Part 6

With Misnian arsenic, deleterious bane, Pound up the ripe cassada’s well-rasped root, And form in pellets; these profusely spread Round the Cane-groves where skulk the vermin-breed. They, greedy, and unweeting of the bait, Crowd to the inviting cates, and swift devour Their palatable Death; for soon they seek The neighbouring spring; and drink, and swell, and die.

Then follow some very sensible remarks about the unwholesomeness of the water in which the dead alligators are decomposing,--remarks which Mr. Kipling has unconsciously parodied:--

But ’e gets into the drinking casks, and then o’ course we dies.

The wonderful thing about the “Sugar Cane” is that it was read;--nay, more, that it was read aloud at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and though the audience laughed, it listened. Dodsley published the poem in handsome style; a second edition was called for; it was reprinted in Jamaica, and pirated (what were the pirates thinking about!) in 1766. Even Dr. Johnson wrote a friendly notice in the London “Chronicle,” though he always maintained that the poet might just as well have sung the beauties of a parsley-bed or of a cabbage garden. He took the same high ground when Boswell called his attention to Dyer’s “Fleece.”--“The subject, Sir, cannot be made poetical. How can a man write poetically of serges and druggets?”

It was not for the sake of sentiment or story that the English public read “The Fleece.” Nor could it have been for practical guidance; for farmers, even in 1757, must have had some musty almanacs, some plain prose manuals to advise them. They could never have waited to learn from an epic poem that

the coughing pest From their green pastures sweeps whole flocks away,

or that

Sheep also pleurisies and dropsies know,

or that

The infectious scab, arising from extremes Of want or surfeit, is by water cured Of lime, or sodden stave-acre, or oil Dispersive of Norwegian tar.

Did the British woolen-drapers of the period require to be told in verse about

Cheyney, and bayse, and serge, and alepine, Tammy, and crape, and the long countless list Of woolen webs.

Surely they knew more about their own dry-goods than did Mr. Dyer. Is it possible that British parsons read Mr. Polwhele’s “English Orator” for the sake of his somewhat confused advice to preachers?--

Meantime thy Style familiar, that alludes With pleasing Retrospect to recent Scenes Or Incidents amidst thy Flock, fresh graved On Memory, shall recall their scattered Thoughts, And interest every Bosom. With the Voice Of condescending Gentleness address Thy kindred People.

It was Miss Seward’s opinion that the neglect of Mr. Polwhele’s “poetic writings” was a disgrace to literary England, from which we conclude that the reverend author outwore the patience of his readers. “Mature in dulness from his earliest years,” he had wisely adopted a profession which gave his qualities room for expansion. What his congregation must have suffered when he addressed it with “condescending gentleness,” we hardly like to think; but free-born Englishmen, who were so fortunate as not to hear him, refused to make good their loss by reading the “English Orator,” even after it had been revised by a bishop. Miss Seward praised it highly; in return for which devotion she was hailed as a “Parnassian sister” in six benedictory stanzas.

Still gratitude her stores among, Shall bid the plausive poet sing; And, if the last of all the throng That rise on the poetic wing, Yet not regardless of his destined way, If Seward’s envied sanction stamps the lay.

The Swan, indeed, was never without admirers. Her “Louisa; a Poetical Novel in four Epistles,” was favourably noticed; Dr. Johnson praised her ode on the death of Captain Cook; and no contributor to the Bath Easton vase received more myrtle wreaths than she did. “Warble” was the word commonly used by partial critics in extolling her verse. “Long may she continue to warble as heretofore, in such numbers as few even of our favourite bards would be shy to own.” Scott sorrowfully admitted to Miss Baillie that he found these warblings--of which he was the reluctant editor--“execrable”; and that the despair which filled his soul on receiving Miss Seward’s letters gave him a lifelong horror of sentiment; but for once it is impossible to sympathize with Sir Walter’s sufferings. If he had never praised the verses, he would never have been called upon to edit them; and James Ballantyne would have been saved the printing of an unsalable book. There is no lie so little worth the telling as that which is spoken in pure kindness to spare a wholesome pang.

