Women of History Part 14

HANNAH MORE.

[BORN 1745. DIED 1833.]

PROFESSOR CRAIK.

The greatest name in the list of female writers on moral and religious subjects in the last century was born in Gloucesters.h.i.+re in 1744. In 1762 she is said to have written her pastoral drama in rhymed verse, ent.i.tled "The Search after Happiness," which was immediately performed by the young ladies of the school of which she, with her sister, was the mistress. If it was not much improved before its publication eleven years afterwards, this was certainly a remarkable production for a girl of seventeen. Shortly after the production of this poem, the sisters had prospered sufficiently to enable them to build a house, the first erected in Park Street, Bristol. The order and management of the establishment, together with the superior quality of the education afforded, rendered this school the most celebrated of the kind in the kingdom. It comprised upwards of sixty pupils, and twice the number might have been easily entered had the accommodation admitted.

The person to whom Hannah was indebted for her advancement in critical knowledge and the principles of correct taste was, we are informed, a Bristol linen-draper named Peach. "He had," says Mr Roberts, "been the friend of Hume, who had shown his confidence in his judgment by entrusting to him the correction of his "History," in which, he used to say, he had discovered more than two hundred Scotticisms." "At the age of twenty," says Mr Roberts, "having access to the best libraries in her neighbourhood, she cultivated with a.s.siduity the Italian, Latin, and Spanish languages, exercising her genius and polis.h.i.+ng her style in translations and imitations, especially of the Odes of Horace, and of some of the dramatic compositions of Metastasio."

One of the most important events in Hannah More's history was her first visit to London. "The theatre," it is said in her Life, "on her arrival in town, was the great point of attraction, and Garrick the great object of curiosity." Garrick "was delighted with his new acquaintance, and took pride and pleasure in introducing her in the splendid circle of genius in which he moved. To the royal family, who inquired of him concerning her, he spoke in terms of the most ardent commendation. Mrs Montagu, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr Johnson, rapidly succeeded in her acquaintance; and in the course of six weeks (for such was the limit of this visit) she had become intimate with the greatest names in intellect and taste."

In 1774 she published her tragedy of the "Inflexible Captive," altered from Metastasio. The following year it was acted, first in Exeter and then in Bath, with the greatest applause; Garrick on the latter occasion being behind the scenes, and a host of distinguished persons filling the house. Her first publication, "The Search after Happiness," had by this time reached a sixth edition, besides having been reprinted in America.

In November 1777 her tragedy of "Percy" was produced at Covent Garden theatre; Garrick, who had also contributed both the prologue and epilogue, sustaining the princ.i.p.al character. The success of the play was complete, perhaps at that time unsurpa.s.sed. It was translated by the prime minister of France into French, and in a German dress "Percy"

appeared on the stage of Vienna. Miss More received on the occasion the most flattering honours and distinctions; the whole blood of the Percys did honour to their minstrel. The Duke of Northumberland, Earl Percy, and the editor of the "Reliques," all came forward, complimented, and thanked her. An edition of nearly four thousand copies of the play was sold in a fortnight, and the auth.o.r.ess realised on the whole nearly 600. The tragedy of "Percy," nevertheless, has now ceased to be acted, and has, it may be apprehended, been read by very few living men.

But Hannah More's exertions in the cause of religion, morality, and civilisation, were not confined to the writing of books, of which she produced a great number, realising to her ultimately 30,000. One of her most meritorious services to the best interests of her country was her establishment of schools for the young throughout the district around her place of residence, the mining region of the Mendip hills, where, till she came among them, the people, taught scarcely anything either by schoolmaster or clergyman, were almost universally in a state of barbarism. Schools upon the same system were established in neighbouring parishes, and in a short time five hundred children were in training in ten schools. Her habitual cheerfulness never forsook her, and in some other respects she was, at near the age of ninety, what many have ceased to be at seventy.

ANNA SEWARD.

[BORN 1747. DIED 1809.]

