. London: Bell and Daldy, 1869.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Their married life.]

And now Mary Wollstonecraft had a season of real calm in her stormy
life. Godwin for once only in his life was stirred by a real passion,
and his admiration for his wife equalled his affection. The very
slight clouds which arose now and then were of a transient character,
and sprang from Mary Wollstonecraft’s excessive sensitiveness and
eager quickness of temper. These were, perhaps, occasionally tried by
Godwin’s confirmed bachelor habits, and also by the fact that he took
_au pied de la lettre_ all that she had said about the independence
of women, when in truth she leant a good deal on the aid of others.
In some respects she was content to acquiesce in his bachelor ways;
they adopted a singular device for their uninterrupted student life.
Godwin’s strong view of the possibility that people may weary of being
always together, led him to take rooms in a house about twenty doors
from that in the Polygon, Somers Town, which was their joint home. To
this study he repaired as soon as he rose in the morning, rarely even
breakfasting at the Polygon, and here also he often slept. Each was
engaged in his and her own literary occupations, and they seldom met,
unless they walked out together, till dinner-time each day.

C. KEGAN PAUL: _Prefatory Memoir_ to ‘Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters to
Imlay.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: An ‘Alecto.’]

Adieu, thou excellent woman! thou reverse of that hyena in petticoats,
Mrs. Wollstonecraft; who to this day discharges her ink and gall on
Maria Antoinette, whose unparalleled sufferings have not yet stanched
that Alecto’s blazing ferocity.

HORACE WALPOLE: _Letters to Hannah More_, 1795, in the former’s
‘Letters,’ edited by Peter Cunningham. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1861.

* * * * *

Thank Providence for the tranquillity and happiness we enjoy in this
country, in spite of the philosophizing serpents we have in our bosom,
the Paines, the Tookes, and the Wollstonecrafts.

HORACE WALPOLE: _Letter to Hannah More_, 1792, in ‘Memoirs of Hannah
More,’ by W. Roberts. New York: Harper & Bros., 1834.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: An opposite view.]

I saw her three or four times when she was Mrs. Godwin, and never saw
a woman who would have been better fitted to do honor to her sex, if
she had not fallen on evil times, and into evil hands. But it is hardly
possible for any one to conceive what those times were, who has not
lived in them.

ROBERT SOUTHEY: ‘Correspondence with Caroline Bowles.’ Dublin: Hodges,
Figgis & Co. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1881.

* * * * *

Southey is said to have had her portrait hanging in his study; and he
wrote of her as one

“Who among women left no equal mind
When from the world she passed; and I could weep
To think that _she_ is to the grave gone down!”

FOOTNOTES:

[4] While denying herself gowns and wine-glasses Mary was, however,
generously assisting her father, brothers and sisters.

MARY W. GODWIN (SHELLEY).

1797-1851.

MARY W. GODWIN (SHELLEY).

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born on the 30th of August, 1797. “Two
angels, one of Life and one of Death,” together entered the door of
William Godwin. Long after, Shelley wrote:

“They say that thou wert lovely from thy birth,
Of glorious parents thou aspiring child:
I wonder not--for One then left this earth
Whose life was like a setting planet mild,
Which clothed thee in the radiance undefiled
Of its departing glory.”

A spirit akin to that of Greek tragedy informs the double story of
mother and daughter. Mary Godwin inherited her fate. The peculiar
reverence in which she must necessarily have held the mother who had
died to give her life, the implicit confidence with which she must
have received that mother’s doctrines, as set forth in her life and
preserved in her books,--this was the strongest determining influence
in the life of the girl, Mary Godwin. When, at the age of seventeen,
she unhesitatingly plighted her faith to a man already bound by the
laws of society to another, there is significance in the fact that
their hands were clasped over her mother’s grave--the spot which a
woman of opposite traditions must have shunned with shame at such a
moment. That sacred place seemed fittest for the strange betrothal of
Mary Godwin, who had no doubt that the mother who there slept would
have smiled upon the lovers. Censure of this step has properly no place
in a sketch of Mary Godwin Shelley; the entire responsibility rests
with Shelley and her parents; her action was simply an inevitable
result.

From July 28, 1814, till the fatal 8th of the same month in 1822, her
life was one with Shelley’s. Immeasurably greater as he was, we may yet
claim for his wife that she influenced his genius in one respect and
in one instance: it was her persuasion that led him, in ‘The Cenci,’
closer to realities, and she regarded that work as a promise of the
warmer grasp of human interests on his part that might at last “touch
the chord of sympathy between him and his countrymen.”

She was formally married to Shelley in 1816, on the death of Harriet
Shelley. Robbed of her husband by death in 1822, Mary returned to
London in the following year for the sake of Percy, her only surviving
child. Her own wishes would have led her to remain in Italy. For some
time she resided with her father, but subsequently removed to Kentish
Town, and then to Harrow, that she might be near her boy at school.

FRANKENSTEIN had been published in 1818; and Godwin saw in it that
power which induced him to advise her, in this her time of need, to
turn to literature as a resource. She worked hard with her pen to
meet the expenses of her son’s education, and also contributed to the
support of Godwin, now old and failing. She sent her father, at a time
when he was greatly embarrassed, her novel _Valperga_ in MS., begging
him to publish it and use the proceeds as his own. The generosity of
this gift reminds us of her dead mother. This novel was published in
1823; _The Last Man_, in 1824; _Perkin Warbeck_, in 1830; _Lodore_,
in 1835; and _Falkner_, in 1837. Mrs. Shelley also wrote most of the
Italian and Spanish lives in Lardner’s Encyclopedia, and two volumes of
travels entitled _Rambles in Germany and Italy_; and edited (1839-40)
Shelley’s works and his letters, by far her most important service
to literature. Her son became Sir Percy Shelley on the death of his
grandfather in 1844.

On the 21st of February, 1851, Mary Shelley closed a life that long
had “crept on a broken wing.” We may believe that she rejoiced at the
coming of the hour, when, in Shelley’s own words, “Life should no more
divide what death could join together.”

She appears to have differed from her mother in possessing a greater
delicacy, more imaginativeness, something less of intellectual boldness
and independence. She had, however, all Mary Wollstonecraft’s tendency
to melancholy: “I fear you are a Wollstonecraft,” the equable Godwin
wrote her. She endeavored, in her happier days, to guard against this
evil by mingling in society, where she was animated and charming. Henry
Crabb Robinson mentions her at Godwin’s in 1823, looking “elegant and
sickly and young”; one calls to mind the description of Shelley, “like
some elegant flower drooping on its stem.” Robinson also relates what
he had heard from Harriet Martineau, that Mrs. Shelley “never had asked
a favor of any one, and never would.” This is a touch of her mother’s
pride, intensified.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Godwin’s account of Mary and her sister.]

Your enquiries relate principally to the two daughters of Mary
Wollstonecraft. They are neither of them brought up with an exclusive
attention to the system and ideas of their mother. I lost her in 1797,
and in 1801 I married a second time. One among the motives which led
me to choose this was, the feeling I had in myself of an incompetence
for the education of daughters. The present Mrs. Godwin has great
strength and activity of mind, but is not exclusively a follower
of the notions of their mother; and indeed, having formed a family
establishment without having a previous provision for the support of
a family, neither Mrs. Godwin nor I have leisure enough for reducing
novel theories of education to practice, while we both of us honestly
endeavor, as far as our opportunities will permit, to improve the mind
and characters of the younger branches of our family.

Of the two persons to whom your inquiries relate, my own daughter is
considerably superior in capacity to the one her mother had before.
Fanny, the eldest, is of a quiet, modest, unshowy disposition, somewhat
given to indolence, which is her greatest fault, but sober, observing,
peculiarly clear and distinct in the faculty of memory, and disposed
to exercise her own thoughts and follow her own judgment. Mary, my
daughter, is the reverse of her in many particulars. She is singularly
bold, somewhat imperious, and active of mind. Her desire of knowledge
is great, and her perseverance in every thing she undertakes almost
invincible. My own daughter is, I believe, very pretty; Fanny[5] is by
no means handsome, but in general prepossessing.

WILLIAM GODWIN: _Letter to an unknown correspondent_, in ‘William
Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries,’ by C. Kegan Paul, Boston:
Roberts Bros., 1876.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her stepmother.]

Mrs. Godwin [formerly Mrs. Clairmont], was a harsh stepmother.... She
had strong views, in which many would agree, that each child should
be educated to some definite duties, with a view of filling some
useful place in life; but this arrangement soon had at least a show
of partiality. It was found that Jane Clairmont’s mission in life,
according to her mother’s view, was to have all the education and even
accomplishments which their slender means would admit; while household
drudgery was from an early age discovered to be the life-work of Fanny
and Mary Godwin. That Mary Shelley was afterward a worthy intellectual
companion to Shelley, is in no degree due to Mrs. Godwin, and little to
her father’s direct teaching. All the education she had up to the time
when she linked her fate with Shelley’s, was self-gained; the merits of
such a work as ‘Frankenstein’ were her own; the faults were those of
her home-training.

C. KEGAN PAUL: ‘William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mary at sixteen.]

When we reached Skinner Street, he [Shelley] said, “I must speak with
Godwin; come in, I will not detain you long.” I followed him through
the shops, which was the only entrance, and up stairs. We entered a
room on the first floor; it was shaped like a quadrant. In the arc
were windows; in one radius a fire-place, and in the other a door,
and shelves with many old books. William Godwin was not at home.
Bysshe strode about the room, causing the crazy floor of the ill-built
dwelling-house to shake and tremble under his impatient footsteps....
I stood reading the names of old English authors on the backs of the
venerable volumes, when the door was partially and softly opened. A
thrilling voice called “Shelley!” A thrilling voice answered “Mary!”
And he darted out of the room, like an arrow from the bow of the
far-shooting king. A very young female, fair and fair-haired, pale
indeed, and with a piercing look, wearing a frock of tartan, an unusual
dress in London at that time, had called him out of the room. He was
absent a very short time--a minute or two; and then returned. “Godwin
is out; there is no use in waiting.”

THOMAS JEFFERSON HOGG: ‘Life of Shelley,’ 1858; quoted by R. H.
Stoddard. ‘Anecdote Biography of Shelley.’ New York: Scribner,
Armstrong & Co., 1877.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Elopement with Shelly.]

It was not until the summer of 1814 that Shelley and Mary Godwin
became really acquainted, when he found the child whom he had scarcely
noticed two years before, had grown into the woman of nearly seventeen
summers.... Shelley came to London on May 18th, leaving his wife
at Binfield, certainly without the least idea that it was to be a
final separation from him, though the relations between husband and
wife had for some time been increasingly unhappy. He was received in
Godwin’s house on the old footing of close intimacy, and rapidly fell
in love with Mary. Fanny Godwin was away from home visiting some of
the Wollstonecrafts, or she, three years older than Mary, might have
discouraged the romantic attachment which sprang up between her sister
and their friend. Jane Clairmont’s influence was neither then, nor at
any other time, used judiciously. It was easy for the lovers, for such
they became before they were aware of it, to meet without the attention
of the parents being drawn to the increasing intimacy, and yet without
any such sense of clandestine interviews, as might have disclosed to
themselves whither they were drifting. Mary was unhappy at home; she
thoroughly disliked Mrs. Godwin, to whom Fanny was far more tolerant;
her desire for knowledge and love of reading were discouraged, and when
seen with a book in her hand, she was wont to hear from her stepmother
that her proper sphere was the store-room. Old St. Pancras church-yard
was then a quiet and secluded spot, where Mary Wollstonecraft’s grave
was shaded by a fine weeping-willow. Here Mary Godwin used to take her
books in the warm days of June, to spend every hour she could call
her own. Here her intimacy with Shelley ripened, and here, in Lady
Shelley’s words, “she placed her hand in his, and linked her fortunes
with his own.”

On July 28th, early in the morning, Mary Godwin left her father’s
house, accompanied by Jane Clairmont. They joined Shelley, posted to
Dover, and crossed in an open boat to Calais during a violent storm....
The three went to Paris, where they bought a donkey, and rode him in
turns to Geneva, the others walking. Sleeping now in a cabaret and now
in a cottage, they at last finished this strange honeymoon, and the
strangest sentimental journey ever undertaken since Adam and Eve went
forth with all the world before them where to choose.

C. KEGAN PAUL: ‘William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: No moral conflict.]

The theories in which the daughter of the authors of ‘Political
Justice’ and of the ‘Rights of Woman’ had been educated, spared her
from any conflict between her duty and her affection. For she was the
child of parents whose writings had had for their object to prove
that marriage was one among the many institutions which a new era in
the history of mankind was about to sweep away. By her father, whom
she loved--by the writings of her mother, whom she had been taught to
venerate--these doctrines had been rendered familiar to her mind. It
was, therefore, natural that she should listen to the dictates of her
own heart, and willingly unite her fate with one who was so worthy of
her love.

LADY SHELLEY: ‘Shelley Memorials, from Authentic Sources.’ London:
Henry S. King & Co., 1875.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mary at this period.]

It is remarkable that her youth was not the period of her greatest
beauty, and certainly at that date [1816-17] she did not do justice to
herself either in her aspect or in the tone of her conversation. She
was singularly pale. With a figure that needed to be set off, she was
careless in her dress; and the decision of purpose which ultimately
gained her the title of ‘Wilful Woman,’ then appeared, at least in
society, principally in the negative form--her temper being easily
crossed, and her resentments taking a somewhat querulous and peevish
tone.

THORNTON HUNT: ‘Shelley,’ in the _Atlantic Monthly_, February, 1863.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Origin of ‘Frankenstein.’]

I passed the summer of 1816 in the environs of Geneva. The season was
cold and rainy, and in the evenings we crowded around a blazing wood
fire, and occasionally amused ourselves with some German stories of
ghosts, which happened to fall into our hands. These tales excited in
us a playful desire of imitation. Two other friends and myself agreed
to write each a story, founded on some supernatural occurrence. The
weather, however, suddenly became serene; and my two friends left me
on a journey among the Alps, and lost, in the magnificent scenes which
they present, all memory of their ghostly visions. [Frankenstein] is
the only one which has been completed.

MARY SHELLEY: _First Preface_ to ‘Frankenstein.’ Boston: Sever, Francis
& Co., 1869.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Its conception.]

I busied myself _to think of a story_--a story to rival those which had
excited us to this task.... I thought and pondered--vainly. I felt
that blank incapability of invention which is the greatest misery of
authorship, when dull nothing replies to our anxious invocations. _Have
you thought of a story?_ I was asked each morning, and each morning I
was forced to reply with a mortifying negative.

Many and long were the conversations between Lord Byron and Shelley, to
which I was a devout but nearly silent listener. During one of these,
various philosophical doctrines were discussed, and among others, the
nature of the principle of life, and whether there was any probability
of its ever being discovered and communicated.... Night waned upon
this talk, and even the witching hour had gone by, before we retired
to rest. When I had placed my head on my pillow, I did not sleep, nor
could I be said to think. My imagination, unbidden, possessed and
guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with
a vividness far beyond the usual bound of reverie. I saw--with shut
eyes, but acute mental vision--I saw the pale student of unhallowed
arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together.... I opened my
eyes in terror. The idea so possessed my mind, that a thrill of fear
ran through me and I wished to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy
for the realities around. I see them still; the very room, the dark
_parquet_, the closed shutters, with the moonlight struggling through,
and the sense I had that the glassy lake and the high white Alps were
beyond. I could not so easily get rid of my hideous phantom; still it
haunted me. I must try to think of something else. I recurred to my
ghost story--my tiresome, unlucky ghost story. Swift as light, and as
cheering, was the idea that broke in upon me. “I have found it!”

... On the morrow I announced that I had _thought of a story_. I began
that day with the words, “_It was on a dreary night in November_,”
making only a transcript of the grim terrors of my waking dream.

MARY SHELLEY: _Second Preface_ to ‘Frankenstein.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mary in 1822.]

The most striking feature in her face was her calm, gray eyes; she was
rather under the English standard of woman’s height, very fair and
light-haired, witty, social, and animated in the society of friends,
though mournful in solitude; like Shelley, though in a minor degree,
she had the power of expressing her thoughts in varied and appropriate
words, derived from familiarity with the works of our vigorous old
writers.

E. J. TRELAWNY: ‘Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron.’
Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1858.

* * * * *

It is clear that the society of Shelley was to her a great school,
which she did not appreciate to the full until most calamitously it was
taken away; and yet, of course, she could not fail to learn the greater
part of what it had become to her. This again showed itself even in her
appearance, after she had spent some years in Italy; for, while she had
grown far more comely than she was in her mere youth, she had acquired
a deeper insight into many subjects that interested Shelley, and some
others; and she had learned to express the force of natural affection,
which she was born to feel, but which had somehow been stunted and
suppressed in her youth.

[Sidenote: Her peculiar powers.]

She was a woman of extraordinary power, of heart as well as head. Many
circumstances conspired to conceal some of her natural faculties....
Her father--speaking with great diffidence, from a very slight and
imperfect knowledge--appeared to me a harsh and ungenial man. She
inherited from him her thin voice,[6] but not the steel-edged sharpness
of his own; and she inherited, not from him, but from her mother, a
largeness of heart that entered proportionately into the working of her
mind. She had a masculine capacity for study; for, though I suspect her
early schooling was irregular, she remained a student all her life, and
by painstaking industry made herself acquainted with any subject that
she had to handle.

THORNTON HUNT: ‘Shelley.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Constant reading.]

In looking over the journal in which, from day to day, Mrs. Shelley was
in the habit of noting their occupations, as well as passing events,
one is struck with wonder at the number of books which they read in the
course of the year. At home or traveling--before breakfast, or waiting
for the mid-day meal--by the side of a stream, or on the ascent of a
mountain--a book was never absent from the hands of one or the other:
and there were never two books; one read while the other listened.

LADY SHELLEY: ‘Shelley Memorials.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Loss of William Shelley.]

We suffered a severe affliction in Rome [in 1819] by the loss of our
eldest child, who was of such beauty and promise as to cause him
deservedly to be the idol of our hearts. We left the capital of the
world, anxious for a time to escape a spot associated too intimately
with his presence and loss.

[Sidenote: Italian life of the Shelleys.]

Some friends of ours were residing in the neighborhood of Leghorn, and
we took a small house, Villa Valsovano, about half-way between the town
and Monte Nero, where we remained during the summer. Our villa was
situated in the midst of a podere; the peasants sang as they worked
beneath our windows, during the heats of a very hot season, and in the
evening the water-wheel creaked as the process of irrigation went on,
and the fire-flies flashed from among the myrtle hedges:--nature was
bright, sunshiny and cheerful, or diversified by storms of a majestic
terror, such as we had never before witnessed. At the top of the house
there was a sort of terrace ... very small, yet not only roofed but
glazed; this Shelley made his study; it looked out on a wide prospect
of fertile country, and commanded a view of the near sea.... In the
spring [of 1820, having passed the winter in Florence and Pisa] we
spent a week or two near Leghorn, borrowing the house of some friends,
who were absent on a journey to England. It was on a beautiful summer
evening while wandering among the lanes, whose myrtle hedges were the
bowers of the fire-flies, that we heard the carolling of the skylark,
which inspired one of the most beautiful of his poems.

[Sidenote: Shelley’s last home near Sant’ Arenzo, 1823.]

The bay of Spezia is of considerable extent, and divided by a rocky
promontory into a larger and smaller one. The town of Lerici is
situated on the eastern point, and in the depth of the smaller bay,
which bears the name of this town, is the village of Sant’ Arenzo. Our
house, Casa Magni, was close to this village; the sea came up to the
door, a steep hill sheltered it behind. The proprietor ... had rooted
up the olives on the hillside, and planted forest trees; ... some fine
walnut and ilex trees intermingled their dark massy foliage, and formed
groups which still haunt my memory, as then they satiated the eye with
a sense of loveliness. The scene was indeed of unimaginable beauty;
the blue extent of waters, the almost land-locked bay, the near castle
of Lerici, shutting it in to the east, and distant Porto Venere to
the west; the varied forms of the precipitous rocks that bound in the
beach, over which there was only a winding rugged foot-path towards
Lerici, and none on the other side; the tideless sea leaving no sands
nor shingle--formed a picture such as one sees in Salvator Rosa’s
landscapes only: sometimes the sunshine vanished when the sirocco
raged--the ponente, the wind was called on that shore. The gales and
squalls, that hailed our first arrival, surrounded the bay with foam;
the howling wind swept round our exposed house, and the sea roared
unremittingly, so that we almost fancied ourselves on board ship. At
other times sunshine and calm invested sea and sky, and the rich tints
of Italian heaven bathed the scene. The natives were wilder than the
place.... If ever fate whispered of coming disaster, such inaudible,
but not unfelt, prognostics hovered around us. The beauty of the place
seemed unearthly in its excess: the distance we were at from all signs
of civilization, the sea at our feet, its murmurs or its roarings
forever in our ears--all these things led the mind to brood over
strange thoughts, and, lifting it from every-day life, caused it to be
familiar with the unreal. A sort of spell surrounded us, and each day,
as the voyagers did not return, we grew restless and disquieted; and
yet, strange to say, we were not fearful of the most apparent danger.

The spell snapped, it was all over; an interval of agonizing doubt was
changed to the certainty of the death that eclipsed all happiness for
the survivors forevermore.

MARY SHELLEY: _Notes_, in ‘Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley.’
Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1857.

* * * * *

She impressed me as a person with warm social feelings, dependent for
happiness on loving encouragement, needing a guiding and sustaining
hand.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Shelley in her widowhood.]

In person she was of middle height and graceful figure. Her face,
though not regularly beautiful, was comely and spiritual, of winning
expression, and with a look of inborn refinement; as well as culture.
It had a touch of sadness when at rest.

ROBERT DALE OWEN: _Quoted in_ ‘Heroines of Free Thought,’ S. A.
Underhill. New York: Charles P. Somerby, 139 Eighth Street, 1876.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Development of character.]

I have heard her accused of an over-anxiety to be admired; and
something of the sort was discernible in society: it was a weakness
as venial as it was purely superficial. Away from society she was as
truthful and simple a woman as I have ever met--was as faithful a
friend as the world has produced--using that unreserved directness
toward those whom she regarded with affection, which is the very
crowning glory of friendly intercourse. I suspect that these qualities
came out in their greatest force after her calamity; for many things
which she said in her regret, and passages in Shelley’s own poetry,
make me doubt whether little habits of temper, and possibly of a
refined and exacting coquettishness, had not prevented him from
acquiring so full a knowledge of her as she had of him.

THORNTON HUNT: ‘Shelley.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Appearance.]

Her well-shaped, golden-haired head, almost always a little bent and
drooping; her marble-white shoulders and arms statuesquely visible
in the perfectly plain black velvet dress, which the customs of that
time allowed to be cut low, and which her own taste adopted (for she
never wore the conventional “widow’s weeds” and “widow’s cap”); her
thoughtful, earnest eyes; her short upper lip and intellectually curved
mouth, with a certain close-compressed and decisive expression while
she listened, and a relaxation into fuller redness and mobility while
speaking; her exquisitely formed, white, dimpled, small hands, with
rosy palms, and plumply commencing fingers, that tapered into tips
as slender and delicate as those in a Vandyck portrait--all remain
palpably present to memory. Another peculiarity in Mrs. Shelley’s hand
was its singular flexibility, which permitted her bending the fingers
back so as almost to approach the portion of her arm above her wrist.
She once did this smilingly and repeatedly, to amuse the girl who was
noting its whiteness and pliancy, and who now, as an old woman, records
its remarkable beauty.

Very sweet and very encouraging was Mary Shelley to her young namesake,
Mary Victoria, making her proud and happy by giving her a presentation
copy of her wonderful book, ‘Frankenstein,’ and pleasing her girlish
fancy by the gift of a string of cut-coral graduated beads from
Italy....

Her mode of uttering the word “Lerici,” dwells upon our memory with
peculiarly subdued and lingering intonation, associated as it was with
all that was most mournful in connection with that picturesque spot
where she learned she had lost her “beloved Shelley” forever from this
fair earth.

[Sidenote: Love of Music.]

She was never tired of asking Francesco [Mr. Francis Novello] to sing
Mozart’s “Qui Sdegno,” “Possenti Numi,” “Mentre ti Lascio,” “Tuba
Mirum,” “La Vendetta,” “Non piu Andrai,” or “Madamina;” so fond was she
of his singing her favorite composer.

MARY (VICTORIA NOVELLO) COWDEN CLARKE: ‘Recollections of Writers.’ New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A portrait.]

If the reader desires a portrait of Mary, he has one in the well-known
antique bust sometimes called “Isis,” and sometimes “Clytie”; a woman’s
head and shoulders rising from a lotus-flower. It is most probably
the portrait of a Roman lady: is in some degree more elongated and
“classic,” than Mary; but, on the other hand, it falls short of her,
for it gives no idea of her tall and intellectual forehead, nor has it
any trace of the bright, animated, and sweet expression that so often
lighted up her face.

THORNTON HUNT: ‘Shelley.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A criticism.]

How changed is the taste of verse, prose, and painting, since _le bon
vieux temps_, dear madam! Nothing attracts us but what terrifies, and
is within--_if_ within--a hair’s breadth of positive disgust. Some of
the strange things they write remind me of Squoire Richard’s visit
to the Tower Menagerie, when he says: “Odd, they are _pure_ grim
devils,”--particularly a wild and hideous tale called ‘Frankenstein.’

MRS. PIOZZI: _Letters to Mme. D’Arblay_, in the latter’s ‘Diary and
Letters’; edited by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1880.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Scott’s remarks.]

The feeling with which we perused the unexpected and fearful, yet,
allowing the possibility of the event, very natural conclusion of
Frankenstein’s experiment, shook a little even our firm nerves.... It
is no slight merit in our eyes that the tale, though wild in incident,
is written in plain and forcible English, without exhibiting that
mixture of hyperbolical Germanisms with which tales of wonder are
usually told. The ideas of the author are always clearly as well as
forcibly expressed; and his[7] descriptions of landscape have in them
the choice requisites of truth, freshness, precision, and beauty. The
self-education of the monster, considering the slender opportunities
of acquiring knowledge that he possessed, we have already noticed as
improbable and over-strained.

SIR WALTER SCOTT: ‘Remarks on Frankenstein,’ _Blackwood’s Edinburgh
Magazine_, March, 1818. (‘Scott’s Miscellanies,’ _vol. i._
Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1841.)

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Lamb’s praise.]

Mrs. Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ ... he [Charles Lamb] thought the most
extraordinary realization of the idea of a being out of nature which
had ever been effected.

THOMAS NOON TALFOURD: ‘The Works of Charles Lamb, His Letters, and a
Sketch of his Life.’ New York: Harper & Bros., 1838.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Intellectual resemblance to Shelley.]

We have spoken of Mrs. Shelley’s similarity in genius to her
husband’s--we by no means think her his equal. She has not his
subtlety, swiftness, wealth of imagination, and is never caught up
(like Ezekiel by his lock of hair) into the same rushing whirlwind
of inspiration. She has much, however, of his imaginative and of his
speculative qualities--her tendency, like his, is to the romantic, the
ethereal, and the terrible. The tie detaining her, as well as him to
the earth, is slender--her protest against society is his, copied out
in a female hand--her style is carefully and successfully modeled upon
his--she bears in brief, to him, the resemblance which Laone did to
Laon, which Astarte did to Manfred.... Perhaps, indeed, intercourse
with a being so peculiar ... has somewhat affected the originality,
and narrowed the extent of her own genius.

Mrs. Shelley’s genius, though true and powerful, is monotonous and
circumscribed--more so than even her father’s--and, in this point,
presents a strong contrast to her husband’s. She has no wit, nor
humor--little dramatic talent. Strong, clear description of the
gloomier scenes of nature, or the darker passions of the mind, or of
those supernatural objects which her fancy, except in her first work,
somewhat laboriously creates, is her forte. Hence her reputation still
rests upon ‘Frankenstein’; ... she unquestionably made him, but he has
had no progeny.

... She has succeeded in her delineation; she has painted this
shapeless being upon the imagination of the world forever; and beside
Caliban, and Hecate, and Death and Life, and all other weird and gloomy
creations, this nameless, unfortunate, involuntary, gigantic unit
stands.

... The work is wonderful as the work of a girl of eighteen. One
distinct addition to our original creations must be conceded her--and
it is no little praise.

GEORGE GILFILLAN: ‘A Second Gallery of Literary Portraits.’ Edinburgh:
James Hogg. London: R. Groombridge & Sons, 1850.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Fanny Godwin, as she was always called, at the age of twenty-two
committed suicide by taking laudanum, doubtless impelled by the
singular melancholy inherited from her mother.

[6] See Shelley’s ‘Epipsychidon.’

[7] Shelley was at first supposed to be the author of ‘Frankenstein.’

MARY LAMB.

(1764-1847.)

MARY LAMB.

Seldom is the name of Mary Lamb seen without that of her brother. “The
Lambs” still walk hand-in-hand in our mention, as they were wont to
walk on pleasant holidays to Enfield, and Potter’s Bar, and Waltham;
when Mary “used to deposit in the little hand-basket the day’s fare of
savory cold meat and salad,” and Charles “to pry about at noon-tide
for some decent house where they might go in and produce their store,
only paying for the ale that he must call for.” Still they pass linked
together through our thoughts, as on that sadder day when Charles Lloyd
met them, crossing the fields to Hoxton--hand-in-hand, and weeping.

It is an act of severance against which the conscience somewhat
protests, to present Mary alone to the consideration of the reader. It
is like removing her from the protection of his presence who stood so
faithfully and long between her and the world.

Mary Lamb was born in Crown Office Row, Inner Temple, December 3d,
1764. She was the daughter of John Lamb, the “clerk, good servant,
dresser, friend, flapper, guide, stop-watch, auditor, treasurer,” as
his son describes him, of a barrister named Salt. Charles was eleven
years Mary’s junior. In 1795, (the elder Lamb, whose faculties were
failing, having been pensioned by Mr. Salt,) the family left the
Temple for lodgings in Little Queen Street. Here occurred, on the 21st
of September in that year, the tragedy which set its stamp upon the
after-life of Mary and Charles, and of which there is a sufficient
account among the following extracts.

Mary remained in the asylum at Islington until the spring of 1797,
when Charles, having satisfied the authorities by a solemn engagement
to care for her during life, took a room for her at Hackney, where he
spent his Sundays and holidays. In April, 1799, old John Lamb died, and
from that time until death separated them Mary shared her brother’s
home--or homes, for indeed they were legion. Procter chronicles the
Lambs as lodging, in 1800, in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane;
and removing during the same year to Mitre Court Buildings, Temple,
where they remained till 1809. No. 4, Inner Temple Lane was their
next residence, which they left, in 1817, for Russell Street, Covent
Garden. In 1823 they removed to Colebrook Row, Islington; and in 1826
to Enfield. In 1830 they returned to Southampton Buildings. In 1833,
Charles, having determined that his sister should remain with him
during her illness for the future, they went to live at Mrs. Walden’s,
in Church Street, Edmonton; where, on December 27th, 1834, Charles Lamb
died.

Mary survived her brother more than twelve years. Age, and the decay of
her mind, mitigated her grief for him. On the 28th of May, 1847, she
was laid in his grave.

The works of Mary Lamb are as follows:

_Tales from Shakespeare_, published in 1807; in this work, the six
great tragedies are by Charles.

_Mrs. Leicester’s School_, published in 1808, to which Charles
contributed three of the ten stories.

_Poetry for Children_, 1809; here Charles was again her co-laborer,
performing one-third of the work, but it is not positively certain
which of the poems are his.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mary’s Birthplace.]

On the south side of Fleet Street, near to where it adjoins Temple Bar,
lies the Inner Temple. It extends southward to the Thames, and contains
long ranges of melancholy buildings, in which lawyers and their
followers congregate. It is a district very memorable. About seven
hundred years ago it was the abiding-place of the Knights Templars, who
erected there a church, which still uplifts its round tower (its sole
relic) for the wonder of modern times. Fifty years since, I remember,
you entered the precinct through a lowering archway that opened into a
gloomy passage--Inner Temple Lane. On the east side rose the church;
and on the west was a dark line of chambers, since pulled down and
rebuilt, and now called Johnson’s Buildings. At some distance westward
was an open court, in which was a sun-dial, and, in the midst, a
solitary fountain, that sent its silvery voice into the air above, the
murmur of which, descending, seemed to render the place more lonely.
Midway, between the Inner Temple Lane and the Thames, was a range of
substantial chambers (overlooking the gardens and the busy river),
called Crown Office Row.

