CHAPTER I

LEARNED LADIES IN ENGLAND BEFORE 1650

1. PREFATORY STATEMENT

The theme to which this volume is specifically limited is the position and achievements of learned women in England in the period between 1650 and 1760. But before entering upon this detailed study it seems desirable to give a preliminary sketch of the work of learned women in England before 1650. In such a sketch it is, indeed, a temptation to go farther back along the path of history than a single volume would allow. It is difficult, for instance, to avoid some account of the women of genius notable in the great days of Greece and Rome.[1] More fascinating still would be a close study of the learned nuns of the Middle Ages.[2] St. Radegunde, Abbess of Poitiers, a poet of considerable distinction; St. Hilda, who governed her double monastery at Whitby so successfully as to put it "in the forefront of intellectual agencies in Great Britain"; the group of learned nuns who corresponded with St. Boniface, chief among them being St. Lioba, who made of her convent at Bischopsheim, Germany, "the most important educational center in that part of Europe"; Hroswitha of Gandersheim, whose seven dramas "caused the tragic muse to emerge once more from the midnight gloom of the Middle Ages";[3] St. Hildegard, "the most voluminous woman writer of the Middle Ages"; St. Herrad, author of an encyclopædic work entitled _Hortus Deliciarum_, or _Garden of Delight_--these are but a few of the women whose lives and works offer a field for profitable and interesting investigation.

Emily James Putnam, in her acute study, _The Lady_, says of this convent life:

No institution of Europe has ever won for the lady the freedom and development that she enjoyed in the convent in the early days. The modern colleges for women only feebly reproduce it, since the college for women has arisen when colleges in general are under a cloud. The lady-abbess, on the other hand, was part of the two great social forces of her time, feudalism and the Church. Great spiritual rewards and great worldly prizes were alike within her grasp. She was treated as an equal by men of her time as is witnessed by letters we still have from popes and emperors to abbesses. She had the stimulus of competition with men in executive capacity, in scholarship, and in artistic production, since her work was freely set before the general public: but she was relieved by the circumstances of her environment from the ceaseless competition in common life of woman with woman for the favor of the individual man. In the cloister of the great days, as on a small scale in the college for women to-day, women were judged by each other as men are everywhere judged by each other, for sterling qualities of head and heart and character.[4]

From mediæval poems and romances also come glimpses, tantalizingly brief and casual, to be sure, yet glimpses indicative of a tendency to count learning as one of the possible charms of a heroine.[5] The delightful lady in _Cursor Mundi_, who was described as "learnyd, ware and wise," was also said to be "of much price lovéd." A later maid, likewise of "grete prys," could vie with a modern college girl in the variety and extent of her knowledge:

Wyse sche was and curtes of mowthe, All the vii arse sche cowthe. She had maystures at hur honde, The wysest men of that londe, And taght hur astronomye, Arsmetryck and gemetrye. That mayde was of grete prys For sche was bothe warre and wyse.[6]

In _Floris and Blanchefleur_, Floris refused to study unless Blanchefleur was taught with him, and she prospered so at her books that her lore was a wonder to all. When she and Floris had been in school five years together, they knew Latin and could write well on parchment. When Floris went to visit his aunt she set him to learn many things, as other children did, "bot maydons and grome."[7] The wife of Sir Bevis of Hamtoun was taught "fysik and sirgerie" by great masters from Bologna.[8] Melior, the fair mistress of Partonope of Blois, since she was the only heir to the kingdom, was sent to school that she might get great wisdom. She says, "A hundred mastres I had and mo," and adds that God graciously inclined her to learning so that she came to know "the seven sciences" perfectly. She was also trained in herbs and "phisike," in "Divinite and Nygromancy."[9] Thaise, in _Apollonius of Tyre_, combined the "wisdom of a clerk" with

every lusti werk, Which to a gentlewoman longeth.

She was wel kept, sche was wel loked Sche was wel tawht, sche was wel boked So wel sche spedde hir in hire yowthe That sche of every wisdom cowthe.[10]

Medea, in Lydgate's _Troy Book_, had so passionate a desire for knowledge that she became in all the "artis called liberal" as expert and knowing as the best. She was powerful in logic, astronomy, and necromancy.[11]

But the highly prized ladies of romance, the abbesses with all their pomp and influence, the women poets, philosophers, and orators of Greece and Rome, all lose interest when compared with the story of the learned women in Italy during the Renascence. When we come to the actual flowering time of their genius the list is so long as to make selection difficult. "Never in history," says Mozans, "had they greater freedom of action in things of the mind; never were they, except probably in the case of the English and German abbesses of the Middle Ages, treated with more marked deference and consideration or fairness; never were their efforts more highly appreciated or more generously rewarded.... Everywhere the intellectual arena was open to them on the same terms as to men. Incapacity and not sex was the only bar to entrance."[12] When the great Cardinal Bembo said, "Little girls should learn Latin; it completes their charm," he was expressing the attitude of the best Italian scholars towards learning for women. Intellectual attainments were not only counted appropriate for women, but they were recognized as a distinct added attraction. Every city of importance had women whose renown was a source of civic pride. Women not only studied under tutors, but they apparently attended classes in the great universities, and even occupied important chairs in the most distinguished faculties.[13]

The outcome of a general investigation along the lines indicated would doubtless go to prove that in all civilized nations, in all ages of their progress, there have been individual women who by force of native endowment and through some favorable conjunction of circumstances, have risen into prominence in realms not ordinarily open to the women of their time, and that there have been various interesting epochs when women have responded in fairly large numbers to some exceptional intellectual stimulus.

2. PERIOD OF HENRY VIII AND ELIZABETH

The first woman author in the English language is probably Juliana Barnes (or Berners), whose delight in hunting, hawking, and fishing, along with a surprising amount of technical knowledge on these subjects, led her to write, in 1481, a book for "the gentill men and honest persones" whose tastes coincided with hers. But this lady was prioress of Sopewell Nunnery and comes under the list of learned nuns.[14] Genuine interest in books on the part of women in secular life in England received one of its earliest manifestations in the will of the Duchess of Buckingham who left to her daughter-in-law, Margaret, the Countess of Richmond,[15] "a book of English, being a legend of Saints; a book of French, called Lucun; another book of French, of the Epistles and Gospels; and a Primmer with clasps of silver gilt, covered with purple velvet." This legacy was an important recognition of the literary tastes of the Countess of Richmond who had, says Ballard, "a fine library stored with Latin, French and English books, not collected for ornament, or to make a figure (as is frequently the case) but for use." The Countess knew French and had some knowledge of Latin. She also entered the field of authorship, publishing before 1509 _The mirroure of golde for the sinfull soule_, "translated at Parice out of Laten into Frenshe ... and now of late translated out of Frenshe into Englishe by the right excellent Princess Margaret." This right noble Margaret was likewise a patroness of literature and a guardian of learning. She established lectureships in divinity, maintained scholarships for poor students, founded two colleges, and in other ways manifested her interest in the progress of education.