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

This poetical lady was born in 1747. Her father, the Rev. Thomas Seward, rector of Hyam, in Derbys.h.i.+re, prebendary of Salisbury, and canon residentiary of Litchfield, was himself a poet; and a ma.n.u.script collection of his fugitive pieces is now lying before me, the bequest of my honoured friend, when she entrusted me with the task which I am now endeavouring to discharge. Several of these effusions were printed in Dodsley's collection. Thus accomplished himself, the talents of his eldest daughter did not long escape his complacent observation.

[In 1754, Mr Seward removed with his family to Litchfield.] The cla.s.sical pretensions of this city were exalted by its being the residence of Dr Darwin, who soon distinguished and appreciated the talents of our young poetess. At this time, however, literature was deemed an undesirable pursuit for a young lady in Miss Seward's situation--the heiress of an independent fortune, and destined to occupy a considerable rank in society. Her mother, although an excellent woman, possessed no taste for her daughter's favourite amus.e.m.e.nts; and even Mr Seward withdrew his countenance from them, probably under the apprehension that his continued encouragement might produce in his daughter that dreaded phenomenon--a learned lady.

After the death of Miss Sarah Seward, her sister's society became indispensable to her parents, and she was never separated from them.

Offers of matrimonial establishments occurred, and were rejected in one instance entirely, and in others chiefly from a sense of filial duty. As she was now of an age to select her own society and studies, Miss Seward's love for literature was indulged; and the sphere in which she moved was such as to increase her tastes for its pursuits. Dr Darwin, Mr Day (whose opinions formed singular specimens of English philosophy), Mr Edgeworth, Sir Brooke Boothby, and other names well known in the literary world, then formed part of the Litchfield society. The celebrated Dr Johnson was an occasional visitor of their circles; but he seems, in some respects, to have shared the fate of a prophet in his own country--neither Dr Darwin nor Miss Seward were partial to the great moralist. There was perhaps some aristocratic prejudice in their dislike; for the despotic manners of Dr Johnson were least likely to be tolerated where the lowness of his origin was in fresh recollection. At the same time, Miss Seward was always willing to do justice to his native benevolence, and to the powerful grasp of his intellectual powers, and she possessed many anecdotes of his conversation which had escaped his most vigilant recorders. These she used to tell with great humour, and with a very striking imitation of the sage's peculiar voice, gesture, and manner of delivery.

Miss Seward, when young, must have been exquisitely beautiful; for, in advanced age, the regularity of her features, the fire and expression of her countenance, gave her the appearance of beauty, and almost of youth.

Her eyes were auburn, of the precise shade and hue of her hair, and possessed great expression. In reciting, or speaking with animation, they appeared to become darker, and, as it were, to flash fire. I should have hesitated to state the impression which the peculiarity made upon me at the time, had not my observation been confirmed by that of the first actress of this or any other age, with whom I lately happened to converse on our deceased friend's expressive powers of countenance. Miss Seward's tone of voice was melodious, guided by excellent taste, and well suited to reading and recitation, in which she willingly exercised.

She did not sing, nor was she a great proficient in music, though very fond of it, having studied it later in life than is now usual. Her stature was tall, and her form was originally elegant; but having broken the patella of her knee by a fall in the year 1768, she walked with pain and difficulty, which increased with the pressure of years.

[In 1784, Miss Seward produced a poetical novel, ent.i.tled "Louisa,"

which became popular, and pa.s.sed through several editions. Her memoirs of the life of Dr Darwin was her last composition. In this she lays claim to the lines at the commencement of "The Botanic Garden," though unacknowledged by the author. Her other poems are "Langollen Vale," a volume of sonnets, and some paraphrases of Horace. She died in March 1809, leaving Sir Walter Scott her literary executor. Mr Polwhele, in his "Uns.e.xed Females," speaks thus: "Miss Seward's poems are thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."]

CATHERINE c.o.c.kBURN.

[BORN 1679. DIED 1749.]