BRYAN W. PROCTER: ‘Charles Lamb, a Memoir.’ London: Edward Moxon & Co.,
1866.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Education.]

Her education in youth was not much attended to; and she happily
missed all that train of female garniture, which passeth by the name
of accomplishments. She was tumbled early, by accident or design, into
a spacious closet of good old English reading [the library of Mr.
Salt, a barrister, to whom her father long acted as clerk] without
much selection or prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and
wholesome pasturage. Had I twenty girls, they should be brought up
exactly in this fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock
might not be diminished by it, but I can answer for it, that it makes
(if the worst comes to the worst) most incomparable old maids.

CHARLES LAMB: _Mackery End, in Hertfordshire_, ‘Essays of Elia.’
(‘Works, with a Sketch of his Life,’ by Thomas Noon Talfourd. New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1838.)

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Effect of this reading.]

A little selection would have made the pasturage all the wholesomer to
a child of Mary’s sensitive, brooding nature; for the witch stories and
the cruel tales of the sufferings of the martyrs on which she pored
all alone, as her brother did after her, wrought upon her tender brain
and lent their baleful aid to nourish those seeds of madness which she
inherited.

[Sidenote: Country pleasures.]

The London-born and bred child had occasional tastes of joyous,
healthful life in the country, for her mother had hospitable relatives
in her native county, pleasant Hertfordshire. In after life she
embodied them, mingling fiction with fact, in a story called ‘Louisa
Manners; or, the Farmhouse,’ where she tells in sweet and child-like
words of the ecstasy of a little four-year-old girl on finding
herself for the first time in the midst of fields quite full of
bright, shining yellow flowers, with sheep and young lambs feeding;
of the inexhaustible interest of the farm-yard, the thresher in the
barn with his terrifying flail and black beard, the collection of
eggs and searching for scarce violets (“if we could find eggs and
violets too, what happy children we were”); of the hay-making and the
sheep-shearing, the great wood-fires and the farm-house suppers.

[Sidenote: Lack of sympathy in her home.]

With the cruelty of ignorance Mary’s mother and grandmother [Mrs.
Field], suffered her young spirit to do battle, in silent and inward
solitariness, with the phantoms imagination conjured up in her too
sensitive brain. “Polly, what are those poor, crazy, moythered brains
of yours thinking always?” was worthy Mrs. Field’s way of endeavoring
to win the confidence of the thoughtful, suffering child. It was simple
stupidity, lack of insight or sympathy in the elders; and was repaid
by the sweetest affection, and, in after-years, by a self-sacrificing
devotion which, carried at last far beyond her strength, led to the
great calamity of her life.

[Sidenote: Charles.]

On the 10th of February, 1775, arrived a new member into the household
group--Charles, the child of his father’s old age, the “weakly but very
pretty babe” who was to prove their strong support. And now Mary was
no longer a lonely girl. She was just old enough to be trusted to nurse
and tend the baby, and she became a mother to it. In after-life she
spoke of the comfort, the wholesome curative influence upon her young
troubled mind, which this devotion to Charles in infancy brought with
it. As his young mind unfolded, he found in her intelligence and love
the same genial, fostering influences that had cherished his feeble
frame into health and strength. It was with his little hand in hers
that he first trod the Temple Gardens, and spelled out the inscriptions
on the sun-dials and on the tombstones in the burying-ground, and
wondered, finding only lists of the virtues, “where the naughty people
were buried?” Like Mary, his disposition was so different from that of
his gay, pleasure-loving parents that they but ill understood “and gave
themselves little trouble about him,” which also tended to draw brother
and sister closer together.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mary’s young womanhood.]

In the Lamb household the domestic outlook grew dark as soon as Mary
was grown up, for her father’s faculties and her mother’s health failed
early; and when, in his fifteenth year, Charles left Christ’s Hospital,
it was already needful for him to take up the burthens of a man on his
young shoulders; and for Mary not only to make head against sickness,
helplessness, old age, with its attendant exigencies, but to add to the
now straitened means by taking in millinery work. For eleven years,
as she has told us [in an essay on needle-work, contributed to the
_British Lady’s Magazine_, April, 1815], she maintained herself by the
needle; from the age of twenty-one to thirty-two, that is.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The great tragedy.]

The year 1795 witnessed changes for all. The father, now wholly in his
dotage, was pensioned off by Mr. Salt, and the family had to exchange
their old home in the Temple for straitened lodgings in Little Queen
Street, Holborn (the site of which and of the adjoining houses is now
occupied by Trinity Church). Meanwhile, Lamb was first tasting the
joys and sorrows of love. Alice W---- lingers but as a shadow in the
records of his life; the passion, however, was real enough and took
deep hold of him, conspiring with the cares and trials of home-life to
give a fatal stimulus to the germs of brain-disease, which were part
of the family heritage, and for six weeks he was in a mad-house.... No
sooner was Charles restored to himself than the elder brother, John,
met with a serious accident; and though while in health he had carried
himself to more comfortable quarters, he did not now fail to return
and be nursed with anxious solicitude by his brother and sister. This
was the last ounce. Mary, worn out with years of nightly as well as
daily attendance upon her mother, who was now wholly deprived of the
use of her limbs, and harassed by a close application to needle-work,
to help her in which she had been obliged to take a young apprentice,
was at last strained beyond the utmost pitch of physical endurance,
“worn down to a state of extreme nervous misery.” About the middle of
September, she being then thirty-two years old, her family observed
some symptoms of insanity in her.... On the afternoon of the 21st,
seized with a sudden attack of frenzy, she snatched a knife from the
table and pursued the young apprentice round the room, when her mother,
interposing, received a fatal stab and died instantly. Mary was totally
unconscious of what she had done.

ANNE GILCHRIST: ‘Mary Lamb.’ (Famous Women Series.) Boston: Roberts
Bros., 1883.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mary on her recovery.]

My poor, dear, dearest sister, the unhappy and unconscious instrument
of the Almighty’s judgment on our house, is restored to her senses;
to a dreadful sense and recollection of what has passed, awful to her
mind, and impressive (as it must be to the end of life), but tempered
with religious resignation and the reasonings of a sound judgment,
which in this early stage knows how to distinguish between a deed
committed in a transient fit of frenzy and the terrible guilt of a
mother’s murder. I have seen her. I found her this morning, calm and
serene; far, very far, from an indecent, forgetful serenity.

CHARLES LAMB: _Letter to Coleridge_, 1796, in ‘Final Memorials of
Charles Lamb,’ by Thomas Noon Talfourd. London: Edward Moxon, 1848.

* * * * *

Little could any one, observing Miss Lamb in the habitual serenity
of her demeanor, guess the calamity in which she had partaken or
the malady which frightfully checkered her life. From Mr. Lloyd ...
I learned that she had described herself, on her recovery from the
fatal attack, as having experienced, while it was subsiding, such
a conviction that she was absolved in Heaven from all taint of the
deed in which she had been the agent--such an assurance that it was
a dispensation of Providence--such a sense that her mother knew her
entire innocence and shed down blessings upon her, as though she had
seen the reconcilement in solemn vision--that she was not sorely
afflicted by the recollection. It was as if the old Greek notion of the
necessity for the unconscious shedder of blood, else polluted though
guiltless, to pass through a religious purification, had in her case
been happily accomplished.

THOMAS NOON TALFOURD: ‘Final Memorials of Charles Lamb.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Relapses.]

Her relapses were not dependent on the seasons; they came in hot
summers and with the freezing winters. The only remedy seems to have
been extreme quiet when any slight symptom of uneasiness was apparent.
Charles (poor fellow) had to live, day and night, in the society of a
person who was--mad! If any exciting talk occurred, he had to dismiss
his friend with a whisper. If any stupor or extraordinary silence was
observed, then he had to rouse her instantly.

BRYAN W. PROCTER: ‘Charles Lamb; a Memoir.’

* * * * *

The constant impendency of this giant sorrow saddened to the Lambs even
their holidays; as the journey which they both regarded as the relief
and charm of the year was frequently followed by a seizure.

... Miss Lamb experienced, and full well understood, premonitory
symptoms of the attack, in restlessness, low fever, and the inability
to sleep; and, as gently as possible, prepared her brother for the
duty he must soon perform; and thus, unless he could stave off the
terrible separation till Sunday, obliged him to ask leave of absence
from the office as if for a day’s pleasure--a bitter mockery! On one
occasion Mr. Charles Lloyd met them, slowly pacing together a little
footpath in Hoxton Fields, both weeping bitterly, and found, on joining
them, that they were taking their solemn way to the accustomed asylum.

Miss Lamb would have been remarkable for the sweetness of her
disposition, the clearness of her understanding, and the gentle wisdom
of all her acts and words, even if these qualities had not been
presented in marvellous contrast with the distractions under which
she suffered for weeks, latterly for months in every year. There was
no tinge of insanity discernible in her manner to the most observant
eye.... Hazlitt used to say that he never met with a woman who could
reason and had met with only one thoroughly reasonable--the sole
exception being Mary Lamb. She did not wish, however, to be made an
exception, to the general disparagement of her sex; for in all her
thoughts and feelings she was most womanly--keeping under, ever in due
subordination to her notion of a woman’s province, an intellect of
rare excellence which flashed out when the restraints of gentle habit
and humble manner were withdrawn by the terrible force of disease.
Though her conversation in sanity was never marked by smartness or
repartee, seldom rising beyond that of a sensible, quiet gentlewoman,
appreciating and enjoying the talents of her friends, it was otherwise
in her madness. Her ramblings often sparkled with brilliant description
and shattered beauty. She would fancy herself in the days of Queen
Anne or George the First; and describe the brocaded dames and courtly
manners as though she had been bred among them, in the best style of
the old comedy. It was all broken and disjointed, so that the hearer
could remember little of her discourse; but the fragments were like
the jewelled speeches of Congreve, only shaken from their settings.
There was sometimes even a vein of crazy logic running through them,
associating things essentially most dissimilar, but connecting them by
a verbal association in strange order. As a mere physical instance of
deranged intellect, her condition was, I believe, extraordinary; it was
as if the finest elements of the mind had been shaken into fantastic
combinations, like those of a kaleidoscope.

THOMAS NOON TALFOURD: ‘Final Memorials of Charles Lamb.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Home of the Lambs.]

It was always in a room of moderate size, comfortably but plainly
furnished, that he [Charles] lived. An old mahogany table was opened
out in the middle of the room, round which, and near the walls,
were old, high-backed chairs (such as our grandfathers used), and a
long, plain book-case completely filled with old books. These were
his “ragged veterans.” In one of his letters he says: “My rooms are
luxurious: one for prints, one for books; a summer and winter parlor.”
They, however, were not otherwise decorated. I do not remember ever to
have seen a flower or an image in them. He had not been educated into
expensive tastes. His extravagances were confined to books. These were
all chosen by himself, all old, and all in “admired disorder”; yet he
could lay his hand on any volume in a moment.... Here Charles Lamb
sat, when at home, always near the table. At the opposite side was his
sister, engaged in some domestic work, knitting or sewing, or poring
over a modern novel. She wore a neat cap, of the fashion of her youth;
an old-fashioned dress. Her face was pale and somewhat square, but very
placid, with gray, intelligent eyes. She was very mild in her manner to
strangers, and to her brother gentle and tender, always. She had often
an upward look of peculiar meaning, when directed toward him, as though
to give him assurance that all was then well with her. His affection
for her was somewhat less on the surface, but always present. There
was great gratitude intermingled with it. “In the days of weakling
infancy,” he writes: “I was her tender charge, as I have been her care
in foolish manhood since.” Then he adds, pathetically, “I wish I could
throw into a heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we might
share them in equal division.”

BRYAN W. PROCTER: ‘Charles Lamb; a Memoir.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mary’s manner.]

Her manner was easy, almost homely, so quiet, unaffected, and perfectly
unpretending was it. Beneath the sparing talk and retired carriage,
few casual observers would have suspected the ample information and
large intelligence that lay comprised there. She was oftener a listener
than a speaker. In the modest-behaviored woman simply sitting there,
taking small share in general conversation, few who did not know her
would have imagined the accomplished classical scholar, the excellent
understanding, the altogether rarely-gifted being, morally and
mentally, that Mary Lamb was.

CHARLES AND MARY COWDEN CLARKE: ‘Recollections of Writers.’ New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Appearance.]

His sister, whose literary reputation is closely associated with her
brother’s, and who, as the original of “Bridget Elia,” is a kind of
object for literary affection, came in after him. She is a small, bent
figure, evidently a victim to illness, and hears with difficulty. Her
face has been, I should think, a fine and handsome one, and her bright,
gray eye is still full of intelligence and fire.

N. P. WILLIS: ‘Pencillings by the Way.’ New York: Charles Scribner,
1853.

* * * * *

In stature Mary was under the middle-size, and her bodily frame was
strong. She could walk fifteen miles with ease; her brother speaks of
their having walked thirty miles together, and, even at sixty years of
age, she was capable of twelve miles “most days.”

ANNE GILCHRIST: ‘Mary Lamb.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Habits.]

Miss Lamb bore a strong personal resemblance to her brother; being
in stature under middle height, possessing well-cut features and a
countenance of singular sweetness, with intelligence. Her brown eyes
were soft, yet penetrating; her nose and mouth very shapely; while the
general expression was mildness itself. Her apparel was always of
the plainest kind, a black stuff or silk gown, made and worn in the
simplest fashion. She took snuff liberally--a habit that had evidently
grown out of her propensity to sympathize with and share all her
brother’s tastes, and it certainly had the effect of enhancing her
likeness to him. She had a small, white, and delicately-formed hand,
and as it hovered above the tortoise-shell box containing the powder
so strongly approved by them both, in search of the stimulating pinch,
the act seemed yet another link of association between the brother and
sister, when hanging together over their favorite books and studies.

CHARLES AND MARY COWDEN CLARKE: ‘Recollections of Writers.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Lamb’s sketch of his sister.]

Bridget Elia has been my housekeeper for many a long year. I have
obligations to Bridget extending beyond the period of memory. We
house together, old bachelor and old maid, in a sort of double
singleness.... We agree pretty well in our tastes and habits--yet so,
as “with a difference.” We are generally in harmony, with occasional
bickerings, as it should be among near relations. Our sympathies are
rather understood than expressed, and once, upon my dissembling a tone
in my voice more kind than ordinary, my cousin burst into tears, and
complained that I was altered. We are both great readers in different
directions. While I am hanging over (for the thousandth time) some
passage in old Burton, or one of his strange contemporaries, she is
abstracted in some modern tale or adventure, whereof our common
reading-table is daily fed with assiduously fresh supplies. Narrative
teases me. I have little concern in the progress of events. She must
have a story--well, ill, or indifferently told--so there be life
stirring in it, and plenty of good or evil accidents. The fluctuations
of fortune in fiction--and almost in real life--have ceased to
interest, or operate but dully upon me. Out-of-the-way humors and
opinions--heads with some diverting twist in them--the oddities of
authorship please me most. My cousin has a native disrelish of any
thing that sounds odd or bizarre. Nothing goes down with her that is
quaint, irregular, or out of the road of common sympathy. She “holds
nature more clever.”

It has been the lot of my cousin, oftener perhaps than I could have
wished, to have had for her associates and mine freethinkers--leaders
and disciples of novel philosophies and systems; but she neither
wrangles with, nor accepts their opinions. That which was good and
venerable to her when a child, retains its authority over her mind
still. She never juggles or plays tricks with her understanding.

We are both of us inclined to be a little too positive, and I have
observed the result of our disputes to be almost uniformly this: that
in matters of fact, dates, and circumstances, it turns out that I was
in the right, and my cousin in the wrong. But where we have differed
upon moral points, upon something proper to be done, or let alone;
whatever heat of opposition or steadiness of conviction I set out with,
I am sure always, in the long run, to be brought over to her way of
thinking.

I must touch upon the foibles of my kinswoman with a gentle hand, for
Bridget does not like to be told of her faults. She hath an awkward
trick (to say no worse of it) of reading in company; at which times she
will answer Yes or No to a question without fully understanding its
purport--which is provoking and derogatory in the highest degree to the
dignity of the putter of the said question. Her presence of mind is
equal to the most pressing trials of life, but will sometimes desert
her upon trifling occasions. When the purpose requires it, and is a
thing of moment, she can speak to it greatly; but in matters which are
not stuff of the conscience, she hath been known sometimes to let slip
a word less seasonable.

In a season of distress she is the truest comforter; but in the
teasing accidents and minor perplexities which do not call out the
_will_ to meet them, she sometimes maketh matters worse by an excess
of participation. If she does not always divide your trouble, upon
the pleasanter occasions of life, she is sure always to treble your
satisfaction.

CHARLES LAMB: _Mackery End, in Hertfordshire_, ‘Essays of Elia.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mary’s first pun.]

When I first opened upon the just-mentioned poem [‘The Force of Prayer,
or the Founding of Bolton Priory,’] in a careless tone, I said to Mary,
as if putting a riddle, “What is good for a bootless bene?” To which,
with infinite presence of mind (as the jest-book has it), she answered,
“A shoeless pea.” It was the first she ever made.

CHARLES LAMB: _Letter to Wordsworth_, in ‘Final Memorials,’ by T. N.
Talfourd.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her manner of speaking.]

She had a speaking voice, gentle and persuasive; and her smile was
her brother’s own--winning in the extreme. There was a certain
catch, or emotional breathingness, in her utterance, which gave
an inexpressible charm to her reading of poetry, and which lent a
captivating earnestness to her mode of speech when addressing those
she liked. This slight check, with its yearning, eager effect in her
voice, had something softenedly akin to her brother Charles’ impediment
of articulation: in him it scarcely amounted to a stammer, in her it
merely imparted additional stress to the fine-sensed suggestions she
made to those whom she counselled or consoled. There was a certain
old-world fashion in Mary Lamb’s diction which gave it a most natural
and quaintly pleasant effect, and which heightened rather than
detracted from the more heart-felt or important things she uttered.

CHARLES AND MARY COWDEN CLARKE: ‘Recollections of Writers.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Writing together.]

You would like to see us as we often sit writing on one table (but not
on one cushion sitting), like _Hermia_ and _Helena_ in the ‘Midsummer
Night’s Dream’; or rather, like an old literary Darby and Joan, I,
taking snuff, and he, groaning all the while and saying he can make
nothing of it, which he always says till he has finished, and then he
finds out that he has made something of it.

MARY LAMB: _Letter to Sarah Stoddart_, June 2nd, 1806, in ‘Mary and
Charles Lamb: Poems, Letters and Remains,’ edited by W. Carew Hazlitt.
New York: Scribner, Welford & Armstrong, 1874.

* * * * *

Mary is just stuck fast in ‘All’s Well that Ends Well.’ She complains
of having to set forth so many female characters in boys’ clothes. She
begins to think Shakespeare must have wanted----Imagination. I, to
encourage her, for she often faints in the prosecution of her great
work, flatter her with telling her how well such a play and such a play
is done. But she is stuck fast.

CHARLES LAMB: _Letter to Wordsworth_, in ‘Final Memorials,’ by T. N.
Talfourd.

* * * * *

I am in good spirits just at this present time, for Charles has been
reading over the _tale_ I told you plagued me so much, and he thinks it
one of the very best: it is ‘All’s Well that Ends Well.’ You must not
mind the many wretchedly dull letters I have sent you: for, indeed, I
cannot help it, my mind is so _dry_ always after poring over my work
all day. But it will soon be over.

I am cooking a shoulder of lamb (Hazlitt dines with us); it will be
ready at two o’clock, if you can pop in and eat a bit with us.

MARY LAMB: _Letter to Sarah Stoddart_, July, 1806, in ‘Mary and Charles
Lamb,’ by W. Carew Hazlitt.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: ‘Tales from Shakespeare.’]

It is not generally known, perhaps, that previously to their
circulation in a collective shape, Godwin, the publisher and proprietor
of the copyright, offered them to his juvenile patrons and patronesses
at No. 41 Skinner Street, in six-penny books, with the plates (by
Blake) “beautifully colored.”

W. CAREW HAZLITT: ‘Mary and Charles Lamb.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Praise from Landor.]

It is now several days since I read the book you recommended to me,
‘Mrs. Leicester’s School’; and I feel as if I owed a debt in deferring
to thank you for many hours of exquisite delight. Never have I read any
thing in prose so many times over, within so short a space of time, as
‘The Father’s Wedding-day.’ Most people, I understand, prefer the first
tale--in truth a very admirable one--but others could have written it.
Show me the man or woman, modern or ancient, who could have written
this one sentence: “When I was dressed in my new frock, I wished poor
mamma was alive to see how fine I was on papa’s wedding-day; and I ran
to my favorite station at her bedroom door.” How natural, in a little
girl, is this incongruity, this impossibility!... A fresh source of the
pathetic bursts out before us, and not a bitter one.... The story is
admirable throughout--incomparable, inimitable.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR: _Letter to H. C. Robinson_, April, 1831, in the
latter’s ‘Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence.’ Boston: J. R.
Osgood & Co., 1871.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: ‘Mrs. Leicester’s School.’]

The first edition sold out immediately, and four more were called
for in the course of five years. It has continued in fair demand
ever since, though there have not been any thing like so many recent
reprints as of the ‘Tales from Shakespeare.’ It is one of those
children’s books, which to re-open, in after-life is like revisiting
some sunny old garden, some favorite haunt of childhood, where every
nook and cranny seems familiar and calls up a thousand pleasant
memories.

ANNE GILCHRIST: ‘Mary Lamb.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: ‘Poetry for Children.’]

I shall have to send you, in a week or two, two volumes of juvenile
poetry done by Mary and me within the last six months.... Our
little poems are but humble, they have no name. You must read them,
remembering they were task-work; and perhaps you will admire the number
of subjects, all of children, picked out by an old bachelor and an old
maid. Many parents would not have found so many.

CHARLES LAMB: _Letter to Coleridge_, June, 1809, in ‘Final Memorials,’
by T. N. Talfourd.

* * * * *

‘Poetry for Children, Entirely Original, by the Author of Mrs.
Leicester’s School,’ as the title-page runs, was published in
the summer of 1809, and the whole of the first edition sold off
rapidly; but instead of being reprinted entire, selections from it
only--twenty-six out of the eighty-four pieces--were incorporated, by
a school-master of the name of Mylius, in two books called ‘The First
Book of Poetry’ and ‘The Poetical Class Book,’ issued from the same
Juvenile Library [Godwin’s] in 1810. These went through many editions,
but ultimately dropped quite out of sight, as the original work had
already done. Writing to Bernard Barton, in 1827, Lamb says:

“One likes to have one copy of every thing one does. I neglected to
keep one of ‘Poetry for Children,’ the joint production of Mary and
me, and it is not to be had for love or money.” Fifty years later
such specimens of these poems as could be gathered from the Mylius’
collections and from Lamb’s own works were republished by Mr. W. Carew
Hazlitt, and also by Richard Herne Shepherd, when at last, in 1877,
there came to hand from Australia, a copy of the original edition; it
had been purchased at a sale of books and furniture at Plymouth, in
1866, and thence carried to Adelaide. It was reprinted entire by Mr.
Shepherd (Chatto & Windus, 1878).

ANNE GILCHRIST: ‘Mary Lamb.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Writing painful to Mary.]

I called on Miss Lamb, and chatted with her. She had undergone great
fatigue from writing an article about needle-work, for the new _Ladies’
British Magazine_. She spoke of writing as a most painful occupation
which only necessity could make her attempt. She has been learning
Latin merely to assist her in acquiring a correct style. Yet, while
she speaks of inability to write, what grace and talent has she not
manifested in ‘Mrs. Leicester’s School,’ etc.

HENRY CRABB ROBINSON: ‘Diary,’ Dec., 1814.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: True hospitality.]

Once, when some visitors chanced to drop in unexpectedly upon her
and her brother, just as they were going to sit down to their plain
dinner of a bit of roast mutton, with her usual frank hospitality, she
pressed them to stay and partake, cutting up the small joint into five
equal portions, and saying in her simple, easy way, so truly her own,
“There’s a chop apiece for us, and we can make up with bread and cheese
if we want more.” With such a woman to carve for you and eat with you,
neck of mutton was better than venison, while bread and cheese more
than replaced various courses of richest or daintiest dishes.

CHARLES AND MARY COWDEN CLARKE: ‘Recollections of Writers.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Lambs “at home.”]

Let it be any autumn or winter month, when the fire is blazing
steadily, and the clean-swept hearth and whist-tables speak of the
spirit of Mrs. Battle.... The furniture is old-fashioned and worn;
the ceiling low, and not wholly unstained by traces of “the great
plant”; but the Hogarths, in narrow black frames, abounding in infinite
thought, humor, and pathos, enrich the walls; and all things wear an
air of comfort and hearty English welcome. Lamb himself, yet unrelaxed
by the glass, is sitting with a sort of Quaker primness at the
whist-table, the gentleness of his melancholy smile half lost in his
intentness on the game; his partner, the author of ‘Political Justice,’
is regarding his hand with a philosophic but not a careless eye;
Captain Burney, only not venerable because so young in spirit, sits
between them; and H. C. R., who alone now and then breaks the proper
silence to welcome some in-coming guest, is his happy partner--true
winner in the game of life, whose leisure, achieved early, is devoted
to his friends!... In one corner of the room, you may see the pale,
earnest countenance of Charles Lloyd, who is discoursing “of fate,
free-will, fore-knowledge absolute,” with Leigh Hunt.... Soon the
room fills; in slouches Hazlitt from the theatre, where his stubborn
anger for Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo has been softened by Miss
Stephens’ angelic notes.... Now and then an actor glances in on us
from “the rich Cathay” of the world behind the scenes.... Meanwhile,
Becky lays the cloth on the side-table, under the direction of the
most quiet, sensible, and kind of women--who soon compels the younger
and more hungry of the guests to partake largely of the cold roast
lamb, or boiled beef, the heaps of smoking roasted potatoes, and the
vast jug of porter. Perfect freedom prevails. As the hot water and its
accompaniments appear, and the severities of whist relax, the light of
conversation thickens: Hazlitt, catching the influence of the spirit
from which he has lately begun to abstain, utters some fine criticism
with struggling emphasis; Lamb stammers out puns suggestive of wisdom;
the various driblets of talk combine into a stream, while Miss Lamb
moves gently about to see that each modest stranger is duly served;
turning, now and then, an anxious loving eye on Charles, which is
softened into a half-humorous expression of resignation to inevitable
fate, as he mixes his second tumbler!

TALFOURD: ‘Final Recollections.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: “I must die first.”]

She had a way of repeating her brother’s words assentingly when he
spoke to her. He once said (with his peculiar mode of tenderness,
beneath blunt, abrupt speech), “You must die first, Mary.” She nodded
with her little, quiet nod and sweet smile, “Yes, I must die first,
Charles.”

CHARLES AND MARY COWDEN CLARKE: ‘Recollections of Writers.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A melancholy visit.]

I resolved to-day to discharge a melancholy duty, and went down by the
Edmonton stage to call on poor Miss Lamb. It was a melancholy sight;
but more so to the reflection than to the sense. A stranger would
have seen little remarkable about her. She was neither violent nor
unhappy; nor was she entirely without sense. She was, however, out of
her mind, as the expression is; but she could combine ideas, although
imperfectly.... She gave me her hand with great cordiality, and said:
“Now this is very kind--not merely good-natured, but very, very kind,
to come and see me in my affliction.” It would be useless to attempt
to remember all she said; but it is to be remarked that her mind
seemed turned to subjects connected with insanity as well as with her
brother’s death. She is nine years and nine months older than he, and
will soon be seventy. I have no doubt that if ever she be sensible of
her brother’s loss it will overset her again. She will live forever in
the memory of her friends as one of the most amiable and admirable of
women.

HENRY CRABB ROBINSON: ‘Diary,’ January, 1835.

* * * * *

I went down to Edmonton, and found dear Mary Lamb in very good health.
She has now been so long well that one may hope for a continuance. I
took a walk with her, and she led me to Charles Lamb’s grave.

HENRY CRABB ROBINSON: ‘Diary,’ 1837.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mary at Edmonton after the death of Charles.]

_He_ was there, asleep in the old churchyard, beneath the turf near
which they had stood together, and had selected for a resting-place; to
this spot she used, when well, to stroll out mournfully in the evening,
and to this spot she would contrive to lead any friend who came in
the summer evenings to drink tea and went out with her afterwards for
a walk. At length, as her illness became more frequent, and her frame
much weaker, she was induced to take up her abode under genial care, at
a pleasant house in St. John’s Wood, where she was surrounded by the
old books and prints, and was frequently visited by her reduced number
of surviving friends.

THOMAS NOON TALFOURD: ‘Final Memorials of Charles Lamb.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Eccentricities of her last days.]

It is well known that Miss Lamb survived her brother many years.
I remember that when she visited my father’s house at Brompton,
about 1843, she was accompanied by three or four snuff-boxes, which
came empty and went away full; and by at least four large silk
pocket-handkerchiefs, one of which was devoted to the reception of some
article from the dinner-table, which happened to strike her fancy, and
which she conveyed back with much satisfaction to St. John’s Wood....
I met her also at Sir John Stoddart’s, in the immediate neighborhood
of our house at Brompton, and the same thing took place. It was the
poor old lady’s whim, and of course she was humored in it by every one.
Sir John had to send out to the nearest tobacconist’s, and get all the
boxes filled; and a leg of a fowl, or some other dainty morsel which
had been selected, was duly wrapped up in a bandana.

W. CAREW HAZLITT: ‘Mary and Charles Lamb.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her death.]

Mary Lamb departed, eighty-two years old, on the 20th of May. She had
survived her mind in great measure, but much of the _heart_ remained.
Miss Lamb had a very fine feeling for literature, and was refined in
mind, though homely, almost coarse, in personal habits. Her departure
is an escape out of prison, to her sweet, good soul.

SARA COLERIDGE: _Letter to Miss Fenwick_, 1847, in the former’s ‘Memoir
and Letters,’ edited by her daughter. New York: Harper & Bros., 1874.

* * * * *

Repeated attacks of her malady weakened her mind, but she retained to
the last her sweetness of disposition unimpaired, and gently sank into
death on the 20th of May, 1847.

A few survivors of the old circle, now sadly thinned, attended her
remains to the spot in Edmonton churchyard, where they were laid above
those of her brother.... In accordance with Lamb’s own feeling, so far
as it could be gathered from his expressions on a subject to which he
did not often or willingly refer, he had been interred in a deep grave,
simply dug, and wattled round, but without any affectation of stone
or brickwork to keep the human dust from its kindred earth. So dry,
however, is the soil of the quiet churchyard that the excavated earth
left perfect walls of stiff clay, and permitted us just to catch a
glimpse of the still untarnished edges of the coffin in which all the
mortal part of one of the most delightful persons who ever lived was
contained, and on which the remains of her he had loved were henceforth
to rest. We felt, I believe, after a moment’s strange shuddering, that
the reunion was well accomplished; and although the true-hearted son
of Admiral Burney, who had known and loved the pair we quitted from
a child, refused to be comforted--even he will now join the scanty
remnant of their friends in the softened remembrance that “they were
lovely in their lives,” and own with them the consolation of adding, at
last, that “in death they are not divided.”

THOMAS NOON TALFOURD: ‘Final Memorials of Charles Lamb.’

MARIA EDGEWORTH.

1767-1849.

MARIA EDGEWORTH.

Maria Edgeworth--tiny and witty as Shakespeare’s Maria--was born on
the 1st of January, 1767, at the home of her mother’s parents, Black
Bourton, “between the towns of Farringdon, Berks, and Burford, Oxon.”
She was the daughter of Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Anna Maria Elers;
her father came of an English family which had settled in Ireland in
Queen Elizabeth’s time. Her mother died in 1773, when Maria was but
six years old; and in the same year Richard Edgeworth married Honora
Sneyd. Maria had passed her early years partly at Black Bourton and
partly at Hare Hatch, between Reading and Maidenhead, Berkshire, where
her parents lived. On Mr. Edgeworth’s second marriage she accompanied
him and his wife to Edgeworthstown, the Irish estate which had fallen
to him on the death of his father a few years before. In 1775 Maria
was sent to the boarding-school of a Mrs. Latiffiere, at Derby. In
1780 Mrs. Honora Edgeworth, the beautiful stepmother to whom the
affectionate child was much attached, died of consumption. About this
time Maria was taken from the Derby school and sent to finish her
education in London. Less than eight months after the death of his
second wife, the elastic-spirited Mr. Edgeworth married her sister
Elizabeth.