The Countess of Richmond as a lover of books, as a translator of religious works, and particularly as an intelligent and ardent patron of learning, foreshadowed feminine activities of a later day. But the learned lady as a recognized factor in social life had no real place in England till the time of Henry VIII. Renascence ideas concerning the education of women came into England from Spain through Catherine, the first wife of Henry VIII. She was in England from 1501 to 1531. Under the influence of her mother, Queen Isabella,[16] she had been given remarkable educational advantages. Queen Isabella was interested in all that pertained to learning. She was a collector of books and contributed important accessions to Spanish libraries. She knew several modern languages and had a "critically accurate" knowledge of Latin. Learning for women was encouraged at her court. The queen had herself a lady teacher, Beatrix Galindo, who was professor of rhetoric at the University of Salamanca, and who was called, for her knowledge of the Latin language, _La Latina_. Other learned ladies of Spain were doubtless known at the court, as Francisca de Lebrixa who often took the place of her father, professor of history in the University of Alcala; or Doña Maria Pacheco de Mendoza and her sister, who are mentioned by Mr. Foster as the parallels of Sir Thomas More's daughters in England.[17] In this eager, ambitious, intellectual atmosphere the daughters of Isabella were brought up. She gave them personal instruction, and secured for them foreign teachers of eminence. Erasmus said that Catherine had been happily reared on letters from her infancy, that she loved literature, and that she was _egregie docta_. In the English court Queen Catherine's influence was all on the side of learning. Mr. Watson says that all the treatises on the education of women that appeared in England between 1523 and 1538 were under the spell of Catherine.[18] In the education of her own daughter, the Princess Mary, she kept to the traditions of the Spanish court and secured the most learned tutors for the young girl. Dr. Lynacre wrote for the child Princess a _Rudiments of Grammar_. His successor was Juan Luis Vives, who came to England in 1523 on the invitation of Henry VIII. Whether Vives actually taught the Princess or not, he wrote, in 1523, as director of her studies, two Latin treatises, both dedicated to Queen Catherine. The first of these, _De Institutione Fæminæ Christiannæ_, was translated into English by Richard Hyrde before 1528 (though not printed till 1540) under the title, _The Instruction of a Christian Woman_. Hyrde dedicated his translation to Catherine because of her gracious zeal "to the virtuous education of the womankind of this realm." Vives's second treatise, _De Ratione Studii_, an account of the studies appropriate for a young girl, appeared in 1524, and many editions are listed. Still another treatise is by subject-matter and chronology closely connected with the two essays by Vives. In 1524 there appeared a translation by Margaret Roper of Erasmus's _Treatise on the Lord's Prayer_. The Introduction was by Mr. Hyrde, and its importance is indicated by Mr. Watson when he calls it "the first reasoned claim of the Renascence period, written in English, for the higher education of women." These treatises by Vives and Hyrde have much in common and they express the most advanced contemporary ideas on woman's education. That the place of woman is in the home is emphatically stated. Housewifery is imperative. Vives has a charming passage on the handling of wool and flax, "two crafts yet left of that old innocent world," crafts of which no woman, be she princess or queen, may be rightly ignorant.[19] Almost equal in quaint interest is his defense of the kitchen: "Nor let nobody loathe the name of the kitchen: namely, being a thing very necessary, without the which neither sick folks can amend nor whole folks live." The lady should also be mistress of a closet of medicaments which she must be able to administer with skill. Occupations that involve any sort of publicity are counted inappropriate for women, hence Vives gives "no license to a woman to be a teacher."[20] The essential feminine virtues are piety and modesty. Obedience to parents and to husbands is enjoined. This obedience, if born of inner concord, might be a voluntary and ideal thing. The mother of Vives is given as an example of the true wifely attitude: "My mother Blanche when she had been fifteen years married unto my father, I could never see her strive with my father. There were two sayings that she had ever in her mouth as proverbs. When she would say she believed well anything, then she used to say, even as though Luis Vives had spoken it. When she would say that she would [wished] anything, she used to say, even as though Luis Vives would it."[21] In all these points Vives and Hyrde were quite in accord with their age. The new element in their creed was that learning could make women more attractive, companionable, and efficient in these home relationships.[22] Hyrde considers the man that "had leaver have his wife a fool than a wise woman" as "worse than twice frantic." Maids must be good, says Vives, but learning will fortify them and make them more truly good. In fact, according to Vives and Hyrde, there are no bounds to be set to the learning of women except those involved in the one general prescription that all their studies must tend to the development of character. Romances, for instance, are forbidden because they give false ideals, while ethical and religious books are strongly commended.[23]

The Princess Mary was too young to know the significance of the essays in her behalf, but she profited by the training accorded her. When she was but nine she was addressed by commissioners from Holland in the Latin tongue and responded in the same language "with as much assurance and facility as if she had been twelve years of age."[24] Her parents were proud of her achievements and planned to have her learn modern languages. Later in life, at the solicitation of Queen Catherine Parr, she translated Erasmus's _Paraphrase on the Gospel of St. John_, and her work was highly praised.

The example set at court was followed in many noble families. There is in the realm of education no single picture more entertaining and attractive than that of Sir Thomas More and his daughters. Our knowledge of this family comes from various sources, the chief of which are a description written by Erasmus in a letter to John Faber, and the letters written by Sir Thomas to the tutors and to his daughters, especially to his daughter Margaret.[25] Sir Thomas could not see why learning was not as suitable for girls as for boys. In a letter to Gunnel he wrote:

Neither is there anie difference in harvest time, whether it was man or woman, that sowed first the corne: for both of them beare name of a reasonable creature equally, whose nature reason only doth distinguish from bruite beastes, and therefore I do not see why learning in like manner may not equally agree with both sexes; for by it, reason is cultivated, and (as a fielde) sowed with wholesome precepts, it bringeth excellent fruit. But if the soyle of woman's braine be of its own nature bad, and apter to beare fearne then corne (by which saying manie doe terrifye women from learning) I am of opinion therefore that a woman's witt is the more diligently by good instructions and learning to be manured, to the ende, the defect of nature may be redressed by industrie.[26]

In describing the ideal wife he said: "May she be learned, if possible, or at least capable of being made so,"[27] and he gave the same training to Margaret and her sisters as to his son John. The fame of these daughters went far. Symon Grinæus, in dedicating his Plato to John, speaks of the young man's sisters as those "whom a divine heat of the spirit, to the admiration and a new example of this our age, hath driven into the sea of learning so far, and so happily, that they see no learning to be above their reach, no disputation of philosophy above their capacity."[28] Margaret, the daughter "most like her father both in favour and wit," and "a rare woman for learning, sanctity, and secrecy,"[29] was especially the source of his pride. His delight in her overflows in his charming response to a letter from her asking for money: "You aske monye, deare Megg, too shamefully and fearefully of your father, who is both desirous to giue it you, and your letter hath deserued it, which I could find in my heart to recompence, not as Alexander did by Cherilus, giuing him for every verse a Philipine of golde; but if my abilities were answerable to my will, I would bestowe two Crownes of pure golde for euery sillable thereof."[30] He found her Latin letters written in so pure a style that "Momus, his censure though never so teastie," could find no fault in them. Sir Thomas took occasion to show these letters and other compositions by Margaret to the Bishop of Exeter and to Reginald Pole, both good judges of any literary performance; and Margaret's attainments seemed to both "as a miracle." Of Mr. Pole's amazement Sir Thomas wrote:

I could scarce make him believe, but that you had some help from your maister, until I told him seriously that you had not only never a maister in your house, but also never another man, that needed not your help rather in writing anie thing, than you needed his. In the mean time I thought with myself how true I found that now, which once I remember I spoke unto you in jeaste, when I pittied your hard happe, that men that read your writings would suspect you to have had help from some other man therein; which would derrogate somewhat from the praises due to your workes; seeing that you of all others deserve least to have such a suspition had of you, for that you never could abide to be decked with the plumes of other birds.[31]

But sweet Meg is praised because she studies for love of learning, not for fame, and contents herself with her husband and father as a sufficient audience. When Margaret married the best wish her father could make was that her children should be most like to herself, "except only in sex," yet he adds that a daughter who could imitate her mother's learning and virtues would be of more worth than "three boys."[32]

Margaret had three sons and two daughters and she took the same care of their education as had been taken of hers. Dr. John Morwen, a noted Greek scholar, was preceptor in Greek and Latin to her daughter Mary. Other tutors were Dr. Cole and Dr. Christopherson, also famous for Greek. Mary seems to have followed in her mother's footsteps so far as attention to learned pursuits is concerned, but without her mother's ability and charm. Her Latin orations were, however, so much admired that her tutor, Dr. Morwen, translated them into English. Sir Thomas More's other daughters, Elizabeth Dancy (b. 1509) and Cecilia Heron (b. 1510), and Margaret, a talented kinswoman who married her tutor, Dr. John Clement, in 1531, were given the same educational advantages as Margaret. A characteristic eulogy of the three sisters was by Mr. John Leland, its Latin being thus Englished in Ballard's _Memoirs_:

Forbear too much t' extoll, great Rome, from hence, Thy fam'd Hortensius' Daughter's Eloquence; These boasted names are now eclips'd by Three More learned Nymphs, Great More's fair Progeny; Who over-pas'd the Spinster's mean Employ; The purest Latin Authors were their Joy; They loved in Rome's political Style to write, And with the choicest Eloquence indite, Nor were they conversant alone in these, They turn'd o'er Homer and Demosthenes; From Aristotle's Store of Learning too The mystic Art of Reasoning well they drew. Then blush you Men if you neglect to trace These Heights of Learning which the Female grace.[33]

Erasmus and Sir Thomas More were close friends and it was through this friendship that Erasmus was converted to the idea of advanced studies for women. In his _The Abbot and the Learned Woman_, Magdalia defends learning against the Abbot Antronius. The monk uses the well-worn argument that woman's place is in the home, that it is her business to conduct the affairs of the family and to instruct the children. Magdalia does not contest this position, but urges that so weighty a business needs all possible wisdom and that through books she gains wisdom. In a sharp attack on the ignorance of the monks she says: "In Spain and Italy there are not a few women belonging to the noblest families who are a match for any man. In England there are the Mores; in Germany the Pirckheimers and the Blaurers. And if you don't take care, it will soon come to this, that we shall preside in the schools of divinity, preach in the churches, and take possession of your mitres.... If you go on as you are doing it is more likely that the geese will begin to preach than that such dumb shepherds as you will be any longer endured."[34] Antronius is reduced to the weak argument that popular opinion does not favor Latin for women, and Magdalia closes the discussion with the classic defense of new ideas: "Why do you tell me of popular opinion, which is the worst example in the world to be followed? What have I to do with custom, that is the mistress of all evil practices? We ought to accustom ourselves to the best things, and by that means that which was uncustomary would become habitual, and that which was unpleasant would become pleasant, and that which seemed unbecoming would look graceful."[35]

The daughters of Sir Thomas More were not the only girls trained in the best learning of the day. Another important family where particular stress was laid on the education of the daughters was that of Sir Anthony Coke, one of the tutors of King Edward VI.[36] Mildred, the eldest daughter (1526-1589), who married Lord Burleigh, was celebrated for her knowledge of Latin and Greek. Two other daughters, Elizabeth, Lady Russel (b. _cir._ 1529), and Katharine, Mrs. Killigrew (b. _cir._ 1530), had fine natural abilities and a learned education, and were distinguished both socially and intellectually. But the most noted of the sisters was Anne (b. _cir._ 1527), who married Sir Nicholas Bacon, and became the mother of two remarkable sons, Anthony Bacon, and Francis Viscount St. Albans, the great Lord Bacon. She was said to be "exquisitely skilled in the Greek, Latin, and Italian tongues." In 1550 she translated twenty-five sermons from the Italian. In later life she did a much more important piece of translation. Bishop Jewel had written in Latin _An Apology for the Church of England_. The book had made so great a stir that an English translation seemed desirable and Lady Bacon undertook the task. She sent her translation to the Archbishop and to the author, with a letter written in Greek, that they might correct any errors, but they found it so accurate that they changed not the least word. In 1564 the Archbishop had the book published without consulting Lady Bacon because he said he knew her modesty would be abashed by any such publicity. He praised her clear translation saying that she "had done honour to her sex and to the degree of ladies." Lady Bacon was associated with her father in his duties as tutor to Edward VI. She also conducted the early education of her sons and they owed much to her wise care and great ability. Sir Anthony Coke believed that women should be educated on the same lines as men, and that they were quite as capable of acquiring knowledge, and his own daughters brilliantly sustained this theory.