PROFESSOR CRAIK

Mrs c.o.c.kburn, whose maiden name was Trotter, the daughter of a commander in the navy, was in youth said to have been distinguished by personal attractions. Her father died when she was very young; and her mother, who was nearly related to more than one Scotch n.o.ble family, was left in very narrow circ.u.mstances. Catherine began to show remarkable talent or vivacity of mind at a very early age. It is told that, while she was still a mere child, she one day surprised a company of her friends by some extemporaneous verses on an incident which had just happened in the street. Her first literary attempts were in verse. One poem, which she is stated to have written when she was only fourteen, is printed among her works. It is certain that in 1695, when she was only in her seventeenth year, she appeared as a dramatic writer,--a tragedy written by her, ent.i.tled "Agnes de Castro," having been brought out with success at the Theatre Royal in that year, and printed the following. This was followed by a second tragedy, ent.i.tled "Fatal Friends.h.i.+p," which was performed in the new theatre, Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1698, and printed the same year; and then came another tragedy and a comedy.

These juvenile productions had, probably all of them, great defects; but the auth.o.r.ess of three tragedies and a comedy, all both printed and acted before she had reached the age of twenty-two, was at any rate no common phenomenon. And she had also, it seems, already been long a diligent student of metaphysics, besides having, while as we gather only in her teens, ventured so far into the maze of theological speculation and controversy, as to have been induced to leave the Church of England in which she had been educated, and to profess herself a Roman Catholic.

The first fruit of her philosophical studies appeared in May 1702, when she published anonymously a defence of "Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding," in reply to an attack upon it, which was afterwards known to have proceeded from the learned and eloquent Dr Thomas Burnet of the Charter House.

About the beginning of 1707 she returned to the Church of England, having previously changed her name for another. Mr c.o.c.kburn is said to have been a man of learning and talent, but he never was fortunate in obtaining much preferment; and throughout the remainder of his life she had both the cares of a family to occupy her time and thoughts, and very straitened circ.u.mstances to struggle with. In 1726 he became minister of an episcopal congregation at Aberdeen. Her return to England seems to have been like the recommencement of existence to her, or the awakening from a state of torpor. In the last stage of her life, notwithstanding broken health and some sharp sorrow, her intellectual and literary activity emulated what she had displayed at the outset of her career. In 1739 she boldly set out upon what we may call a voyage round the world of metaphysics, in "Remarks upon some Writers in the Controversy concerning the Foundation of Moral Duty and Moral Obligation; particularly the Translator of Archbishop King's Origin of Moral Evil [Dr Edmund Law, afterwards Bishop of Carlisle], and the Author of Divine Legation of Moses [Warburton]; to which are prefixed some Cursory Thoughts on the Controversies concerning Necessary Existence, the Reality and Infinity of s.p.a.ce, the Extension and Place of Spirits, and on Dr Watt's Notion of Substance." It was not printed till the year 1743, when it was given to the world, without the name of the author, in "The History of the Works of the Learned."

Mrs c.o.c.kburn here adopted Dr Clarke's theory of the foundations of morality, namely, that the distinctions between virtue and vice are not created by the declarations or even by the will of the Deity, but arise out of eternal and immutable relations and essential differences of things. Not long after, her strength was much worn down by frequent attacks of asthma, to which she had been subject for many years. "I have," she says, "very little prospect of tolerable health for any continuance. My cough returned at the beginning of September, and held me about two months, but is now succeeded by such a difficulty of breathing that I do not know which is most grievous; but between them I am reduced to great weakness." Yet she was at this time engaged upon a new metaphysical work, which proved to be the most elaborate and able of all her literary performances, her "Remarks upon the Principles and Reasonings of Dr Rutherford's Essay on the Nature and Obligations of Virtue, in Vindication of the Contrary Principles and Reasonings Enforced in the Writings of Dr Samuel Clarke." The Rev. Dr Thomas Rutherford, whose essay appeared in 1744, had therein maintained the doctrine that the test and essence of virtue was its tendency to promote the good properly understood, whether of the agent or others; in other words, was utility in the largest sense. When her tract was finished, Mrs c.o.c.kburn sent it to Warburton, whose theory on the subject of it was different both from Rutherford's and her own, and against whose views one of her previous works, as we have seen, had been in part directed. Warburton held that the distinction between virtue and vice was const.i.tuted by the arbitrary will of the Deity. Notwithstanding this difference of opinion, however, he not only admitted the merit of the present work in the frankest and most cordial terms, styling it, in a letter to the auth.o.r.ess, _the strongest and clearest piece of metaphysics that ever was written_, but took upon himself the charge of finding a publisher for it; and when it appeared in 1747, it was introduced by a preface from the pen of Warburton, in which he almost reiterated those strong expressions, declaring it to contain "all the clearness of expression, the strength of reason, the precision of logic and attachment to truth which makes books of this nature really useful to the common cause of virtue and religion."

