Chapter 11

The poor lady suffered on this occasion a great deal of inward anguish; she was ashamed of having reduced her fortune, and impoverished her child by listening to the insinuations of a madman. Time and patience at last overcame it; and when her health, which by this accident had been impaired, was restored to her, she began to stir amongst her husband's great clients. She took a house in Bloomsbury, and by means of good economy, and an elegant appearance, was supposed to be better in the world than she really was. Her husband's clients received her like one risen from the dead: They came to visit her, and promised to serve her. At last the duke of Montague advised her to let lodgings, which way of life she declined, as her talents were not suited for dealing with ordinary lodgers; but added she, 'if I knew any family who desired such a conveniency, I would readily accommodate them.' I take you at your word, replied the duke, 'I will become your sole tenant: Nay don't smile, for I am in earnest, I love a little freedom more than I can enjoy at home, and I may come sometimes and eat a bit of mutton, with four or five honest fellows, whose company I delight in.' The bargain was bound, and proved matter of fact, though on a deeper scheme than drinking a bottle: And his lordship was to pass in the house for Mr. Freeman of Hertfordshire.

In a few days he ordered a dinner for his beloved friends, Jack and Tom, Will and Ned, good honest country-fellows, as his grace called them. They came at the time appointed; but how surprized was the widow, when she saw the duke of Devonshire, the lords Buckingham, and Dorset, and a certain viscount, with Sir William Dutton Colt, under these feign'd names. After several times meeting at this lady's house, the noble persons, who had a high opinion of her integrity, entrusted her with the grand secret, which was nothing less than the project for the Revolution.

Tho' these meetings were held as private as possible, yet suspicions arose, and Mrs. Thomas's house was narrowly watched; but the messengers, who were no enemies to the cause, betrayed their trust, and suffered the noblemen to meet unmolested, or at least without any dread of apprehension.

The Revolution being effected, and the state came more settled, that place of rendezvous was quitted: The noblemen took leave of the lady, with promises of obtaining a pension, or some place in the houshold for her, as her zeal in that cause highly merited; besides she had a very good claim to some appointment, having been ruined by shutting up the Excheqner. But alas! court promises proved an aerial foundation, and these noble peers never thought of her more. The duke of Montague indeed made offers of service, and being captain of the band of pensioners, she asked him to admit Mr. Gwynnet, a gentleman who had made love to her daughter, into such a post. This he promised, but upon these terms, that her daughter should ask him for it. The widow thanked him, and not suspecting that any design was covered under this offer, concluded herself sure of success: But how amazed was she to find her daughter (whom she had bred in the most passive subjection) and who had never discovered the least instance of disobedience, absolutely refuse to ask any such favour of his grace. She could be prevailed upon neither by flattery, nor threatning, and continuing still obstinate in her resolution; her mother obliged her to explain herself, upon the point of her refusal. She told her then, that the duke of Montague had already made an attack upon her, that his designs were dishonourable; and that if she submitted to ask his grace one favour, he would reckon himself secure of another in return, which he would endeavour to accomplish by the basest means. This explanation was too satisfactory; Who does not see the meanness of such an ungenerous conduct? He had made use of the mother as a tool, for carrying on political designs; he found her in distress, and as a recompence for her service, and under the pretence of mending her fortune, attempted the virtue of her daughter, and would provide for her, on no other terms, but at the price of her child's innocence.

In the mean time, the young Corinna, a poetical name given her by Mr. Dryden, continued to improve her mind by reading the politest authors: Such extraordinary advances had she made, that upon her sending some poems to Mr. Dryden, entreating his perusal, and impartial sentiments thereon, he was pleased to write her the following letter.

Fair CORINNA,

'I have sent your two poems back again, after having kept them so long from you: They were I thought too good to be a woman's; some of my friends to whom I read them, were of the same opinion. It is not very gallant I must confess to say this of the fair sex; but, most certain it is, they generally write with more softness than strength. On the contrary, you want neither vigour in your thoughts, nor force in your expression, nor harmony in your numbers; and me-thinks, I find much of Orinda in your manner, (to whom I had the honour to be related, and also to be known) but I am so taken up with my own studies, that I have not leisure to descend to particulars, being in the mean time, the fair Corinna's

Most humble, and

Most faithful servant Nov. 12, 1699. JOHN DRYDEN.