A third distinguished family in which the daughters were liberally educated was that of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset. Three of them, Anne, Margaret, and Jane, were joint authors of _A Century of Distichs upon the Death of Queen Margaret of Navarre_, printed in 1550 and later translated into Greek, French, and Italian.[37] Henry Fitz Allan, Earl of Arundel, had both his daughters well trained in the classics and they had the advantage of the notable library he had collected. The eldest, Lady Joanna Lumley[38] (d. 1576), translated four of the _Orations_ of Isocrates from Greek into Latin, and the _Iphigenia_ of Euripides from Greek into English. Most of her writings were dedicated to her father. Her manuscripts were preserved in his library and so passed into royal possession in the time of James I. Another learned lady was Mary, Countess of Arundel.[39] She translated from Greek and Latin and collected a book of similes from Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, and other classic authors. She, too, dedicated her works to her father, Sir Thomas Arundel. Sir Thomas Parr, "following the example of Sir Thomas More and other great men," bestowed on his daughter Catherine[40] a learned education, as "the most valuable addition he could make to her other charms." She was interested in all matters pertaining to learning, and successfully used her influence with the King in behalf of the universities. She wrote a letter in Latin to the Princess Mary to induce her to translate Erasmus's _Paraphrase of St. John_, and wrote many psalms, prayers, and meditations, beside _Queene Katherine Parre's lamentation of a sinner_, published in 1548. Jane, Countess of Westmoreland, was placed by her father, the Earl of Surrey, under the tuition of Mr. Fox, the Martyrologist, who reported her skill in Latin and Greek as such "that she might well stand in competition with the greatest men of that age."[41]

Most interesting and most pathetic of all the young women known for learning in Tudor times was Lady Jane Grey.[42] Ascham, in a well-known passage in _The Scholemaster_ (1570), describes an interview he had with her at Bradgate where she was pursuing her studies under John Aylmer, her tutor. This was in 1550 when Lady Jane was but thirteen.

Before I went into _Germanie_, I came to Brodegate in Le(i)cestershire, to take my leaue of that noble Ladie _Iane Grey_, to whom I was exeding moch beholdinge. Hir parentes, the Duke and Duches, with all the houshold, Gentlemen and Gentlewomen, were huntinge in the Parke; I founde her, in her Chamber, readinge _Phædon Platonis_ in Greeke, and that with as moch delite, as som ientlemen wold read a merie tale in _Bocase_. After salutation, and dewtie done, with som other taulke, I asked her, whie she wold leese soch pastime in the Parke! smiling she answered me; I wisse, all their sporte in the Parke is but a shoadoe to that pleasure, that I find in _Plato_: Alas good folke, they neuer felt what trewe pleasure ment. And howe came you Madame, quoth I, to this deepe knowledge of pleasure, and what did chieflie allure you vnto it: seinge, not many women, but verie fewe men haue attained thereunto. I will tell you, quoth she, and to tell you a troth, which perchance ye will meruell at. One of the greatest benefites, that euer God gaue me, is, that he sent me so sharpe and seuere Parentes, and so ientle a scholemaster. For when I am in the presence of either father or mother, whether I speake, kepe silence, sit, stand, or go, eate, drinke, be merie, or sad, be sowyng, plaiyng, dauncing, or doing anie thing els, I most do it, as it were, in soch weight, mesure, and number, euen so perfitelie, as God made the world, or else I am so sharplie taunted, so cruellie threatened, yea presentlie some tymes with pinches, nippes, and bobbes, and other waies, which I will not name, for the honor I bear them, so without measure mis-ordered, that I think my selfe in hell, till tyme cum, that I must go to _M. Elmer_, who teacheth me so ientlie, so pleasantlie, with soch faire allurements to learning, that I thinke all the tyme nothing, whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping because, what soeuer I do els, but learning, is ful of grief, trouble, feare, and whole misliking unto me: And thus my booke, hath bene so moch my pleasure, and bringeth dayly to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it, all other pleasures, in vere deede be but trifles and troubles vnto me. I remember this talke gladly, bothe bicause it is so worthy of memorie, and bicause also, it was the last talke that euer I had, and the last tyme, that euer I saw that noble and worthie Ladie.

Mr. Elmer said she understood perfectly both kinds of philosophy, and could express herself very properly at least in the Latin and Greek tongues. Sir Thomas Chaloner said that she was "well versed in Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, French and Italian," that she "played well on instrumental music, writ a curious hand, and was excellent at her Needle." Ballard quotes a contemporaneous opinion that she was superior to King Edward VI in learning and in the languages. "If her fortunes [says he] had been as good as her bringing up, joyned with fineness of wit: undoubtedly she might have seemed comparable not only to the house of the Vespasians, Sempronians, and mother of the Gracchies; yea, to any other women besides that deserveth high praise for their singular learning; but also to the university men, which have taken many degrees of the Schools."

So far as accessible records go it was only in royal or noble families that a learned education was counted suitable for women. It is rare indeed to come upon an account like that of Elizabeth Lucar (1510-1537), the daughter of a Mr. Paul Withypoll, and the wife of a merchant-tailor, Mr. Lucar. In her accomplishments she seems to have vied with the best ladies in the land. She was excellent in music, being able to play on the viol, the lute, and the virginal, and she could sing in various tongues.

She wrought all Needle-works that Women exercise, With Pen, Frame, or Stoole, all Pictures artificial, Curious Knots, or Trailes, what fancy could devise, Beasts, Birds, or Flowers, even as things natural.

She wrote "three manner hands," was especially cunning in accounts and "Algorism" (Arithmetic), and she could speak, write, and read Latin, Spanish, and Italian, and she "won the garland" in English.[43] Our knowledge of Elizabeth Withypoll's rare attainments comes by chance from the information on her monument. Probably there were other highly educated women in the wealthy middle classes but their learned tastes were not counted worthy of any definite record.

In addition to the many instances of girls trained in the best learning of their times during the first half of the sixteenth century, we have striking contemporary testimony as to the prevalence of the custom, and the high esteem in which such learning was held. Richard Mulcaster (1530-1611), first head-master of a school founded by the Merchant Taylors' Company in 1561, in discussing principles of education, expressed advanced ideas concerning the ability and training of girls.[44] He declared himself "for them toothe and naile." He says that their "natural towardnesse" is such that they should be well brought up, and he summarizes the elements of this training. A young gentlewoman is thoroughly educated, he says, if she can "reade plainly, and distinctly, write faire and swiftly, sing cleare and sweetly, play wel and finely, understand and speak the learned languages, and the tongues also which the time most embraseth with some logicall helpe to chop, and some rhetoricke to brave." And he asks whether it is likely that the children of a woman so trained will be "eare a whit the worse brought up" for this learning. The places wherein girls may study may be at home with tutors or they may go forth to the elementary school. And the teacher may be either a man or a woman. Mulcaster was himself in favor of sending girls to the public grammar schools, and even to the universities, but he said it was "a thing not used" in his country, there was no "president" therefor. But he is enthusiastic about the attainments of women. In languages, he says, "they compare favourably with our kinde in the best degree." Some of them are so excellently trained and so rarely qualified that they could be preferred to "the best Romaine or Greekish paragones be they never so much praised: to the Germaine or French gentlewymen by late writers so wel liked: to the Italian ladies who dare write themselves and deserve fame for so doing."