It was, however, the pleasant custom of the time to commend and encourage female poets, as we commend and encourage a child’s unsteady footsteps. The generous Hayley welcomed with open arms these fair competitors for fame.

The bards of Britain with unjaundiced eyes Will glory to behold such rivals rise.

He ardently flattered Miss Seward, and for Miss Hannah More his enthusiasm knew no bounds.

But with a magical control, Thy spirit-moving strain Dispels the languor of the soul, Annihilating pain.

“Spirit-moving” seems the last epithet in the world to apply to Miss More’s strains; but there is no doubt that the public believed her to be as good a poet as a preacher, and that it supported her high estimate of her own powers. After a visit to another lambent flame, Mrs. Barbauld, she writes with irresistible gravity:

“Mrs. B. and I have found out that we feel as little envy and malice towards each other, as though we had neither of us attempted to ‘build the lofty rhyme’; although she says this is what the envious and the malicious can never be brought to believe.”

Think of the author of “The Search after Happiness” and the author of “A Poetical Epistle to Mr. Wilberforce” loudly refusing to envy each other’s eminence! There is nothing like it in the strife-laden annals of fame.

Finally there stepped into the arena that charming embodiment of the female muse, Mrs. Hemans; and the manly heart of Protestant England warmed into homage at her shrine. From the days she “first carolled forth her poetic talents under the animating influence of an affectionate and admiring circle,” to the days when she faded gracefully out of life, her “half-etherealized spirit” rousing itself to dictate a last “Sabbath Sonnet,” she was crowned and garlanded with bays. In the first place, she was fair to see,--Fletcher’s bust shows real loveliness; and it was Christopher North’s opinion that “no really ugly woman ever wrote a truly beautiful poem the length of her little finger.” In the second place, she was sincerely pious; and the Ettrick Shepherd reflected the opinion of his day when he said that “without religion, a woman’s just an even-down deevil.” The appealing helplessness of Mrs. Hemans’s gentle and affectionate nature, the narrowness of her sympathies, and the limitations of her art were all equally acceptable to critics like Gifford and Jeffrey, who held strict views as to the rounding of a woman’s circle. Even Byron heartily approved of a pious and pretty woman writing pious and pretty poems. Even Wordsworth flung her lordly words of praise. Even Shelley wrote her letters so eager and ardent that her very sensible mamma, Mrs. Browne, requested him to cease. And as for Scott, though he confessed she was too poetical for his taste, he gave her always the honest friendship she deserved. It was to her he said, when some tourists left them hurriedly at Newark Tower: “Ah, Mrs. Hemans, they little know what two lions they are running away from.” It was to her he said, when she was leaving Abbotsford: “There are some whom we meet, and should like ever after to claim as kith and kin; and you are of this number.”

Who would not gladly have written “The Siege of Valencia” and “The Vespers of Palermo,” to have heard Sir Walter say these words?

THE LITERARY LADY

Out-pensioners of Parnassus.--HORACE WALPOLE.

In this overrated century of progress, when women have few favours shown them, but are asked to do their work or acknowledge their deficiencies, the thoughtful mind turns disconsolately back to those urbane days when every tottering step they took was patronized and praised. It must have been very pleasant to be able to publish “Paraphrases and Imitations of Horace,” without knowing a word of Latin. Latin is a difficult language to study, and much useful time may be wasted in acquiring it; therefore Miss Anna Seward eschewed the tedious process which most translators deem essential. Yet her paraphrases were held to have caught the true Horatian spirit; and critics praised them all the more indulgently because of their author’s feminine attitude to the classics. “Over the lyre of Horace,” she wrote elegantly to Mr. Repton, “I throw an unfettered hand.”

It may be said that critics were invariably indulgent to female writers (listen to Christopher North purring over Mrs. Hemans!) until they stepped, like Charlotte Brontë, from their appointed spheres, and hotly challenged the competition of the world. This was a disagreeable and a disconcerting thing for them to do. Nobody could patronize “Jane Eyre,” and none of the pleasant things which were habitually murmured about “female excellence and talent” seemed to fit this firebrand of a book. Had Charlotte Brontë taken to heart Mrs. King’s “justly approved work” on “The Beneficial Effects of the Christian Temper upon Domestic Happiness,” she would not have shocked and pained the sensitive reviewer of the “Quarterly.”