This work appears to have attracted much more notice than anything that Mrs c.o.c.kburn had previously done. She was subsequently induced by the advice of her friends to set about the preparation of a complete collection of her writings, with the view of publis.h.i.+ng it by subscription. But this task she did not live to see accomplished. At last, in January 1749, she lost her husband, who appears to have been about a year older than herself; and this stroke probably shortened her own existence, which terminated on the 11th of May of the same year.

ELIZABETH BERKELEIGH.

[BORN 1750. DIED 1828.]

TEMPLE BAR.

The youngest daughter of Augustus, fourth Earl of Berkeleigh, born in 1750, came into the world two months ere by the laws of nature she was to be looked for; and this circ.u.mstance, which was a fit prelude to an eccentric life, had nearly led to an abrupt termination of the infant's earthly career ere its sands of life had run through the boiling of an egg. A certain ceremonial was observed in those days when ladies of a certain rank swelled the rolls of the aristocracy; and the first person who approached the bed of the n.o.ble _accouchee_ was the Countess of Albemarle, her aunt. The infant which had so unexpectedly claimed its share of the world had doubly disappointed its mother; first, by being a girl, when a boy had been predicted with a.s.surance, for Lady Berkeleigh had previously had four girls in succession, three of them, singularly enough, at one birth; next, the little being, so far from exhibiting any signs of the future beauty, presented the most miserable half-alive aspect imaginable; and there being nothing ready to receive it, a piece of flannel was huddled round it, and it was left on an arm-chair in a kind of despair, and for some minutes altogether unheeded, till the visitor already named was on the point of sitting down on foresaid arm-chair, and, but for the screams of the attendants, would have driven out, once and for ever, the small instalment of life-breath the forlorn babe had been strenuously endeavouring to suck in.

Thereupon Lady Albemarle s.n.a.t.c.hed up the child, took it to the light to examine it, and observing that it there managed to open a pair of very bright eyes, p.r.o.nounced its chances of vitality to be far from desperate. A wet nurse was therefore immediately procured; and, by dint of great care, the puny little being was preserved to become eventually the lovely, accomplished, and vivacious subject of this article [afterwards to become first Lady Craven, and subsequently the Margravine of Ans.p.a.ch]. Lady Berkeleigh, who is described by the margravine in her own memoirs as having but little maternal affection, treated her youngest daughter with even worse than indifference, and reserved all the indulgence and attention she was disposed to show to her offspring for her eldest sister, Lady Georgiana, who was regarded as the beauty.

The neglect and severity of the mother stamped a peculiar air of shyness and modesty on Lady Elizabeth; and as her natural character was vivacious, and disposed to gaiety and enjoyment, a contrast was thus created, which, as she herself very unreservedly confesses, greatly contributed to her fascination.