Nicholas Udall, in 1548, in a Preface to Princess Mary's translation of the _Paraphrase of the Gospel of St. John_ by Erasmus, comments on the great number of noble women at that time in England given not only to human sciences and strange tongues, but

also so throughly expert in the Holy Scriptures that they were able to compare with the best writers as well in enditeing and penning of Godly and fruitful treatises to the instruction and edifying of realmes in the knowledge of God, as also in translating good books out of Latin or Greek into English.... It was now no news in England to see young damsels in noble houses and in the courts of princes, instead of cards and other instruments of idle trifling, to have continually in their hands either psalms, homilies, or other devout meditations ... and as familiarly both to read or reason thereof in Greek, Latin, French or Italian, as in English. It was now a common thing to see young virgins so trained in the study of good letters, that they willingly set all other vain pastimes at naught for learning sake. It was now no news at all, to see Queens and ladies of most high estate and progeny, instead of courtly dalliance, to embrace virtuous exercises of reading and writing, and with most earnest study both early and late, to apply themselves to the acquiring of knowledge.[45]

Puttenham, in his _Arte of English Poesie_ (1589), indicates the prevalence of women poets in the sixteenth century when he says:

Darke word or doubtfull speach are not so narrowly to be looked vpon in a large poeme, nor specially in the pretie Poesies and deuises of Ladies and Gentlewomen-makers, whom we would not haue too precise Poets least with their shrewd wits, when they were maried they might become a little too fantasticall wiues.[46]

One of the influential foreign books of the first half of the sixteenth century was Baldasar Castiglione's _Il Cortegiano_, written in 1514, published in 1528, and translated into English in 1561 by Thomas Hoby. The book is a conversation supposed to take place in the drawing-room of the Duchess of Urbino, with the Duchess, her friend Emilia Pia, Pietro Bembo, Bernardo Bibbiena, Giuliano de Medici, and others, among the speakers. In the chapter on the attributes of the perfect Court Lady, Count Gaspar Pallavicino says, "Since you have given women letters and continence and magnanimity and temperance I only marvel that you would not have them govern cities, make laws, and lead armies, and let the men stay at home to cook or spin."[47] Giuliano de Medici replies, laughing, "Perhaps even that would not be amiss." There follows a discussion of woman as essentially imperfect, an accident or mistake of nature, and consequently of less dignity than men and not capable of those virtues to which men attain. But the Magnifico held the doctrine that physical weakness does not constitute inferiority, and that mentally women are equal to men: "All the things that men can understand the same can women understand too; and where the intellect of the one penetrates there also can that of the other penetrate."

It is but natural that the praise of learning for women should extend through the reign of Elizabeth. The Queen herself was an admirable linguist. She spoke and wrote Latin with ease; she was a student of Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon; and she made translations into English from French and Italian, even translating from Latin into Greek. According to Ascham she read more Greek every day than some Prebendaries read Latin in a week, and bestowed more regular hours on learning than six of the best given gentlemen in the court. It was also in accordance with the ideals of the age that the Queen should wish to shine as a poetess. Dyce, in his _Specimens of British Poetesses_, says that except for the speech of the Chorus in the _Hercules Acteus_ of Seneca (printed in Park's edition of Walpole's _Royal and Noble Authors_) he gives, and for the first time in collected form, all the poems by this "Flower of Troynovant." It is all occasional verse, such as a sonnet on that lovely "daughter of debate," Mary Queen of Scots, a _Rebus_, an _Epitaph_, and a few other stanzas. One little poem beginning

I grieve but dare not show my discontent,

with much that is conventional in expression, seems yet to have a genuine note of personal feeling. Taken as a whole the brief sum of the Queen's verse indicates no poetic aptitude. It merely goes to show that verse writing was counted an agreeable accomplishment, and one to be cultivated by a queen.

Probably the most highly gifted woman during Elizabeth's reign was Jane Weston (1582-1612).[48] And she was of high repute. When Evelyn went to dine with Lord Cornbury at Clarendon House (December 20, 1668) to see the new house "now bravely furnished, especially with the pictures of most of our ancient and modern wits, poets, philosophers, famous and learned Englishmen," he greatly commended his lordship's collection, but suggested additional names of the learned. Among these new names were Lady Jane Grey and Elizabeth Jane Weston. In _Numismata_ Evelyn praised Jane Weston's Latin poem on typography. Farnaby "ranked her with Sir Thomas More and the best Latin poets of the day." She was reputed to speak and write English, Greek, German, Latin, Italian and Czech. John Philips praised her in his _Theatrum Poetarum_. "Weston's fair daughter," "the tenth muse," "the fourth grace," received, indeed, very high contemporary English recognition, and even more extravagant praise came from foreign critics. Her collected works were published in 1602 by Georg Martin von Baldhoven at his own cost. At the end of the book there was a list of learned women beginning with Deborah and ending with Elizabeth Weston.

The only woman before 1603 in Aubrey's _Lives_, besides the Countess of Pembroke, was Elizabeth Danvers. His notes on her are: "A great politician; great witt and spirit, but revengefull. Knew how to manage her estate as well as any man; understood jewells as well as any jeweller." He calls her "an Italian," probably because she understood that language, and he says "she had prodigious parts for a woman." Her learning was certainly unusual, for "she had Chaucer at her fingers' ends." The only date given for her is 1568, the year in which her son, Sir Charles Danvers, was born.[49]

To show that Scotland was not unrepresented, mention may be made of Elizabeth Melville, supposed to be identical with Elizabeth Colville, Lady Colville of Culross. In 1599 Alexander Hume dedicated to her his _Hymns_, or _Sacred Songs_, and he says of her: "I know ye delite in poesie yourselfe; and as I vnfainedly confes, excelles any of your sexe in that art, that ever I heard within this nation. I have seene your compositions so copious, so pregnant, so spirituall, that I doubt not but it is the gift of God in you."[50] The one poem by which she is known, _Ane Godlie Dreame compylit in Scottish Meter by M. M. (Mistress Melville) Gentlewoman in Culross, at the request of her freindes_, was published in 1603. It appeared again in a volume of _Various Poetry_ in 1644, and in David Laing's _Early Metrical Tales_ in 1826. Dyce gives a few stanzas in his _Specimens_. The poem is a Bunyan-like narrative in which the horrors of hell are painted with a vigorous brush. In fact hell is made so distinct that even the mitigating and finally saving presence of Christ as guide can hardly soften the pictures of "puir damnit saullis ... frying wonder fast in flaming fire."[51]

The one lady of Elizabethan days whose fame justly exceeds that of any of her predecessors is Mary Sidney (1561-1621),[52] sister of Sir Philip Sidney. At sixteen she married Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and the twenty-four years of her married life were passed at his estate, Wilton House, in Wiltshire. Her brother Philip was often at Wilton and her more important literary accomplishments are closely bound up with his work. It was at Wilton that he wrote _The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia_ which he dedicated to his "dear ladie and sister." The brother and sister translated together the whole book of Psalms into English verse. Psalms 44-150 are attributed to Lady Pembroke. In 1592 she published two translations from the French, Du Plessis Mournay's _Le Excellent Discours de la Vie et de la Mort_; and Robert Garnier's _Marc Antonie_, a tragedy. Before 1600 she had also translated _The Triumph of Death_ from the Italian. In 1593 she brought out her brother's _Arcadia_ on which she had done most careful editorial work. She had also a taste for science. Aubrey, in his _Brief Lives_, says of her: "She was a great chymist, and spent yearly a great deale in that study.[53] She kept for her laborator in the house Adrian Gilbert (vulgarly called Dr. Gilbert), half brother to Sir Walter Ralegh, who was a great chymist in those dayes.... She also gave an honourable pension to Dr. Thomas Mouffett, who hath writ a booke _De insectis_. Also one ... Boston, a good chymist ... who did undoe himself by studying the philosopher's stone."

But while Lady Pembroke takes undoubtedly a high rank as translator and editor, her fame does not rest chiefly on this work. When Nicholas Breton compared her to the Duchess of Urbino he brought forward her essential claim to distinction, which is that she understood, valued, and befriended the literati of her day. Aubrey says: "In her time Wilton House was like a College, there were so many learned and ingeniose persons. She was the greatest patronesse of witt and learning of any lady in her time." The most extravagant eulogies were addressed to her from girlhood to old age. No such chorus of praise had been accorded any other woman except the queen. But it must be noted that this adulation is mainly for Lady Pembroke as the patroness of letters. Only incidentally are her own scholastic attainments commended. It was as a lover of wit and learning, as a dispenser of favors, that Lady Pembroke, the typical great lady of Elizabethan days, expressed her interest in learning, rather than as herself a scholar; and it was as an intelligent and open-handed patroness that she received highest recognition.

Wotton, about a century later, gives the following summary of the learning of this period: "It was so very modish, that the fair Sex seemed to believe that _Greek_ and _Latin_ added to their Charms: and _Plato_ and _Aristotle_ untranslated, were frequent ornaments of their Closets. One would think by the Effects, that it was a proper Way of Educating of them, since there are no Accounts in History of so many truly great Women in any one age, as are to be found between the years 15 and 1600."[54]

Though Wotton counts the century as one period, a closer study of dates shows that most of the learned women of the century belong in the first half of it, or at least obtained their education in the first half of it. The woman most noted for classical attainments during Elizabeth's reign was Lady Bacon. Her sisters also were of considerable importance intellectually, and they lived well into the reign of Elizabeth. But their education and their establishment as women of exceptional learning belong before the coming of Elizabeth to the throne.