In 1781 Maria was threatened with the loss of her eyesight; this
misfortune was averted by care, after much suffering. In 1782 she left
school for Edgeworthstown, which was her home from this time until her
death. She occupied herself in study, writing, assisting her father in
the business of the estate, and teaching the younger children. (Her
father “had, in all, twenty-two children born to him; several died in
infancy.”)

In 1797 Mrs. Elizabeth Edgeworth died, and in the following year the
perennial Benedick was married to Frances Anne Beaufort. In 1802 Maria
went abroad with a family party, and while in Paris received an offer
of marriage from M. Edelcrantz, a Swede, which she refused.

In 1813 the Edgeworths visited London, where Maria made the
acquaintance of many of the well-known writers of the day. In 1817 Mr.
Edgeworth died. His loss was very deeply felt by his devoted eldest
daughter, and for a time she was unable to write without his wonted
encouragement.

Little remains to chronicle except Maria’s occasional visits to
England, and her stay at Abbotsford in 1823. In 1825 Sir Walter Scott
was her guest at Edgeworthstown. They travelled in company to the Lakes
of Killarney, and parted in Dublin.

Maria Edgeworth died, very suddenly and painlessly, on May 22, 1849.
She had driven out, in her usual health, a few hours before.

Miss Edgeworth’s devotion to her father was beautiful indeed, but
the complete subordination of her genius to his guidance is to be
regretted. We must, however, be too grateful for the brightness of this
genuine jewel to quarrel with its over-heavy setting.

The following are her works:

_Letters for Literary Ladies_, 1795.

_The Parents’ Assistant_, 1796.

_Practical Education_, 1798. This was the joint production of herself
and her father.

_Moral Tales._

_Castle Rackrent_, 1800.

_Belinda_, 1801.

_Essay on Irish Bulls_ (a joint work), 1802.

_Popular Tales_, 1803.

_The Modern Griselda_, 1804.

_Leonora_, 1806.

_Professional Education_ (a joint work), 1808.

_Tales of Fashionable Life_, 1809.

_The Absentee_, 1812.

_Patronage_, 1814.

_Comic Dramas_, 1817.

_Harrington_, about 1817.

_Ormond_, “”

_Thoughts on Bores_, about 1817.

_Memoir of R. L. Edgeworth_ (continuation of a Life begun by himself),
1820.

_Rosamond_, 1821. This was a sequel to her father’s ‘Early Lessons,’
and was followed by ‘Harry and Lucy.’

_Helen_, 1834.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Birth and family.]

She was born on the 1st of January, 1767, “a God-given New-Year’s gift”
(as, in a letter to Mrs. Hall, she calls herself), to her almost
boy-father: for, although she was his second-born, he was barely
twenty-two years old when she was placed in his arms. Ultimately she
was one of twenty-two children born to Richard Lovell Edgeworth by four
wives.

S. C. HALL: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’ New York: D. Appleton & Co.,
1883.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mischievous childhood.]

Maria, being very young, remembered little of this visit [to Ireland
in 1773, after her mother’s death and her father’s marriage to Honora
Sneyd], “except that she was a mischievous child, amusing herself once
at her Aunt Fox’s, when the company were unmindful of her, cutting out
the squares in a checked sofa-cover, and one day trampling through a
number of hot-bed frames that had just been glazed, laid on the grass
before the door at Edgeworthstown. She recollected her delight at the
crashing of the glass, but, immorally, did not remember either cutting
her feet, or how she was punished for this performance.”

GRACE A. OLIVER: ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’ Boston: A. Williams &
Co., 1882.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Maria at school.]

She was duly tortured on back-boards, pinioned in iron collars, made
to use dumb-bells, and some rather stringent measures were taken to
draw out her muscles and increase her stature. In vain; by nature she
was a small woman, and small she remained. She also learnt to dance
with grace in the days when dancing was something more dignified than
a tearing romp, but music she failed in utterly. She had no taste
for this art, and her music master, with a wisdom unhappily too rare,
advised her to abandon the attempt to learn. She had been so well
grounded in French and Italian, that when she came to do the exercises
set her, she found them so easy that she wrote out at once those
intended for the whole quarter, keeping them strung together in her
desk, and unstringing them as required. The spare time thus secured,
was employed in reading for her own pleasure. Her favorite seat during
play-time was under a cabinet, which stood in the school-room, and here
she often remained so absorbed in her book as to be deaf to all uproar.
This early habit of concentrated attention was to stand her in good
stead through life.

HELEN ZIMMERN: ‘Maria Edgeworth.’ (Famous Women Series.) Boston:
Roberts Bros., 1883.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: First stories.]

I beg that you will send me a little tale, about the length of a
‘Spectator,’ upon the subject of _Generosity;_ it must be taken from
history or romance, and must be sent the sennight after you receive
this; and I beg you will take some pains about it.

_Letter from Richard Lovell Edgeworth_ in 1780.... This was Maria’s
first story, and unfortunately it was not preserved. She used to say
“there was in it a sentence of inextricable confusion between a saddle,
a man, and his horse.”

She was remembered by her companions at both schools [Mrs.
Latiffiere’s, at Derby, and Mrs. Davis’s, Upper Wimpole Street,
London], for her entertaining stories; and she learned to know what
tale was most successful with her hearers, by the wakefulness it
caused. These stories were told at bed-time. Many of her narrations
were taken from her memory--she devoured books while her friends
played--but very many were original. The spirit of the _raconteur_ was
strong, and she had early the fertile brain of the true novelist.

[Sidenote: Her father’s influence.]

Mr. Edgeworth was essentially a utilitarian. He was a practical
illustration of Bentham’s theories. When he wrote the letter to his
daughter, by Mrs. Honora Edgeworth’s death-bed, the stress he lays upon
usefulness will easily be observed. [“Continue, my dear daughter, the
desire which you feel of becoming amiable, prudent, and of _use_.”] He
was a busy man himself, full of projects and plans. He impressed these
views on the developing mind of Maria. Mme. de Staël was reported long
after to have said Maria was “lost in sad utility”; and the question
naturally comes to the mind, when we see the irrepressible imagination
of the young girl, just what her life would have been without her
father’s peculiar influence.... He checked that superabundance of
sentiment which would have endangered her clearness of mind; he kept
her stimulated and encouraged to write, by his advice, criticism, and
approbation; but it is to be feared that he clipped the wings of fancy,
and harnessed Pegasus once again, as the rustics did in an ancient
myth. When she failed in her novels to inspire her characters with
romantic interest, it was because the paramount influence of her father
asserted itself. She was certainly gifted with genius of a high order;
but her nature was most affectionate, and long habits of respect and
devotion to her father made it absolutely impossible for her to free
herself from _his_ views. She was always the dutiful daughter--quite as
much so to the last as at the time he wrote her of his desire for the
tale on “Generosity.”

GRACE A. OLIVER: ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her filial gratitude.]

“Nobody can know what I owe to my father: he advised and directed me in
everything; I never could have done any thing without him. These are
things I cannot be mistaken about, though other people can--I _know_
them.” As she said this the tears stood in her eyes, and her whole
person was moved.

GEORGE TICKNOR: ‘Life, Letters and Journals.’ Boston: James R. Osgood &
Co., 1876.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Miss Mitford speaks her mind.]

I am perfectly well inclined to agree with you in laying the tiresome
parts of her work to her prosing father, who is, Mr. Moore tells me,
such a nuisance in society, that in Ireland the person who is doomed to
sit next him at dinner is condoled with, just as if he had met with an
overturn, or a fall from his horse, or any other deplorable casualty.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir Wm. Elford_, in L’Estrange’s ‘Life
of Mary Russell Mitford.’ London: Richard Bentley, 1870.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Maria impressed with Irish life.]

In 1782 Maria was taken from school, and accompanied her parents and
younger brothers and sisters to Edgeworthstown. Her first visit to
Ireland was made at an exceedingly early age. This was practically her
real introduction to the scenes of her future life, the home of her
fathers. She was at the age when one is apt to notice new objects and
people with keen interest; and her new mode of life among the Irish
quickened all her thoughts, and roused her eager and animated nature.
She was very much struck by the many and extraordinary sights she
saw--the remarkable difference between the Irish and English character.
The wit, the melancholy, and gayety of the Irish were all so new and
strange to the young girl, accustomed to the stolid and unvarying
manners of the English servants, and the reserve and silence of the
upper classes, that the penetrating genius and powers of observation
of the future novelist and delineator of Irish character were vividly
impressed with her new surroundings.

GRACE A. OLIVER: ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Business habits.]

Some men live with their families without letting them know their
affairs, and, however great may be their affection and esteem for their
wives and children, think that they have nothing to do with business.
This was not my father’s way of thinking. On the contrary, not only
his wife, but his children, knew all his affairs. Whatever business he
had to do was done in the midst of his family, usually in the common
sitting-room: so that we were intimately acquainted, not only with his
general principles of conduct, but with the minute details of their
every-day application. I further enjoyed some peculiar advantages:
he kindly wished to give me habits of business; and for this purpose
allowed me, during many years, to assist him in copying his letters of
business, and in receiving his rents.

MARIA EDGEWORTH: ‘Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth.’ Boston: Wells &
Lilly, 1821.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Maria accepts a young stepmother.]

I flatter myself that you will find me gratefully exact _en
belle-fille_.... You need not, my dear Miss Beaufort, fence yourself
round with stony palings in this family, where all have been early
accustomed to mind their boundaries. As for me, you see my intentions,
or at least my theories, are good enough. If my practice be but half
as good, you will be content, will you not? But theory was born in
Brobdignag, and practice in Lilliput. So much the better for me. [She
alludes to her small stature.]

MARIA EDGEWORTH: _Letter to Miss Beaufort_, quoted in ‘A Study of Maria
Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Maria in 1802.]

I had, on entering, no eyes for any one but her. I had persuaded myself
that the author of the work on education, and of other productions,
useful as well as ornamental, would betray herself by a remarkable
exterior. I was mistaken. A small figure, eyes nearly always lowered, a
profoundly modest and reserved air, little expression in the features
when not speaking: such was the result of my first survey. But when
she spoke, which was much too rarely for my taste, nothing could have
been better thought, and nothing better said, though always timidly
expressed, than that which fell from her mouth.

MARC AUGUSTE PICTET: ‘Voyage de Trois Mois en Angleterre,’ translated
by Grace A. Oliver in ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A little romance.]

Here, my dear aunt, I was interrupted in a manner that will surprise
you as much as it surprised me, by the coming in of M. Edelcrantz,
a Swedish gentleman, whom we have mentioned to you, of superior
understanding and mild manners: he came to offer me his hand and
heart! My heart, you may suppose, cannot return his attachment; for I
have seen but little of him, and have not had time to have formed any
judgment, except that I think nothing could tempt me to leave my own
dear friends and my own country to live in Sweden.

MARIA EDGEWORTH: _Letter to Mrs. Ruxton_, quoted in ‘A Study of Maria
Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

Maria was mistaken as to her own feelings. She refused M. Edelcrantz,
but she felt much more for him than esteem and admiration; she was
exceedingly in love with him. Mr. Edgeworth left her to decide for
herself; but she saw too plainly what it would be to us to lose her,
and what she would feel at parting from us.... She suffered much at the
time, and long afterwards.... ‘Leonora,’ which she began immediately
after our return home, was written with the hope of pleasing the
Chevalier Edelcrantz: it was written in a style he liked; and the idea
of what he would think of it was, I believe, present to her in every
page she wrote. She never heard that he had even read it.... I do not
think she ever repented of her refusal or regretted her decision: she
was well aware that she could not have made him happy, that she would
not have suited his position at the court of Stockholm, and that her
want of beauty might have diminished his attachment. It was better,
perhaps, that she should think so, as it calmed her mind; but, from
what I saw of M. Edelcrantz, I think he was a man capable of deeply
valuing her.... He never married. He was, except very fine eyes,
remarkably plain. Her father rallied Maria about her preference of
so ugly a man; but she liked the expression of his countenance, the
spirit and strength of his character, and his very able conversation.
The unexpected mention of his name, or even that of Sweden, in a book
or newspaper, always moved her so much that the words and lines in the
page became a mass of confusion before her eyes, and her voice lost all
power.

MRS. EDGEWORTH: ‘Memoir,’ quoted in ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mr. Edgeworth’s want of tact.]

The Edgeworths ... are staying in London, and the daughter gains the
good-will of every one; not so the father. They dined at Sotheby’s.
After dinner Mr. Edgeworth was sitting next Mrs. Siddons, Sam Rogers
being on the other side of her. “Madam,” said he, “I think I saw you
perform ‘Millamont’ thirty-five years ago.”--“Pardon me, sir.”--“Oh!
then it was forty years ago: I distinctly recollect it.”--“You will
excuse me, sir, I never played ‘Millamont.’”--“Oh, yes! madam, I
recollect.”--“I think,” she said, turning to Mr. Rogers, “it is time
for me to change my place;” and she rose with her own peculiar dignity.

HENRY CRABB ROBINSON: ‘Diary and Correspondence,’ edited by T. Sadler.
Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co., 1871.

* * * * *

In 1813 I recollect to have met them in the fashionable world of
London.... I thought Edgeworth a fine old fellow, of a clarety,
elderly, red complexion, but active, brisk, and endless. He was
seventy, but did not look fifty,--no, nor forty-eight even....
Edgeworth bounced about and talked loud and long; ... he seemed neither
weakly nor decrepit, and hardly old.

[Sidenote: Mr. Edgeworth.]

He began by telling “that he had given Dr. Parr a dressing, who had
taken him for an Irish bog-trotter,” etc. Now I, who know Dr. Parr, and
who know ... that it is not so easy a matter to dress him, thought Mr.
Edgeworth an asserter of what was not true. He could not have stood
before Parr an instant. For the rest, he seemed intelligent, vehement,
vivacious and full of life. He bids fair for a hundred years.

[Sidenote: “A merry jest.”]

He was not much admired in London; and I remember a “ryght merrie” and
conceited jest which was rife among the gallants of the day; viz., a
paper had been presented for _the recall of Mrs. Siddons to the stage_.
Whereupon Thomas Moore, of profane and poetical memory, did propose ...
a similar paper ... for the recall of Mr. Edgeworth to Ireland.

[Moore, in a foot-note, disclaims the authorship of the jest.]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Maria described.]

The fact was, everybody cared more about _her_. She was a nice, little,
unassuming “Jeanie Deans looking body,” as we Scotch say, and if not
handsome, certainly not ill-looking. Her conversation was as quiet as
herself. One would never have guessed that she could write _her name_;
whereas her father talked, _not_ as if he could write nothing else, but
as if nothing else was worth writing.

As for Mrs. Edgeworth, I forget, except that I think she was the
youngest of the party. Altogether, they were an excellent cage of the
kind, and succeeded for two months, till the landing of Mme. de Staël.

LORD BYRON: _Diary_, 1821, in ‘Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, with
Notices of His Life,’ edited by Thomas Moore. New York: Harper & Bros.,
1868.

* * * * *

Her face was pale and thin, her features irregular: they may have been
considered plain, even in youth; but her expression was so benevolent,
her manners were so perfectly well-bred, partaking of English dignity
and Irish frankness, that one never thought of her with reference
either to beauty or plainness. She ever occupied, without claiming,
attention, charming continually by her singularly pleasant voice;
while the earnestness and truth that beamed from her bright blue--very
blue--eyes increased the value of every word she uttered.... She was
ever neat and particular in her dress; her feet and hands were so
delicate and small as to be almost childlike.

MRS. S. C. HALL: ‘Book of Memories.’ London: Virtue & Co., 1871.

* * * * *

Her personal appearance was that of a woman plain of dress, sedate in
manners, and remarkably small of person. She told us an anecdote on
that head. Travelling in a mail-coach, there was a little boy, also
a passenger, who, wanting to take something from the seat, asked her
if she would be so kind as to stand up. “Why, I am standing up,” she
answered. The lad looked at her with astonishment, and then, realizing
the verity of her declaration, broke out with: “Well, you are the very
littlest lady I ever did see!”

S. C. HALL: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’

* * * * *

Miss Edgeworth’s personal appearance was not attractive; but her
vivacity, good humor, and cleverness in conversation quite equalled my
expectations. I should say she was more sprightly and brilliant than
refined. She excelled in the raciness of Irish humor, but the great
defect of her manner, as it seemed to me, was an excess of compliment,
or what in Ireland is called “blarney”; and in one who had moved in the
best circles, both as to manners and mind, it surprised me not a little.

MRS. FLETCHER: ‘Autobiography.’ Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1876.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Whippity Stourie.]

We saw, you will readily suppose, a great deal of Miss Edgeworth, and
two very nice girls, her younger sisters. It is scarcely possible
to say more of this very remarkable person than that she not only
completely answered, but exceeded, the expectations which I had formed.
I am particularly pleased with the _naïveté_ and good-humored ardor of
mind which she unites with such formidable powers of acute observation.
In external appearance she is quite the fairy of our nursery-tale,--the
Whippity Stourie, if you remember such a sprite, who came flying
through the window to work all sorts of marvels. I will never believe
but what she has a wand in her pocket, and pulls it out to conjure
a little before she begins to draw those very striking pictures of
manners.

SIR WALTER SCOTT: _Letter to Joanna Baillie_, 1823, in the former’s
‘Memoirs,’ by J. G. Lockhart. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1871.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Conversation.]

Miss Edgeworth was delightful, so clever and sensible. She does not say
witty things, but there is such a perfume of wit runs through all her
conversation as makes it very brilliant.

SIDNEY SMITH: Quoted in ‘Memoir,’ by his daughter, Lady Holland.
London: Longmans, Green & Co.

* * * * *

We could but liken her to the benevolent fairy from whose lips were
perpetually dropping diamonds; there was so much of kindly wisdom in
every sentence she uttered.

S. C. HALL: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’

* * * * *

In the evening Miss Edgeworth delightful--not from display, but from
repose and unaffectedness--the least pretending person of the company.

THOMAS MOORE: _Extract from Diary_, 1818.

* * * * *

Miss Edgeworth, with all her cleverness, is anything but agreeable.
The moment any one begins to speak, off she starts too, seldom more
than a sentence behind them, and in general continues to distance every
speaker. Neither does what she says, though of course very sensible,
at all make up for this over-activity of tongue.

THOMAS MOORE: _Extract from Diary_, 1831, in ‘Memoirs, Journal and
Correspondence,’ edited by Lord John Russell. London: Longman, Brown,
Green & Longmans, 1854.

* * * * *

In conversation we found her delightful. She was full of anecdotes
about remarkable people, and often spoke from her personal knowledge of
them. Her memory, too, was stored with valuable information; and her
manner of narrating was so animated that it was difficult to realize
her age. In telling an anecdote of Mirabeau, she stepped out before us,
and, extending her arms, spoke a sentence of his in the impassioned
manner of a French orator, and did it so admirably that it was quite
thrilling.

ELIZA FARRAR: ‘Recollections of Seventy Years.’ Boston: Ticknor &
Fields, 1866.

* * * * *

There was a life and spirit about her conversation, she threw herself
into it with such _abandon_, she retorted with such brilliant repartee,
and, in short, she talked with such extraordinary flow of natural
talent, that I don’t know whether anything of the kind could be finer.

GEORGE TICKNOR: ‘Life, Letters and Journals.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Activity.]

There was a charm in all she looked and said and did. Incessant and yet
genial activity was a marked feature of her nature. She seemed to be as
nearly ubiquitous as a human creature can be, and always busy; not only
as a teacher of her younger brothers and sisters (she was nearly fifty
years older than one of them), but as the director and controller of
the household.

S. C. HALL: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’

* * * * *

I have not the pen of our friend Miss Edgeworth, who writes all the
while she laughs, talks, eats and drinks, and I believe, though I do
not pretend to be so far in the secret, all the time she sleeps, too.
She has good luck in having a pen which walks at once so unweariedly
and so well.

SIR WALTER SCOTT: _Letter to Joanne Baillie_, in the former’s
‘Memoirs,’ by J. G. Lockhart.

* * * * *

What do you think is my employment out of doors, and what it has
been this week past? My garden? No such elegant thing: but making a
gutter, a sewer, and a pathway, in the street of Edgeworthstown; and I
do declare I am as much interested about it as I ever was in writing
anything in my life. We have never here yet found it necessary to have
recourse to public contributions for the poor; but it is necessary to
give some assistance to the laboring class, and I find that making the
said gutter and pathway will employ twenty men for three weeks.

MARIA EDGEWORTH: _Letter_, quoted in ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Edgeworth homestead in 1842.]

Edgeworthstown was, and is, a large country mansion, to which additions
have been from time to time made, but made judiciously. An avenue of
venerable trees leads to it from the public road. It is distant about
seven miles from the town of Longford. The only room I need specially
refer to is the library: it belonged more peculiarly to Maria,
although the general sitting-room of the family. It was the room in
which she did nearly all her work; not only that which was to gratify
and instruct the world, but that which, in a measure, regulated the
household. It is by no means a stately, solitary room, but large,
spacious, and lofty, well stored with books, and furnished with
suggestive engravings. Seen through the window is the lawn, embellished
by groups of trees. If you look at the oblong table in the centre, you
will see the rallying-point of the family, who are usually around it,
reading, writing, or working; while Miss Edgeworth, only anxious that
the inmates of the house shall each do exactly as he or she pleases,
sits in her own peculiar corner on the sofa: a pen given her by Sir
Walter Scott while a guest at Edgeworthstown (in 1825) is placed before
her on a little, quaint, unassuming table, constructed, and added to,
for convenience.

MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL: ‘Book of Memories.’

* * * * *

For a long time Miss Edgeworth used a little desk in this room, on
which, two years before her father’s death, he inscribed the following
words:

[Sidenote: Maria’s desk.]

“On this humble desk were written all the numerous works of my
daughter, Maria Edgeworth, in the common sitting-room of my family. In
these works, which were chiefly written to please me, she has never
attacked the personal character of any human being, or interfered
with the opinions of any sect or party, religious or political; while
endeavoring to inform and instruct others, she improved and amused her
own mind and gratified her heart, which I do believe, is better than
her head.

“R. L. E.”

After Mr. Edgeworth’s death she used a writing-desk which had belonged
to him; and it was placed on a table of his construction, to which she
added a bracket for her candlestick, and other little conveniences.

GRACE A. OLIVER: ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

The house and many of its arrangements--the bells, the doors,
etc.--bear witness to that love of mechanical trifling of which Mr.
Edgeworth was so often accused. It was only this morning that I
fully learnt how to open, shut, and lock our chamber-door; and the
dressing-glass, at which I have shaved for three mornings, is somewhat
of a mystery to me still.

GEORGE TICKNOR: ‘Life, Letters and Journals.’

* * * * *

When shown to our bedroom, we found such an extraordinary lock on the
door that we dared not shut it for fear of not being able to open it
again. We were shown other contrivances of the former owner, such as a
door in the entrance hall (through which the servants were continually
passing), the motion of which wound up a clock, the face being over
the sideboard, in the dining-room. Several doors in the house were
made double, in a way that I could not see the use of. Two doors were
fastened together at the hinge side, making a right angle with each
other, so that in opening one door you shut the other, and had to open
that before you could enter, and when that opened the one behind you
shut. Miss Edgeworth said it was for safety in times of danger. She
always mentioned her father with great respect, and even reverence, in
her manner; but nothing that I saw or heard there raised my opinion of
him.

ELIZA FARRAR: ‘Recollections of Seventy Years.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Power of abstraction.]

She had a singular power of abstraction; apparently hearing all that
was said, and occasionally taking part in the conversation, while
pursuing her own occupation, and seemingly attending only to it. Now
and then she would rise and leave the room, perhaps to procure a toy
for one of the children, to mount the ladder and bring down a book
that could explain or illustrate some topic on which some one was
conversing: immediately she would resume her pen, and continue to write
as if the thought had been unbroken for an instant.

MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL: ‘Book of Memories.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Daily life.]

It was her custom to get up at seven, take a cup of coffee, read her
letters, and then walk out about three quarters of an hour before
breakfast. So punctual and regular was she that for many years a lady
residing in the village used to be roused by her maid with the words,
“Miss Edgeworth’s walking, ma’am; it’s eight o’clock.” She generally
returned with her hands full of roses or other flowers that she had
gathered, and taking her needle-work or knitting, would sit down at the
family breakfast, a meal that was a special favorite of hers, though
she rarely partook of anything. But while the others were eating she
delighted to read out to them such extracts from the letters she had
received as she thought would please them. She listened, too, while
the newspaper was read aloud, although its literary and scientific
contents always attracted her more than its political; for in politics,
except Irish, she took little interest.

HELEN ZIMMERN: ‘Maria Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

After breakfast she sat down to write, and worked till luncheon-time;
and after that meal occupied herself with some needle-work, as
experience taught her that writing immediately after eating was bad for
her. At times her anxiety about a certain piece of work, an interesting
dialogue, or some half-finished character or scene, made her very
unwilling to defer her writing; but this was her rule. A drive in the
afternoon, in later years, was a pleasant relaxation: in early life she
rode with her father, but natural timidity about horses made her a poor
horsewoman. The rest of the day was passed much as other ladies pass
their time. She dined, took tea with the family, and passed the evening
in conversation, or listening to reading.... Maria was always busy with
a little piece of work with which she occupied herself during hours of
leisure from writing, or while she listened to reading aloud. These
busy fingers wrought many a piece of embroidery or fine needle-work,
while the brain wove the web of fancies bright or serious; many a scene
of lively dialogue, clever character-painting, or pathetic description,
passed into the clear words in which it later appeared on the pages of
tale or novel, while the hand was rapidly moving in some womanly bit of
needle-work.

GRACE A. OLIVER: ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’ * * * * *

[Sidenote: Miss Edgeworth in 1821.]

At last we approached the house. It is spacious, with an ample veranda
and conservatory covering part of its front quite beautifully, and
situated in a fine lawn of the richest green, interspersed with clumps
of venerable oaks and beeches. As we drove to the door, Miss Edgeworth
came out to meet us,--a small, short, spare lady of about sixty-seven,
with extremely frank and kind manners, and who always looks straight
into your face with a pair of mild, deep gray eyes, whenever she speaks
to you.

GEORGE TICKNOR: ‘Life, Letters, and Journals.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Never sat for her portrait.]

Miss Edgeworth ... carried herself very upright, with a dapper figure
and quick movements. She was the remains of a blonde, with light eyes
and hair; she was now gray, but wore a dark frisette, whilst the gray
hair showed through her cap behind. She was so plain that she was never
willing to sit for her portrait, and that is the reason why the public
has never been made acquainted with her personal appearance.

ELIZA FARRAR: ‘Recollections of Seventy Years.’

* * * * *

Her person is small and delicately proportioned, and her movements full
of animation. She has an aversion to having her likeness taken, which
no entreaties of her friends have been able to overcome. In one of her
notes she says, “I have always refused even my own family to sit for
my portrait, and with my own good-will, shall never have it painted;
as I do not think it would give either my friends or the public any
representation or expression of my mind, such as I trust may be more
truly found in my writings.”

MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY: ‘Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.’ Boston:
James Munroe & Co., 1844.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A good churchwoman.]

We went to church with the family, who all seemed Episcopalians in
principle and practice. Miss Edgeworth carried her favorite prayer-book
in a nice case, and knelt and made all the responses very devoutly.
The church is small, but neat; and their pew is the place of honor
in it, with a canopy and recess as large as any two other pews....
The Edgeworths have always been on the most kindly terms with their
Catholic neighbors and tenantry.

GEORGE TICKNOR: ‘Life, Letters and Journals.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A masculine understanding and no enthusiasm.]

I attended with much interest to the conversation of this remarkable
woman. She was little and possessed of no personal attractions; it
was evident that the usual feminine objects had never interfered
with her masculine understanding. Her conversation was chiefly
remarkable for its acuteness, good sense and practical sagacity. She
had little imagination and scarcely any enthusiasm. Solid sense,
practical acquirement--the qualities which will lead to success in the
world--were her great endowments, and they appeared at every turn in
her conversation, as they do in her writings. This disposition of mind
kept her free from the usual littlenesses of authors and raised her far
above the ordinary vanity of woman. She was simple and unaffected in
her manners, entirely free from conceit or effort in her conversation,
and kindly and benevolent in her judgment of others, as well as in her
views of life and in her intercourse with all around her. But she had
neither a profound knowledge of human nature nor the elevated mental
qualities which give a lasting ascendency over mankind.

SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON: ‘Some Account of My Life and Writings: an
Autobiography.’ Wm. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh and London, 1883.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Full of enthusiasm.]

She is full of fun and spirit; very good-humored, full of enthusiasm.

SIR WALTER SCOTT: _Letter to D. Terry_, in the former’s ‘Memoirs,’ by
J. G. Lockhart.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Warm-hearted and clever.]

Maria Edgeworth came frequently to see us when she was in England. She
was one of my most intimate friends, warm-hearted and kind, a charming
companion, with all the liveliness and originality of an Irishwoman.
The cleverness and animation, as well as affection, of her letters, I
cannot express.

MARY SOMERVILLE: ‘Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age.’
Boston: Roberts Bros., 1874.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Attitude toward authorship.]

Miss Edgeworth never needed to follow authorship as a profession; its
pecuniary results were of no moment to her, and hence she was spared
all the bitterness and incidental anxieties of an author’s life, the
working when the brain should rest, the imperative need to go on,
no matter whether there be aught to say or not. Her path, in this
respect, as in all others, traversed the high roads of life. Fame at
once succeeded effort; the heart-sickness of hope deferred was never
hers; she was therefore neither soured nor embittered by feeling within
herself powers which the world was unwilling or slow to acknowledge.

HELEN ZIMMERN: ‘Maria Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Method of working with her father.]

Whenever I thought of writing anything I always told my father my
first rough plans; and always, with the instinct of a good critic, he
used to fix immediately upon that which would best answer the purpose.
“Sketch that, and show it to me.” The words, from the experience of
his sagacity, never failed to inspire me with hope of success. It was
then sketched. Sometimes, when I was fond of a particular part, I used
to dilate on it in the sketch, but to this he always objected. “I
don’t want any of your painting--none of your drapery! I can imagine
all that. Let me see the bare skeleton!” It seemed to me sometimes
impossible that he could understand the very light sketch I made;
when, before I was conscious that I had expressed this doubt in my
countenance, he always saw it. “Now, my dear little daughter, I know,
does not believe that I understand her.” Then he would in his own words
fill up my sketch, paint the description, or represent the character
intended, with such life, that I was quite convinced he not only seized
the ideas, but that he saw with the prophetic eye of taste, the utmost
that could be made of them.

HELEN ZIMMERN: ‘Maria Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

‘Helen,’ written long after his death, would serve to reveal something
of the effect which Mr. Edgeworth had on his daughter’s writing. It
shows a lighter hand, a greater ease in handling dialogue, and a more
natural inconsistency in its characters, than she was allowed by her
father.... The hand of Miss Edgeworth had not lost its cunning, but
her natural timidity was so great that she could not work after her
life-long support was removed. She had accustomed herself to lean upon
what she considered her father’s superior knowledge of the world and
literary judgment, until she was unfitted for independent literary work
for a time.

GRACE A. OLIVER: ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Reads ‘A simple Story.’]

[Sidenote: Opinion of her own work.]

I have been reading, for the fourth time I believe, ‘The Simple Story,’
which I intended this time to read as a critic, that I might write to
Mrs. Inchbald about it; but I was so carried away by it that I ...
cried my eyes almost out before I came to the end.... I was obliged
to go from it to correct ‘Belinda’ for Mrs. Barbauld, who is going to
insert it in her collection of novels, with a preface; and I really was
so provoked with the cold tameness of that stick or stone, ‘Belinda,’
that I could have torn the pages to pieces. And, really, I have not the
heart or the patience to _correct_ her. As the hackney coachman said,
“Mend _you_! better make a new one.”