It was in imitation of that beacon light, Miss Hannah More, that Mrs. King wrote her famous treatise. It was in imitation of Miss Hannah More that Mrs. Trimmer (abhorred by Lamb) wrote “The Servant’s Friend,” “Help to the Unlearned,” and the “Charity School Spelling Book,”--works which have passed out of the hands of men, but whose titles survive to fill us with wonder and admiration. Was there ever a time when the unlearned frankly recognized their ignorance, and when a mistress ventured to give her housemaids a “Servant’s Friend”? Was spelling in the charity schools different from spelling elsewhere, or were charity-school children taught a limited vocabulary, from which all words of rank had been eliminated? Those were days when the upper classes were affable and condescending, when the rural poor--if not intoxicated--curtsied and invoked blessings on their benefactors all day long, and when benevolent ladies told the village politicians what it was well for them to know. But even at this restful period, a “Charity School Spelling Book” seems ill calculated to inspire the youthful student with enthusiasm.

Mrs. Trimmer’s attitude to the public was marked by that refined diffidence which was considered becoming in a female. Her biographer assures us that she never coveted literary distinction, although her name was celebrated “wherever Christianity was established, and the English language was spoken.” Royalty took her by the hand, and bishops expressed their overwhelming sense of obligation. We sigh to think how many ladies became famous against their wills a hundred and fifty years ago, and how hard it is now to raise our aspiring heads. There was Miss ---- or, as she preferred to be called, Mrs. ---- Carter, who read Greek, and translated Epictetus, who was admired by “the great, the gay, the good, and the learned”; yet who could with difficulty be persuaded to bear the burden of her own eminence. It was the opinion of her friends that Miss Carter had conferred a good deal of distinction upon Epictetus by her translation,--by setting, as Dr. Young elegantly phrased it, this Pagan jewel in gold. We find Mrs. Montagu writing to this effect, and expressing in round terms her sense of the philosopher’s obligation. “Might not such an honour from a fair hand make even an Epictetus proud, without being censured for it? Nor let Mrs. Carter’s amiable modesty become blameable by taking offence at the truth, but stand the shock of applause which she has brought upon her own head.”

It was very comforting to receive letters like this, to be called upon to brace one’s self against the shock of applause, instead of against the chilly douche of disparagement. Miss Carter retorted, as in duty bound, by imploring her friend to employ her splendid abilities upon some epoch-making work,--some work which, while it entertained the world, “would be applauded by angels, and registered in Heaven.” Perhaps the uncertainty of angelic readers daunted even Mrs. Montagu, for she never responded to this and many similar appeals; but suffered her literary reputation to rest secure on her defence of Shakespeare, and three papers contributed to Lord Lyttelton’s “Dialogues of the Dead.” Why, indeed, should she have laboured further, when, to the end of her long and honoured life, men spoke of her “transcendent talents,” her “magnificent attainments”? Had she written a history of the world, she could not have been more reverently praised. Lord Lyttelton, transported with pride at having so distinguished a collaborator, wrote to her that the French translation of the “Dialogues” was as well done as “the poverty of the French tongue would permit”; and added unctuously, “but such eloquence as yours must lose by being translated into _any_ other language. Your form and manner would seduce Apollo himself on his throne of criticism on Parnassus.”

Lord Lyttelton was perhaps more remarkable for amiability than for judgment; but Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, who wrote good letters himself, ardently admired Mrs. Montagu’s, and pronounced her “the Madame du Deffand of the English capital.” Cowper meekly admitted that she stood at the head “of all that is called learned,” and that every critic “veiled his bonnet before her superior judgment.” Even Dr. Johnson, though he despised the “Dialogues,” and protested to the end of his life that Shakespeare stood in no need of Mrs. Montagu’s championship, acknowledged that the lady was well informed and intelligent. “Conversing with her,” he said, “you may find variety in one”; and this charming phrase stands now as the most generous interpretation of her fame. It is something we can credit amid the bewildering nonsense which was talked and written about a woman whose hospitality dazzled society, and whose assertiveness dominated her friends.