Miss Weston's learning is unquestioned, but it can hardly be credited to England. She lived much abroad, her works were published in Holland, and the praise accorded her in England was but an echo of the eulogies uttered by foreign critics. In spite of Queen Elizabeth and Lady Mary Sidney, and Lady Bacon and Jane Weston, it becomes apparent by a study of dates and names that there were in Elizabeth's reign fewer eulogies of liberal education for girls and fewer records of women distinguished by learning than in the preceding period. In point of fact, when we speak of the sixteenth century as a century of learned women, the emphasis should be on the first sixty years of the century.

3. PERIOD FROM 1603 TO 1650

With the death of Elizabeth we come practically to the end of the favor accorded learned women. The changed tone of public opinion may be fairly indicated by a few scattered utterances from contemporary poems and essays.

Sir Thomas Overbury, in his _Characters_ (1614), describes "A Good Woman" as one "whose husband's welfare is the business of her actions." Her chief virtue is that "Shee is Hee." In _A Wife_ he says that "Books are a part of Man's Prerogative." He praises a "passive understanding" in women and deprecates learning since

What it finds malleable it maketh frail And doth not add more ballast, but more sail.

Powell, in _Tom of All Trades_ (1631), is emphatic in his plea for the domestic as against the learned lady: "Let them learne plaine workes of all kinds, so they take heed of too open seaming. Instead of Song and Musicke, let them learn Cookerie and Laundrie. And instead of reading in _Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia_, let them reade the grounds of good huswifery. I like not a female Poetresse at any hand."[55] William Habington, in _Castara_ (1634), a series of poems in honor of Lucy Herbert, his wife, gave a comprehensive description of the ideal wife's attitude towards her husband: "Shee is inquisitive onely of new wayes to please him, and her wit sayles by no other compass then that of his direction. Shee lookes upon him as Conjurers upon the Circle, beyond which there is nothing but Death and Hell; and in him shee beleeves Paradice circumscrib'd. His vertues are her wonder and imitation; and his errors, her credulitie thinkes no more frailtie, then makes him descend to the title of Man."[56] Richard Brathwait, in _The English Gentleman_, comments with apparent approval on the ancient seclusion of women. He says, "_The Ægyptians_, by an especiall decree (as _Plutarch_ reports) injoined their Women to weare no shooes, because they should abide at home. The _Grecians_ accustomed to burne, before the doore of the new married, the axletree of that coach, wherein she was brought to her husbands house, letting her understand that she was ever after to dwell there."[57]

Sir Ralph Verney said of his own daughter: "Pegg is very backward.... I doubt not but she will be schollar enough for a Woeman." With regard to little Nancy Denton he wrote: "Let not your girl learn Latin nor short hand: The difficulty of the first may keep her from that vice, for soe I must esteem it in a woeman; but the easinesse of the other may be a prejudice to her; for the pride of taking sermon noates hath made multitudes of women unfortunate." Miss Nancy was quite in advance of her godfather in her conception of the studies appropriate for her. She wrote to him: "I know you and my coussenes wil out rech me in french, but i am a goeng whaar i hop i shal out rech you in ebri grek and laten." Sir Ralph answered: "I did not think you had been guilty of soe much learning as I see you are; and yet it seems you rest unsatisfied or else you would not threaten Lattin, Greeke, and Hebrew too. Good sweet harte bee not soe covitous; beleeve me a Bible (with y^e Common prayer) and a good plaine cattichisme in your mother tongue being well read and practised, is well worth all the rest and much more sutable to your sex; I know your Father thinks thise false doctrine, but be confident your husband will bee of my oppinion. In French you can not be too cunning for that language affords many admirable books fit for you as Romances, Plays, Poetry, Stories of illustrious (not learned) Woemen, receipts for preserving, makinge creames and all sorts of cookeryes, ordring your gardens and in Breif, all manner of good housewifery."[58]

The general opinion was quite in accord with Luther when he said: "Women should remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children";[59] or, at the best, with Milton's "He for God only, she for God in him."[60]

Mr. Baldwyn, it is true, in 1619, in his _New Help to Discourse_, praises England as the place where women had the greatest prerogatives. In England, he says, women "are not kept so severely submiss" as in France, nor so jealously guarded as in Italy. "England is termed by foreigners the Paradise of Women as it is by some accounted the Hell of horses and the Purgatory of Servants. And it is a common byword among the Italians that if there were a bridge built over the narrow seas all women in Europe would run into England."[61] But this favorable opinion must be discounted as being a retrospective estimate based mainly on the attitude towards women in the sixteenth century; and further, as being an Englishman's attempt to exalt English as against continental customs.

Of more curious interest is the ingenious attempt of the Bishop of London to interpret the account of the creation of Eve from Adam's rib as an intention on the part of the Creator to teach the equality of woman with man. The Bishop says: "The species of this bone is exprest to be _costa_, a rib, a bone of the side, not of the head: a woman is not _domina_, the ruler; nor of any anterior part; she is not _prælata_, preferred before the man; nor a bone of the foote; she is not _serva_, a handmaid; nor of any hinder part; she is not _post-posita_, set behind the man; but a bone of the _side_, of a middle and indifferent part, to show that she is _socia_, a companion to her husband. For _qui jungunter lateribus, socii sunt_, they that walke side to side, cheeke to cheeke, walke as companions."[62]

One book definitely in honor of the ladies came out rather late in the period. This was Charles Gerbier's _Elogium Heroinum. The Ladies' Vindication: or, The Praise of Worthy Women._ The threefold dedication to the Princess of Bohemia, "whose marvellous wisdom and profound knowledge in Arts, Sciences, and Languages, is admired by all men," to the Countess Dowager of Claire, "a Patroness of the Muses, a general Lover of the Languages, and Knowledge"; and to the "Vertuous Accomplisht Lady Anne Hudson," is justified by the three principles in natural philosophy, the three theological virtues, and the three graces. "Woman," says Mr. Gerbier, "is capable of as high improvement as man," an assertion which he proceeds to establish by the following arguments: "Does not _Sophia_ signify wisdom? Are not Faith, Hope and Charity represented as Women? Are not the Seven Liberal Arts exprest in Women's Shapes? Are not the Nine Muses Daughters of Jupiter? Is not Wisdom called the Daughter of the Highest?" His list of worthy women begins with the Queen of Sheba who disputed with Solomon, goes enthusiastically through the famous dames of Greece and Rome, including the Muses and the Sibyls, and touches upon later learned women such as "Christine de Pisan, Margaret of Vallois, Lady Jane Grey, the Countess of Pembroke, the daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke," and a few other outstanding personages of Tudor times. Praise so heterogeneous and uncritical was perhaps of little value, but such as it is, it stands alone in England in the period between Elizabeth and Charles II as a defense of learned women. And no defense or protest comes from the pen of a woman.

It should, however, be noted that in European countries women were more vitally concerned in their own destinies. Between 1600 and 1641 there appeared at least three significant books by women dealing with the intellectual emancipation of their sex. The earliest of these came from Italy in 1608 with a second edition in 1621. It was written by a young Venetian widow, Lucrecia Marinelli (1571-1653), and was entitled _Della notabilità e della eccellenza delle donne e dei difetti degli uomini_. A second and better known book was by Marie de Jars, the _fille d'alliance_ of Montaigne, usually known as Mlle. de Gournay.[63] Her book, entitled _L'Egalité des Hommes et des Femmes_, appeared in 1604 when "the Pride of Gournay," "the French Siren," as she was called, had become well known in the cultivated circles of Paris through her definitive edition of Montaigne's works in 1595. Mlle. de Gournay's thesis as to the dignity and capacity of women is established by divine authority and by citations from the church fathers and ancient philosophers. She follows up these expressions of opinion by a thorough résumé from sacred and profane history of the women who have worthily held high places. M. Feugère[64] voices what must be the opinion of any modern reader when he says that _L'Egalité_ would be _plus piquant_ without the pedantic form in which it is cast, without _les citations fréquentes et les raisonnements scholastiques qui le surchargent_. But however cumbersome we may find her method, it apparently suited her public, for the book was enthusiastically received.

The third and by far the most important book on the position and desirable training of women was by Anna van Schurman of Utrecht. The extremes to which Mlle. de Gournay carried her doctrines were distasteful to Anna van Schurman, yet many of her ideas were doubtless based on the work of her French predecessor, _la mère du féminisme moderne_. Anna van Schurman's book was translated into English and had a direct influence on the progress of English educational ideals for women. It is taken up in detail later in this discussion.