Our amiable poetess, in a letter to Dr. Talbot, Bishop of Durham, has given some farther particulars of her life. We have already seen that she was addressed upon honourable terms, by Mr. Gwynnet, of the Middle Temple, son of a gentleman in Gloucestershire. Upon his first discovering his passion to Corinna, she had honour enough to remonstrate to him the inequality of their fortune, as her affairs were then in a very perplexed situation. This objection was soon surmounted by a lover, especially as his father had given him possession of the greatest part of his estate, and leave to please himself. Mr. Gwynnet no sooner obtained this, than he came to London, and claimed Corinna's promise of marriage: But her mother being then in a very weak condition, she could not abandon her in that distress, to die among strangers. She therefore told Mr. Gwynnet, that as she had not thought sixteen years long in waiting for him, he could not think six months long in expectation of her. He replied, with a deep sigh, 'Six months at this time, my Corinna, is more than sixteen years have been; you put it off now, and God will put it off for ever.'--It proved as he had foretold; he next day went into the country, made his will, sickened, and died April the 16th, 1711, leaving his Corinna the bequest of six-hundred pounds; and adds she, 'Sorrow has been my food ever since.'

Had she providentially married him, she had been secure from the insults of poverty; but her duty to her parent was more prevalent than considerations of convenience. After the death of her lover, she was barbarously used: His brother, stifled the will, which compelled her to have recourse to law; he smothered the old gentleman's conveyance deed, by which he was enabled to make a bequest, and offered a large sum of money to any person, who would undertake to blacken Corinna's character; but wicked as the world is, he found none so compleatly abandoned, as to perjure themselves for the sake of his bribe. At last to shew her respect to the memory of her deceased lover, she consented to an accommodation with his brother, to receive 200 l. down, and 200 l. at the year's end. The first payment was made, and distributed instantly amongst her mother's creditors; but when the other became due, he bid her defiance, stood suit on his own bond, and held out four terms. He carried it from one court to another, till at last it was brought to the bar of the House of Lords; and as that is a tribunal, where the chicanery of lawyers can have no weight, he thought proper to pay the money without a hearing: The gentlemen of the long-robe had made her sign an instrument, that they should receive the money and pay themselves: After they had laid their cruel hands upon it, of the 200 l. the poor distressed lady received but 13 l. 16 s. which reduced her to the necessity of absconding from her creditors, and starving in an obscure corner, till she was betrayed by a false friend, and hurried to jail.

Besides all the other calamities of Corinna, she had ever a bad state of health, occasioned by an accident too curious to be omitted.

In the year 1730 her case was given into the college of physicians, and was reckoned a very surprizing one. It is as follows.