MARIA EDGEWORTH: _Letter_, quoted in ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Origin of ‘Harrington’ and ‘Ormond.’]

In 1816 Maria received a letter from an American Jewess, a Miss Rachel
Mordecai of Virginia, gently reproaching her with having made Jews
ridiculous and odious in her novels and tales, and begging her to give
the world a picture of a good Jew. This was the origin of the story of
‘Harrington.’... Mr. Edgeworth had expressed a wish to Maria that she
should write a story as a companion to ‘Harrington’; and with all the
anguish of heart which oppressed her natural spirits, at the sight of
her father suffering such pain, and daily growing weaker, she made a
strong effort to amuse him. By a wonderful exertion of love and genius,
she produced the gay and spirited pages of ‘Ormond’; among which may
be found some of her most vivacious scenes, her inimitable characters.
Wit, humor, and pathos made the story a bright entertainment for the
sufferer; who could not have realized in a line of its pages the aching
heart which dictated it. The book was read chapter by chapter in her
father’s room.

GRACE A. OLIVER: ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Literary theories.]

I had often and often a suspicion that my manner was too Dutch, too
minute.... I _know_ I feel how much _more is to be done, ought to
be done_, by suggestion than by delineation, by creative fancy than
by _fac simile_ copying; how much more by skilful selection and
fresh, consistent combination, than can be effected by the most acute
observation of individuals, or diligent accumulation of particulars.

There are little touches of _inconsistency_, which mark reality; for
human nature is really inconsistent. And there are _exceptions_, as
in grammar rules.... The value of odd characters depends upon their
being actually known to be true. In history, extraordinary characters
always interest us with all their inconsistencies, feeling we thus add
to our actual knowledge of human nature. In fiction, we have not this
conviction, and therefore not this sort or source of pleasure, even if
ever so well done.

Few readers do, or can, put themselves in the places of great
criminals, or fear to yield to such and such temptations. They know
that they cannot fall to the depth of evil at once, and they have no
sympathy, no fear: their spirits are not “put in the act of falling.”
But show them the steep path, the little declivity at first, the step
by step downwards; and they tremble. Show them the postern-gate, or
little breaches in their citadel of virtue; and they fly to guard
these. In short, show to them their own little faults which may lead
on to the greatest, and they shudder; that is, if this be done with
truth, and brought home to their consciousness. This is all which, by
reflection on my own mind, and comparison with others and with records
in books, ... I feel or fancy I have sometimes done or can do.

[Sidenote: “No commonplace book.”]

I have no “vast magazine of a commonplace book.” In my whole life,
since I began to write--which is now, I am concerned to state, upwards
of forty years--I have had only about half a dozen little note-books,
strangely and irregularly kept, sometimes with only words of reference
to some book or fact I could not bring accurately to mind. At first
I was much urged by my father to note down remarkable traits of
character, or incidents, which he thought might be introduced in
stories. But I was averse to noting down, because I was conscious that
it did better for me to keep the things in my head if they suited my
purpose; and if they did not, they would only encumber me. I knew
that when I wrote down, I put the thing out of my care, out of my
head; and that, though it might be put by very safe, I should not
know where to look for it; that the labor of looking over a note-book
would never do when I was in the warmth and pleasure of inventing.
In short, the process of combination, generalization, invention, was
carried on always in my head best.... I never could use notes in
writing dialogues. It would have been as impossible to me to get in
the prepared good things at the right moment, in the warmth of writing
conversation, as it would be to lay them in in real conversation;
perhaps more so, for I could not write dialogues at all without being
at the time fully impressed with the characters, imagining myself each
speaker; and that too fully engrossed the imagination to leave time for
consulting note-books: the whole fairy vision would melt away.

[Sidenote: “Castle Rackrent” not corrected or copied.]

A curious fact, that where I least aimed at drawing characters, I
succeeded best. As far as I have heard, the characters in ‘Castle
Rackrent’ were in their day considered as better classes of Irish
characters than any I ever drew; they cost me no trouble, and were made
by no _receipt_, or thought of “philosophical classification”; there
was literally not a correction, not an alteration, made in the first
writing, no copy, and, as I recollect, no interlineation; it went
to the press just as it was written. Other stories I have corrected
with the greatest care, and re-modelled and re-written.... In every
story (except ‘Rackrent’) which I ever wrote, I have always drawn out
a sketch, a frame-work. All these are in existence; and I have lately
compared many of the printed stories with them, some strangely altered,
by the way.

MARIA EDGEWORTH: _Letter to Mrs. Stark_, quoted in ‘A Study of Maria
Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Detestation of fine writing.]

You excel, I think, peculiarly in avoiding what is commonly called
_fine-writing_,--a sort of writing which I detest; which calls the
attention away from the _thing_ to the _manner_, from the feeling
to the language; which sacrifices every thing to the sound, to the
mere rounding of a period; which mistakes _stage effect_ for nature.
All who are at all used to writing know and detect the _trick of the
trade_ immediately; and, speaking for myself, I _know_ that the writing
which has least the appearance of literary _manufacture_, almost
always pleases me the best. It has more originality; in narration
of fictitious events, it most surely succeeds in giving the idea of
reality, and in making the biographer, for the time, pass for nothing.
But there are few who can, in this manner, bear the _mortification_
of staying behind the scenes. They peep out eager for appearance, and
destroy the illusion by crying, _I_ said it, _I_ wrote it, _I_ invented
it all! Call me on the stage and crown me directly!

MARIA EDGEWORTH: _Letter to Mrs. Inchbald_, quoted in ‘A Study of Maria
Edgeworth.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Effect of the ‘Moral Tales.’]

Miss Edgeworth has done more good both to the higher and lower world
than any writer since the days of Addison. She shoots at “folly as
it flies,” with the strong bolt of ridicule, and seldom misses her
aim. Much as I admire the polished satire and nice discrimination of
character in the ‘Tales of Fashionable Life,’ I prefer the homely
pathos and plain morality of her ‘Popular Tales.’ The story of Rosanna
is particularly delightful to me; and that of ‘To-morrow,’ made so deep
an impression on my mind, that, if it were possible for any earthly
power to reform a procrastinator, I really think that tale would have
cured me of my evil habits.... I delight in her works for the same
reason that you admire them--her exquisite distinction of character;
whereas I am convinced that at least nine-tenths of her readers are
caught solely by the humor of her dialogue and the liveliness of her
illustrations.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir William Elford_, in the former’s
‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Too didactic.]

Miss Edgeworth is somewhat too avowedly didactic: that seems to be
true of her, which the French critics, in the extravagance of their
conceits, attributed to Homer and Virgil, viz:--that they first thought
of a moral, and then framed a fable to illustrate it; she would,
we think, instruct more successfully, and she would, we are sure,
please more frequently, if she kept the design of teaching more out
of sight, and did not so glaringly press every circumstance of her
story, principal or subordinate, into the service of a principle to be
inculcated, or information to be given.... Miss Edgeworth’s novels put
us in mind of those clocks and watches which are condemned “a double
or a treble debt to pay”; which, besides their legitimate object, to
show the hour, tell you the day of the month or the week, give you a
landscape for a dial-plate, with the second-hand forming the sails of a
wind-mill, or have a barrel to play a tune, or an alarum to remind you
of an engagement: all very good things in their way; but so it is that
these watches never tell the time so well as those in which that is the
exclusive object of the maker. Every additional movement is an obstacle
to the original design.

SIR WALTER SCOTT: ‘Miss Austen’s Novels,’ _London Quarterly Review_,
January, 1821. ‘Scott’s Miscellanies,’ _vol. i_. Philadelphia: Carey &
Hart, 1841.

JANE AUSTEN.

1775-1817.

JANE AUSTEN.

Jane Austen may be said to have had the happiness of being without
a history. No other English woman of letters ever lived a life so
entirely uneventful. Its monotony was unbroken by travel, or by
acquaintance or even correspondence with other writers. Its placid flow
was never interrupted by love, or there is at least no surface-ripple
to tell us of the fact. We learn from the memoir by her nephew, the
Rev. J. E. Austen-Leigh, that she was the daughter of a Hampshire
clergyman; she had one sister, very dear to her, and several brothers,
one of whom rose to the rank of admiral in the navy. Jane was born on
the 16th of December, 1775. In the years 1796 and ’97, before she was
twenty-three years old, she wrote the novel _Pride and Prejudice_; in
1797 and ’98, _Sense and Sensibility_, and _Northanger Abbey_. These
works, however, waited fifteen years for a publisher; and Jane, who
wrote merely for her own amusement, seems to have possessed her soul
in patience. In 1801 the family removed to Bath; in 1805 the Rev.
George Austen died, and they again removed to Southampton. In 1809 they
settled at Chawton, Hampshire; and in 1811 Jane was at length enabled
to publish _Sense and Sensibility_. It was followed in 1813 by _Pride
and Prejudice_. _Mansfield Park_ appeared in 1814, and _Emma_ in 1816.

Jane Austen died on the 18th of July, 1817. After her death her early
novel _Northanger Abbey_, and _Persuasion_, a mature work which has the
same mellower quality as _Emma_, together with a pathos peculiarly its
own, were published.

From the testimony of her nephew and the internal evidence of her
books, we may conclude Jane Austen to have been a decorous English
gentlewoman, conservative in temper, essentially feminine; a silent,
humorous observer of the most minute details; an affectionate daughter
and sister and a delightful aunt; at home “a still, sweet, placid
moonlight face, and slightly nonchalant”--abroad, perhaps a trifle
chilling. We may eke out the meagre record of her life with many
praises, drawn from widely-differing sources. If some of these appear
to us extravagant, and we are driven by reaction to complain of a
certain superficiality in Miss Austen’s writings, we should be disarmed
by the recollection that she is never pretentious. No better example
exists of a talent kept within its proper limitations. It has been well
said, that her enclosed spot of English ground is indeed little, but
never was verdure brighter or more velvety than its trim grass.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Home at Steventon.]

As the first twenty-five years, more than half of the brief life of
Jane Austen, were spent in the parsonage of Steventon, some description
of that place ought to be given. Steventon is a small rural village
upon the chalk hills of North Hants, situated in a winding valley
about seven miles from Basingstoke.... Of this somewhat tame country,
Steventon, from the fall of the ground and the abundance of its
timber, is certainly one of the prettiest spots. The house itself stood
in a shallow valley, surrounded by sloping meadows, well-sprinkled
with elm trees, at the end of a small village of cottages, each well
provided with a garden, scattered about prettily on either side of
the road.... North of the house, the road from Deane to Popham Lane
ran at a sufficient distance from the front to allow a carriage-drive
through turf and trees. On the south side the ground rose gently, and
was occupied by one of those old-fashioned gardens in which vegetables
and flowers are combined, flanked and protected on the east by one of
the thatched mud walls common in that country, and overshadowed by fine
elms. Along the upper or southern side of this garden, ran a terrace
of the finest turf, which must have been in the writer’s thoughts when
she described Catharine Morland’s childish delight in “rolling down the
green slope at the back of the house.”

REV. J. E. AUSTEN-LEIGH: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’ London: Richard
Bentley, 1870.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Appearance in girlhood.]

When I knew Jane Austen, I never suspected that she was an authoress;
but my eyes told me she was fair and handsome, slight and elegant, but
with cheeks a little too full. The last time I think that I saw her was
at Ramsgate in 1803: perhaps she was then about twenty-seven years old.
Even then I did not know that she was addicted to literary composition.

SIR EGERTON BRYDGES: ‘Autobiography, Times, Opinions and
Contemporaries.’ London: Cochrane & M’Crane, 1834.

[Sidenote: In later years.]

[Sidenote: Attachment to her sister Cassandra.]

In person she was very attractive; her figure was rather tall and
slender, her step light and firm, and her whole appearance expressive
of health and animation. In complexion she was a clear brunette, with
a rich color; she had full round cheeks, with mouth and nose small and
well-formed, bright hazel eyes, and brown hair forming natural curls
close round her face. If not so regularly handsome as her sister, yet
her countenance had a peculiar charm of its own to the eyes of most
beholders. At the time of which I am now writing [1809] she never
was seen, either morning or evening, without a cap; I believe that
she and her sister were generally thought to have taken to the garb
of middle-age earlier than their years or their looks required; and
that, though remarkably neat in their dress as in all their ways,
they were scarcely sufficiently regardful of the fashionable, or the
becoming. Dearest of all to the heart of Jane was her sister Cassandra,
about three years her senior. Their sisterly affection for each other
could scarcely be exceeded. Perhaps it began on Jane’s side with
the feeling of deference natural to a loving child towards a kind
elder sister. Something of this feeling always remained; and even in
the maturity of her powers and the enjoyment of increasing success,
she would still speak of Cassandra as of one wiser and better than
herself. In childhood, when the elder was sent to the school of a Mrs.
Latournelle, in the Torbury at Reading, the younger went with her not
because she was thought old enough to profit much by the instruction
there imparted, but because she would have been miserable without her
sister; her mother observing that “if Cassandra were going to have her
head cut off, Jane would insist on sharing her fate.” This attachment
was never interrupted or weakened. They lived in the same home and
shared the same bedroom, till separated by death. They were not exactly
alike. Cassandra’s was the colder and calmer disposition; she was
always prudent and well judging, but with less demonstration of feeling
and less sunniness of temper than Jane possessed. It was remarked in
her family that “Cassandra had the _merit_ of having her temper always
under command, but that Jane had the _happiness_ of a temper that never
required to be commanded.”

REV. J. E. AUSTEN-LEIGH: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Its influence on her art.]

The bond of sisterhood, more than any other relation, seems to have
influenced Jane Austen in her art. With her own closest life-long
friend in her sister Cassandra, the author who so rarely repeats
herself in the circumscribed sphere in which she chose to work, again
and again draws a pair of sisters, for the most part sharing every joy
and sorrow. In two or three cases--those of the Bennets, the Dashwoods,
Mrs. John Knightley and Emma Woodhouse, we have the contrast between
the milder and more serene elder, and the livelier, more impulsive
younger sister, which caused their contemporaries to say that Jane and
Elizabeth Bennet stood for Cassandra and Jane Austen. But the author’s
nephew pronounced against this conjecture. It is said, indeed, that in
gentleness of disposition and tenderness of heart, Jane Austen bore
more resemblance to Jane than to Elizabeth Bennet.

SARAH TYTLER: ‘Jane Austen and Her Works.’ Cassell & Company.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: An uncomplimentary account of Jane.]

A friend of mine, who visits her now, says that she has stiffened into
the most perpendicular, precise, taciturn piece of “single blessedness”
that ever existed, and that, till ‘Pride and Prejudice’ showed what
a precious gem was hidden in that unbending case, she was no more
regarded in society than a poker or a fire-screen, or any other thin
upright piece of wood or iron that fills its corner in peace and
quietness. The case is very different now; she is still a poker, but
a poker of whom every one is afraid. It must be confessed that this
silent observation from such an observer is rather formidable.... After
all, I do not know that I can quite vouch for this account, though
the friend from whom I received it is truth itself; but her family
connections must render her disagreeable to Miss Austen, since she is
the sister-in-law of a gentleman who is at law with Miss A.’s brother
for the greater part of his fortune.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir Wm. Elford_, 1815, in the former’s
‘Life,’ by Rev. A. G. L’Estrange. London: Richard Bentley, 1870.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Possible unpopularity.]

It was the conviction of the Austen family that Jane’s occupation as a
novel writer continued long unsuspected by her ordinary acquaintances
and neighbors. That may have been, but we cannot imagine that her
close study of the characters around her, with her shrewd, humorous
conclusions--so extraordinary at the age at which she began to make
them--could have been either quite unperceived or wholly approved of
by her associates.... Jane Austen was the clear-sighted girl with
the sharp pen, if not the sharp tongue, who found in the Steventon
visiting-list materials for the _dramatis personæ_ of ‘Pride and
Prejudice.’ It would have been little short of a miracle, if she
could have conducted herself with such meekness, in her remote
rural world, or during the visits she paid to the great English
watering-place--while she was all the time laughing in her sleeve--so
as not to provoke any suspicion of her satire, or any resentment at
what might easily be held her presumption.... I have it on excellent
authority that, however thoroughly she was able to sympathize with the
witty repartees of two of her favorite heroines, in general company
she herself was shy and silent; even in more familiar circles she was
innocent of speaking sharp words, and was rather distinguished for
her tolerant indulgence to her fellow-creatures than for her hard
judgments on them. The tolerance belonged, by right, to her breadth of
comprehension, and to the humor which still more than wit characterized
her genius. The suggestion I make is that, seeing her neighbor’s
foibles, as she certainly did see them, she could not, however
generously she might use her superior knowledge, conceal it altogether
from her neighbors, and this was less likely to be the case when she
was a young girl with some share, presumably, of the thoughtlessness
and rashness of other girls, than when she was a mature woman, with
the wisdom and gentleness of experience.

SARAH TYTLER: ‘Jane Austen and her Works.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Home at Chawton.]

Chawton may be called the second, as well as the last home of Jane
Austen; for during the temporary residences of the party at Bath and
Southampton she was only a sojourner in a strange land; but here she
found a real home among her own people. It so happened that during her
residence at Chawton circumstances brought several of her brothers and
their families within easy distance of the house. Chawton must also
be considered the place most closely connected with her career as a
writer; for this is the place where, in the maturity of her mind, she
either wrote or re-arranged, and prepared for publication the books by
which she has become known to the world. This was the home where, after
a few years, while still in the prime of life, she began to droop and
wither away, and which she left only in the last stage of her illness,
yielding to the persuasion of friends hoping against hope. This house
stood in the village of Chawton, about a mile from Alton, on the right
hand side, just where the road to Winchester branches off from that to
Gosport. It was so close to the road that the front door opened at once
upon it; but behind it there was ample space for a garden and shrubbery
walks.

REV. J. E. AUSTEN-LEIGH: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Anecdote illustrating her pride.]

[Sidenote: Self centred character.]

There is an anecdote of Jane Austen which coincides with her character,
and has been widely circulated, though it is not mentioned by Mr.
Austen Leigh. If it had a foundation in fact, it must have occurred
either during this visit to London [1815], or in the course of
that paid not long before. It is said that Miss Austen received an
invitation to a rout given by an aristocratic couple with whom she was
not previously acquainted. The reason assigned for the invitation was
that the author of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ might be introduced to the
author of ‘Corinne.’ Tradition has it that the English novelist refused
the invitation, saying that to no house where she was not asked as
Jane Austen would she go as the author of ‘Pride and Prejudice.’ This
anecdote is often quoted with marks of admiration for the author’s
independence. But even the most honest and honorable independence
has its becoming limits. That of Jane Austen, ultra self-sufficing,
fastidious, tinged with haughtiness, is just a trifle repellent out
of that small circle in which she was always at home. Whether or not
Mme. de Staël was consulted about the proposed meeting, she was not an
admirer of her sister author. The somewhat grandiloquent Frenchwoman
characterized the productions of that English genius--which were the
essence of common-sense--as “_vulgaires_,” precisely what they were
not.... Apparently, Jane Austen was not one whit more accessible to
English women of letters. There were many of deserved repute in or
near London, at the dates of these later visits. Not to speak of
Mrs. Inchbald, whom her correspondent, warm-hearted Maria Edgeworth,
rejoiced to come to England and meet personally, there were the two
Porters, Joanna Baillie--at the representation of whose fine play,
‘The Family Legend,’ Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron had lately
“assisted”--and the veteran writer, Mme. D’Arblay, whose creations were
the object of Jane Austen’s early and late admiration. But we do not
hear of a single overture towards acquaintance between Miss Austen and
these ladies, though her works must have left as lively an impression
on some of their minds as theirs have done on hers. Men of letters were
no better known to her.

SARAH TYTLER: ‘Jane Austen and her Works.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Fondness for children.]

I cannot better describe the fascination which she exercised over
children than by quoting the words of two of her nieces. One says: “As
a very little girl I was always creeping up to Aunt Jane, and following
her whenever I could, in the house and out of it. I might not have
remembered this but for the recollection of my mother’s telling me
privately, that I must not be troublesome to my aunt. Her first charm
to children was great sweetness of manner. She seemed to love you, and
you loved her in return. This, as well as I can now recollect, was what
I felt in my early days, before I was old enough to be amused by her
cleverness. But soon came the delight of her playful talk. She could
make everything amusing to a child. Then, as I got older, when cousins
came to share the entertainment, she would tell us the most delightful
stories, chiefly of Fairyland, and her fairies had all characters of
their own. The tale was invented, I am sure, at the moment, and was
continued for two or three days, if occasion served.” Very similar is
the testimony of another niece.

REV. J. E. AUSTEN-LEIGH: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Slight narrowness.]

In her family and among her old friends Jane Austen was unsurpassed as
a tender sick-nurse, an untiring confidante, and a wise counsellor....
During her whole life she remained to a great extent engrossed by the
interests of her family and their limited circle of old and intimate
friends. This was as it should be--so far, but there may be too much of
a good thing. The tendency of restricted family parties and sets--when
their members are above small bickerings and squabblings--when they are
really superior people in every sense, is to form ‘mutual admiration’
societies, and neither does this more respectable and amiable weakness
act beneficially upon its victims.... Fondly loved and remembered as
Jane Austen has been, with much reason among her own people, in their
considerable ramifications, I cannot imagine her as greatly liked, or
even regarded with anything save some amount of prejudice, out of the
immediate circle of her friends, and in general society.... What I mean
is, that she allowed her interests and sympathies to become narrow,
even for her day, and that her tender charity not only began, but
ended, in a large measure, at home.

SARAH TYTLER: ‘Jane Austen and Her Works.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her letters.]

The style is always clear, and generally animated, while a vein of
humor continually gleams through the whole; but the materials may be
thought inferior to the execution, for they treat only of the details
of domestic life. There is in them no notice of politics or public
events; scarcely any discussions on literature, or other subjects of
general interest. They may be said to resemble the nest which some
little bird builds of the materials nearest at hand, of the twigs
and mosses supplied by the tree in which it is placed; curiously
constructed out of the simplest matters.... Her letters scarcely ever
have the date of the year, and are never signed with her Christian name
at full length.

Happy would the compositors for the press be if they had always so
legible a manuscript to work from. But the writing was not the only
part of her letters which showed superior handiwork. In those days
there was an art in folding and sealing. No adhesive envelopes made all
easy. Some people’s letters always looked loose and untidy; but her
paper was sure to take the right folds, and her sealing-wax to drop
into the right place.

[Sidenote: A steady hand.]

Jane Austen was successful in everything that she attempted with her
fingers. None of us could throw spilikins in so perfect a circle, or
take them off with so steady a hand. Her performances with cup and
ball were marvellous. The one used at Chawton was an easy one, and she
has been known to catch it on the point above an hundredth time in
succession, till her hand was weary. She sometimes found a resource in
this simple game, when unable, from weakness in her eyes, to read or
write long together.... Her needlework, both plain and ornamental, was
excellent, and might almost have put a sewing machine to shame. She
was considered especially great in satin-stitch. She spent much time
in these occupations, and some of her merriest talk was over clothes
which she and her companions were making, sometimes for themselves and
sometimes for the poor. There still remains a curious specimen of her
needlework made for a sister-in-law, my mother. In a very small bag is
deposited a little rolled-up housewife, furnished with minikin needles
and fine thread. In the housewife is a tiny pocket, and in the pocket
is enclosed a slip of paper, on which, written as with a crow quill,
are these lines:

[Sidenote: Her needlework.]

“This little bag, I hope, will prove
To be not vainly made,
For should you thread and needles want
It will afford you aid.

“And as we are about to part,
’Twill serve another end:
For, when you look upon this bag,
You’ll recollect your friend.”

It is the kind of article that some benevolent fairy might be supposed
to give as a reward to a diligent little girl. The whole is of flowered
silk, and having been never used and carefully preserved, it is as
fresh and bright as when it was first made seventy years ago, and shows
that the same hand which painted so exquisitely with the pen could work
as delicately with the needle.

[Sidenote: Her accomplishments.]

Jane was fond of music, and had a sweet voice, both in singing and
in conversation; in her youth she had received some instruction on
the piano-forte; and at Chawton she practised daily, chiefly before
breakfast. I believe she did so partly that she might not disturb the
rest of the party who were less fond of music. In the evening she would
sometimes sing, to her own accompaniment, some simple old songs, the
words and airs of which, now never heard, still linger in my memory.

She read French with facility, and knew something in Italian.... In
history she followed the old guides--Goldsmith, Hume and Robertson.
Critical enquiry into the usually received statements of the old
historians was scarcely begun.... Jane, when a girl, had strong
political opinions, especially about the affairs of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. She was a vehement defender of Charles I. and
his grandmother Mary; but I think it was rather from an impulse of
feeling than from any enquiry into the evidence by which they must
be condemned or acquitted. As she grew up, the politics of the day
occupied very little of her attention, but she probably shared the
feeling of moderate Toryism which prevailed in her family.

REV. J. E. AUSTEN-LEIGH: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A modest opinion.]

I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most
unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress.

JANE AUSTEN: _Letter to Mr. J. S. Clarke_, quoted in ‘Memoir,’ by
Austen-Leigh.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Taste in reading.]

She was well acquainted with the old periodicals, from the ‘Spectator’
downward. Her knowledge of Richardson’s works was such as no one is
likely again to acquire, now that the multitude and the merits of our
light literature have called off the attention of readers from that
great master. Every circumstance narrated in Sir Charles Grandison, all
that ever was said or done in the cedar parlor, was familiar to her;
and the wedding-days of Lady L. and Lady G. were as well remembered as
if they had been living friends. Amongst her favorite writers, Johnson
in prose, Crabbe in verse, and Cowper in both, stood high. It is well
that the native good taste of herself and of those with whom she lived,
saved her from the snare into which a sister novelist had fallen, of
imitating the grandiloquent style of Johnson. She thoroughly enjoyed
Crabbe; perhaps on account of a certain resemblance to herself in
minute and highly finished detail; and would sometimes say, in jest,
that if she ever married at all, she could fancy being Mrs. Crabbe;
looking on the author quite as an abstract idea, and ignorant and
regardless what manner of man he might be. Scott’s poetry gave her
great pleasure; she did not live to make much acquaintance with his
novels.

REV. J. E. AUSTEN-LEIGH: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Love of dancing.]

There were twenty dances, and I danced them all, and without any
fatigue. I was glad to find myself capable of dancing so much, and with
so much satisfaction as I did; from my slender enjoyment of the Ashford
balls, I had not thought myself equal to it, but in cold weather and
with few couples I fancy I could just as well dance for a week together
as for half an hour.

JANE AUSTEN: _Letter to her sister, Cassandra_, 1799, in ‘Letters of
Jane Austen,’ edited by Lord Brabourne. London: Richard Bentley & Son,
1884.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Manner of working.]

Jane Austen was able to write in the midst of a busily-talking roomful
of people, her desk sometimes on a table which she shared with others,
sometimes at one side of the room, or even upon her knee when there
was no other place for it; and under what might seem to many others
impossible social conditions or distractions, she wrote ‘Sense and
Sensibility,’ ‘Northanger Abbey,’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ all works
showing concentration and keen perception. A friend has told us of
her manner in writing--the earnest face bent above her page, the keen
bright eye suddenly lifted to flash out recognition of something which
was said in her presence, showing how entirely possible it was for her
to hear and heed as well.

ANON.: in _Harper’s Bazar_.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: No “den” for writing.]

The last five years of her life produced the same number of novels
with those which had been written in her early youth. How she was
able to effect all this is surprising, for she had no separate study
to retire to, and most of the work must have been done in the general
sitting-room, subject to all kinds of casual interruptions. She was
not, however, troubled with companions like her own Mrs. Allen, in
‘Northanger Abbey,’ whose “vacancy of mind and incapacity for thinking
were such that, as she never talked a great deal, so she could never
be entirely silent; and therefore, while she sat at work, if she lost
her needle, or broke her thread, or saw a speck of dirt on her gown,
she must observe it, whether there were any one at leisure to answer
her or not.” In that well-occupied female party there must have been
many precious hours of silence during which the pen was busy at the
little mahogany writing-desk, while Fanny Price, or Emma Woodhouse, or
Anne Elliott was growing into beauty and interest. I have no doubt that
I, and my sisters and cousins, in our visits to Chawton, frequently
disturbed this mystic process, without having any idea of the mischief
that we were doing; certainly we never should have guessed it by any
signs of impatience or irritability in the writer.

REV. J. E. AUSTEN-LEIGH: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Prejudices of the time.]

When I was young, it was not thought proper for young ladies to study
very conspicuously; and especially with pen in hand. Young ladies (at
least in provincial towns) were expected to sit down in the parlor to
sew--during which reading aloud was permitted--or to practise their
music; but so as to be fit to receive callers, without any signs of
blue-stockingism which could be reported abroad. Jane Austen herself,
the queen of novelists, the immortal creator of Anne Elliott, Mr.
Knightley, and a score or two more of unrivalled intimate friends of
the whole public, was compelled by the feelings of her family to cover
up her manuscripts with a large piece of muslin work, kept on the table
for the purpose, whenever any genteel people came in.

HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’ Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
1877.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Affection for her own characters.]

I want to tell you that I have got my own darling child [‘Pride and
Prejudice’] from London.... Miss B. dined with us on the very day of
the book’s coming, and in the evening we fairly set at it, and read
half the first volume to her, prefacing that, having intelligence from
Henry that such a work would soon appear, we had desired him to send
it whenever it came out, and I believe it passed with her unsuspected.
She was amused, poor soul! _That_ she could not help, you know, with
two such people to lead the way, but she really does seem to admire
Elizabeth. I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as
ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who
do not like _her_ at least I do not know.

JANE AUSTEN: _Letter to her sister Cassandra_, quoted in ‘Memoir,’ by
Austen-Leigh.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Individuality of her characters.]

She certainly took a kind of parental interest in the beings whom she
had created, and did not dismiss them from her thoughts when she had
finished her last chapter. When sending a copy of ‘Emma’ to a friend
whose daughter had been lately born, she wrote thus:--“I trust you
will be as glad to see my ‘Emma,’ as I shall be to see your Jemima.”
She was very fond of ‘Emma,’ but did not reckon on her being a general
favorite; for, when commencing that work, she said: “I am going to take
a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” She would, if asked,
tell us many little particulars about the subsequent career of some of
her people.

She did not copy individuals, but she invested her own creations
with individuality of character. Her relations never recognized any
individual in her characters; and I can call to mind several of her
acquaintance whose peculiarities were very tempting and easy to be
caricatured, of whom there are no traces in her pages. She, herself,
when questioned on the subject by a friend, expressed a dread of what
she called such an “invasion of social proprieties.” She said that she
thought it quite fair to note peculiarities and weaknesses, but that it
was her desire to create, not to reproduce; “besides,” she added, “I am
too proud of my gentlemen to admit that they were only Mr. A or Colonel
B.”

REV. J. E. AUSTEN-LEIGH: ‘A Memoir of Jane Austen.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Hunting for portraits.]

Henry [her brother], and I went to the exhibition in Spring Gardens.
It is not thought a good collection, but I was very well pleased,
particularly with a small portrait of Mrs. Bingley, excessively like
her.

I went in hopes of seeing one of her sister, but there was no Mrs.
Darcy. Perhaps, however, I may find her in the great exhibition, which
we shall go to if we have time.

Mrs. Bingley’s is exactly herself--size, shaped face, features, and
sweetness; there never was a greater likeness. She is dressed in a
white gown, with green ornaments, which convinces me of what I have
always supposed, that green was a favorite color with her. I dare say
Mrs. D. will be in yellow.

_Monday evening._ We have been both to the exhibition and Sir J.
Reynolds’s and I am disappointed, for there was nothing like Mrs. D. at
either. I can only imagine that Mr. D. prizes any picture of her too
much to like it should be exposed to the public eye. I can imagine that
he would have that sort of feeling--that mixture of love, pride and
delicacy.

JANE AUSTEN: _Letter to her sister Cassandra_, 1813, in ‘Letters of
Jane Austen.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Understood her limitations.]

I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit
seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than
to save my life; and if it was indispensable for me to keep it up and
never relax into laughing at myself or at other people, I am sure I
should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep
to my own style and go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed
again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.