The low estimate of learning, in the first half of the seventeenth century, as an appropriate pursuit for women, had as its natural outcome a great decrease in the number of women who devoted themselves to any form of scholarship. The names that remain to us from this period as in any way connected with literature or learning form a singularly inchoate list, interesting, for the most part, because of the oddities it represents rather than because of any solid achievements. Of considerable importance are several ladies in the early years of the Stuarts who followed in the footsteps of Lady Pembroke as patronesses of learning. The first of these was Lady Bedford, who held her "graceful and brilliant little court" at Twickenham Park between 1608 and 1618. Daniel, Drayton, Donne, and Jonson were among those who celebrated her munificence. Though Lady Bedford wrote verses she had no pronounced literary pursuits of her own. Her "considerable and varied learning" went preferably along antiquarian and horticultural lines. She collected medals and pictures, and she designed a garden highly praised by Sir William Temple. She is of importance chiefly because, in an age when learning lived only as it found patrons, she was magnificent in her hospitality to the poets.[65] Lady Mary Wroth was a niece of Lady Pembroke and carried on the traditional family attitude towards poets. Jonson's _Alchemist_ (1610) was dedicated to her, and Chapman's _Iliad_ (1614) had a prefatory sonnet addressed to her. She wrote _The Countess of Montgomerie's Urania_ (1621), in four books, a work modeled on her uncle's _Arcadia_. A third patroness was Elizabeth Spencer, wife of Sir George Carey. She was a kinswoman of Edmund Spenser and he commemorated her for "the excellent favors" she had granted him.

One of the most notable young women of the time of James I was Elizabeth Jocelyn (1596-1622). She was brought up by her grandfather, William Chaderton, Bishop of Lincoln. He was a friend of Sir Anthony Coke and Lord Burleigh and naturally shared their ideas as to education. The quick wit and remarkable memory of this little granddaughter greatly pleased him and he took the utmost pains with her education, training her carefully in "languages, history, and some arts," but principally in "studies of piety." She died nine days after the birth of her first child to whom she left _The Mother's Legacie to her Unborne Childe_. The third edition came out in 1625, an incorrect impression in 1684, and a reprint of the 1625 edition in 1852.[66] The little book contains a letter to her husband in which she indicates her wishes in case the child should be a girl:

I desire her bringing up to bee learning the Bible, as my sisters doe, good housewifery, writing and good workes: other learning a woman needs not; though I admire it in those whom God hath blest with discretion, yet I desired not so much in my owne, having seene that sometimes women have greater portions of learning than wisdome, which is of no better use to them than a main saile to a flye-boat, which runs under water. But where learning and wisdom meet in a vertuous disposed woman, she is the fittest closet of all goodnesse. She is, indeed, I should but shame myself, if I should goe about to praise her more. But, my dear, though she have all this in her, she will hardly make a poore man's wife: Yet I leave it to thy will. If thou desirest a learned daughter, I pray God give her a wise and religious heart, that she may use it to his glory, thy comfort, and her owne salvation.

Nearly all of the book is given up to cautions and plans for a boy's education. And for boy or girl there is great emphasis on religion, on attending services, reading the Bible, and keeping up habits of daily devotion. Of the prayers definitely recommended, one for morning is one hundred and eighty lines, and one suitable for all times is three hundred and fifty-nine lines. In the brief portion addressed directly to the girl, "Devout Anna, Just Elizabeth, Religious Ester, and Chaste Susanna" are held up as exemplars. Self-effacement seems the chief duty enjoined on the girl: "If thou beest a Daughter, remember thou art a Maid, and such ought thy modesty to bee, that thou shouldst scarce speak, but when thou answerest." The book was deservedly popular because it was so genuine in its forecast of sorrow, so pathetically eager in plans and hopes for her husband and child. No other work so personal and human in its appeal comes to light in this period.

There are during the first half of the century a few books by women on practical subjects. They could hardly take rank as learned productions, but they are significant as early attempts on the part of women to put into some sort of readable form, and to print for the instruction of other women, the wisdom garnered through years of experience. One of these books appeared in 1628 and was entitled _The Countess of Lincoln's Nurserie_.[67] The Countess was the mother of seven sons and nine daughters and wrote this little treatise particularly for the guidance of her daughter-in-law Bridget. It is described as "a well-wrote piece full of fine arguments, and capable of convincing anyone that is capable of conviction, of the necessity and advantages of mothers nursing their children." A second book transmitted information of another sort. Before 1651 Elizabeth Grey, Countess of Kent (1581-1651), the granddaughter of Bess of Hardwick, wrote or compiled _A Choice Manuall, or Rare and Select Receipts in Physick and Chyrurgery_. A second part, entitled _A True Gentlewoman's Delight Wherein is contained all manner of Cookery_, reached its nineteenth edition in 1687. _The Legacie_, the _Nurserie_, the _Choice Manuall_, were the direct outcome of interests considered appropriate for women, and such publicity as they involved would not be challenged.

Letter-writing is also a realm ascribed without question to women, and when chance has rescued from oblivion any group of their letters, social history has been thereby enriched. The earliest Englishwoman, any large number of whose letters have been preserved and published, is Lady Brilliana Harley (1600-43) who wrote to her son Edward while he was at Oxford in the years 1638-40. She was a woman of pronounced religious and political opinions, observant, domestic, and with a ready pen for picturesque detail, and her letters are of more interest than most of the contemporary published work.[68]

A few women have more directly to do with learning than those already mentioned. Occasionally in some great family Tudor traditions were maintained. Margaret, Countess of Cumberland (1560-1616), for instance, held to the idea that maidens of noble houses must be nobly educated, and she induced the poet Daniel to live at Skipton Castle as tutor to Anne, her nine-year-old daughter. Bishop Rainbow, who knew the family well, gives the following account of Anne:

She could discourse with virtuoso's, travellers, scholars, merchants, divines, statesmen, and with good housewives in any kind: insomuch that a prime and elegant wit, Dr. Donne, well seen in all human learning ... is reported to have said of this lady, in her younger years to this effect; that she knew well how to discourse of all things from predestination to slea-silk. Meaning that although she was skilful in her housewifery, and such things in which women are conversant, yet her penetrating wit soared up to pry into the highest mysteries, looking at the highest example of female wisdom. Although she knew _Wool_ and _Flax_, fine _Linen_ and _Silk_, things appertaining to the spindle and the distaff: _yet she could open her mouth with wisdom_.... If she had sought fame rather than wisdom, possibly she might have been ranked among those wise and learned of her sex, of whom _Pythagoras_ or _Plutarch_, or any of the ancients have made such honourable mention.[69]

A portrait of Anne at thirteen represents the books supposedly read by her under her tutor, Mr. Daniel, and her governess, Mrs. Ann Taylor, whose heads appear in the picture. The books are "Eusebius, St. Augustine, Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, Godfrey of Boulogne, The French Academy, Cambden, Ortelius, and Agrippa on the Vanity of Occult Sciences."[70]

At nineteen Anne married the Earl of Dorset. Her second marriage, in middle life, was to Philip Herbert, Fourth Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. In alliance with these noble houses she was extremely unhappy. In her Journal she says: "The marble pillars of Knowle in Kent and Wilton in Wiltshire, were to me often times but the gay arbor of anguish. A wise man, that knew the insides of my fortune, would often say, that I lived in both these my lords' great families as the river Roan runs through the lake of Geneva, without mingling its streams with the lake; for I gave myself up to retiredness as much as I could and made good books and virtuous thoughts my companions."[71] A portrait, belonging to this period of middle life, indicates as the books then most favored, "the Bible, Charron on Wisdom and pious treatises." Lady Pembroke's pursuit of abstract and theological learning was, however, largely the outcome of her repressed and unhappy life. On her second widowhood, in 1650, she forsook learning and gave free reign to her "master-passion for bricks and mortar." But most of this energetic work, during which she rebuilt or restored her six castles and several churches, belongs after the Restoration. As a woman of affairs Lady Pembroke made a remarkable impression on her age. Bishop Rainbow, who says she had "a clear soul shining through a vivid body," emphasizes also "her great understanding and judgment." Pennant, in his _Tour_, said that she was regarded as "the most eminent character of her times, for intellectual accomplishments, for spirit, magnificence, and benevolence."

Another lady who carried over into this period the liberal training of Tudor days was Elizabeth Tanfield (1585-1639), who, at the age of fifteen, married Henry Carey, later Viscount Falkland. Our knowledge of her very interesting life and character is derived mainly from a _Life_ written by one of her daughters. She was a lover of books from her childhood and learned languages--French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Transylvanian--practically without a teacher. Her daughter said of her:

When she was but four or five years old they put her to learn French, which she did about five weeks, and not profiting at all gave it over; after, of herself, without a teacher, whilst she was a child she learned French, Spanish and Italian; ... she learned Latin in the same manner.... Hebrew she likewise, about the same time, learned with very little teaching.... She then learned also of a Transylvanian his language, but never finding any use of it forgot it entirely. She read so incessantly at night that her mother forbade the servants to give her candles. But she bought candles at half a crown apiece of the servants and at twelve was £100 in their debt, a debt which she paid on her wedding day.