'In April 1711 the patient swallowed the middle bone of the wing of a large fowl, being above three inches long; she had the end in her mouth, and speaking hastily it went forcibly down in the act of inspiration. After the first surprize, feeling no pain she thought no more of it; in a few days after, she complained what she eat or drank lay like a stone in her stomach, and little or nothing pass'd through her. After three weeks obstruction, she fell into a most violent bloody flux, attended with a continual pain at the pit of her stomach, convulsions, and swooning fits; nor had she any ease but while her stomach was distended with liquids, such as small beer, or gruel: She continued in this misery, with some little intervals, till the Christmass following, when she was seized with a malignant fever, and the convulsions encreased to so high a degree, that she crowed like a cock, and barked like a dog, to the affrightment of all who saw her, as well as herself. Dr. Colebatch being called to her relief, and seeing the almost incredible quantity of blood she voided, said it was impossible she could live, having voided all her bowels. He was however prevailed with to use means, which he said could only be by fetching off the inner coat of her stomach, by a very strong vomit; he did so, and she brought the hair-veel in rolls, fresh and bleeding; this dislodged the bone, which split length ways, one half pass'd off by siege, black as jet, the cartilaginous part at each end consumed, and sharp on each side as a razor; the other part is still lodged within her. In this raw and extream weak condition, he put her into a salivation, unknown to her mother or herself, to carry off the other part, which shocked them to such a degree, that they sent for Dr. Garth, who with much difficulty, and against his judgment, was prevailed on to take it off, and using a healing galenical method, she began to recover so much strength as to be turned in her bed, and receive nourishment: But she soon after was seized with the Iliac Passion, and for eleven days, her excrements came upwards, and no passage could be forced through her, till one day by Dr. Garth, with quick-silver. After a few weeks it returned again, and the same medicine repeated, upon which she recovered, and for some months was brought to be in a tolerable state of health, only the region of the spleen much swelled; and at some times, when the bone moved outwards, as it visibly did to sight and touch, was very painful.--In July 1713, on taking too strong a purge, a large imposthume bag came away by stool, on which it was supposed, the cystus, which the bone had worked for itself, being come away, the bone was voided also; but her pains continued so extraordinary, she willingly submitted to the decree of four surgeons, who agreed to make an incision in the left side of the abdomen, and extract the bone; but one of the surgeons utterly rejecting the operation, as impracticable, the bone being lodged in the colon, sent her to Bath, where she found some relief by pumping, and continued tolerably well for some years, even to bear the fatigue of an eight years suit at law, with an unjust executor; save that in over-walking, and sudden passion, she used to be pained, but not violent; and once or twice in a year a discharge of clean gall, with some portions of a skin, like thin kid leather, tinged with gall, which she felt break from the place, and leave her sore within; but the bone never made any attempt out-wards after the first three years. Being deprived of a competent fortune, by cross accidents, she has suffered all the extremities of a close imprisonment, if want of all the necessaries of life, and lying on the boards for two-years may be termed such, during which time she never felt the bone. But on her recovering liberty, and beginning to use exercise, her stomach, and belly, and head swelled to a monstrous degree, and she was judged in a galloping dropsy; but no proper medicines taking place, she was given over as incurable, when nature unexpectedly helped itself, and in twelve hours time by stool, and vomit, she voided about five gallons of dirty looking water, which greatly relieved her for some days, but gathered again as the swelling returned, and always abounded with a hectic, or suffocating asthma in her stomach, and either a canine appetite or loathing. She has lately voided several extraneous membranes different from the former, and so frequent, that it keeps her very low, some of which she has preserved in spirits, and humbly implores your honours judgment thereon.'

Under all these calamities, of which the above is a just representation, did poor Corinna labour; and it is difficult to produce a life crouded with greater evils. The small fortune which her father left her, by the imprudence of her mother, was soon squandered: She no sooner began to taste of life, than an attempt was made upon her innocence. When she was about being happy in the arms of her amiable lover Mr. Gwynnet, he was snatched from her by an immature fate. Amongst her other misfortunes, she laboured under the displeasure of Mr. Pope, whose poetical majesty she had innocently offended, and who has taken care to place her in his Dunciad. Mr. Pope had once vouchsafed to visit her, in company with Henry Cromwel, Esq; whose letters by some accident fell into her hands, with some of Pope's answers. As soon as that gentleman died, Mr. Curl found means to wheedle them from her, and immediately committed them to the press. This so enraged Pope, that tho' the lady was very little to blame, yet he never forgave her.

Not many months after our poetess had been released from her gloomy habitation, she took a small lodging in Fleet street, where she died on the 3d of February 1730, in the 56th year of her age, and was two days after decently interred in the church of St. Bride's.

Corinna, considered as an authoress, is of the second rate, she had not so much wit as Mrs. Behn, or Mrs. Manley, nor had so happy a power of intellectual painting; but her poetry is soft and delicate, her letters sprightly and entertaining. Her Poems were published after her death, by Curl; and two volumes of Letters which pass'd between her and Mr. Gwynnet. We shall select as a specimen of her poetry, an Ode addressed to the duchess of Somerset, on her birth-day.

An ODE, &c.

I.

Great, good, and fair, permit an humble muse, To lay her duteous homage at your feet: Such homage heav'n itself does not refuse, But praise, and pray'rs admits, as odours sweet.