There were other literary ladies belonging to this charmed circle whose reputations rested on frailer foundations. Mrs. Montagu _did_ write the essay on Shakespeare and the three dialogues. Miss Carter _did_ translate Epictetus. Mrs. Chapone _did_ write “Letters on the Improvement of the Mind,” which so gratified George the Third and Queen Charlotte that they entreated her to compose a second volume; and she _did_ dally a little with verse, for one of her odes was prefixed--Heaven knows why!--to Miss Carter’s “Epictetus”; and the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, even little Prince William, were all familiar with this masterpiece. There never was a lady more popular with a reigning house, and, when we dip into her pages, we know the reason why. A firm insistence upon admitted truths, a loving presentation of the obvious, a generous championship of those sweet commonplaces we all deem dignified and safe, made her especially pleasing to good King George and his consort. Even her letters are models of sapiency. “Tho’ I meet with no absolutely perfect character,” she writes to Sir William Pepys, “yet where I find a good disposition, improved by good principles and virtuous habits, I feel a moral assurance that I shall not find any flagrant vices in the same person, and that I shall never see him fall into any very criminal action.”

The breadth and tolerance of this admission must have startled her correspondent, seasoned though he was to intellectual audacity. Nor was Mrs. Chapone lacking in the gentle art of self-advancement; for, when about to publish a volume of “Miscellanies,” she requested Sir William to write an essay on “Affection and Simplicity,” or “Enthusiasm and Indifference,” and permit her to print it as her own. “If your ideas suit my way of thinking,” she tells him encouragingly, “I can cool them down to my manner of writing, for we must not have a hotchpotch of Styles; and if, for any reason, I should not be able to make use of them, you will still have had the benefit of having written them, and may peaceably possess your own property.”

There are many ways of asking a favour; but to assume that you are granting the favour that you ask shows spirit and invention. Had Mrs. Chapone written nothing but this model of all begging letters, she would be worthy to take high rank among the literary ladies of Great Britain.

It is more difficult to establish the claim of Mrs. Boscawen, who looms nebulously on the horizon as the wife of an admiral, and the friend of Miss Hannah More, from whom she received flowing compliments in the “Bas Bleu.”

Each art of conversation knowing, High-bred, elegant Boscawen.

We are told that this lady was “distinguished by the strength of her understanding, the poignancy of her humour, and the brilliancy of her wit”; but there does not survive the mildest joke, the smallest word of wisdom to illustrate these qualities. Then there was Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, whose name alone was a guarantee of immortality; and the “sprightly and pleasing Mrs. Ironmonger”; and Miss Lee, who could repeat the whole of Miss Burney’s “Cecilia” (a shocking accomplishment); and the vivacious Miss Monckton, whom Johnson called a dunce; and Miss Elizabeth Hamilton, a useful person, “equally competent to form the minds and manners of the daughters of a nobleman, and to reform the simple but idle habits of the peasantry”; and Mrs. Bennet, whose letters--so Miss Seward tells us--“breathed Ciceronean spirit and eloquence,” and whose poems revealed “the terse neatness, humour, and gayety of Swift,” which makes it doubly distressful that neither letters nor poems have survived. Above all, there was the mysterious “Sylph,” who glides--sylphlike--through a misty atmosphere of conjecture and adulation; and about whom we feel some of the fond solicitude expressed over and over again by the letter-writers of this engaging period.