Lady Elizabeth had already shot up into a tall, lithe figure; and her countenance developed the budding signs of that lively beauty which afterwards distinguished her. At this time, however, though she observes that many opportunities offered themselves of discovering her own personal charms, she protests herself to have been entirely ignorant of them; the exclusive admiration that was bestowed by her mother on her elder sister leading her to imagine herself rather ill-favoured than otherwise. There was no such blindness to the fascination of her person in after years, and her memoirs teem with amusing evidences of the high sense she entertained of her outward attractions. Among others is a pa.s.sage in which she criticises the various portraits that have been painted of her; and though Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose portrait of her at Petworth seems charming enough, and Romney and Madame Lebrun exerted in turns, and more than once, their skill to transfer her graces to canvas, she declares they, none of them, have done justice either to her face or figure. The same candour, in exposing her thorough self-appreciation as regards her mental and moral excellences, is observable through the entertaining sketch of her career, and gives at first the impression that one is listening to the weakest and vainest woman that ever breathed. A little further acquaintance, however, removes this notion almost altogether. When a woman has been sought and admired all her life for her beauty, grace, sense, wit, and good nature by the highest and most distinguished personages of her age, it would seem more shocking than the grossest display of vanity to affect a mincing reserve and humility in speaking of her own merits.

[Lady Elizabeth was afterwards married to Mr Craven, who came to be Lord Craven. The marriage, at its outset, seems to have been in its most essential respects a happy one. The margravine acknowledges that Lord Craven possessed the highest admiration for the refined character and many graces and accomplishments of his young wife; and the contests between them were the amiable ones arising from his unbounded generosity towards her, and the refusals his offered presents met with from her discretion and modesty. At length a discovery was made by Lady Craven, which led to that eventful change in her life and fortunes, but for which, in all probability, the subject of this sketch would have attracted as little attention as many other brilliant n.o.blewomen of her day. Lord Craven had for some time absented himself for long periods from home, under pretexts which his wife discovered to be false; but all doubts were removed when Lord Macartney came to the injured wife and entreated her to prevent Lord Craven from travelling in one of his coaches with a woman calling herself Lady Craven. This led to the explosion of a mine of intrigue. Lady Craven then went to France, and subsequently travelled over all Europe, at the various courts of which she was honoured and feted. During her stay in Paris she had received the visits of the Margrave of Ans.p.a.ch, who had known her from childhood, and had formed a strong attachment to her. He had now invited her to pa.s.s some time at Ans.p.a.ch with himself and the margravine as his adopted sister. To this she agreed; and, subsequently, by a strange coincidence, the Margravine and Lord Craven having died about the same time, she became the wife of the margrave. In 1816 the margrave died, and from that time the margravine chiefly resided at Naples, where she died in the seventy-eighth year of her age.]

CAROLINE HERSCHEL.

[BORN 1750. DIED 1848.]

PROFESSOR CRAIK.

Another distinguished name can scarcely be forgotten or omitted here, although its honoured and venerable possessor still lives [in 1847], connecting the present with the past age. Caroline Herschel, the sister of the ill.u.s.trious Sir William Herschel, was, as is well known, the a.s.sociate of her brother, both in the business of observation and in that of calculation, throughout the whole of his splendid career. Four comets are enumerated as discovered by her--one on the 1st of August 1786, another on the 21st of December 1788, another on the 7th of January 1790, another on the 8th of October 1793.

After the death of her brother, on the 23d of August 1822, Miss Herschel returned to his and her own native country, Hanover, and there proceeded to employ herself in drawing up a catalogue of twenty-five thousand nebulae discovered by her brother, which she completed in 1828, and for which the Astronomical Society of London that year voted her a gold medal. The newspapers announced that she celebrated the ninety-seventh anniversary of her birth-day on the 16th of March 1847. "On that occasion, the king, it is stated on the authority of a letter from Hanover, sent to compliment her; the prince and princess-royal paid her a visit, and the latter presented her with a magnificent arm-chair, the back of which had been embroidered by her royal highness; and the minister of Prussia, in the name of his sovereign, remitted to her the gold medal awarded for the extension of the sciences." Notwithstanding her advanced age and bodily infirmities, Miss Herschel, it has since been stated by her distinguished nephew, Sir John F. W. Herschel, in a letter to the _Athenaeum_, is still [1847] in possession of her faculties.