Her work as an author began early, for her first play was written about the time of her marriage. It was dedicated to her husband. A second play, _The Tragedy of Mariam the Faire Queene of Jewry_, was written when she was eighteen or nineteen, though not printed till 1613.[72] She was early recognized as one of the most intellectual women of her time. In 1612 she was one of the three "Glories of Women" to whom John Davies dedicated his _Muses Sacrifice_. Later, in 1633, the publisher of Marston's Works dedicated them "To the Right Honourable the Lady Elizabeth Carey, Viscountess Falkland," because she was so "well acquainted with the Muses." That Lady Falkland's appetite for learning never abated is apparent from her daughter's testimony:

She had read very exceedingly much: poetry of all kinds ancient and modern in several languages, all that ever she could meet; history very universally, especially all ancient Greek and Roman histories; all chronicles whatsoever of her own country, and the French histories very thoroughly: of most other countries something, though not so universally, of the ecclesiastical very much, most especially concerning its chief pastors. Of books treating of moral virtue or wisdom (such as Seneca, Plutarch's _Morals_, and natural knowledge, as Pliny, and of late ones, such as French, Mountaine, and English, Bacon) she had read very many when she was young. Of the fathers and controversial writers on both sides a great deal even of Luther and Calvin.[73]

Lady Falkland was converted to Catholicism in 1605 and she devoted all her learning to the service of the Church. She translated Cardinal Perron's _Works_ and wrote lives of the saints in verse.

Lady Falkland's son Lucius married Letice Morrison, another "undue lover of books," who abridged herself of sleep that the hours of reading might be prolonged. This daughter-in-law of Lady Falkland was not only eager for learning, but she had independent views along social lines. One of her schemes was the foundation of houses "for the education of young gentlewomen and the retirement of widows with the belief that through such houses learning and religion might flourish more than heretofore in her own sex." Her early death in the time of the Civil War frustrated her plans, but they have an especial interest as forecasting the ideas set forth by Mary Astell later in the century.[74]

Anna Hume, the daughter of David Hume, was carefully educated by her father at Godscroft, a property to which he retired that he might be unmolested in his devotion to literature. Anna joined in his pursuits with eagerness and intelligence, and after his death she did much to complete his work. In 1644 she superintended the publication of his _History of the House and Race of Douglas and Angus_. She translated Latin poems, and in 1644 she also published _The Triumph of Love, Chastity and Death_, translated from Petrarch. Drummond of Hawthornden speaks highly of her learning and of her "rare and pregnant wit."

Esther Kello (1571-1624) is often spoken of as one of the notable women of the Stuart period. Her works were counted worthy gifts for kings, and are preserved in royal libraries. Calligraphy was one of the fine arts in the seventeenth century. To write many different hands, to make flourishes, to decorate margins, to illuminate titles and capital letters, to make elaborate head or tail pieces to chapters, and to write the alphabets of many languages, were the elements of this art. No other accomplishment was so often advertised.[75] It was in this art that Esther Kello excelled. _Les Proverbes de Salomon_ (1599), written in forty hands, and with all possible ornamental detail, was one of her most famous books. It was preserved in "Bodley's Library." In exactness, fineness, and beauty her books are said to rival the old illuminated manuscripts.[76]

There was published in 1630 a twelve-page tract entitled _A Chain of Pearl, or a Memorial of the Peerless Graces and heroic Virtues of Queen Elizabeth, of glorious memory, composed by the noble lady, Diana Primrose_. The Pearls of the Chain are Religion, Chastity, Prudence, Temperance, Clemency, Justice, Fortitude, Science, Patience, and Bounty. A preliminary address to the author by one Dorothy Berry greets Diana as "the _Prime-rose_ of the Muses nine." The Pearls are in the style of exaggerated compliment always associated with the name of Queen Elizabeth, but they could not have been inspired by any interested motives, for Elizabeth had been dead nearly a generation when they came from the press. Save the date of publication I have no facts about either Diana Primrose or Dorothy Berry. Perhaps their youth was spent during the "blest and happy years" when the Heroine they praised was on the throne.

She, she it was that gave us golden days, And did the English name to heaven raise.

If so, and if they wrote when trouble was brewing between the King and the people, we can well understand the ardor of Diana Primrose's eulogy of the days when the Prince and People agreed "in sacred concord and sweet sympathy."

A very curious book is by Mary Fage. It is entitled _Fame's Roule_ and appeared in 1637.[77] It is a collection of the most ingenious anagrams and acrostics on the names of four hundred and twenty persons of the "hopeful posterity" of Charles I. John Weymes, for instance, is anagrammed into "Show men joy" and John Hollis into "Oh! on my hills." The amplification of the anagram is mainly compliment with now and then a trace of exhortation. This was an age when playing with words gave undoubted pleasure, but four hundred and twenty anagrams on royal names would seem an undue tax on even the most agile manipulator of the alphabet.

Katherine Chidley wrote and spoke on questions of Church and State. In 1641 she published a quarto volume entitled _The Justification of the Independent Churches of Christ_, in which she maintained that the congregations of the Saints should receive "no direction in worship from any other than Christ their head and lawgiver." She is described as "a most violent independent who talked with so much bitterness and with so clamorous a tongue as to vanquish opposing divines, and who wrote as furiously in behalf of her cause as if she were the Amazonian Queen in defence of the Trojans."

A literary oddity of the Cromwell period, a fertile writer whose half-mad and often unintelligible prophetic writings yet came true often enough to secure her a troublesome reputation as a "Cunning Woman," was Lady Eleanor Davies, the wife of Sir John Davies of Hereford. She was twice married and both husbands had burned her manuscripts, but finally, in 1651, there was printed a pamphlet, _The Restitution of Prophecy; that Buried Talent to be revived. By the Lady Eleanor._[78] The Lady Eleanor was as devoted to anagrams as was Mary Fage. The change of Eleanor Davies into "Reveal O Daniel" was her mystic authorization as a prophet, until some wit shattered her anagram by producing "Never so mad a lady."

4. SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS BEFORE 1660

Of schools for girls during the period before 1660 we get but vague hints. John Whitgift, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1583, protested against having schools for "maiden children" within the precincts of the church. And he added in a note, "Especially seeing they may have instruction by women in the town."[79] In the statutes of Harrow School, made in 1590, there is a statement to the effect that "no girls shall be received or taught," hence the subject had at least been under discussion.[80] _Love's Labour's Lost_ seems to indicate that Holofernes taught girls as well as boys,[81] and Helena comments on the "school-days' friendship" between her and Hermia.[82] But these references belong to late Elizabethan times and are too indefinite to serve as evidence.

The best-known schools for girls in the first half of the seventeenth century were apparently religious in origin. One of these is the "Institute" founded by Mary Ward (1585-1645).[83] She was a brilliant and beautiful young Catholic who made it the aim of her life to influence young women to an acceptance of the Catholic faith. This she endeavored to accomplish through educational agencies. It was her plan to have an organization of uncloistered nuns who should not wear habits, who should be free to come and go, and who should adapt themselves in manner and dress to their surroundings in such ways as might be most advisable in the pursuance of their spiritual aims. Conditions in England made it useless to attempt such a school or community there. So the first establishment of the Institute was at St. Omer. This was in 1609. Five gentlewomen crossed the sea at that time with Mary Ward. The one she loved and trusted most was Winifred Wigmore, a descendant of the Throgmortons of Warwickshire, and so well educated that she spoke five languages fluently. She had a keen intellect, was wise, sympathetic, courageous, and very devout. Mary Poyntz, "gifted with all that can be most highly esteemed in person, birth or fortune," the youngest of the group, was scarcely sixteen when she cast her lot in permanently with Mary Ward. Of Jane Browne, Catharine Smith, and Susanna Rookwood fewer details are given. Later on Miss Ward was joined by Barbara Babthorpe, "highly educated and very well read ... with a striking gift of eloquence," and by her own sister Barbara Ward. Each of these ladies had a companion, so it was quite a household that assembled at St. Omer, and they entered at once upon the life they had planned. They practiced rigid self-denial, living on one meal a day and sleeping on straw beds, and submitting themselves to other austerities. Their time was given over to good works, especially to education. They established a school for French and English girls, receiving the English girls as boarders. In 1612 Miss Ward said that they had already received two nieces of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and another young lady from the family of the Earl of Southampton, and that many Catholic nobles were planning to send their daughters to be brought up in the Faith and good manners, by the ladies of St. Omer.

The Institute finally received the sanction of the pope and was successful in various countries. But Miss Ward's efforts to establish it in England in 1638 met with so much hostility that she was obliged to carry on her work secretly and by subterfuge, changing the location of her little band of followers from time to time as suspicion centered upon them. The Institute was finally broken up by the Puritans in 1642. Little is known of the actual work of the school. The members of the Institute were always so anxious and harried that there could have been no really systematic instruction except in the articles of faith. There are in the Convent of the Institute at Augsburg fifty large oil paintings dating from the seventeenth century, and representing events in its history. In these pictures Mary Ward's life is seen to be one of dramatic interest from her childhood to her death. And her personality is one of compelling charm. She was a heroine and a pioneer, an executive of first-rate ability, an extremely acute woman of business, and yet without loss of the graces and amenities of human intercourse. The St. Omer school shows genius. Within the limits of her church she was promulgating ideas the full fruition of which would not come for many years. She believed that sound mental training would establish women in their faith, and that women, if given opportunity and education, would prove to have powers not generally ascribed to them. To establish a school on this basis was an enterprise bolder, more original, and more hazardous than was the opening of the first colleges for women in America.