JANE AUSTEN: _Letter to Mr. J. S. Clarke_, quoted in ‘Memoir,’ by
Austen-Leigh.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her comparison for her work.]

By the bye, my dear E., I am quite concerned for the loss your mother
mentions in her letter. Two chapters and a half to be missing is
monstrous! It is well that _I_ have not been at Steventon lately, and
therefore cannot be suspected of purloining them; two strong twigs and
a half towards a nest of my own would have been something. I do not
think, however, that any theft of that sort would be really very useful
to me. What should I do with your strong, manly, vigorous sketches,
full of variety and glow? How could I possibly join them on to the
little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a
brush, as produces little effect after much labor?

JANE AUSTEN: _Letter to her Nephew_, quoted in ‘Memoir,’ by
Austen-Leigh.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A “glorious novelist.”]

Read ‘Emma,’--most admirable. The little complexities of the story
are beyond my comprehension, and wonderfully beautiful.... She was a
glorious novelist.

HARRIET MARTINEAU: _Journal_, in ‘Memorials,’ by Maria Weston Chapman.
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1877.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: ‘Persuasion.’]

I have read eleven times Miss Austen’s ‘Persuasion,’ unequalled in
interest, charm, and truth, to _my_ mind.

HARRIET MARTINEAU: _Letter_, published in her biography, by Mrs.
Fenwick Miller. (Famous Women Series.) Boston: Roberts Bros., 1885.

* * * * *

Her exquisite story of ‘Persuasion’ absolutely haunted me. Whenever it
rained (and it did rain every day that I stayed in Bath, except one),
I thought of Anne Elliott meeting Captain Wentworth, when driven by
a shower to take refuge in a shoe-shop. Whenever I got out of breath
in climbing up-hill, I thought of that same charming Anne Elliott,
and of that ascent from the lower town to the upper, during which all
her tribulations ceased. And when at last, by dint of trotting up
one street and down another, I incurred the unromantic calamity of
a blister on the heel, even that grievance became classical by the
recollection of the similar catastrophe which, in consequence of her
peregrinations with the admiral, had befallen dear Mrs. Croft. I doubt
if any one, even Scott himself, have left such perfect impressions of
character and place as Jane Austen.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: ‘Recollections of a Literary Life.’ New York:
Harper & Bros., 1852.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: One thing lacking.]

She wants nothing but the _beau-idéal_ of the female character to be a
perfect novel writer.... By the way, how delightful is her ‘Emma’! the
best, I think, of all her charming works.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letters_, in her ‘Life,’ by Rev. A. G.
L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Three weighty opinions.]

The delicate mirth, the gently hinted satire, the feminine, decorous
humor of Jane Austen, who, if not the greatest, is surely the most
faultless of female novelists.... My Uncle Southey and my father had an
equally high opinion of her merits, but Mr. Wordsworth used to say that
though he admitted that her novels were an admirable copy of life, he
could not be interested in productions of that kind; unless the truth
of nature were presented to him clarified, as it were, by the pervading
light of imagination, it had scarce any attractions in his eyes.

SARA COLERIDGE: ‘Memoir and Letters,’ edited by her daughter. New York:
Harper & Bros., 1874.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Discrimination of character.]

Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second. But among the writers
who, in the point which we have noticed, [the difficult art of
portraying characters in which no single feature is extravagantly
overcharged,] have approached nearest to the manner of the great
master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen, a woman of whom
England is justly proud. She has given us a multitude of characters,
all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such as we meet every day.
Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they
were the most eccentric of human beings. There are, for example, four
clergymen, none of whom we should be surprised to find in any parsonage
in the kingdom, Mr. Edward Ferrars, Mr. Henry Tilney, Mr. Edmund
Bertram, and Mr. Elton. They are all specimens of the upper part of
the middle class. They have all been liberally educated. They all lie
under the restraints of the same sacred profession. They are all young.
They are all in love. Not one of them has any hobby-horse, to use the
phrase of Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such as we read of in
Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid likenesses of each
other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike to Jourdain, Joseph
Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O’Trigger, than every one of
Miss Austen’s young divines to all his reverend brethren. And almost
all this is done by touches so delicate, that they elude analysis, that
they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist
only by the general effect to which they have contributed.

LORD MACAULAY: _Essay on Madame D’Arblay, dinburgh Review_, January,
1843. ‘Critical and Historical Essays.’ New York: Albert Mason, 1875.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: “The exquisite touch.”]

Read again, and for the third time at least, Miss Austen’s very finely
written novel of ‘Pride and Prejudice.’ That young lady had a talent
for describing the involvements, and feelings, and characters, of
ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with.
The Big Bow-Wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the
exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and
characters interesting from the truth of the description and the
sentiment, is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so
early!

SIR WALTER SCOTT: _Diary_, March, 1826, in ‘Memoirs,’ by J. G.
Lockhart. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1871.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Anecdote of ‘Mansfield Park.’]

A pleasant anecdote, told to us on good authority in England, is
illustrative of Miss Austen’s power over various minds. A party of
distinguished literary men met at a country-seat; among them was
Macaulay, and we believe, Hallam; at all events, they were men of high
reputation. While discussing the merits of various authors, it was
proposed that each should write down the name of that work of fiction
which had given him the greatest pleasure. Much surprise and amusement
followed; for, on opening the slips of paper, _seven_ bore the name of
‘Mansfield Park.’

MRS. R. C. WATERSTON: ‘Jane Austen,’ in the _Atlantic Monthly_,
February, 1863.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: “A prose Shakespeare.”]

We would say that Fielding and Miss Austen are the greatest
novelists in our language.... Miss Austen has been called a prose
Shakespeare,--and among others, by Macaulay. In spite of the sense
of incongruity which besets us in the words _prose_ Shakespeare, we
confess the greatness of Miss Austen, her marvellous dramatic power,
seems, more than anything in Scott, akin to Shakespeare.

G. H. LEWES: ‘Recent Novels,’ in _Fraser’s Magazine_, December, 1847.

* * * * *

[Sidenote:

Only shrewd and observant.]

Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point.
What induced you to say that you would rather have written ‘Pride and
Prejudice,’ or ‘Tom Jones,’ than any of the Waverley Novels? I had not
seen ‘Pride and Prejudice’ till I read that sentence of yours--and
then I got the book. And what did I find? An accurate daguerreotyped
portrait of a commonplace face; a carefully fenced, high-cultivated
garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a
bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue
hill, no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and
gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses.... George Sand is
sagacious and profound; Miss Austen is only shrewd and observant....
You say I must familiarize my mind with the fact that “Miss Austen is
not a poetess, has no ‘sentiment,’ no eloquence, none of the ravishing
enthusiasm of poetry,”--and then you add, I _must_ learn to acknowledge
her as _one of the greatest artists, of the greatest painters of human
character_, and one of the writers with the nicest sense of means to
an end that ever lived. The last point only will I ever acknowledge.
Can there be a great artist without poetry?

CHARLOTTE BRONTË: _Letter to G. H. Lewes_, 1848, in the former’s
‘Life,’ by E. C. Gaskell. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1858.

* * * * *

It was in this year, I think (1865), that Mrs. Cameron wrote an undated
letter in which mention is made of Tennyson:

[Sidenote: Tennyson’s opinion.]

“Alfred talked very pleasantly that evening to Annie Thackeray and
L---- S----. He spoke of Jane Austen, as James Spedding does, as next
to Shakespeare! I can never imagine what they mean when they say such
things.... He said he believed every crime and every vice in the
world were connected with the passion for autographs and anecdotes
and records--that the desiring anecdotes and acquaintance with the
lives of great men was treating them like pigs to be ripped open for
the public; that he knew he himself should be ripped open like a pig;
that he thanked God Almighty with his whole heart and soul that he
knew nothing, and that the world knew nothing, of Shakespeare but
his writings; and that he thanked God Almighty that he knew nothing
of Jane Austen, and that there were no letters preserved either of
Shakespeare’s or of Jane Austen’s.”[8]

HENRY TAYLOR: ‘Autobiography.’ London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1885.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] This was several years before the publication of the “Austen-Leigh
Memoir.”

JOANNA BAILLIE.

1762-1851.

JOANNA BAILLIE.

Joanna Baillie, the daughter of a Scotch clergyman, was born at
Bothwell, in Lanarkshire, in 1762. When she was about six years old,
her father exchanged the Bothwell Kirk for that of Hamilton. At ten
she was sent to boarding-school in Glasgow; and, her father having
been appointed to a professorship in Glasgow University, when Joanna
was fifteen the family removed to that city. Two years later her
father died, and the Baillies left Glasgow for Long Calderwood, in the
Middle Ward of Lanarkshire. In 1784, Joanna’s brother, Dr. Matthew
Baillie, took his mother and sisters to live in London. In 1790, Joanna
published anonymously a volume of miscellaneous poems; and in 1798,
also anonymously, the first volume of _Plays on the Passions_. In 1802,
a second, and in 1812, a third volume appeared. Meanwhile Miss Baillie
had published, in 1804, a volume of _Miscellaneous Dramas_; and in
1810 a tragedy, _The Family Legend_, was brought out at the Edinburgh
Theatre. It was played fourteen nights; and in 1814 was again acted in
London. In 1826 appeared _The Martyr_, a tragedy, and in 1836 three
more volumes of plays. In 1831 Miss Baillie published _A View of the
General Tenor of the New Testament regarding the Nature and Dignity of
Jesus Christ_. She was also the author of _Metrical Legends of Exalted
Characters_.

In 1801, Joanna, her mother, and her sister, Agnes, had established
themselves at Hampstead, where Mrs. Baillie had died in 1806. The
sisters more than once revisited Scotland. Joanna “passed away without
suffering” on the 23rd of February, 1851.

Her firm adherence to a mistaken theory of dramatic writing--the
subordination of all else to the development of a master passion--has
prevented her plays from holding the stage. Her finely humorous
Scotch songs are perfection in their way. Many of them were suggested
by earlier songs, and written to the old airs; and the manner in
which she has dealt with this rude material is an indication of
those characteristics which led Lucy Aikin to speak of the “innocent
and maiden grace” which “still hovered over her to the end.”
Every contemporary mentions Joanna Baillie with respect, and with
affectionate admiration of her graceful old age.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Parentage.]

Both father and mother were rarely high-principled; and, in spite of
his warm affections and her latent faculties of humor and pathos, they
were alike strongly tinged with the strict, somewhat stern, reserve of
the old Scotch character. Agnes Baillie (Joanna’s sister) told Lucy
Aikin that, though her father had sucked the poison from a bite which
she had received from a dog believed to be mad, he had never kissed her
in his life. Joanna herself spoke to the same friend of her unsatisfied
yearning for caresses when a child, and of her mother’s simply chiding
her when she ventured to clasp that mother’s knee; “but,” Joanna
added, with perfect comprehension, “I know she liked it.”

[Sidenote: Native place.]

The village of Bothwell, where Dr. James Baillie’s kirk and manse
were situated, possessed many advantages. It was where “Clyde’s banks
are bonnie,” in the fruit lands of the Middle Ward of Lanarkshire,
and where there is a strath of waving verdure at all seasons. In May
and June it is one great white and pink flush of orchard blossoms. In
August and September boughs bend richly under purple plums, scarlet
streaked apples, and mottled olive and russet pears. Close by are
the fragments of the great castle-keep of the Douglasses, one of
the most stately ruins of Scotland.... Other legends, besides those
of well-authenticated history, lurked in each drearier spot of that
country. Vague tales of the foul fiend himself started up in the
desolation of a peat bog, or the horror of a gruesome cavern. There
were legends of gray “bogles” and sheeted ghosts.... These were the
common chronicles and fireside lore of the country people of the day.
As a stirring, inquisitive child, Joanna Baillie had a good source from
which she could derive such knowledge, and form a familiar acquaintance
betimes with many-sided humanity. The kitchen of the country manse
was then the free resort and resting-place of privileged beggars, old
soldiers and sailors, and humble travellers of every description. The
settle in the chimney, and the “bink” in the “hallan,” were rarely
empty, as backwards and forwards trotted the little maid herself,
making believe to dispense the doles of bannocks and cheese, and
the cogs of brose and kale. All the while she was gathering scraps
of racy conversation into wide-open little pitchers of ears, and
photographing still more accurately with clear fresh mirrors of eyes
the quaintly-expressive faces and figures.

[Sidenote: “Miss Jack.”]

She was not more than six years old when her father exchanged the
kirk of Bothwell for that of Hamilton, likewise in the fruit lands.
But Hamilton was a town of six thousand inhabitants, clustering round
the ducal palace and park of the Hamiltons. Here Joanna found herself
one of a community which numbered scores of young people of her own
age and degree. So well did she like it, that she was the leader in
every romping game and frolic--an adept at out-of-door sports, whether
swinging, skipping or climbing. She was celebrated for the fearlessness
with which she ran along the parapets of bridges and on the tops of
walls, and scampered heedlessly on any pony she could find. She had the
misfortune to cause the fracture of her brother’s arm by inducing him
to ride double with her. The horse, not approving of a pair of riders,
threw the one who had the worse seat. “Look at Miss Jack!” a farmer
once commented, ... “she sits her horse as if it was a bit of herself.”

In advanced life she loved to dwell on her early unchecked rambles
over heaths compared to which Hampstead was a common; on her endless
“paidling” in innumerable burns, tributaries of the Clyde. She was
wont to regret wistfully that she could no longer “pad” barefooted on
the grass or “plowter” in the water. And she would eagerly recommend
to dainty and horrified English matrons the entire wholesomeness and
happiness of letting their petted children run bare-footed in summer.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Education.]

Whatever more valuable acquisitions Joanna made in these young days
she was singularly deficient in learning, as the term is generally
understood. “At nine I could not read plainly,” Joanna Baillie told
Lucy Aikin. “At nine, Joanna?” her sister Agnes called her back. “You
could not read well at eleven.”... The worthy minister took the stout
little ignoramus in hand along with his breakfast. She spoilt the
flavor of his trout and cake and black pudding by crying throughout
each lesson. It was thought that a change was called for in order to
conquer Joanna’s repugnance to sedentary studies, and her passion
for open-air pursuits and boyish pranks. At ten years of age she was
accordingly sent, along with her elder sister, to Miss Macdonald’s
boarding-school, in the heart of the city of Glasgow.... Joanna learned
to read perfectly at the Glasgow boarding-school, as doubtless she also
learned more or less serviceable writing and arithmetic, and correct or
incorrect notions in geography and history. If she did not learn much
else beyond singing a little to the guitar, and making a few promising
attempts at drawing and dancing, still the school did its part. The
study for which she showed a particular inclination was mathematics--a
fact which is characteristic of the clear-headed girl. Of her own free
will and entirely unassisted, she mastered a considerable portion of
Euclid.

[Sidenote: Private theatricals.]

Pricked on by the demands of a large girl-audience at school, Joanna’s
hereditary gift of story-telling, by which she could excite laughter
or tears, grew and grew until at length she found herself the chief
figure in something like private theatricals. In connection with
these chamber-dramas, Joanna was play-writer, playwright, player,
stage-dresser, and scene-shifter in one. In this foreshadowing of
her future career, she is said to have strongly displayed an eye for
effect, which failed her in her great efforts of later life.... Let
us conjure up, if we can, the old Glasgow boarding-school, with its
small rooms and dim tallow candles. There stand the host of eager girls
in their short-waisted, short-sleeved gowns and mittens, absorbed
in the common levy of buckles, brooches, necklaces, plaids, scarfs,
breast-knots, and Highland bonnets. The acknowledged mistress of
the ceremonies and games, and the “first lady” of the troop, is the
undersized girl with marked features and gray eyes.... Down on the
scene Miss Macdonald and her governess look for a moment, from the
elevation of their huge toupees and barricades of ruffles. They dismiss
authoritatively the excited rabble, and retire to their cosy supper
where they admit in confidence to each other the mother-wit of Miss
Jack Baillie, who has yet got a bad memory for facts of consequence
outside of her “fule” stories, and her “droll swatches” of this man and
that woman.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Joanna at 21.]

[Sidenote: Appearance.]

[Sidenote: Character.]

Joanna appeared to her companions a capable young woman with much
decision of character, like her mother. She was shy amongst strangers,
but sufficiently frank to her friends; and in the midst of her
seriousness she was the merriest soul when the fit took her. She had
quietly written some clever Scotch songs, most of them adaptations from
old ditties. These were already sung with glee around many a rustic
hearth and at many a homely supper table.... Joanna was not handsome.
She was below the middle height, and had the large, statuesque features
which suit better with a stately figure. Years lent these features
dignity rather than robbed them of grace. There is no word of her
youthful bloom. She wore her hair for many years simply divided and
braided across her forehead; but the hair must have grown low on it
from the first, and, whether in a crop, or in braids, must have nearly
concealed the expansive brow, which thus lent no relief to the dark
gauntness of the face. The brows were firmly arched. Her mouth was
wide, and expressed benevolence. Her chin was clearly moulded, and
slightly projecting. She was the most sensible of wilful geniuses;
the most retiring of “wise” women; the most maidenly of experienced
elderly ladies; the most tenderly attached of daughters and sisters;
one of the meekest and most modest of Christians. Joanna Baillie’s
was a noble soul. She had a great man’s grand guilelessness, rather
than a woman’s minute and subtle powers of sympathy; a man’s shy but
unstinted kindness and forbearance, rather than a woman’s eager but
measured cordiality and softness; a man’s modesty in full combination
with a woman’s delicacy; and, as if to prove her sex beyond mistake,
she had after all more than the usual share of a woman’s pugnacity and
headstrongness, when the fit was upon her.

SARAH TYTLER and J. L. WATSON: ‘Songstresses of Scotland.’ London:
Strahan & Co., 1871.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: An innocent face.]

Mrs. Barbauld mentions Miss Baillie in her letter to Mrs. Kenrick, and
tells her how much amazed she was at finding the author [of ‘Plays on
the Passions’] was not one of the already celebrated writers to whom it
had been attributed, but “a young lady of Hampstead whom she visited,
and who came to Mr. Barbauld’s meeting all the while with as innocent a
face as if she had never written a line.”

GRACE A. ELLIS (OLIVER): ‘Memoir of Mrs. Barbauld.’ Boston: J. R.
Osgood & Co., 1874.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A Sunday morning in 1801.]

I was taken by Dr. and Mrs. Baillie to Hampstead to see the gifted
Joanna. I found her on a Sunday morning reading the Bible to her
mother, a very aged lady, who was quite blind. Joanna’s manners and
accent were very Scottish, very kind, simple, and unaffected, but less
frank than those of her elder sister. She seemed almost studious to
avoid literary conversation, but spoke with much interest of old Scotch
friends, and of her early days in Scotland.

MRS. FLETCHER: ‘Autobiography.’ Boston: Roberts Bros., 1876.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The ‘Family Legend’ in Edinburgh.]

The first new play produced by Henry Siddons [at the Edinburgh Theatre]
was the ‘Family Legend’ of Joanna Baillie. This was, I believe, the
first of her dramas that ever underwent the test of representation
in her native kingdom; and Scott appears to have exerted himself most
indefatigably in its behalf. He was consulted about all the _minutiæ_
of costume, attended every rehearsal, and supplied the prologue. The
play was better received than any other which the gifted authoress has
since subjected to the same experiment; and how ardently Scott enjoyed
its success will appear from a few specimens of the many letters which
he addressed to his friend on the occasion.

The first of these letters is dated Edinburgh, October 27, 1809:

“On receiving your long kind letter yesterday, I sought out Siddons,
who was equally surprised and delighted at your liberal arrangement
about the ‘Lady of the Rock.’ I will put all the names to rights, and
retain enough of locality and personality to please the antiquary,
without the least risk of bringing the clan Gillian about our ears. I
went through the theatre, which is the most complete little thing of
the kind I ever saw, elegantly fitted up, and large enough for every
purpose.... With regard to the equipment of the ‘Family Legend,’ I have
been much diverted at a discovery which I have made. I had occasion
to visit our Lord Provost (by profession a stocking-weaver), and was
surprised to find the worthy magistrate filled with a new-born zeal
for the drama. He spoke of Mr. Siddons’ merits with enthusiasm, and of
Miss Baillie’s powers almost with tears of rapture. Being a curious
investigator of cause and effect, I never rested until I found out that
this theatric rage which had seized his lordship of a sudden, was
owing to a large order for hose, pantaloons, and plaids for equipping
the rival clans of Campbell and Maclean, and which Siddons was sensible
enough to send to the warehouse of our excellent provost.”

Three months later he thus communicates the result of the experiment:

[Sidenote: Scott’s account of its success.]

“You have only to imagine all that you could wish to give success to a
play, and your conceptions will still fall short of the complete and
decided triumph of the ‘Family Legend.’ The house was crowded to a most
extraordinary degree; many people had come from your native capital
of the west; everything that pretended to distinction, whether from
rank or literature, was in the boxes, and in the pit such an aggregate
mass of humanity as I have seldom, if ever, witnessed in the same
space.... I sat the whole time shaking for fear a scene-shifter, or a
carpenter, or some of the subaltern actors, should make some blunder
and interrupt the feeling of deep and general interest. The scene on
the rock struck the utmost possible effect into the audience, and you
heard nothing but sobs on all sides. The banquet-scene was equally
impressive, and so was the combat. Of the greater scenes, that between
Lorn and Helen in the castle of Maclean, that between Helen and her
lover, and the examination of Maclean himself in Argyle’s castle, were
applauded to the very echo. Siddons announced the play ‘for the rest of
the week,’ which was received not only with a thunder of applause, but
with cheering and throwing up of hats and handkerchiefs. Mrs. Siddons
supported her part incomparably.... The scenery was very good, and
the rock, without the appearance of pantomime, was so contrived as to
place Mrs. Siddons in a very precarious situation to all appearance.
The dresses were more tawdry than I should have judged proper, but
expensive and showy. I got my brother John’s Highland recruiting party
to reinforce the garrison of Inverary, and as they mustered beneath
the porch of the castle, and seemed to fill the courtyard behind, the
combat scene had really the appearance of reality.... My kind respects
attend Miss Agnes Baillie, and believe me ever your obliged and
faithful servant,

WALTER SCOTT.”

J. G. LOCKHART: ‘The Life of Sir Walter Scott.’ Edinburgh: Adam &
Charles Black, 1871.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Opinion of ‘Orra.’]

It is too little to say that I am enchanted with the third volume [of
‘Plays on the Passions’], especially with the two first plays, which
in every point not only sustain, but even exalt your reputation as
a dramatist. [Miss Baillie had written him that this was to be her
last publication, and that she was “getting her knitting-needles in
order”----meaning to begin her new course of industry by making him a
purse.] The whole character of ‘Orra’ is exquisitely supported as well
as imagined, and the language distinguished by a rich variety of fancy,
which I know no instance of excepting in Shakespeare. After I had read
‘Orra’ twice to myself, Terry [the comedian, Scott’s warm friend and
admirer] read it over to us a third time, aloud, and I have seldom
seen a little circle so much affected as during the whole fifth act. I
think it would act charmingly.... Yet I have a great quarrel with this
beautiful drama, for you must know that you have utterly destroyed a
song of mine, precisely in the turn of your outlaw’s ditty, and sung by
persons in somewhat the same situation.... I took out my unfortunate
manuscript to look at it, but alas! it was the encounter of the iron
and the earthen pitchers in the fable. I was clearly sunk, and the
potsherds not worth gathering up. But only conceive that the chorus
should have run thus _verbatim_----

“’Tis mirk midnight with peaceful men,
With us ’tis dawn of day”----

and again----

“Then boot and saddle, comrades boon,
Nor wait the dawn of day.”

[Note by Lockhart: These lines were accordingly struck out of the
outlaw’s song in ‘Rokeby.’ The verses of ‘Orra,’ to which Scott
alludes, are no doubt the following:

“The wild fire dances on the fen,
The red star sheds its ray,
Up rouse ye then, my merry men,
It is our opening day.”]

To return, I really think ‘Fear’ the most dramatic passion you have
hitherto touched, because capable of being drawn to the most extreme
paroxysm on the stage. In ‘Orra’ you have all gradations, from a
timidity excited by a strong and irritable imagination, to the
extremity which altogether unhinges the understanding.

SIR WALTER SCOTT: _Letter to Joanna Baillie_, in the former’s ‘Life,’
by J. G. Lockhart.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Joanna’s personal appearance.]

She is small in figure, and her gait is mean and shuffling, but her
manners are those of a well-bred woman. She has none of the unpleasant
airs too common to literary ladies. Her conversation is sensible. She
possesses apparently considerable information, is prompt without being
forward, and has a fixed judgment of her own, without any disposition
to force it on others. Wordsworth said of her with warmth: “If I had to
present any one to a foreigner as a model of an English gentlewoman, it
would be Joanna Baillie.”

HENRY CRABB ROBINSON: _Diary_, 1812, in ‘Diary, Reminiscences and
Correspondence.’ Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co., 1871.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Several years later.]

I remember her as singularly impressive in look and manner, with the
“queenly” air we associate with ideas of high birth and lofty rank. Her
face was long, narrow, dark, and solemn, and her speech deliberate and
considerate, the very antipodes of “chatter.” Tall in person,[9] and
habited according to the mode of an olden time, her picture, as it is
now present to me, is that of a very venerable dame, dressed in coif
and kirtle, stepping out, as it were, from a frame in which she had
been placed by the painter Vandyke.

S. C. HALL: ‘A Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of the Age.’
London: Virtue & Co., 1871.

* * * * *

She was past fifty when I first saw her, and appeared like an old lady
to me, then in my teens. She dressed like an aged person, and with
scrupulous neatness. She lived with a sister who looked older still,
because she had not the vivacity of Joanna, and was only distinguished
for the amiability with which she bore being outshone by her more
gifted relative.

[Sidenote: “Mrs.” Baillie.]

Miss Baillie, according to the English custom, took the title of
Mrs. Joanna Baillie, on passing her fiftieth birthday. She gave the
prettiest and the pleasantest dinners, and presided at them with
peculiar grace and tact, always attentive to the wants of her guests,
and yet keeping up a lively conversation the while. She took such
pleasure in writing poetry, and especially in her ‘Plays on the
Passions,’ that she said, “If no one ever read them, I should find my
happiness in writing them.”

Though she was young when she left her native land, she never lost
her Scotch accent. I thought it made her conversation only the more
piquant. She was full of anecdotes and curious facts about remarkable
people. I only recollect her telling one of Lord Byron being obliged,
by politeness, to escort her and her sister to the opera, and her
perceiving that he was provoked beyond measure at being there with
them, and that he made faces as he sat behind them.

ELIZA FARRAR: ‘Recollections of Seventy Years.’ Boston: Ticknor and
Fields, 1866.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Old age.]

Of Joanna Baillie I saw much both as a friend and patient. Her gentle
simplicity, with a Scotch tinge coloring it to the end of life, won
the admiration even of those who knew nothing of her power of dramatic
poetry. It was pleasant to visit her in the quiet house at Hampstead,
in which she lived with her sister Agnes. She reached, I think, her
ninety-second year.[10] Agnes lived to a hundred.

SIR HENRY HOLLAND: ‘Recollections of Past Life.’ New York: D. Appleton
& Co., 1872.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: “Dry and Scotchy.”]

Our great poetess, or rather the sensible, amiable old lady that
_was_ a great poetess thirty years ago, is still in full preservation
as to health. Never did the flame of genius more thoroughly expire
than in her case.... She is, as Mr. Wordsworth observes, when quoting
her non-feeling for Lycidas, “dry and Scotchy”; learning she never
possessed, and some of her poetry, which I think was far above that of
any other woman, is the worse for a few specks of bad English; then her
criticisms are so surprisingly narrow and jejune, and show so slight an
acquaintance with fine literature in general.

[Sidenote: A gracious winter.]

Yet if the authoress of ‘Plays on the Passions’ does not now write or
talk like a poetess, she _looks_ like one, and _is_ a piece of poetry
in herself. Never was old age more lovely and interesting; the face,
the dress, the quiet, subdued motions, the silver hair, the calm
_in-looking_ eye, the pale, yet not unhealthy skin, all are in harmony;
this is winter with its own peculiar loveliness of snows and paler
sunshine.

SARA COLERIDGE: _Letter to Miss E. Trevenen_, 1833, in the former’s
‘Memoir and Letters,’ edited by her daughter. New York: Harper & Bros.,
1874.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Meeting with Harriet Martineau.]

She had enjoyed a fame almost without parallel, and had outlived
it. She had been told every day for years, through every possible
channel, that she was second only to Shakespeare--if second; and then
she had seen her works drop out of notice so that, of the generation
who grew up before her eyes, not one in a thousand had read a line
of her plays--yet was her serenity never disturbed, nor her merry
humor in the least dimmed. I have never lost the impression of the
trying circumstances of my first interview with her, nor of the grace,
simplicity and sweetness with which she bore them. She was old; and she
declined dinner-parties; but she wished to meet me, ... and therefore
she came to Miss Berry’s to tea, one day when I was dining there. Miss
Berry, her contemporary, put her feelings, it seemed to me, to a most
unwarrantable trial, by describing to me, as we three sat together,
the celebrity of the ‘Plays on the Passions’ in their day. She told
me how she found on her table, on her return from a ball, a volume of
plays; and how she kneeled on a chair to look at it, and how she read
on till the servant opened the shutters, and let in the daylight of a
winter morning. She told me how all the world raved about the plays;
and she held on so long that I was in pain for the noble creature to
whom it must have been irksome on the one hand to hear her own praises
and fame so dwelt upon, and, on the other, to feel that we all knew how
long that had been quite over. But, when I looked up at her sweet face,
with its composed smile amidst the becoming mob-cap, I saw that she was
above pain of either kind.

HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’ Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
1877.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The home at Hampstead.]

We drove out, by appointment, to Mrs. Joanna Baillie’s, at Hampstead,
took our lunch with her, and passed the time at her house till four
o’clock. We found her living in a small and most comfortable, nice,
unpretending house, where she has dwelt for above thirty years. She is
now above seventy, and, dressed with an exact and beautiful propriety,
received us most gently and kindly. Her accent is still Scotch; her
manner strongly marked with that peculiar modesty which you sometimes
see united to the venerableness of age, and which is then so very
winning; and her conversation, always quiet and never reminding
you of her own claims as an author, is so full of good sense, with
occasionally striking and decisive remarks, and occasionally a little
touch of humor, that I do not know when I have been more pleased and
gratified than I was by this visit.

She lives exactly as an English gentlewoman of her age and character
should live, and everything about her was in good taste and appropriate
to her position, even down to the delicious little table she had spread
for us in her quiet parlor.

GEORGE TICKNOR: _Diary_, 1835, in ‘Life, Letters, and Journals.’
Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co., 1876.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Serene old age.]

A sweeter picture of old age was never seen. Her figure was small,
light, and active; her countenance, in its expression of sincerity,
harmonized wonderfully with her gay conversation and her cheerful
voice. Her eyes were beautiful, dark, bright, and penetrating, with
the full, innocent gaze of childhood. Her face was altogether comely,
and her dress did justice to it. She wore her own silvery hair and a
mob-cap, with its delicate lace border fitting close round her face.
She was well-dressed in handsome dark silks, and her lace caps and
collars looked always new. No Quaker ever was neater, while she kept up
with the times in her dress as in her habit of mind, as far as became
her years. In her whole appearance there was always something for
even the passing stranger to admire, and never anything for the most
familiar friend to wish otherwise.

HARRIET MARTINEAU: Quoted in ‘Songstresses of Scotland.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Taste in dress.]

She wore a delicate lavender satin bonnet; and Mrs. J---- says she is
fond of dress, and knows what every one has on. Her taste is certainly
exquisite in dress. I more than ever admired the harmony of expression
and tint, the silver hair and silvery gray eye, the pale skin, and
the look which speaks of a mind that has had much communing with
high imagination, though such intercourse is only perceptible now by
the absence of everything which that lofty spirit would not set his
seal upon.... Age has slackened the active part of genius, and yet
is in some sort a substitute for it. There is a declining of mental
exercitation. She has had enough of that; and now for a calm decline,
and thoughts of Heaven.

SARA COLERIDGE: _Letter to her husband_, 1834, in, ‘Memoir and
Letters,’ edited by her daughter.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Enthusiasm for Scott.]