Translated into prose, the Sylph becomes Mrs. Agmondesham Vesey,--

Vesey, of verse the judge and friend,--

a fatuous deaf lady, with a taste for literary society, and a talent for arranging chairs. She it was who first gathered the “Blues” together, placing them in little groups--generally back to back--and flitting so rapidly from one group to another, her ear-trumpet hung around her neck, that she never heard more than a few broken sentences of conversation. She had what Miss Hannah More amiably called “plastic genius,” which meant that she fidgeted perpetually; and what Miss Carter termed “a delightful spirit of innocent irregularity,” which meant that she was inconsequent to the danger point. “She united,” said Madame d’Arblay, “the unguardedness of childhood to a Hibernian bewilderment of ideas which cast her incessantly into some burlesque situation.” But her kind-heartedness (she proposed having her drawing-room gravelled, so that a lame friend could walk on it without slipping) made even her absurdities lovable, and her most fantastic behaviour was tolerated as proof of her aerial essence. “There is nothing of mere vulgar mortality about our Sylph,” wrote Miss Carter proudly.

It was in accordance with this pleasing illusion that, when Mrs. Vesey took a sea voyage, her friends spoke of her as though she were a mermaid, disporting herself in, instead of on, the ocean. They not only held “the uproar of a stormy sea to be as well adapted to the sublime of her imagination as the soft murmur of a gliding stream to the gentleness of her temper” (so much might at a pinch be said about any of us); but we find Miss Carter writing to Mrs. Montagu in this perplexing strain:--

“I fancy our Sylph has not yet left the coral groves and submarine palaces in which she would meet with so many of her fellow nymphs on her way to England. I think if she had landed, we should have had some information about it, either from herself or from somebody else who knows her consequence to us.”

The poor Sylph seems to have had rather a hard time of it after the death of the Honourable Agmondesham, who relished his wife’s vagaries so little, or feared them so much, that he left the bulk of his estate to his nephew, a respectable young man with no unearthly qualities. The heir, however, behaved generously to his widowed aunt, giving her an income large enough to permit her to live with comfort, and to keep her coach. Miss Carter was decidedly of the opinion that Mr. Vesey made such a “detestable” will because he was lacking in sound religious principles, and she expressed in plain terms her displeasure with her friend for mourning persistently over the loss of one who “so little deserved her tears.” But the Sylph, lonely, middle-aged, and deaf, realized perhaps that her little day was over. Mrs. Montagu’s profuse hospitality had supplanted “the biscuit’s ample sacrifice.” People no longer cared to sit back to back, talking platitudes through long and hungry evenings. The “innocent irregularity” deepened into melancholy, into madness; and the Sylph, a piteous mockery of her old sweet foolish self, faded away, dissolving like Niobe in tears.

It may be noted that the mission of the literary lady throughout all these happy years was to elevate and refine. Her attitude towards matters of the intellect was one of obtrusive humility. It is recorded that “an accomplished and elegant female writer” (the name, alas! withheld) requested Sir William Pepys to mark all the passages in Madame de Staël’s works which he considered “above her comprehension.” Sir William “with ready wit” declined this invidious task; but agreed to mark all he deemed “worthy of her attention.” We hardly know what to admire the most in a story like this;--the lady’s modesty, Sir William’s tact, or the revelation it affords of infinite leisure. When we remember the relentless copiousness of Madame de Staël’s books, we wonder if the amiable annotator lived long enough to finish his task.

In matters of morality, however, the female pen was held to be a bulwark of Great Britain. The ambition to prove that--albeit a woman--one may be on terms of literary intimacy with the seven deadly sins (“Je ne suis qu’un pauvre diable de perruquier, mais je ne crois pas en Dieu plus que les autres”) had not yet dawned upon the feminine horizon. The literary lady accepted with enthusiasm the limitations of her sex, and turned them to practical account; she laid with them the foundations of her fame. Mrs. Montagu, an astute woman of the world, recognized in what we should now call an enfeebling propriety her most valuable asset. It sanctified her attack upon Voltaire, it enabled her to snub Dr. Johnson, and it made her, in the opinion of her friends, the natural and worthy opponent of Lord Chesterfield. She was entreated to come to the rescue of British morality by denouncing that nobleman’s “profligate” letters; and we find the Rev. Montagu Pennington lamenting years afterwards her refusal “to apply her wit and genius to counteract the mischief which Lord Chesterfield’s volumes had done.”