Another religious school was that known as Little Gidding,[84] founded by Nicholas Ferrar (1592-1637). The life of Ferrar is one of great interest. He was a man of wide experience. He had known academic life at Cambridge, he had traveled in Holland, Germany, Italy, and Spain, he had conducted extensive business enterprises in connection with the Virginia Company, and had taken an important place in political life as a member of Parliament. But while still under forty he turned definitely to a life of religious sequestration. He and his mother bought the Manor of Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire in 1624 and there they set up the new establishment. He was joined by his brother John with his wife and three children, and by Mrs. Collet, his favorite sister, with her husband and sixteen children. To the children of these two families were added such children of the neighboring gentry as cared to come. In this household the girls were carefully educated. They had one master in Music, one in Arithmetic and Writing, one in English and Latin. They formed themselves into a little society called "The Academy" which had regular meetings for discussion of topics set for them. They took fanciful names, and had many quaint and elaborate little formalities. The topics discussed by "Patient" and "Cheerful" and "Moderator" and "Visitor," and even by little four-year-old "Humble," were nearly always religious or ethical, and the purpose of the discussions was always moral improvement. So strong was the religious element, so rigid were the forms of fasting, feasting, and worshiping, that the school came under suspicion as a Protestant nunnery. In 1641 it was attacked in a pamphlet entitled _The Armenian Nunnery, or a Brief Description and Relation of the newly erected Monasticall Place called the Armenian Nunnery at Little Gidding_.

The school at Little Gidding has had its fame as a religious organization perpetuated in Mr. Shorthouse's _John Inglesant_, but it is even more famous in the annals of fine book-binding. It was the belief of Nicholas Ferrar that every one should be taught some hand-work, and he determined upon book-binding as a part of the regular school work at Little Gidding. Dr. Jebb says that "a Cambridge book-binder's daughter that bound rarely" was procured as an instructor. She came, he says, either from the University printers themselves or from some Cambridge bindery which they patronized where she herself had been trained. She brought some of her own stamps with her, and some of her own ideas as to how they should be arranged.

Even this activity was the handmaid of religion, and was, indeed, probably undertaken primarily in order to preserve the concordances of the four gospels so carefully worked out by Nicholas Ferrar. The girls learned to do all the mechanical parts with extreme nicety, joining the many tiny slips and putting in the illustrative engravings with great deftness. The name of the binder is not usually given in the book, but there is one exception. A book bound by the youngest of the workers bears the inscription:

Thanks be to God. Done at Little Gidding. Anno Domino 1640 by Virginia Ferrar, an. 12.[85]

The curious little "histories" composed by "The Academy" were written out in three manuscript volumes and bound. They have been lately acquired by the British Museum. "The volumes measure 13½ x 9 inches and are bound in black morocco, with a small double gold line running along the edge, finished with a little ornamental spray at each corner." The Concordances were more sumptuous. The _Bibliographica_ gives full-page colored illustrations of these fine bindings and says of them:

The beautiful effect which Mary Collet, who seems to have done much of the binding herself, was able to produce by different arrangements of the stamps I have described shows that she was undoubtedly a lady of much taste and originality ... and it may fairly be considered that the velvet-bound volumes, of great size, gorgeous in color and rich in decoration, which were eventually produced under her supervision, must take the highest rank among amateur decorative book-bindings.

Unequalled in size, original in design, and rich in execution, these volumes must be seen to be appreciated; then indeed the expressions which Charles I used concerning them, which sound extravagant, can be well understood. Although much faded, and sometimes re-backed and the sides relaid, with the silken ties all gone, enough of their old magnificence still remains to make us feel that we should indeed be proud that English binders could have produced such works.[86]

Aside from these religious schools, which were very small, there were undoubtedly some fashionable boarding-schools, such as Mrs. Salmon's school in Hackney where Katherine Fowler went.[87] Another fully organized private school at Hackney was that kept by Mrs. Perwick in 1643, where as many as eight hundred girls had been educated.[88] The existence of a school for girls in Richmond is shown by a curious document found among a large number of miscellaneous papers in Warwickshire. It is entitled "Account for Peggy's Disbursements since her going to schoole at Richmond, being in Sept. 1646":

_s. d._

Payd for a louehood 2. 6

For carriing the truncke to Queenhive 0. 8

For carriing it to Hammersmith 1. 0

Payd for two pair of shoes 4. 0

Payd for a singing booke 1. 0

Given to M^{rsis} Jervoises mayd 1. 0

Payed for a hairlace and a pair of showstrings 1. 0

For an inckhorne 0. 4

For faggots. 2_s._8_d._; and cleaving of wood, _12d._ 3. 8

For 9^{li} of soape 2_s._ 4_d._; and starch 4_d._ 2. 8

For hooks and a bolte for the doore 0. 9

For sugar and licorich 1. 4

For silke and thread 0. 6

For 3^{li} of soape, 11_d._; and starch 4_d._; and carrying letters 6_d._ 1. 9

For 3^{li} of soape, 12_d._; and starch 4_d._ 1. 4

For sugar, licorich and coultsfoot 1. 6

For a necklace, 12_d._; for a m. of pins, 12_d._ 2. 0

For a pair of cands (candles?) 6_d._; for muckadine 4_d._; for wormsend (worsted), 2_d._ 1. 0

For shostrings, 6_d._; for going on errands, 6_d._ 1. 0

For 3^{li} of soape, 12_d._; for starch 4_d._; thread and silk 4_d._ 1. 8

For a bason, 4_d._; for carrying letters, 6_d._; for tape 4_d._ 1. 2

For soape, 12_d._; for starch, 4_d._; for going on errands, 6_d._ 1.10

For a pair of pattins, 16_d._; for three pair of shoes, 6_s._ 7. 4

For callico to line her stockins, 2_d._; for showstrings 4_d._ 0. 6

For 3^{li} of soape, 12d.; for a pint of white wine 4d. 1. 4

For ale, 3_d._; for 1/2^{li} of sugar, 8_d._ 0.11

For a m. of pins, 12_d._; for a corle and one pair of half-handed gloves, 8_d._ 1. 8

Given to the writing mr. 2. 6

For silke, 12_d._; for silver for the tooth-pick case, 4_d._ 1. 4

For a sampler, 12_d._; for thread, needles, paper, pins, and parchment, 30_d._ 3. 6

For a pair of shoes, 2_s._ 2_d._; for ribbon, 3_d._ 2. 5

For soape, 12_d._; for starch, 4_d._; for carriing a letter, 4_d._ 1. 8

To the waterman bringing the (box?) to Richmond 1. 0

For shoestrings, 6_d._; for purge, 18_d._ 2. 0

For bringing the box from Richmond 1. 0

For a coach from Fleetestreete 1. 0

For wood to this time 15.10 ------ Totall of disbursements to this 15th day of Aprill, 1647 is £3.18.5[89]

Peggy's clothing and her board and tuition must have been paid for by her father. The accurate little list represents only her personal and incidental expenses. The writing-master's fee, the purchase of an inkhorn, a singing-book, and materials for a sampler are the only suggestions that Peggy was being educated. But several of the items are indicative of general school conditions. For instance, if a girl had a fire she evidently had to pay extra for it, Peggy's largest single item being for wood, "cleaving of wood," and "faggotts." The next largest sum goes for "soape" and starch. Peggy apparently did her own laundry, or at least bought the materials used; and she bought them in amounts suggestive of disproportionate emphasis on clean linen. In clothing the most surprising purchase is of six pairs of shoes and one pair of "pattins" in six months. It is a pity we have not the letters for the carrying of which Peggy paid ten pence. They might serve to throw light on her expense account.

In May, 1649, Evelyn records in his _Diary_, "Went to Putney by water, in the barge with divers ladies, to see the schools, or Colleges, of the young gentlewomen." These Putney schools may have been under the charge of Mrs. Makin. In that case they were the forerunners of the more advanced school she established at Tottenham High Cross in 1673.

One interesting point occurs in the foundation of a school for boys by Balthasar Gerbier in 1648. This school was an academy wherein the sons of noble families could be taught classics, mathematics, drawing, painting, carving, music, behavior, etc. The novel element in the school is Gerbier's advertisement December 21, 1649, in which he says that ladies are to be admitted to his lectures.[90]

If girls were educated at all during the period from 1603 to 1660 it must have been, in the main, at home under parents and tutors. But even of such education the records are meager. Little Gidding was practically a home school, but it stands as an isolated attempt. The few little pictures of more secular home education that have been by chance preserved to us indicate no very valuable training. Mrs. Alice Thornton (1626-1707), Lady Anne, daughter of the Earl of Strafford, and Lady Arabella Wentworth, were brought up in Ireland and were given "the best education that Kingdome could afford." They were taught to write and speak French; singing, dancing, playing on the lute and theorboe, and such other accomplishments as "working silkes, gummework, sweetmeats, and other sutable huswifery" such as was necessary for girls of their social position.[91]

We get some further light from autobiographical sketches by the Duchess of Newcastle,[92] Lady Fanshawe,[93] and Mrs. Hutchinson,[94] women whose mature work belongs in the Restoration period or not many years before it, but whose childhood and early youth belong in the period under consideration, and serve in a measure to illustrate its methods. The educational advantages afforded these young daughters of the best families were like those of an eighteenth-century finishing-school, and were far removed from the stern mental discipline in the school of Sir Thomas More.