She talked of Scott with a tender enthusiasm that was contagious, and
of Lockhart with a kindness that is uncommon when coupled with his
name, and which seemed only characteristic of her benevolence. It is
very rare that old age, or, indeed, any age, is found so winning and
agreeable. I do not wonder that Scott in his letters treats her with
more deference, and writes to her with more care and beauty, than to
any other of his correspondents.

GEORGE TICKNOR: _Diary_, 1838, in ‘Life, Letters and Journals.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Disposition of her earnings.]

Unlike Zaccheus the publican in every other respect, she followed his
rule with respect to the earnings of her pen--half of her goods she
gave to feed the poor. This arrangement was made and adhered to, when
the Baillies’ income, never a very large one, was at its minimum; and
it was not departed from when increased funds brought in their train
increased expenditures and a host of additional wants.

SARAH TYTLER AND J. L. WATSON: ‘Songstresses of Scotland.’

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Mr. Hall’s testimony on this point differs from that of all others
who have described Miss Baillie.

[10] An error. Miss Baillie died at eighty-nine.

MARGUERITE, LADY BLESSINGTON.

1789-1849.

MARGUERITE, LADY BLESSINGTON.

Marguerite, Lady Blessington, flitted across the field of English
literature like a blue butterfly, and left no trace behind. She claims
a place among our literary women, not by virtue of her many works,
which are now forgotten, but rather as an influence among literary men;
as the woman in whose sunny companionship Byron basked, and who had
Landor and Procter to write her epitaphs.

She was born at Knockbrit, Tipperary, on the 1st of September, 1789.
(The year, however, has been variously stated as 1787 and 1790.) She
was the daughter of Edmund Power, a country gentleman and magistrate,
a man of violent temper and without principle. In 1796 or ’97 the
Powers removed to Clonmel. In 1804, when she was under fifteen years
of age, Marguerite was forced by her father into a marriage with the
vicious and half-insane Captain Maurice Farmer. Within a year they
agreed to separate. Mrs. Farmer is spoken of as residing in Cahir,
Tipperary, in 1807, and in Dublin in 1809. And now occurs that hiatus
in the account of her life which has never been satisfactorily filled,
and the existence of which the English women of her day refused to
overlook. In 1816 she was established in Manchester Square, London;
and in 1818, Captain Farmer having died the previous year, she married
the Earl of Blessington. Her fashionable life, foreign travels, and
literary career now began. In 1823, while at Genoa with her husband,
she made the acquaintance of Lord Byron. In 1829 Lord Blessington died
in the Hotel Ney, Paris, which had been sumptuously fitted up as his
residence. Lady Blessington returned to London in 1830. She lived in
Seamore Place, May Fair, until 1836, when she removed to Gore House,
Kensington Gore. The extravagant splendor of her style of living, and
the charm of her evenings, have often been described. The £2,000 a
year which Lord Blessington had left her, even with the addition of
the income received from her writings, was not sufficient to meet the
expenses which long habit had rendered almost necessary to her; and
in the spring of 1849 “the long-menaced break-up of the establishment
at Gore House took place.” Lady Blessington left London, accompanied
by her nieces, for Paris, where, on the 4th of June, 1849, she died
very suddenly of “an apoplectic malady, complicated with disease of
the heart.” Count D’Orsay, her husband’s son-in-law and her intimate
friend, survived her but a few years, and was buried beside her at
Chambourcy, where he had caused a huge monument to be erected to her
memory.

The following are the works of Lady Blessington:

_The Magic Lantern; or, Sketches of Scenes in the Metropolis_, 1822.

_Sketches and Fragments_, 1822.

_Conversations with Lord Byron_, 1832. These articles first appeared in
Colburn’s _New Monthly Magazine_.

_Grace Cassidy; or, the Repealers_, 1833.

_Meredyth_, 1833.

_The Follies of Fashion_, 1835.

_The Two Friends_, 1835.

_The Victims of Society_, 1837.

_The Confessions of an Elderly Lady_, 1838.

_The Governess_, 1839.

_Desultory Thoughts and Reflections_, 1839.

_The Idler in Italy_, 1839.

_The Idler in France_, 1841.

_The Lottery of Life_, 1842.

_Strathern; or, Life at Home and Abroad_, 1845.

_The Memoirs of a Femme de Chambre_, 1846.

_Lionel Deerhurst_, 1846.

_Marmaduke Herbert_, 1847.

_Country Quarters._ This was first published in a London Sunday paper,
1848. After Lady Blessington’s death it was edited by her niece, Miss
Power, and published separately.

She also wrote _A Tour Through the Netherlands to Paris_, _Confessions
of an Elderly Gentleman_, _The Belle of a Season_, and edited for
several years Heath’s ‘Book of Beauty,’ ‘The Keepsake,’ and another
annual entitled, ‘Gems of Beauty.’ Miss Power says in her memoir, “I
believe that for some years she made, on an average, somewhere about a
thousand a year; some years a good deal above that sum.” Jerdan states
that he has known her to enjoy from her pen an amount between £2,000
and £3,000 per annum; and adds that her title and her social tact had
considerable influence in commanding high prices.

Lady Blessington’s strange life may be said to have been written in
three chapters: the first as dark and terrible as any in ‘Wuthering
Heights’; the second as gorgeous as any in the novels of D’Israeli;
and the last like a handful of leaves torn from ‘Vanity Fair.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Sickly childhood.]

Beauty, the heritage of the family, was, in her early youth, denied to
Marguerite: her eldest brother and sister were singularly handsome and
healthy children, while she, pale, weakly, and ailing, was for years
regarded as little likely ever to grow to womanhood; the precocity
of her intellect, the keenness of her perceptions, and her extreme
sensitiveness, all of which are so often regarded, more especially
among the Irish, as the precursive symptoms of an early death,
confirmed this belief, and the poor, pale, reflective child was long
looked upon as doomed to a premature grave.

The atmosphere in which she lived was but little congenial to such a
nature. Her father, a man of violent temper, and little given to study
the characters of his children, intimidated and shook the delicate
nerves of the sickly child, though there were moments--rare ones, it
is true--when the sparkles of her early genius for an instant dazzled
and gratified him. Her mother, though she failed not to bestow the
tenderest maternal care on the health of the little sufferer, was
not capable of appreciating her fine and subtile qualities, and her
brothers and sisters, fond as they were of her, were not, in their high
health and boisterous gayety, companions suited to such a child.

At a very early age, the powers of her imagination had already begun
to develop themselves. She would entertain her brothers and sisters
for hours with tales invented as she proceeded; and at last, so
remarkable did this talent become, that her parents, astonished at the
interest and coherence of her narrations, constantly called upon her
to _improviser_ for the entertainment of their friends and neighbors, a
task always easy to her fertile brain; and, in a short time, the little
neglected child became the wonder of the neighborhood.

MISS POWER: ‘A Memoir of Lady Blessington,’ quoted by R. R. Madden in
‘The Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington.’
New York: Harper & Bros., 1855.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Unfortunate early marriage.]

Her father was in a ruined position at the time Lady Blessington was
brought home from school, a mere child, and treated as such. Among his
military friends, she then saw a Captain Farmer for the first time; he
appeared on very intimate terms with her father, but when she first
met him, her father did not introduce her to him; in fact, she was
looked upon then as a mere school-girl, whom it was not necessary to
introduce to any stranger. In a day or two her father told her she was
not to return to school; he had decided that she was to marry Captain
Farmer. This intelligence astonished her; she burst out crying, and a
scene ensued in which his menaces and her protestations against his
determination terminated violently. Her mother unfortunately sided with
her father, and eventually, by caressing entreaties and representations
of the advantages her father looked forward to from this match with
a man of Captain Farmer’s affluence, she was persuaded to sacrifice
herself, and to marry a man for whom she felt the utmost repugnance.
She had not been long under her husband’s roof before it became evident
to her that her husband was subject to fits of insanity, and his own
relatives informed her that her father had been acquainted by them that
Captain Farmer had been insane; but this information had been concealed
from her by her father. She lived with him about three months, and
during that time he frequently treated her with personal violence;
... he used to lock her up whenever he went abroad, and often has
left her without food till she felt almost famished. He was ordered
to join his regiment, which was encamped at the Curragh of Kildare.
Lady Blessington refused to accompany him there, and was permitted
to remove to her father’s house, to remain there during his absence.
Captain Farmer joined his regiment, and had not been many days with it,
when, in a quarrel with his colonel, he drew his sword on the former,
and the result of this insane act (for such it was allowed to be) was,
that he was obliged to quit the service, being permitted to sell his
commission. The friends of Captain Farmer now prevailed on him to go
to India; she, however, refused to go with him, and remained at her
father’s.

Such is the account given to me by Lady Blessington, and for the
accuracy of the above report of it I can vouch.

R. R. MADDEN: ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of
Blessington.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Portrait by Sir. T. Lawrence.]

I first saw Lady Blessington under circumstances sufficiently
characteristic of her extraordinary personal beauty at the period in
question, to excuse my referring to them somewhat in detail. It was
on the opening day of that Royal Academy Exhibition which contained
Lawrence’s celebrated portrait of Lady Blessington--one of the
very finest he ever painted, and universally known by the numerous
engravings that have since been made from it. In glancing hastily
round the room on first entering, I had duly admired this exquisite
portrait, as approaching very near to the perfection of the art, though
(as I conceived) by no means reaching it, for there were points in the
picture which struck me as inconsistent with others that were also
present. Yet I could not, except as a vague theory, lay the apparent
discrepancies at the door of the artist....

Presently, on returning to this portrait, I saw standing before it,
as if on purpose to confirm my theory, the lovely original. She was
leaning on the arm of her husband, Lord Blessington. And then I saw
how impossible it is for an artist to flatter a really beautiful
woman.... I have seen no other instance so striking, of the inferiority
of art to nature when the latter reaches the ideal standard, as in
this celebrated portrait of Lady Blessington.... As the original stood
before it ... she fairly “killed” the copy, and this no less in the
individual details than in the general effect. Moreover, what I had
believed to be errors and shortcomings in the picture were wholly
absent in the original. There is about the former a consciousness, a
“pretension,” a leaning forward, and a looking forth, as if to claim or
court notice and admiration, of which there was no touch in the latter.

I have never since beheld so pure and perfect a vision of female
loveliness, in what I conceive to be its most perfect phase, that,
namely, in which intellect does not predominate over form, feature,
complexion, and the other physical attributes of female beauty, but
only serves to heighten, purify and irradiate them; and it is this
class of beauty which cannot be equalled on canvas.

At this time Lady Blessington was about six-and-twenty[11] years
of age; but there was about her face together with that beaming
intelligence which rarely shows itself upon the countenance till that
period of life, a bloom and freshness which as rarely survives early
youth, and a total absence of those undefinable marks which thought and
feeling still more rarely fail to leave behind them. Unlike all other
beautiful faces that I have seen, hers was, at the time of which I
speak, neither a history nor a prophecy; not a book to read and study,
a problem to solve, or a mystery to speculate upon, but a star to kneel
before and worship ... an end and a consummation in itself.

P. G. PATMORE: ‘My Friends and Acquaintance.’ London: Saunders & Otley,
1854.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her beauty at twenty-eight.]

From the period of her marriage with the Earl of Blessington, her
intercourse with eminent men and distinguished persons of various
pursuits may be said to date.... She was then twenty-eight years of
age, in the perfection of natural beauty, that bright and radiant
beauty which derives its power not so much from harmony of features
and symmetry of form, as from the animating influences of intelligence
beaming forth from a mind full of joyous and of kindly feelings and of
brilliant fancies--that kind of vivid loveliness which is never found
where some degree of genius is not. Her form was exquisitely moulded,
with an inclination to fullness; but no finer proportions could be
imagined; her movements were graceful and natural at all times.

The peculiar character of Lady Blessington’s beauty seemed to be the
entire, exact, and instantaneous correspondence of every feature, and
each separate trait of her countenance, with the emotion of her mind,
which any particular subject of conversation or object of attention
might excite. The instant a joyous thought took possession of her
fancy, you saw it transmitted as if by electrical agency to her glowing
features; you read it in her sparkling eyes, her laughing lips, her
cheerful looks; you heard it expressed in her ringing laugh, clear and
sweet as the gay, joy-bell sounds of childhood’s merriest tones.

[Sidenote: Geniality and good humor.]

There was a geniality in the warmth of her Irish feelings, an
abandonment of all care, of all apparent consciousness of her powers of
attraction, a glowing sunshine of good-humor and of good-nature in the
smiles and laughter, and the sallies of wit of this lovely woman in her
early and happy days (those of her Italian life, especially from 1823
to 1826), such as have been seldom surpassed.... Her voice was ever
sweetly modulated and low. Its tones were always in harmonious concord
with the traits of her expressive features. There was a cordiality, a
clear, silver-toned hilarity, a correspondence in them, apparently
with all her sensations, that made her hearers feel “she spoke to them
with every part of her being.”... All the beauty of Lady Blessington,
without the exquisite sweetness of her voice, and the witchery of
its tones in pleasing or expressing pleasure, would have been only a
secondary consideration.

R. R. MADDEN: ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of
Blessington.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Friendship with Lord Byron.]

It is clear that the peculiar charm of Lady Blessington’s manner
exercised its usual spell--that the cold, scorning, and world-wearied
spirit of Byron was, for the time being, “subdued to the quality” of
the genial and happy one with which it held converse--and that both the
poet and the man became once more what nature intended them to be.

Lady Blessington seems to have been the only woman holding his own
rank and station with whom Byron was ever at his ease, and with
whom, therefore, he was himself. With all others he seemed to feel a
constraint which irritated and vexed him into the assumption of vices
which did not belong to him.

P. G. PATMORE: ‘My Friends and Acquaintance.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A Byronic jeu d’esprit.]

His lordship suffered Lady Blessington to lecture him in prose, and,
what was worse, in verse. He endeavored to persuade Lord Blessington
to prolong his stay in Genoa, and to take a residence adjoining
his own named “_Il Paradiso_.” And on a rumor of his intention to
take the place for himself, and some good-natured friend observing,
“_Il diavolo è ancora entrato in Paradiso_,” his lordship wrote the
following lines:

“Beneath Blessington’s eyes
The reclaimed Paradise
Should be free as the former from evil;
But if the new Eve
For an apple should grieve,
What mortal would not play the devil?”

R. R. MADDEN: ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of
Blessington.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Lady Blessington’s apartments in Paris.]

“The whole fitting up,” says Lady Blessington, “is in exquisite taste;
and, as usual, when my most gallant of all gallant husbands that it
ever fell to the happy lot of woman to possess interferes, no expense
has been spared. The bed, which is silvered instead of gilt, rests on
the backs of two large silver swans, so exquisitely sculptured that
every feather is in _alto-relievo_, and looks as fleecy as those of
the living birds. The recess in which it is placed is lined with white
fluted silk, bordered with blue embossed lace; and from the columns
that support the frieze of the recess, pale blue silk curtains,
lined with white, are hung, which, when drawn, conceal the recess
altogether.... A silver sofa has been made, to fit the side of the
room opposite the fire-place, near to which stands a most inviting
_bergere_. An _escritoire_ occupies one panel, a book-stand the other,
and a rich coffer for jewels forms a pendant to a similar one for lace
or India shawls. A carpet of uncut pile, of a pale blue, a silver
lamp and a Psyche glass, the ornaments silvered to correspond with
the decorations of the chamber, complete the furniture. The hangings
in the dressing-room are of blue silk, covered with lace, and trimmed
with rich frills of the same material, as are also the dressing-stands
and _chaire longue_, and the carpet and lamp are similar to those
of the bedroom. A toilet-table stands before the window, and small
_jardinieres_ are placed in front of each panel of looking-glass, but
so low as not to impede a full view of the person dressing in this
beautiful little sanctuary. The _salle de bain_ is draped with white
muslin, trimmed with lace; and the sofa and the _bergere_ are covered
with the same. The bath is of marble, inserted in the floor, with which
its surface is level. On the ceiling over it is a painting of Flora,
scattering flowers with one hand, while from the other is suspended an
alabaster lamp in the form of a lotus.”

R. R. MADDEN: ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of
Blessington.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her Ladyship’s luxurious taste.]

Her taste in everything was towards the gay, the superb, the
luxurious; but, on the whole, excellently good. Here eye was as quick
as lightning; her resources were many and original. It will not be
forgotten how ... she astounded the opera-goers by appearing in her
box with a plain transparent cap, which the world in its ignorance
called a Quaker’s cap; and the best of all likenesses of her, in date
later than the lovely Lawrence portrait, is that drawing by Chalon, in
which this tire is represented, with some additional loops of ribbon.
So, too, her houses in Seamore Place and at Kensington Gore were full
of fancies which have since passed into fashions, and which seemed
all to belong to and to agree with herself. Had she been the selfish
sybaritic woman whom many who hated her, without knowing her, delighted
to represent her, she might have indulged these joys and costly humors
with impunity; but she was affectionately, inconsiderately liberal.

HENRY F. CHORLEY: ‘Autobiography, Memoir, and Letters,’ compiled by H.
G. Hewlett. London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1873.

* * * * *

The following sketch was taken from the “Ring” in Hyde Park:

[Sidenote: Her chariot.]

“Observe that green chariot just making the turn of the unbroken line
of equipages. Though it is now advancing towards us with at least a
dozen carriages between, it is to be distinguished from the throng by
the elevation of its driver and footman above the ordinary level of
the line. As it comes nearer, we can observe the particular points
that give it that perfectly _distingué_ appearance which it bears
above all others in the throng. They consist of the white wheels
lightly picked out with green and crimson; the high-stepping action,
blood-like shape and brilliant _manège_ of its dark bay horses; the
perfect style of its driver; the height (six feet two) of its slim,
spider-limbed, powdered footman, perked up at least three feet above
the roof of the carriage, and occupying his eminence with that peculiar
air of accidental superiority which we take to be the ideal of footman
perfection, and finally, the exceedingly light, airy, and (if we may
so speak) intellectual character of the whole set-out. The arms and
supporters blazoned on the centre panels, and the small coronet beneath
the window, indicate the nobility of station; and if ever the nobility
of nature was blazoned on the ‘complement extern’ of humanity, it is on
the lovely face within.”

P. G. PATMORE: ‘My Friends and Acquaintance.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her receptions.]

Enter when you would the beautifully-arranged drawing-room of Lady
Blessington, with its gorgeous furnishing, resplendent lights, ample
mirrors, and all the accessories of value and taste, some one you were
sure to meet who was a Memory thenceforward. The list of her guests,
taking any one of her “evenings,” would comprise nearly all the leading
men of the time--Earl Grey, Lord Durham, Lord Brougham, the “Iron
Duke,” occasionally the elder and the younger Disraeli, Walter Savage
Landor, Edwin Landseer, James Smith, John Galt, “Barry Cornwall,”
Thomas Moore, Campbell, Lord Lytton and Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, Dr.
William Beattie, Colley Grattan--a number of names crowd upon my memory
as I write--statesmen, lawyers, artists, men of letters, and foreigners
of all countries. The Emperor Napoleon was a frequent guest, and here
I have met him more than once when there seemed little prospect indeed
that the silent, apparently ungenial, and seemingly unintellectual
man, who usually occupied a neglected corner, would fill the _premier
rôle_ on the great stage of the world.... It is true few women were
encountered there. I can recall none but her sister, Lady Canterbury;
another sister, much younger, married to a French count; and her two
nieces. I once saw “the Guiccioli” there.

S. C. HALL: ‘A Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of the Age.’
London: Virtue & Co., 1871.

[Sidenote: “Gore house, an impromptu.”]

Mild Wilberforce, by all beloved,
Once owned this hallowed spot,
Whose zealous eloquence improved
The fettered Negro’s lot;
Yet here still Slavery attacks,
When Blessington invites;
The chains from which _he_ freed the Blacks
_She_ rivets on the Whites.

JAMES SMITH: Quoted by R. R. Madden, in ‘Literary Life and
Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Influence among men of letters.]

Of Lady Blessington’s tact, kindness and remarkable beauty Procter
always spoke with ardor, and abated nothing from the popular idea of
that fascinating person. He thought she had done more in her time to
institute good feeling and social intercourse among men of letters than
any other lady in England, and he gave her eminent credit for bringing
forward the rising talent of the metropolis without waiting to be
prompted by a public verdict.

JAMES T. FIELDS: ‘Barry Cornwall and Some of His Friends.’ Boston:
James R. Osgood & Co., 1876.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: N. P. Willis describes her.]

A friend in Italy had kindly given me a letter to Lady Blessington, and
with a strong curiosity to see this celebrated lady, I called on the
second day after my arrival in London. It was “deep i’ the afternoon,”
but I had not yet learned the full meaning of “town hours.” “Her
ladyship had not come down to breakfast.” I gave the letter and my
address to the powdered footman, and had scarce reached home when a
note arrived inviting me to call the same evening at ten.

In a long library lined alternately with splendidly bound books and
mirrors, and with a deep window of the breadth of the room, opening
upon Hyde Park, I found Lady Blessington alone. The picture, to my eye,
as the door opened was a very lovely one. A woman of remarkable beauty,
half buried in a _fauteuil_ of yellow satin, reading by a magnificent
lamp suspended from the centre of the arched ceiling; sofas, couches,
ottomans, and busts, arranged in rather a crowded sumptuousness through
the room; enamelled tables, covered with expensive and elegant trifles
in every corner, and a delicate white hand relieved on the back of a
book, to which the eye was attracted by the blaze of diamond rings.
As the servant mentioned my name, she rose and gave me her hand very
cordially, and a gentleman entering immediately after, she presented me
to her son-in-law, Count D’Orsay, the well-known Pelham of London, and
certainly the most splendid specimen of a man, and a well dressed one,
that I had ever seen. Tea was brought in immediately, and conversation
went swimmingly on.

[Sidenote: Appearances at forty.]

The portrait of Lady Blessington in the ‘Book of Beauty’ is not unlike
her, but it is still an unfavorable likeness. A picture by Sir Thomas
Lawrence hung opposite me, taken, perhaps, at the age of eighteen,
which is more like her, and as captivating a representation of a just
matured woman, full of loveliness and love, the kind of creature
with whose divine sweetness the gazer’s heart aches, as ever was
drawn in the painter’s most inspired hour. The original is now (she
confessed it very frankly) forty. She looks something on the sunny
side of thirty. Her person is full, but preserves all the fineness of
an admirable shape; her foot is not crowded in a satin slipper for
which a Cinderella might be looked for in vain, and her complexion
(an unusually fair skin with very dark hair and eyebrows) is of even
a girlish delicacy and freshness. Her dress of blue satin was cut
low, and folded across her bosom, in a way to show to advantage the
round and sculpture-like curve and whiteness of a pair of exquisite
shoulders, while her hair dressed close to her head and parted simply
on her forehead with a rich _feronière_ of turquoise, enveloped in
clear outline a head with which it would be difficult to find a fault.
Her features are regular, and her mouth, the most expressive of
them, has a ripe fullness and freedom of play peculiar to the Irish
physiognomy, and expressive of the most unsuspicious good-humor. Add
to all this a voice merry and sad by turns, but always musical, and
manners of the most unpretending elegance, yet even more remarkable for
their winning kindness, and you have the most prominent traits of one
of the most lovely and fascinating women I have ever seen.

NATHANIEL P. WILLIS: ‘Pencillings by the Way.’ New York: Charles
Scribner, 1853.

* * * * *

Lady Blessington was fair, florid-complexioned, with sparkling eyes and
white, high forehead, above which her bright brown hair was smoothly
braided beneath a light and simple blonde cap, in which were a few
touches of sky-blue satin ribbon that singularly well became her,
setting off her buxom face and its vivid coloring.

MARY COWDEN CLARKE: ‘Recollections of Writers.’ New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Growing stout.]

She was inclined to _embonpoint_;[12] her hair abundant and of a
lightish brown; but she always wore caps fastened under the chin; her
complexion fair and healthily tinged, deriving no aid from art; she was
too stout to be graceful, but she had a natural grace that regulated
all her movements.

S. C. HALL: ‘Book of Memories.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Essentially Irish.]

At that period [1832] she was past her prime no doubt, but she was
still remarkably handsome; not so, perhaps, if tried by the established
canons of beauty; but there was a fascination about her look and manner
that greatly augmented her personal charms. Her face and features were
essentially Irish, and that is the highest compliment I can pay them.

S. C. HALL: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Landor’s admiration.]

I went by Landor’s desire to Lady Blessington’s, to whom he had named
me. She is a charming and remarkable person.... Her dress rich, and her
library most splendid. Her book about Lord Byron (now publishing by
driblets in the _New Monthly Magazine_), and her other writings, give
her in addition the character of a _bel esprit_. Landor says that she
was to Lord Blessington the most devoted wife he ever knew. He says,
also, that she was by far the most beautiful woman he ever saw, and was
so deemed at the Court of George IV. She is now, Landor says, about
thirty, but I should have thought her older. [She was forty-five.] She
is a great talker, but her talk is rather narrative than declamatory,
and very pleasant.

HENRY CRABB ROBINSON: _Diary_, 1832, in ‘Diary, Reminiscences, and
Correspondence,’ edited by T. Sadler. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co., 1871.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Friendship of Count D’Orsay.]

Count D’Orsay was so little guided by principle that he could not
expect general credit for the purity of his relations with Lady
Blessington; yet, I think, he might honestly have claimed it.

S. C. HALL: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Gore House demolished.]

On the 10th of May, 1849, I visited Gore House for the last time.
The auction was going on. There was a large assemblage of people of
fashion. Every room was thronged; the well-known library-saloon,
in which the conversationes took place, was crowded, but not with
guests.... People, as they passed through the room, poked the
furniture, pulled about the precious objects of art and ornaments of
various kinds that lay on the table.... It was a relief to leave that
room: I went into another, the dining-room, where I had frequently
enjoyed, “in goodly company,” the elegant hospitality of one who was
indeed “a most kind hostess.”... In another apartment, where the
pictures were being sold, portraits by Lawrence, sketches by Landseer
and Maclise, innumerable likenesses of Lady Blessington by various
artists; several of the Count D’Orsay, representing him driving,
riding out on horseback, sporting, and at work in his studio; his own
collection of portraits of all the frequenters of note or mark in
society of the villa Belvedere, the Palazzo Negroni, the Hotel Ney,
Seamore Place, and Gore House, in quick succession were brought to
the hammer.... This was the most signal ruin of an establishment of
a person of high rank I ever witnessed. Nothing of value was saved
from the wreck, with the exception of the portrait of Lady Blessington
by Chalon, and one or two more pictures. Here was a total smash, a
crash on a grand scale of ruin. To the honor of Lady Blessington be it
mentioned, she saved nothing, with the few exceptions I have referred
to, from the wreck.... I am able to state, on authority, that the
gross amount of the sale was £13,385, and the net sum realized was
£11,985 4s. The portrait of Lady Blessington, by Lawrence, which cost
originally only £80, I saw sold for £336. It was purchased for the
Marquis of Hertford.

R. R. MADDEN: ‘Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of
Blessington.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A steady friend.]

She was a steady friend, through good report and evil report, for those
to whom she professed friendship.... The courage with which she clung
to her attachments long after they brought her only shame and sorrow,
spoke for the affectionate heart, which no luxury could spoil and no
vicissitude sour.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A sunny nature.]

She must have had originally the most sunny of sunny natures. As
it was, I have never seen anything like her vivacity and sweet
cheerfulness during the early years when I knew her. She had a singular
power of entertaining herself by her own stories; the keenness of an
Irishwoman in relishing fun and repartee, strange turns of language,
and bright touches of character. A fairer, kinder, more universal
recipient of everything that came within the possibilities of her mind,
I have never known. I think the only genuine author whose merits she
was averse to admit was Hood; and yet she knew Rabelais, and delighted
in ‘Elia.’ It was her real disposition to dwell on beauties rather than
faults. Critical she could be, and as judiciously critical as any woman
I have ever known, but she never seemed to be so willingly. When a poem
was read to her, or a book given to her, she could always touch on the
best passage, the bright point; and rarely missed the purpose of the
work, if purpose it had.

HENRY F. CHORLEY: ‘Autobiography, Memoir and Letters.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: “The victim of circumstances.”]

Although I knew her history sufficiently well, I attributed to this
particular daughter of Erin her share of the “wild sweet briery fence
that round the flower of Erin dwells,” and felt conviction that for the
unhappy circumstances of Lady Blessington’s early life, the sins of
others, far more than her own, were responsible, and that she had been
to a great extent the victim of circumstances. To that opinion I still
hold--some thirty years after her death, and more than fifty since I
first saw her.

S. C. HALL: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’

FOOTNOTES:

[11] She was over twenty-eight; she seems always to have looked younger
than she actually was.

[12] Leigh Hunt describes her in ‘The Feast of the Violets,’ as

“A Grace after dinner--a Venus grown fat.”

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

1787-1855.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

Mary Russell Mitford was born at Alresford, Hampshire, on the 16th of
December, 1787. She was the daughter of George Mitford, a physician of
good family, and Mary Russell, whose father had been rector of Ashe
and Tadley, and vicar of Overton. The little Mary Russell Mitford was
but four or five years old when the family removed from Alresford to
Lyme Regis, Dorsetshire; thence they went to London. Here occurred, on
Mary’s eleventh birthday, the famous incident of the lottery-ticket.
Dr. Mitford, reinforced in fortune by his daughter’s childish
persistence, next went to reside in Reading. “Mezza,” as her parents
called her, remained at school in Hans Place until 1802. About this
time Bertram House, a country residence at Grasely, near Reading, in
the improvement of which Dr. Mitford had freely expended the fairy gold
of the lottery, was at last ready for occupation. This was the home of
the Mitford family until 1820, when pecuniary embarrassments, caused
by the doctor’s extravagance and love of play, drove them to the now
famous cottage at Three Mile Cross.

She had already published several books of verse, which have been long
forgotten: _Miscellaneous Poems_, _Christina_, _Blanch of Castile_,
_Narrative Poems on Female Character_, and others. She speaks
disparagingly of one of these volumes in a letter to B. R. Haydon in
1819. “It was written when extreme youth and haste might apologize
for the incorrectness, the silliness, and the commonplace with which
it abounds, but I am afraid it has deficiencies which are worse than
any fault.” “You are aware, I hope,” she says in another letter, “that
all clever people begin by publishing bad poems.” She was now forced,
at thirty-three, to take up her pen in earnest. She worked steadily
both at plays and at the sketches collected in 1824 under the title,
OUR VILLAGE. In 1823 her first tragedy, _Julian_, was successfully
performed at Covent Garden, with Macready as the principal character.
_The Foscari_ appeared in 1826, and _Dramatic Scenes, Sonnets and Other
Poems_, in 1827. Towards the end of 1828, _Rienzi_ was produced at
Drury Lane, Charles Young enacting the hero. Miss Mitford is said to
have received £400 from the theatre, and to have sold eight thousand
copies of the play. Other works in this field were _Otto_, _Inez de
Castro_, and _Charles I_. In 1835 was published BELFORD REGIS, a sequel
to OUR VILLAGE, and in 1852, RECOLLECTIONS OF A LITERARY LIFE. In 1854
a novel, _Atherton_, appeared, and in the same year her dramatic works
were collected.

Mrs. Mitford had died in 1830, Dr. Mitford in 1842. In 1851 Miss
Mitford removed from Three Mile Cross to Swallowfield, where, on the
10th of January, 1855, she died. She had been ill for some time, never
having recovered from the shock of an accident that had occurred in
1853 while she was driving in a pony-chaise.

In reading the Life of Miss Mitford, which the Rev. Mr. L’Estrange has
compiled from her letters, it is interesting to mark the development
of her character by her misfortunes. The indolent, novel-devouring
young lady of Bertram House, with her school-girlish conceit, is a
far less lovable person than the self-sacrificing woman who toiled
uncomplainingly for a spend-thrift father in the cottage at Three Mile
Cross. As was said of her, on the occasion of her accident, by one of
her correspondents, she was “like mignonette, the sweeter the more it
is bruised.”

Her criticism was singularly capricious. For instance, she calmly
pronounced ‘Henry Esmond’ commonplace; the adjective recoils upon
her own work. Commonplace the latter is, but in the same pleasant
sense in which sweet fresh air, and primroses, and cowslips, and the
meadow-sweet she loved, are commonplace.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Precocity.]

In common with many only children, especially where the mother is of
a grave and home-loving nature, I learned to read at a very early
age. Before I was three years old my father would perch me on the
breakfast-table to exhibit my one accomplishment to some admiring
guest, who admired all the more, because, a small, puny child, looking
far younger than I really was, nicely dressed, as only children
generally are, and gifted with an affluence of curls, I might have
passed for the twin sister of my own great doll. On the table was
I perched to read some Foxite newspaper, ‘_Courier_,’ or ‘_Morning
Chronicle_,’ the Whiggish oracles of the day, and as my delight in the
high-seasoned politics of sixty years ago was naturally less than that
of my hearers, this display of precocious acquirement was commonly
rewarded, not by cakes or sugar-plums, too plentiful in my case to
be very greatly cared for, but by a sort of payment in kind. I read
leading articles to please the company; and my dear mother recited ‘The
Children in the Wood’ to please me. This was my reward; and I looked
for my favorite ballad after every performance just as the piping
bull-finch that hung in the window looked for his lump of sugar after
going through ‘God Save the King.’

[Sidenote: Early home.]

A pleasant home, in truth, it was. A large house in a little town
of the north of Hampshire--a town, so small that but for an ancient
market, very slenderly attended, nobody would have dreamt of calling
it anything but a village. The breakfast-room, where I first possessed
myself of my beloved ballads, was a lofty and spacious apartment,
literally lined with books, which, with its Turkey carpet, its glowing
fire, its sofas and its easy chairs, seemed, what indeed it was, a very
nest of English comfort. The windows opened on a large, old-fashioned
garden, full of old-fashioned flowers--stocks, roses, honeysuckles,
and pinks; and that again led into a grassy orchard, abounding with
fruit-trees, a picturesque country church with its yews and lindens
on one side, and beyond, a down as smooth as velvet, dotted with rich
islands of coppice, hazel, woodbine, hawthorn and holly reaching up
into the young oaks, and overhanging flowery patches of primroses,
wood-sorrel, wild hyacinths, and wild strawberries. On the side
opposite the church, in a hollow fringed with alders and bulrushes,
gleamed the bright clear lakelet, radiant with swans and water-lilies,
which the simple townsfolk were content to call the Great Pond.

What a play-ground was that orchard! and what playfellows were mine!
Nancy [the maid], with her trim prettiness, my own dear father,
handsomest and cheerfullest of men, and the great Newfoundland dog Coe,
who used to lie down at my feet, as if to invite me to mount him, and
then to prance off with his burden, as if he enjoyed the fun as much
as we did. Happy, happy days! It is good to have the memory of such a
childhood!

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: ‘Recollections of a Literary Life.’ New York:
Harper & Bros., 1852.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her play-mate.]

[Sidenote: Mary at six.]

One of William Harness’s earliest friends--born at Alresford, in the
same woodland district--was Mary Russell Mitford. Their families had
long been connected: Dr. Harness gave away Miss Russell, who became
Miss Mitford’s mother; and it was here that the future authoress passed
those happy days--her earliest years were her happiest--to which
she reverted with such fond remembrance in after life. Here, in the
spacious library, lined with her grandfather Russell’s books, or in
the old-fashioned garden, among the stocks and holly-hocks, she and
little William would chase away the summer hours, until the time when
the carriage arrived, which was to carry her playmate back to Wickham.
A picture taken when she was about six years old enables us to form
some idea of her at this time. It represents her with her hair cut
short across her forehead, and flowing down at the back in long glossy
ringlets, while in her face there is a sedateness and gravity beyond
her years, such as we might expect to find in a young lady devoted to
study, and celebrated for early feats of memory.

REV. A. G. L’ESTRANGE: ‘Literary Life of the Rev. William Harness.’
London: Hurst & Blackett, 1871.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A spoilt child.]

Most undoubtedly I was a spoilt child. Everybody spoilt me, most of all
the person whose power in that way was greatest, the dear papa himself.
Not content with spoiling me indoors he spoilt me out. How well I
remember his carrying me round the orchard on his shoulder, holding
fast my little three-year old feet, while the little hands hung on to
his pigtail, which I called my bridle, ... hung so fast, and tugged so
heartily, that sometimes the ribbon would come off between my fingers,
and send his hair floating, and the powder flying down his back. That
climax of mischief was the crowning joy of all.

Nor were these my only rides. This dear papa of mine, whose gay and
careless temper all the professional _etiquette_ of the world could
never tame into the staid gravity proper to a doctor of medicine,
happened to be a capital horseman; and abandoning the close carriage,
which, at that time, was the regulation conveyance of a physician,
almost wholly to my mother, used to pay his country visits on a
favorite blood-mare, whose extreme docility and gentleness tempted
him, after certain short trials round our old course, the orchard,
into having a pad constructed, perched upon which I might occasionally
accompany him, when the weather was favorable, and the distance not too
great. Very delightful were those rides across the breezy Hampshire
downs on a sunny summer morning; and grieved was I when a change of
residence from a small town to a large one, and going among people
who did not know our ways, put an end to this perfectly harmless, if
somewhat unusual pleasure.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: ‘Recollections of a Literary Life.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The lottery ticket.]

On her tenth birthday Dr. Mitford took the child to a lottery-office,
and bade her select a ticket. She determined--guided, to all
appearance, by one of the unaccountable whims of childhood--that she
would have none other than the number 2,224. Some difficulty attended
the purchase of the coveted number, but the little lottery patroness
had her way at last, and on the day of drawing there fell to the lot
of the happy holder of ticket No. 2,224 a prize of £20,000. Alas! the
holder of the fortunate ticket was happy only in name. By the time his
daughter was a woman, there remained to Dr. Mitford, of all his lottery
adventure had brought him, a Wedgwood dinner service with the family
crest!

S. C. HALL: _Note in_ ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’ New York: D.
Appleton & Co., 1883.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: At school.]

We find the doctor, about the year 1797, residing at Reading, with his
phaeton, his spaniels and his greyhounds, and enjoying his good-fortune
with all his wonted hilarity of spirit, prodigality of expense, and
utter want of consideration for the future.... His daughter was at
this time at school in Hans Place--a small square into which you turn
on the right hand out of Sloane Street, as you go from Knightsbridge
to Chelsea.... Once fairly entered at M. St. Quintin’s school, Mary
Russell Mitford seems to have applied herself, with all her heart
and mind, to learn whatever the masters and mistresses were prepared
to teach her. French, Italian, history, geography, astronomy, music,
singing, drawing, dancing, were not enough to satisfy her eager thirst
for instruction: and we find her informing her mother that she intended
to learn Latin.... Excepting music, there was no branch of education
within her reach at the Hans Place School which she was not zealous
and successful in the pursuit of; but in that accomplishment she took
little pleasure. She never at any time of her life showed much taste or
feeling for it.

Like so very many precocious children, she was of a scrofulous
temperament, and had suffered much from illness in her infancy. In
person she was short for her age; and, there is no possibility of
evading the word by any gentle synonym or extenuating periphrasis, she
was, in sincere truth and very plain English, decidedly fat. Her face,
of which the expression was kind, gentle, and intelligent, ought to
have been handsome, for the features were all separately good and like
her father’s, but from some almost imperceptible disproportion, and
the total change of coloring, the beauty had evanesced. But although
very plain in figure and in face, she was never common-looking. She
showed in her countenance and in her mild self-possession, that she was
no ordinary child; and with her sweet smile, her gentle temper, her
animated conversation, her keen enjoyment of life, and her incomparable
voice, there were few of the prettiest children of her age who won so
much love and admiration from their friends, whether young or old, as
little Mary Mitford. And except, indeed, that her hair became white at
an early age, few persons, it may be added, in passing through so many
vicissitudes of life, ever altered so little, either in character or
appearance.

[Sidenote: Home life after leaving school.]

Her delight in the sports of the field was no more than a sympathetic
affection of her father’s pleasure. It was theoretical and not
practical. She was no horsewoman. She was capable of very little
exercise beyond a modest walk.... She remained at home and received
visits. She went out in the green chariot with her mother and returned
them. They drove into Reading after their visits were all paid to do
their shopping and hear if there were any news, or rather to pick up
the present gossip of the neighborhood; and when these affairs were
dispatched, and they found themselves again at home, the daughter would
lie for hours together on a sofa, with her dog by her side, reading
anything--good, bad, or indifferent, which came to hand, guided by
chance or fancy, without any apparent attempt at selection. The number
of books she read is almost incredible.... Undoubtedly the young
lady must have consumed a great deal of trash; but there are some
constitutions with which nothing seems to disagree; and probably there
was none of these works from which she did not derive some advantage.
If she met with nothing good to imitate, she at least learned to see
what was bad and to be avoided.

REV. A. G. L’ESTRANGE: ‘Life of Mary Russell Mitford.’ London: Richard
Bentley, 1870.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Favorite exercise.]

The exercise which I do dearly love is to be whirled along fast, fast,
fast, by a blood-horse in a gig; this under a bright sun, with a brisk
wind full in my face, is my highest notion of physical pleasure; even
walking is not so exhilarating.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir William Elford_, in the former’s
‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Favorite idleness.]

But reading is my favorite mode of idleness. I like it better than any
of my play-works, better than fir-coning, better than violeting, better
than working gowntails, better than playing with Miranda (her dog),
better than feeding the white kitten, better than riding in a gig,
better than anything except that other pet idleness, talking (that is
to say _writing_) to you.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir William Elford_, in ‘Life,’ by
L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Letters.]

I am inclined to think that her correspondence, so full of point in
allusions, so full of anecdote and recollections, will be considered
among her finest writings. Her criticisms, not always the wisest, were
always piquant and readable. She had such a charming humor and her
style was so delightful, that her friendly notes had a relish about
them quite their own.

JAMES T. FIELDS: ‘Yesterdays With Authors.’ Boston: James R. Osgood &
Co., 1872.

* * * * *

Soon after his friend’s death, Mr. Harness commenced the task of
looking through her letters, but he found the work much more arduous
than he had anticipated. Although her habits were in every respect
frugal, her favorite economy seemed to be in paper. Her letters
were scribbled on innumerable small scraps--sometimes on printed
circulars--sometimes across engravings--and half a dozen of these would
form one epistle and in course of time become confused and interchanged
in their envelopes. When we add to this that toward the end of her life
Miss Mitford’s handwriting became almost microscopic, it can be easily
understood that the arrangement of these sibylline leaves was no short
or easy undertaking.

REV. A. G. L’ESTRANGE: ‘Literary Life of the Rev. William Harness.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Handwriting.]

There are intelligent persons who make a living out of their
fellow-creatures by pretending to read character in hand-writing. What
would they make, I wonder, out of this delicate, microscopic writing,
looking as if it were done with a stylus, and without blot or flaw? The
paper is all odds and ends, and not a scrap of it but is covered and
crossed; the very flaps of the envelopes, and even the outside of them,
having their message. The reason of this is that the writer had lived
in a time when postage was very dear; like Southey, she used to boast
that she could send more for her money by post than any one else; and
when the necessity no longer existed, the custom remained. How, at her
age, her eyes could read what she herself had written used to puzzle me.

JAMES PAYN: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’ New York: Harper & Bros.,
1884.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her dog “Moss Trooper.”]

He was the greatest darling that ever lived.... He was a large black
dog, of the largest and strongest kind of greyhounds; very fast and
honest and resolute past example; an excellent killer of hares, and
a most magnificent and noble-looking creature. His coat was of the
finest and most glossy black, with no white, except a very little
under his feet (pretty white shoelings, I used to call them)--little
beautiful white spot, quite small, in the very middle of his neck,
between his chin and his breast--and a white mark on his bosom. His
face was singularly beautiful; the finest black eyes, very bright, and
yet sweet, and fond and tender--eyes that seemed to speak; a beautiful,
complacent mouth, which used sometimes to show one of the long, white
teeth at the side; a jet-black nose; a brow which was bent and flexible
... and gave great sweetness of expression, and a look of thought to
his dear face. There never was such a dog! His temper was, beyond
comparison, the sweetest ever known. Nobody ever saw him out of humor.
And his sagacity was equal to his temper.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: Quoted in her ‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her dog “May Flower.”]

We have a greyhound, called May Flower, of excelling grace and
symmetry--just of the color of the May blossom--like marble with the
sun upon it; and she kills every hare she sees--takes them up in the
middle of the back, brings them in her mouth to my father, and lays
them down at his feet. I assure you she is quite a study while bringing
the hares--the fine contrast of color--her beautiful position, head
and tail up, and her long neck arched like that of a swan--with the
shade shifting upon her beautiful limbs, and her black eyes really
emitting light!

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir William Elford_, in the former’s
‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Pleasure in a glow-worm.]

Did you ever see a glow-worm half way up a high tree? We did last
night. It was a tall elm, stripped of large branches almost to the top,
as the fashion is in this country, but the trunk clothed with little
green twigs, upon one of which the glow-worm hung like a lamp, looking
so beautiful!

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir William Elford_, in the former’s
‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Love of field flowers.]

In truth, nothing can be more vulgar than my taste in flowers, for
which I have a passion. I like scarcely any but the common ones.
First and best I love violets, and primroses, and cowslips, and wood
anemones, and the whole train of field flowers; then roses of every
kind and color, especially the great cabbage rose; then the blossoms of
the lilac and laburnum, the horse-chestnut, the asters, the jasmine,
and the honeysuckle; and to close the list, lilies of the valley, sweet
peas, and the red pinks which are found in cottagers’ gardens. This is
my confession of faith.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir William Elford_, in the former’s
‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Pet robin.]

All this warm weather I sit out of doors in the plantations; just on
one side of my seat is a filbert tree, the branches of which spread
quite across my feet, and on these branches every day comes a young
red-breast. First of all he appeared at a distance, then he came
nearer, then he came close home, and now, the moment I call “Bobby,”
he comes.... He comes on my feet and my gown, feeds almost on my hand
(not quite), and has by example tamed his papa and one or two of his
brothers and sisters, who come like him and feed from a board on the
tree, quite close to me; but they do not, like my own Bobby, come when
they are called. Is this usual in the summer? I know they are tame
in the winter; but this is quite a young bird--has never known cold
or hunger. He had not a red feather in his breast a fortnight ago.
He likes very much to be talked to, in a soft, monotonous, caressing
tone--“Bobby! Bobby! Bobby!”--and turns his little head in the
prettiest attitudes of listening that you can imagine, and generally
finishes by taking two or three flights across me, so close as almost
to touch my face.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir William Elford_, in the former’s
‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Dogs and geraniums, in later life.]

Her dogs and her geraniums were her great glories. She used to write
me long letters about Fanchon, a dog whose personal acquaintance I had
made some time before, while on a visit to her cottage. Every virtue
under heaven she attributed to that canine individual; and I was
obliged to allow in my return letters, that, since our planet began to
spin, nothing comparable to Fanchon had ever run on four legs. I had
also known Flush, the ancestor of Fanchon, intimately, and had been
accustomed to hear wonderful things of that dog; but Fanchon had graces
and genius unique.

JAMES T. FIELDS: ‘Yesterdays with Authors.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Removal from Bertram House.]

The last days of March, 1820, were employed in removing from the home
which they had occupied for nearly twenty years, at first in affluence
and comfort, but latterly with a severe economy, and a constant
struggle against encroaching ruin. Every visit of the doctor to London
was followed by some fresh privation to his wife and daughter. Within
six years of the completion of Bertram House--so early as 1808--great
reductions had been required in the establishment. The servant out
of livery had been dispensed with. There had ceased to be any lady’s
maid. The footman had degenerated into an awkward lad, who was not only
expected to wait at table and go out with the carriage, but to make
himself useful in the stable or the garden. The carriage horses were
employed on the work of the farm.... By and by Mrs. Mitford is harassed
by difficulties in obtaining remittances for the moderate expenses of
her diminished household. Tradesmen refuse to serve the house with the
common requirements of the family till previous accounts are settled.
On several occasions they are at a loss whence to procure food for the
greyhounds, and once Mrs. Mitford writes imploringly to the doctor,
with the greatest earnestness, but without the slightest intimation of
reproach, requesting him to send her a _one pound note_ by return of
post, as they are actually in want of bread.... And who was the author
of this distress? The father alone. The wife, by the most careful
management and self-denial; the daughter, by her literary industry;
were doing every thing in their power to lighten its pressure and ward
off its fall. It was the sole work of the husband. The cause of all
this misery was the doctor’s love of play, and its concomitant dabbling
in gambling speculations.

REV. A. G. L’ESTRANGE: ‘Life of Mary Russell Mitford.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Character of Dr. Mitford.]

Mr. Horne, in his edition of Mrs. Barrett Browning’s letters, tells us
that Miss Mitford’s father was “a jovial, stick-at-nothing, fox-hunting
squire of the three-bottle class,”--a tolerably correct description,
if we substitute “coursing” for “fox-hunting,” and “doctor” for
“squire.”... It appears from incidental notices that he had a keen
relish for fine wine, and that indulgence in it did not invariably make
him the better. Miss Mitford, no doubt, owed to him much of her natural
buoyancy of spirit, and some of her predilection for country pursuits
and for the canine race, of which greyhounds were his favorites.
Children and dogs loved him, and so did others who did not understand
him, or refused to see his faults. Women have generally represented
Dr. Mitford as amiable and pleasant; there was something cheering and
hearty in his familiarity. The character is not uncommon; he was one
of those good-looking, profligate spendthrifts, who, reckless of
consequences, bring misery upon their families and remain dear to their
mothers and daughters.... Dr. Mitford often did kind actions, which it
is unfair to ignore; he seems even to have had some sort of generosity,
and the ease with which he parted with his money was one of his most
unfortunate weaknesses. But Miss Mitford’s appreciation of her father
was mostly due to filial devotion. Never was affection more severely
tried. She had to see thousands, seventy thousand pounds, passing out
of his careless hands until he became dependent upon the small pittance
she could earn by arduous literary labor.

REV. A. G. L’ESTRANGE: ‘The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford.’ New
York: Harper & Bros., 1882.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Cottage at Three Mile Cross.]

Our residence is a cottage--no, not a cottage--it does not deserve the
name--a messuage or tenement, such as a little farmer who had made
twelve or fourteen hundred pounds might retire to, when he left off
business to live on his means. It consists of a series of closets,
the largest of which may be about eight feet square, which they call
parlors, and kitchens and pantries; some of them minus a corner, which
has been unnaturally filched for a chimney; others deficient in half
a side, which has been truncated by the shelving roof. Behind is a
garden about the size of a good drawing-room, with an arbor which
is a complete sentry-box of privet. On one side a public-house, on
the other a village shop, and right opposite a cobbler’s stall....
Notwithstanding all this, “the cabin,” as Bobadil says, “is
convenient.” It is within reach of my dear old walks; the banks where I
find my violets; the meadows full of cowslips; and the woods where the
wood-sorrel blows.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir William Elford_, April 8, 1820; in
the former’s ‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

I have grown exceedingly fond of this little place. Did I ever
tell you I disliked it? I love it of all things--have taken root
completely--could be content to live and die here. To be sure the rooms
are of the smallest. I, in our little parlor, look something like a
black-bird in a goldfinch’s cage--but it is so snug and comfortable.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir William Elford_, June 21, 1820; in
the former’s ‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The cottage garden.]

My little garden is a perfect rosary--the greenest and most blossomy
nook that ever the sun shone upon. It is almost shut in by buildings;
one a long open shed, very pretty, a sort of a rural arcade, where
we sit. On the other side is an old granary, to which we mount by
outside wooden steps, also very pretty. Then, there is an opening to
a little court, also backed by buildings, but with room enough to let
in the sunshine, the north-west sunshine that comes aslant in summer
evenings, through and under a large elder tree. One end is closed
by our pretty irregular cottage, which, as well as the granary, is
covered by cherry trees, vines, roses, jessamine, honeysuckle, and
grand spires of hollyhocks. The other is comparatively open, showing
over high pales the blue sky and a range of woody hills. All and
every part is untrimmed, antique, weather-stained and homely as can
be imagined--gratifying the eye by its exceeding picturesqueness, and
the mind by the certainty that no pictorial effect was intended--that
it owes all its charms to “rare accident.” My father laughs at my
passionate love for my little garden--and perhaps you will laugh too;
but I assure you it’s a “bonny bit” of earth as ever was crammed full
of lilies and roses.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to B. R. Haydon_, in the former’s ‘Life,’
by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Difficulties with plays.]

I would not recommend any friend to write for the stage because it
nearly killed me with its unspeakable worries and anxieties, and I am
certainly ten years older for having so written; but of all forms of
poetry it is the one I prefer, and I would always advise the writing
with a view to the production of the piece upon the boards, because it
avoids the danger of interminable dialogues of coldness and languor....
Write for the stage, but don’t bring the play out--that is my advice.
If you wish to know my reasons, you may find some of them in the fact
that one of my tragedies had seven last acts, and that two others
fought each other during a whole season at Covent Garden Theatre; Mr.
Macready insisted on producing one, Charles Kemble was equally bent
upon the other--neither of them even pretending to any superiority of
either play but because one, a man of fifty, would play the young man’s
part, and the other insisted that none but himself should have anything
like a telling part at all. Both were read in the green-room, both
advertised--and just think of the poor author in the country all the
time, while the money was earnestly wanted, and the non-production fell
upon her like a sin!

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Mr. Digby Starkey_, in ‘Friendships of
Mary Russell Mitford,’ by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

I would rather serve in a shop--rather scour floors--rather nurse
children, than undergo these tremendous and interminable disputes, and
this unwomanly publicity.

[Sidenote: Drudgery.]

Pray forgive this sad no-letter. Alas! the free and happy hours, when
I could read and think and prattle for you, are passed away. Oh! will
they ever return? I am now chained to a desk, eight, ten, twelve hours
a day, at mere drudgery. All my thoughts of writing are for hard money.
All my correspondence is on hard business.... A washerwoman hath a
better trade.... I myself hate all my own doings, and consider the
being forced to this drudgery as the greatest misery that life can
afford. But it is my wretched fate and must be undergone--so long, at
least, as my father is spared to me. If I should have the misfortune to
lose him, I shall go quietly to the workhouse, and never write another
line--a far preferable destiny.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir William Elford_, in the former’s
‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Lionized in London.]

Every day we had from sixty to seventy visitors, and three times more
parties made for me than I could have attended, even if I had refused
all exhibiting show parties and gone only to friends, dining with what
they called quiet parties of twenty or thirty, and thirty or forty more
arriving to tea. At last, however, I was forced to break off this,
or I should have returned to the country without seeing any public
place whatever; and my last week or ten days were spent in seeing all
to be seen in London in the morning, and attending operas and plays
every evening--the artists all writing to show me their galleries,
and the very best private boxes everywhere being reserved for my
accommodation--no queen could have been more deferentially received.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Emily Jephson_, 1834, in ‘Friendships
of Mary Russell Mitford,’ by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Town and country manners.]

Miss Landon called her “Sancho Panza in petticoats”; yet among the
lanes and glades of her own sunny Berkshire she might have aptly seemed
a merry milk-maid--proper to the place. Her round figure, jolly face,
perpetual smile, ready greeting, kindly words, seemed of kin to the
nature that is away from crowded streets. Assuredly she was more at
home at Three-Mile Cross than she was in London. In London she seemed
always _en garde_, thought an air of patronage was the right thing,
and that an author about whom the whole world was talking, and who had
achieved the greatest of all literary successes--the production of a
tragedy--was bound to be stately as well as cordial--to have company
manners that she would have thrown off as a paralyzing incumbrance
where the breezes blew among the trees that shaded her native heath.

S. C. HALL: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mrs. Hall’s first impression of Miss Mitford.]

I certainly was disappointed, when a stout little lady, tightened
up in a shawl, rolled into the parlor in Newman Street, and Mrs.
Hofland announced her as Miss Mitford; her short petticoats showing
wonderfully stout leather boots, her shawl _bundled_ on, and a little
black coal-scuttle bonnet--when bonnets were expanding--added to the
effect of her natural shortness and rotundity; but her manner was
that of a cordial country gentlewoman; the pressure of her fat little
hands (for she extended both) was warm; her eyes both soft and bright,
looked kindly and frankly into mine; and her pretty, rosy mouth dimpled
with smiles that were always sweet and friendly. At first I did not
think her at all “grand or stilted,” though she declared she had been
quite spoilt--quite ruined since she came to London, with all the
fine compliments she had received; but the trial was yet to come.
“Suppose--suppose ‘Rienzi’ should be--” and she shook her head. Of
course, in full chorus, we declared that impossible. “No! she would
not spend an evening with us until after the first night; if the play
went ill, or even coldly, she would run away, and never be again seen
or heard of; if it succeeded”--She drew her rotund person to its full
height, and endeavored to stretch her neck, and the expression of her
beaming face assumed an air of unmistakable triumph. She was always
pleasant to look at, and had her face not been cast in so broad--so
“outspread”--a mould, she would have been handsome; even with that
disadvantage, if her figure had been tall enough to carry her head with
dignity, she would have been so; but she was most vexatiously “dumpy.”

[Sidenote: A little spoiled by success.]

She kept her promise to us, and after ‘Rienzi’s’ triumph, spent an
evening at our house, “the observed of all observers.” She did not,
however, appear to advantage that evening; her manner was constrained,
and even haughty. She got up tragedy looks, which did not harmonize
with her naturally playful expression. She seated herself in a high
chair, and was indignant at the offer of a foot-stool, though her
feet barely touched the ground; she received those who wished to be
introduced to her _en reine_; but such was her popularity just then,
that all were gratified. She was most unbecomingly dressed in a striped
satin something, neither high nor low, with very short sleeves, for
her arms were white and finely formed; she wore a large yellow turban,
which added considerably to the size of her head. She had evidently
bought the hideous thing _en route_, and put it on in the carriage,
as she drove down to our house, for pinned at the back was a somewhat
large card, on which were written, in somewhat large letters, these
astounding words, “Very chaste--only five and three-pence.” Under
pretence of settling her turban, I removed the obnoxious notice.

MRS. S. C. HALL: ‘Book of Memories.’ London: Virtue & Co., 1871.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Herself again.]

We found Miss Mitford living literally in a cottage, neither _ornée_
nor poetical--except inasmuch as it had a small garden crowded with the
richest and most beautiful profusion of flowers--where she lives with
her father, a fresh, stout old man who is in his seventy-fifth year.
She herself seemed about fifty, short and fat, with very gray hair,
perfectly visible under her cap, and neatly arranged in front. She has
the simplest and kindest of manners, and entertained us for two hours
with the most animated conversation, and a great variety of anecdotes,
without any of the pretensions of an author by profession, and without
any of the stiffness that generally belongs to single ladies of her age
and reputation.

GEORGE TICKNOR: _Journal_, July 26th, 1835, in ‘Life, Letters and
Journals.’ Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co., 1876.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Her one complaint of her father.]

My father--very kind to me in many respects, very attentive if I’m ill,
very solicitous that my garden should be nicely kept, that I should
go out with him and be amused--is yet, so far as art, literature and
the drama are concerned, of a temper infinitely difficult to deal
with. He hates and despises them, and all their professors ...; and is
constantly taunting me with my “friends” and my “people” (as he calls
them), reproaching me if I hold the slightest intercourse with author,
editor, artist, or actor, and treating with frank contempt every one
not of a certain station in the county. I am entirely convinced that he
would consider Sir Thomas Lawrence, Sir Walter Scott, and Mrs. Siddons
as his inferiors. Always this is very painful--strangely painful.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Rev. William Harness_, in the former’s
‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Hard life.]

After frittering away the whole day, incessantly on foot, or otherwise
fatiguing herself, at his beck and call, and receiving his friends, and
reading him to sleep in the afternoons till she had no voice left, the
hour came when she might put him to bed. But her own day’s work still
remained to be done. It was not a sort of work which could be done by
powers jaded like hers, without some stimulus or relief; and hence the
necessity of doses of laudanum to carry her through her task. When the
necessity ceased by the death of her father, her practice of taking
laudanum ceased; but her health had become radically impaired, and her
nervous system was rendered unfit to meet any such shock as that which
overthrew it at last. Miss Mitford so toiling by candle-light, while
the hard master who had made her his servant all day was asleep in the
next room, is as painful an instance of the struggles of human life as
the melancholy of a buffoon, or the heart-break--that “secret known to
all”--of a boasting Emperor of all the Russias.

HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Biographical Sketches.’ New York: Leypoldt & Holt,
1869.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Miss Mitford in 1839.]

Our coachman (who, after telling him that we were Americans, had
complimented us on speaking English, and “very good English, too,”)
professed an acquaintance of some twenty years’ standing with Miss M.,
and assured us that she was “one of the dearest women in England,” and
the doctor (her father) “an ’earty old boy.” And when he reined his
horses up at her door, and she appeared to receive us, he said, “Now
you would not take that little body there for the great author, would
you?” and certainly we should have taken her for nothing more than a
kindly gentlewoman, who had never gone beyond the narrow sphere of the
most refined social life. Miss M. is truly a “little body,” and as
unlike as possible to the faces we have seen of her in the magazines,
which all have a broad humor bordering on coarseness. She has a
pale-gray, soul-lit eye, and hair as white as snow; a wintry sign that
has come prematurely upon her, as like signs come upon us while the
year is yet fresh and undecayed. Her voice has a sweet, low tone, and
her manner a natural frankness and affectionateness that we have been
so long familiar with in their other modes of manifestation that it
would have been indeed a disappointment not to have found them.

She led us directly through her house into her garden, a perfect
bouquet of flowers. “I must show you my geraniums while it is light,”
she said, “for I love them next to my father.”

CATHARINE M. SEDGWICK: ‘Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home.’ New
York: Harper & Bros., 1841.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Looking back.]

There used to be, and there no doubt still is, if I had but the courage
to go and look at it, a small, old-fashioned cottage at Three Mile
Cross, near Reading, which stood in a garden close to the road. A strip
of garden was on one side, a little pony-stable on the other, and the
larger part of the garden at the back. It was a comfortable-looking,
but still a real village cottage, with no town or suburb-look whatever
about it. Small lattice windows, below and above, with roses and
jasmine creeping round them all, established its rural character; and
there was a great buttress of a chimney rising from the ground at the
garden-strip side, which was completely covered with a very ancient and
very fine apricot tree. There the birds delighted to sit and sing among
the leaves, and build too, in several snug nooks, and there in early
autumn the wasps used to bite and bore into the rich ripe brown cracks
of the largest apricots, and would issue forth in rage when any one of
the sweetest of their property was brought down to the earth by the aid
of a clothes-prop, guided under the superintending instructions of a
venerable little gentlewoman in a garden-bonnet and shawl, with silver
hair, very bright hazel eyes, and a rose-red smiling countenance.
Altogether, it was one of the brightest faces any one ever saw.

[Sidenote: Mr. Horne’s recollections.]

“Now, my dear friend,” would she say, “if you will only attend to
my advice, you will get that apricot up there, which is quite in
perfection. I have had my eye upon it these last three weeks, wondering
nobody stole it. The boys often get over into the garden before any
of us are up. There now, collect all those leaves, if you will be so
good--and those too--and lay them all in a heap just underneath, so
that the apricot may fall upon them. If you don’t do that, it will
burst open with a thump. There! now push the prop up slowly, so as to
break the apricot from the stalk; and when it is down, do not be in too
great a hurry to take it up, as it’s sure to have a good large wasp or
two inside. Wasps are capital judges of ripe wall-fruit, as my dear
father used to say. A little lower with the prop! more to the left--now
just push the prong upwards, and gently lift--again--down it comes!
Mind the wasps! three, four--mind! perhaps that’s not all--five! I told
you so!”... “How angry they are!”

“Not more, my dear, than you and I would have been under similar
circumstances.”

[Sidenote: A bright face.]

[Sidenote: Presence of mind.]

I had not known Miss Mitford very long at this time; but it was her
habit to address all those with whom she was on intimate terms, by
some affectionate expression. For several years, however, I used to
pay a visit of a week or ten days to Miss Mitford’s cottage during the
strawberry season, and again during the middle of summer, when her show
of geraniums (she resisted all new nomenclatures) was at its height,
and sometimes later, when the wonderful old fruit-trees just retained
some half-dozen of their choicest treasures. It would be impossible
for any engraving or photograph, however excellent as to features, to
convey a true likeness of Mary Russell Mitford. During one of these
visits, Miss Charlotte Cushman was also staying at the cottage, and
exclaimed the first time Miss Mitford left the room, “What a bright
face it is!” The effect of summer brightness over all the countenance
was quite remarkable. A floral flush overspread the whole face, which
seemed to carry its own light with it, for it was the same indoors
as out. The silver hair shone, the forehead shone, the cheeks shone,
and above all, the eyes shone. The expression was entirely genial,
cognoscitive, beneficent. The outline of the face was an oblate round,
of no very marked significance beyond that of an apple, or other rural
“character”; in fact, it was very like a rosy apple in the sun. Always
excepting the forehead and chin. The forehead was not only massive,
but built in a way that sculpture only could adequately delineate....
This build of head, and strong outline of head and face, will go far
to explain the strength of character displayed by Miss Mitford during
the early and most trying periods of her life, with her extravagant
and selfish father. It may also account for her general composure and
presence of mind, both on great occasions and others, trifling enough
to talk and write about, but of a kind to test the nerves of most
ladies. For instance, in driving Miss Mitford one day in her little
pony-chaise on a visit, she so riveted my attention on the special
point of a story, that I allowed one wheel to run into a dry ditch at
the roadside, and the pony-chaise must, of course, have turned over,
but that we were “brought up” by the hedge. “Hillo! my dear friend!”
said Miss Mitford; “we must get out.” We did so; the little trap was at
once put on its proper course, and, without one word of comment, the
bright-faced old lady took up the thread of her story.

R. H. HORNE: ‘Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, addressed to
Richard Hengist Horne.’ (With a Preface and Memoir by R. H. Stoddard.)
New York: James Miller, 1877.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: James T. Fields’ visit.]

The cottage where I found her was situated on the high road between
Basingstoke and Reading; and the village street on which she was
then living contained the public-house and several small shops near
by. There was also close at hand the village pond full of ducks and
geese, and I noticed several young rogues on their way to school
were occupied in worrying their feathered friends. The windows of
the cottage were filled with flowers, and cowslips and violets were
plentifully scattered about the little garden. Miss Mitford liked to
have one dog, at least, at her heels, and this day her pet seemed to be
constantly under foot. I remember the room into which I was shown was
sanded, and a quaint old clock behind the door was marking off the hour
in small but very loud pieces. The cheerful old lady called to me from
the head of the stairs to come up into her sitting-room. I sat down by
the open window to converse with her, and it was pleasant to see how
the village children, as they went by, stopped to bow and courtesy.
One curly-headed urchin made bold to take off his well-worn cap, and
wait to be recognized as “little Johnny.” “No great scholar,” said
the kind-hearted old lady to me, “but a sad rogue among our flock of
geese. Only yesterday the young marauder was detected by my maid with
a plump gosling stuffed half-way into his pocket!” While she was thus
discoursing of Johnny’s peccadilloes, the little fellow looked up with
a knowing expression, and very soon caught in his cap a ginger-bread
dog, which the old lady threw to him from the window. “I wish he loved
his book as well as he relishes sweetcake,” sighed she, as the boy
kicked up his heels and disappeared down the lane.

JAMES T. FIELDS: ‘Yesterdays with Authors.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Leaves Three Mile Cross for Swallowfield.]

The poor cottage was crumbling around us, and if we had stayed much
longer we should have been buried in the ruins. And yet it was great
grief to go. Besides my general aversion to new habitations, I had
associations with those old walls which endeared them to me more than
I can tell. There I had toiled and striven, and tasted of bitter
anxiety.... There in the fulness of age, I had lost those whose love
had made my home sweet and precious.... Other recollections, less dear
and less sad, added their interest to the place. Friends many and kind;
strangers, whose names were an honor, had come to that bright garden,
and that garden room.... It was a heart-tug to leave that garden.

I walked from the one cottage to the other on an autumn evening, when
the vagrant birds, whose habit of assembling here for their annual
departure, gives, I suppose, the name of Swallowfield to the village,
were circling and twittering over my head.... Here I am in the
prettiest village, in the snuggest and cosiest of all snug cabins; a
trim cottage garden, divided by a hawthorn hedge from a little field
guarded by grand old trees; a cheerful glimpse of the high-road in
front, just to hint that there is such a thing as a peopled world;
and on either side the deep silent lanes that form the distinctive
character of English scenery.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: ‘Recollections of a Literary Life.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Miss Martineau did not like her.]

I must say that personally I did not like her so well as I liked her
works. The charming _bonhomie_ of her writings appeared at first
in her conversation and manners; but there were other things which
presently sadly impaired its charm. It is no part of my business to
pass judgment on her views and modes of life. What concerned me was
her habit of flattery, and the twin habit of disparagement of others.
I never knew her respond to any act or course of conduct which was
morally lofty. She could not believe in it, nor, of course, enjoy
it; and she seldom failed to “see through” it, and to delight in her
superiority to admiration. She was a devoted daughter, where the duty
was none of the easiest; and servants and neighbors were sincerely
attached to her. The little intercourse I had with her was spoiled by
her habit of flattery; but I always fell back on my old admiration of
her as soon as she was out of sight, and her ‘Village’ rose up in my
memory.

HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’ Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
1877.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: “Not flattery prepense.”]

I never say one word more than appears to me to be true. To be sure,
there is an atmosphere of love--a sunshine of fancy--in which objects
appear clearer and brighter; and from such I may sometimes paint; but
that is not flattery prepense, is it, my dear friend? I never mean
to flatter--no, never! But it is a great pleasure to me to love and
admire, and it is a faculty which has survived many frosts and storms.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir William Elford_ in the former’s
‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Visited by Americans.]

I suppose she was one of the earliest English authors who was
“interviewed” by the Americans. She was far from democratic, but always
spoke of that nation with great respect. What impressed me much more
was her admiration for Louis Napoleon; upon which point, as on many
others, we soon agreed to differ. She even approved of the _coup
d’état_, concerning which she writes to me, a little apologetically,
“My enthusiasm is always ready laid, you know, like a housemaid’s
fire”; which was very true.

JAMES PAYN: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Enthusiasm.]

Carlyle tells us, “Nothing so lifts a man from all his men
imprisonments, were it but for moments, as true admiration”; and Miss
Mitford admired to such an extent that she must have been lifted in
this way nearly all her lifetime. Indeed she erred, if she erred at
all, on this side, and over-praised and over-admired everything and
everybody whom she regarded. When she spoke of Beranger, or Dumas, or
Hazlitt, or Holmes, she exhausted every term of worship and panegyric.
Louis Napoleon was one of her most potent crazes.... Although she had
been prostrated by the hard work and increasing anxieties of forty
years of authorship, when I saw her she was as fresh and independent as
a skylark. She was a good hater as well as a good praiser, and she left
nothing worth saving in an obnoxious reputation.... I have heard her go
on in her fine way, giving preference to certain modern poems far above
the works of the great masters of song. Pascal says that “the heart has
reasons that reason does not know”; and Miss Mitford was a charming
exemplification of this wise saying.

JAMES T. FIELDS: ‘Yesterdays with Authors.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Devotion to her father.]

Nothing ever destroyed her faith in those she loved. If I had not
known all about him (from my own folks of another generation who had
known him well), I should have thought her father had been a patriot
and a martyr. She spoke of him as if there had never been such a
father--which in a sense was true. He had spent his wife’s fortune, and
then another, and then the £10,000 [sic] which “little Mary” herself
had got for him by hitting on the lucky number in a lottery, and was
rapidly getting through her own modest earnings in the same free-handed
manner, when good fortune removed him; but she always deemed it an
irreparable loss. “I used to contrive to keep our house in order,” she
would say, speaking of her literary gains, “and a little pony-carriage,
and my dear, dear father.” To my mind he seemed like a Mr. Turveydrop,
but he had really been a most accomplished and agreeable person, though
with nothing sublime about him except his selfishness.

[Sidenote: Prejudices.]

She had the same exaggerated notions of the virtues and talents of
her friends (including myself); nay, her sympathies even extended
to _their_ friends, whom she did not know. Of course she had her
prejudices by way of complement; and when she spoke of those who
did not please her, her tongue played about their reputations like
sheet-lightning--for there was much more flash than fork in it.

JAMES PAYN: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A country lady.]

She was a “country lady,” and if she caught any author growing a
snowdrop and crocus at the wrong time of the year, he never recovered
a place in her memory. On a certain occasion she had been speaking of
the rabbit-shooting at Bear Wood; and afterwards happening to propose
a visit there, I inadvertently remarked that I should be very happy
to accompany her, but that of late years I had taken to gymnastic
exercises, and quite given up all field-sports--besides, “I didn’t
care for rabbit-shooting.” It was the wrong season!--and the look and
exclamation that followed showed me that I had lost something of my
position in her mind forever.

RICHARD HENGIST HORNE: ‘Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to R. H.
Horne.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Tranquil old age.]

I think I should have recognized her anywhere. The short, plump body,
the round, cheerful old face, with cheeks still as rosy as a girl’s,
the kindly blue eyes, the broad, placid brow, and bands of silver
hair peeping from beneath the quaint frilled cap, seemed to be all
features of the picture which I had previously drawn in my mind. But
for a gay touch in the ribbons, and the absence of the book-muslin
handkerchief over the bosom, she might have been taken for one of those
dear old Quaker ladies, whose presence, in its cheerful serenity, is an
atmosphere of contentment and peace. Her voice was sweet, round, and
racy, with a delicious archness at times. Sitting in deep arm-chairs,
on opposite sides of the warm grate, while the rain lashed the panes
and the autumn leaves drifted outside, we passed the afternoon in
genial talk.

BAYARD TAYLOR: ‘At Home and Abroad.’ New York: G. P. Putnam, 1862.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Conversation and voice.]

She was always cheerful, and her talk is delightful to remember. From
girlhood she had known and had been intimate with most of the prominent
writers of her time, and her observations and reminiscences were so
shrewd and pertinent that I have scarcely known her equal. Her voice
had a peculiar ringing sweetness in it, rippling out sometimes like
a beautiful chime of silver bells; and when she told a comic story,
hitting off some one of her acquaintances, she joined in with the
laugh at the end with great heartiness and _naïveté_. When listening
to anything that interested her, she had a way of coming into the
narrative with “Dear me, dear me, dear me,” three times repeated, which
it was very pleasant to hear.

JAMES T. FIELDS: ‘Yesterdays with Authors.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Voice and laugh.]

I seem to see the dear little old lady now, looking like a venerable
fairy, with bright sparkling eyes, a clear, incisive voice, and a
laugh that carried you away with it. I never saw a woman with such an
enjoyment of--I was about to say a joke, but the word is too coarse for
her--of a pleasantry.

JAMES PAYN: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: “Heart-whole.”]

The remark has often been made that we meet with no romance in Miss
Mitford’s history--no trace of even a passing predilection or an
unfortunate attachment. In her earlier years she was sometimes twitted
about partialities for her cousin, Bertram Mitford, and others, but
no impression seems to have been made. That she was heart-whole was
evident, for she could be jocose on the subject.

REV. A. G. L’ESTRANGE: ‘Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A helping hand.]

She was constantly saying good words for unfledged authors who were
struggling forward to gain recognition. No one ever lent such a helping
hand as she did to the young writers of her country.

JAMES T. FIELDS: ‘Yesterdays with Authors.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: In old age.]

I can never forget the little figure rolled up in two chairs in the
little Swallowfield room, packed round with books up to the ceiling, on
to the floor--the little figure with clothes on, of course, but of no
recognized or recognizable pattern; and somewhere out of the upper end
of the heap, gleaming under a great, deep, globular brow, two such eyes
as I never, perhaps, saw in any other Englishwoman--though I believe
she must have had French blood in her veins to breed such eyes, and
such a tongue; for the beautiful speech which came out of that ugly (it
was that) face, and the glitter and depth too of the eyes, like live
coals--perfectly honest the while, both lips and eyes--these seemed to
me to be attributes of the highest French, or rather Gallic, not of
the highest Englishwoman. In any case, she was a triumph of mind over
matter, of spirit over flesh.

CHARLES KINGSLEY: _Letter to James Payn_, quoted in ‘Some Literary
Recollections.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Pride in her plays.]

She was much more proud of her plays (which had even then been
well-nigh forgotten) than of the works by which she was so well known,
and which at that time brought people from the ends of the earth to see
her.

JAMES PAYN: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Greater values of her tales.]

I was early fond of her tales and descriptions, and have always
regarded her as the originator of that new style of “graphic
description” to which literature owes a great deal, however weary we
may sometimes have felt of the excess in to which the practice of
detail has run. Miss Austen has claims to other and greater honors; but
she and Miss Mitford deserve no small gratitude for rescuing us from
the folly and bad taste of slovenly indefiniteness in delineation. Miss
Mitford’s tales appealed to a new sense, as it were, in a multitude of
minds--greatly to the amazement of the whole circle of publishers who
had rejected, in her works, as good a bargain as is often offered to
publishers. Miss Mitford showed me at once that she undervalued her
tales, and rested her claims on her plays. I suppose everybody who
writes a successful tragedy must inevitably do this. Miss Mitford must
have possessed some dramatic requisites, or her success could not have
been so decided as it was; but my own opinion always was that her mind
wanted the breadth, and her character the depth, necessary for genuine
achievement in the highest enterprise of literature.

HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’

* * * * *

Her ‘Belford Regis’ should probably take rank as her best work; it
has most power and most character; and is somewhat less uniformly
soft and green than ‘Our Village’ is. The ‘Village,’ however, is, by
association, my favorite. If read by snatches, it comes on the mind as
the summer air and the sweet hum of rural sounds would float upon the
senses through an open window in the country, and leaves with you for
the whole day a tradition of fragrance and dew. She is in fact a sort
of prose Crabbe in the sun, but with more grace and less strength; and
also with a more steadfast look upon scenic nature--never going higher
than the earth to look for the beautiful, but always finding it as
surely as if she went higher. She is “matter-of-fact,” she says, which
may be so, but then she idealizes matter of fact before she touches it,
and thus her matter of fact is as beautiful as the matter of fantasy of
other people.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Browning’s estimate.]

In my own mind--and Mr. Kenyon agrees with me--she herself is better
and stronger than any of her books; and her letters and conversation
show more grasp of intellect and general power than would be inferable
from her finished compositions. In her works, however, through all the
beauty there is a clear vein of sense, and a quickness of observation
which takes the character of a refined shrewdness. Do you not think so?
And is she not besides most intensely a woman, and an Englishwoman?

ELIZABETH BARRETT: ‘Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to R. H.
Horne.’ New York: James Miller, 1877.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: ‘Our Village.’]

I think you will like ‘Our Village.’... Charles Lamb (the matchless
‘Elia’ of the _London Magazine_) says that nothing so fresh and
characteristic has appeared for a long while. It is not over-modest to
say this; but who would not be proud of the praise of such a _proser_?

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir Wm. Elford_, in the former’s
‘Life,’ by L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Fear of unconscious plagiarism.]

I am very indulgent towards such borrowings in general, knowing
how extraordinary is the manner in which memory and invention are
sometimes mixed up, especially where the first faculty is weak. With
me it is singularly so, and for years I was tormented by constant fear
that every line of tragedy less bad than the next was stolen from my
letters. It was a miserable feeling.

M. R. MITFORD: _Letter to Mr. D. Starkey_, in ‘Friendships of Mary
Russell Mitford.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: View of the moral purpose of fiction.]

All that vile design of doing good, or making out this to be wrong
and that to be right, ... I hold ... to be the most fatal fault of
all fiction nowadays.... It was the one fault of Miss Edgeworth that
she wrote to a text. How much better she wrote without one she showed
in ‘Belinda.’ All the greatest writers of fiction are pure of that
sin--Chaucer, Shakespeare, Scott, Jane Austen; and are not these
precisely the writers who do most good as well as give most pleasure?

M. R. MITFORD: _Letter to Mr. D. Starkey_, in ‘Friendships of Mary
Russell Mitford.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Religious belief.]

There would be a tacit hypocrisy, a moral cowardice, if I were to stop
here, and not to confess, what I think you must suspect, although by
no chance do I ever talk about it--that I do not, or rather cannot,
believe all that the Church requires. I humbly hope that it is not
necessary to do so, and that a devout sense of the mercy of God, and an
endeavor, however imperfectly and feebly, to obey the great precepts
of justice and kindness, may be accepted in lieu of that entire faith
which, in me, _will not_ be commanded. You will not suspect me of
thoughtlessness in this matter; neither, I trust, does it spring
from intellectual pride. Few persons have a deeper sense of their
own weakness; few, indeed, can have so much weakness of character to
deplore and strive against.

M. R. MITFORD: _Letter to Rev. Wm. Harness_, in the former’s ‘Life,’ by
L’Estrange.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: A tedious illness.]

[Sidenote: Continued pleasure in nature.]

I am still very lame, carried, or rather lifted, step by step up and
down stairs and into bed, and unable to stir when recumbent, almost
to move when seated. Besides this, I am all over as sore as if I were
pounded in a mortar, and, although quite as cheerful as ever, yet
paying for temporary excitement by exceeding weakness afterwards. In
short, I am as infirm, as feeble, and as lively as it is well possible
for a woman to be. I am got into the air, and I enjoy it so much, that
I cannot but hope that it must eventually do me good. It seems to
me that never was the marriage of May and June, which is always the
loveliest moment of the year, so beautiful as now. The richness of
the foliage in our deep-wooded lanes, the perfume of the bean-fields,
the luxuriant blossoming of all sorts of flowering trees. I have some
lilacs of both colors, especially the white, which I would match
against those of which Horace Walpole was so fond at Strawberry Hill.

M. R. MITFORD: _Letter to Mr. D. Starkey_, June 2nd, 1853, in
‘Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Delighted with a glow-worm.]

I must tell you what has three times befallen me this last week. My
maid K., in putting me to bed, burst into a storm of exclamations, all
referring to the candlestick; I looked, and saw nothing but a dingy
caterpillar about half an inch long. It moved, and a little bright
star of bluish greenish light was reflected on the silver. It was a
glow-worm! We extinguished the candle, and the candlestick was sent
to one of the grass-plots in the front of the house, and in about ten
minutes the beautiful insect had crawled out upon the turf. Four nights
after, exactly same thing occurred, and another glow-worm was found on
one of the lower windows. We can only account for these visits to the
candlestick by the circumstance of there being both nights a little jar
of fresh-gathered pinks upon the table.... K., who is full of pretty
sayings, will have it that, now that I--always so fond of those stars
of the earth--can no longer go to see them, they come to visit me.

M. R. MITFORD: _Letter to Mr. D. Starkey_, July, 1853, in ‘Friendships
of Mary Russell Mitford.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Weaker and weaker.]

The head is mercifully spared, but for above six months I have been
steadily growing worse and worse, and weaker and weaker. It is sad to
write so to you, but it is the truth. Champagne and nourishing food
keep me alive, and stimulating medicine. To-day is fine, and I sit by
my open window enjoying the balmy air, altogether too much sunk in the
chair to see more than the trees and the sky, and a bit of distant
road, but still enjoying _that_. My roses are very beautiful, and I
have many of the old moss, which are delicately sweet; and common white
pinks, almost like cloves in their fragrance.

M. R. MITFORD: _Letter to Emily Jephson_, July 20, 1854, in
‘Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford.’

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Characteristics strong to the very last.]

The goodness shown to me often draws tears into my eyes. People whom
all the world knows, and yet more, people of whom I have never heard,
send to me whatever they think I shall like, call at my door, ... come
at any hour that I may appoint, if I be well enough to see them, and
never take offence at a refusal. There is a reality about this when it
has lasted above two years.... It has pleased Providence to preserve to
me my calmness of mind and clearness of intellect, and also my powers
of reading by day and by night, and, which is still more, my love of
poetry and literature, my cheerfulness and my enjoyment of little
things. This very day, not only my common pensioners the dear robins,
but a saucy troop of sparrows and a little shining bird of passage,
whose name I forget, have all been pecking at once at their tray of
bread-crumbs outside the window. Poor, pretty things! How much delight
there is in these common objects, if people would learn to enjoy them!

M. R. MITFORD: _Letter to Mrs. Crowther_, January 1, 1855,[13] in
‘Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford.’

FOOTNOTES:

[13] She died on the 10th of January.

LIST OF WORKS QUOTED IN VOL. I.

ALISON.--Some Account of My Life and Writings: an Autobiography, by Sir
Archibald Alison. Edinburgh and London: Wm. Blackwood & Sons, 1883.
(Quoted on Maria Edgeworth.)

ALLIBONE.--Dictionary of British and American Authors, by Samuel A.
Allibone. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1874. (For dates, etc.)

_Atlantic Monthly._--Article on Jane Austen, by Mrs. Waterston, and
article on Shelley, by Thornton Hunt, in February number, 1863.

AUSTEN.--Letters of Jane Austen, edited by Lord Brabourne. London:
Richard Bentley & Son, 1884.

BROWNING.--Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to R. H. Horne. New
York: James Miller, 1877. (Quoted on Mary R. Mitford.)

BRYDGES.--Autobiography, Times, Opinions, and Contemporaries of Sir
Egerton Brydges. London: Cockrane and M’Crane, 1834. (Quoted on Jane
Austen.)

BURNEY.--Diary and Letters of Frances Burney, Mme. D’Arblay, edited by
S. C. Woolsey. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1880.

BYRON.--Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, edited by Thomas Moore. New
York: Harper & Bros., 1868. (Quoted on Maria Edgeworth.)

CHORLEY.--Autobiography, Memoir and Letters of Henry F. Chorley.
London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1873. (Quoted on Lady Blessington.)

CLARKE.--Recollections of Writers, by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. (Quoted on Mary Shelley, Mary Lamb,
and Lady Blessington.)

COLERIDGE.--Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge, edited by her
Daughter. New York: Harper & Bros., 1874. (Quoted on Mary Lamb, Jane
Austen, Joanna Baillie and Hannah More.)

_Contemporary Review._--Miss Burney’s Novels, by Mary Elizabeth
Christie, in Dec. number, 1882.

CROSS.--George Eliot’s Life, by J. W. Cross. New York: Harper & Bros.,
1885. (Quoted on Hannah More.)

DELANY.--Autobiography and Correspondence of Mrs. Delany, edited by S.
C. Woolsey. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1879. (Quoted on Frances Burney.)

EDGEWORTH.--Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, by Maria Edgeworth.
Boston: Wells & Lilly, 1821.

ELWOOD.--Memoirs of the Literary Ladies of England, by Mrs. Elwood.
London: Henry Colburn, 1843. (Quoted on Hannah More and Mary
Wollstonecraft.)

FARRAR.--Recollections of Seventy Years, by Eliza Farrar. Boston:
Ticknor & Fields, 1866. (Quoted on Maria Edgeworth and Joanna Baillie.)

FIELDS.--Yesterdays with Authors, by James T. Fields. Boston: J. R.
Osgood & Co., 1872. (Quoted on Mary R. Mitford.)

Barry Cornwall and Some of His Friends, by James T. Fields. Boston:
J. R. Osgood & Co., 1876. (Quoted on Lady Blessington.)

FLETCHER.--Autobiography of Mrs. Fletcher. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1876.
(Quoted on Maria Edgeworth and Joanna Baillie.)

_Frazer’s Magazine._--Recent Novels, by G. H. Lewes, in December
number, 1847. (Quoted on Jane Austen.)

GASKELL.--Life of Charlotte Brontë, by E. C. Gaskell. New York: D.
Appleton & Co., 1858. (Quoted on Jane Austen.)

GILCHRIST.--Mary Lamb, by Anne Gilchrist. (Famous Women Series.)
Boston: Roberts Bros., 1883.

GILFILLAN.--A Second Gallery of Literary Portraits, by G. Gilfillan.
Edinburgh: James Hogg. London: R. Groombridge & Sons, 1850. (Quoted on
Mary Shelley.)

HALL.--A Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of the Age, by (Mr.
and Mrs.) S. C. Hall. London: Virtue & Co., 1871. (Quoted on Maria
Edgeworth, Joanna Baillie, Lady Blessington, M. R. Mitford, and Hannah
More.)

Retrospect of a Long Life, by S. C. Hall. New York: D. Appleton & Co.,
1883. (Quoted on Maria Edgeworth, M. R. Mitford and Lady Blessington.)

_Harpers’ Bazar._--An anonymous article, quoted on Jane Austen.

HAZLITT.--Sketches and Essays, and Winterslow, by Wm. Hazlitt. Edited
by W. Carew Hazlitt. London: Bell & Daldy, 1869. (Quoted on Mary
Wollstonecraft.)

HAZLITT.--Mary and Charles Lamb: Poems, Letters and Remains, collected
by W. Carew Hazlitt. New York: Scribner, Welford & Armstrong, 1874.

HOGG.--The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, by T. J. Hogg. London: Edward
Moxon, 1858. (Quoted on Mrs. Shelley.)

HOLLAND.--Recollections of Past Life, by Sir Henry Holland. New York:
D. Appleton & Co., 1872. (Quoted on Mme. D’Arblay and Joanna Baillie.)

Memoirs of Sidney Smith, by his Daughter, Lady Holland. London:
Longmans, Green & Co. (Quoted on Maria Edgeworth.)

KNOWLES.--The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli, by John Knowles.
London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1831. (Quoted on Mary
Wollstonecraft.)

LAMB.--Works of Charles Lamb, with Sketch by T. N. Talfourd. New York:
Harper & Bros., 1838. (Quoted on Mary Lamb and Mary Shelley.)

LEIGH.--A Memoir of Jane Austen, by Her Nephew, Rev. J. E.
Austen-Leigh. London: Richard Bentley, 1870.

L’ESTRANGE.--The Life of Mary Russell Mitford, edited by Rev. A. G.
L’Estrange. London: Richard Bentley, 1870. (Quoted on M. R. Mitford,
Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen, and Frances Burney.)

The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford, edited by Rev. A. G.
L’Estrange. New York: Harper & Bros., 1882.

The Literary Life of the Rev. Wm. Harness, by Rev. A. G. L’Estrange.
London: Hurst & Blackett, 1871. (Quoted on M. R. Mitford.)

LOCKHART.--Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott, by J. G. Lockhart. Edinburgh:
Adam & Charles Black, 1871. (Quoted on Maria Edgeworth, Frances Burney,
Jane Austen and Joanna Baillie.)

MACAULAY.--Critical and Historical Essays, by Lord Macaulay. New York:
Albert Mason, 1875. (Quoted on Frances Burney and Jane Austen.)

MADDEN.--The Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of
Blessington, by R. R. Madden. New York: Harper & Bros., 1855.

MARTINEAU.--Autobiography of Harriet Martineau. Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., 1877. (Quoted on Jane Austen, M. R. Mitford, and Joanna
Baillie.)

Biographical Sketches, by Harriet Martineau. New York: Leypoldt &
Holt, 1869. (Quoted on M. R. Mitford.)

MILLER.--Harriet Martineau, by Mrs. Fenwick Miller. (Famous Women
Series.) Boston: Roberts Bros., 1885. (Quoted on Jane Austen.)

MITFORD.--Recollections of a Literary Life, by Mary Russell Mitford.
New York: Harper & Bros., 1852. (Quoted on M. R. Mitford and Jane
Austen.)

MOORE.--Memoirs, Journal and Correspondence of Thomas Moore, edited
by Lord John Russell. London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1854.
(Quoted on Maria Edgeworth.)

OLIVER.--A Memoir of Anna L. Barbauld, by Grace A. Ellis (Oliver).
Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co., 1874. (Quoted on Frances Burney and Joanna
Baillie.)

A Study of Maria Edgeworth, by Grace A. Oliver. Boston: A. Williams &
Co., 1882.

OWEN.--The Autobiography of Robert Dale Owen. London: Effingham Wilson,
1857-8. (Quoted on Mary Shelley.)

PATMORE.--My Friends and Acquaintance, by P. G. Patmore. London:
Saunders & Otley, 1854. (Quoted on Lady Blessington.)

PAUL.--William Godwin, His Friends and Contemporaries, by C. Kegan
Paul. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1876. (Quoted on Mary Wollstonecraft and
Mary Shelley.)

PAYN.--Some Literary Recollections, by James Payn. New York: Harper &
Bros., 1884. (Quoted on M. R. Mitford.)

PENNELL.--Life of Mary Wollstonecraft, by Elizabeth Robins Pennell.
(Famous Women Series.) Boston: Roberts Bros., 1884.

PROCTER.--Charles Lamb: a Memoir, by Barry Cornwall (Bryan W. Procter).
London: Edward Moxon & Co., 1866. (Quoted on Mary Lamb.)

ROBERTS.--Memoirs of Hannah More, by W. Roberts. New York: Harper &
Bros., 1834. (Quoted on Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecraft.)

ROBINSON.--Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence of Henry Crabb
Robinson. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co., 1871. (Quoted on Maria Edgeworth,
Mary Lamb, Joanna Baillie, and Lady Blessington.)

SCOTT.--Miscellanies of Sir Walter Scott. (Vol. I.) Philadelphia: Carey
& Hart, 1841. (Quoted on Maria Edgeworth and Mary Shelley.)

SEDGWICK.--Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home, by Catherine M.
Sedgwick. New York: Harper & Bros., 1841. (Quoted on M. R. Mitford.)

SHELLEY.--Shelley Memorials from Authentic Sources, edited by Lady
Shelley. London: Henry S. King & Co., 1875.

Poetical Works of P. B. Shelley, with Notes by Mrs. Shelley. Boston:
Little, Brown & Co., 1857.

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. Boston: Sever, Francis & Co., 1869.

SIGOURNEY.--Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands, by Mrs. L. H.
Sigourney. Boston: James Munroe & Co., 1844. (Quoted on Maria
Edgeworth.)

SOMERVILLE.--Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age,
of Mary Somerville. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1874. (Quoted on Maria
Edgeworth.)

SOUTHEY.--Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, edited by Rev. C.
C. Southey. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1849. (Quoted
on Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecraft).

Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles, edited by
Edward Dowden. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1881. (Quoted on Mary
Wollstonecraft.)

TALFOURD.--Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, by T. N. Talfourd. London:
Edward Moxon, 1848. (Quoted on Mary Lamb and Hannah More.)

TAYLOR.--At Home and Abroad, by Bayard Taylor. New York: G. P. Putnam,
1862.

TAYLOR.--Autobiography of Henry Taylor. London: Longmans, Green & Co.,
1885. (Quoted on Jane Austen.)

THOMPSON.--Life of Hannah More, by Henry Thompson. Philadelphia: Carey
& Hart, 1838.

TICKNOR.--Life, Letters and Journals of George Ticknor. Boston: J. R.
Osgood & Co., 1876. (Quoted on Maria Edgeworth, Joanna Baillie, and
Mary Russell Mitford.)

TRELAWNY.--Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron, by E.
J. Trelawny. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1858.

TREVELYAN.--Life and Letters of T. B. Macaulay, by G. Otto Trevelyan.
New York: Harper & Bros., 1876. (Quoted on Hannah More.)

TYTLER.--Jane Austen and Her Works, by Sarah Tytler. Cassell, &
Company, Limited.

Songstresses of Scotland, by Sarah Tytler and J. L. Watson. London:
Strahan & Co., 1871. (Quoted on Joanna Baillie.)

WALPOLE.--The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford. London:
Henry G. Bohn, 1861. (Quoted on Hannah More, Frances Burney, and Mary
Wollstonecraft.)

WILLIS.--Pencillings by the Way, by N. P. Willis. New York: Charles
Scribner, 1853. (Quoted on Lady Blessington.)

WOLLSTONECRAFT.--A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by Mary
Wollstonecraft. London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1792.

Posthumous Works by the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of
Woman. London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1798.

Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters to Imlay, with Prefatory Memoir by C.
Kegan Paul. London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1879.

ZIMMERN.--Maria Edgeworth, by Helen Zimmern. (Famous Women Series.)
Boston: Roberts Bros., 1883.

Transcriber’s Notes

Errors in punctuation and spacing have been fixed.

Page 205: “respectable and aimiable” changed to “respectable and
amiable”

Page 206: “an hundreth time” changed to “an hundredth time”

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Pen-portraits of literary women, Volume I (of 2): By themselves and others" ***

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