II.

Blest be forever this auspicious day, Which gave to such transcendent virtue birth: May each revolving year new joys display, Joys great as can supported be on earth.

III.

True heiress of the Finch and Hatton line, Formed by your matchless parents equal care (The greatest statesman he, yet best divine, She bright example of all goodness here).

IV.

And now incircled in the dearest tye, To godlike Seymour, of connubial love; Seymour illustrious prince, whose family Did heretofore the kingly race improve.

V.

Adorns the nation still, and guards the throne, In noble Somerset, whose generous breast, Concenters all his ancestors in one, That were in church, and state, and arms profest. VI.

Yet 'midst the plaudits of a grateful land, His heaven-born soul reviews his pristine state; And in obedience to divine command, Numberless poor are feasted at his gate.

VII.

Thrice happy greatness, true philosophy, That does so well the use of riches know, And can by charity transpire the sky, Encompass'd round with splendour here below.

VIII.

O may posterity from such a pair, Enjoy a progeny almost divine, Great as their fire, and as their mother fair, And good as both, till last extent of time.

[Footnote A: See the Memoirs of Mrs. Thomas's Life, prefixed to a volume of Letters between her and Mr. Gwynnet; the only account that is preserved concerning her.]

* * * * *

ELIJAH FENTON,

This worthy gentleman was born at Shelton, near Newcastle under the Line, in Staffordshire[A]. In this county, though there are several families of the name of Fenton, yet they are all branches from one flock, which is a very antient and opulent family: Our author's mother being immediately descended from one Mare, an officer in William the Conqueror's army.

Our poet was the youngest of twelve children, and was intended by his parents for the ministry: He was sent to the university of Cambridge, where he embraced the principles very opposite to the government, by which he became disqualified for entering into holy orders. We find him soon after his quitting the university, secretary to the earl of Orrery, but how long he remained in that station we cannot ascertain. After he quitted the service of this noble peer, it was his custom to perform a visit annually to his eldest brother's house in the country, who possessed an estate of 1000 l. per annum. He was caressed in the country, by all his relations, to whom he endeared himself, by his affable and genteel behaviour. Mr. Fenton was a man of the most tender humanity, and discovered it upon every proper occasion: A gentleman resident in that county, who has transmitted to us some account of Mr. Fenton, has given us the following instance of his humane disposition.

He had a great number of sisters, some of whom were less happy in their marriages than others; one in particular was exposed to many misfortunes, by the indiscretion and extravagance of her husband. It is the custom of some people to make very great distinctions between their rich and poor relations; Mr. Fenton's brother was of this stamp, and it seems treated his unfortunate sister with less ceremony than the rest. One day, while Mr. Fenton, was at his brother's house, he observed the family going to dinner without this sister, who was in town, and had as good a right to an invitation, as any of the rest who dined there as a compliment to him. He could not help discovering his displeasure at so unnatural a distinction, and would not sit down to table till she was sent for, and in consequence of this slight shewn her by the rest of the family, Mr. Fenton treated her with more tenderness and complaisance than any of his sisters.

Our author carried through life a very fair reputation, he was beloved and esteemed by Mr. Pope, who honoured him with a beautiful epitaph. Mr. Fenton after a life of ease and tranquility, died at East-Hampstead-Park, near Oakingham, the 13th of July 1730, much regretted by all men of taste, not being obnoxious to the resentment even of his brother writers.

In the year 1723, Mr. Fenton introduced upon the stage his Tragedy of Mariamne, built upon the story related of her in the third volume of the Spectator, Numb. 171, which the ingenious author collected out of Josephus. As this story so fully displays the nature of the passion of jealousy, and discovers so extraordinary a character as that of Herod, we shall here insert it, after which we shall consider with what success Mr. Fenton has managed the plot. In a former paper, the author having treated the passion of jealousy in various lights, and marked its progress through the human mind, concludes his animadversions with this story, which he says may serve as an example to whatever can be said on that subject.

'Mariamne had all the charms that beauty, birth, wit, and youth could give a woman, and Herod all the love that such charms are able to raise in a warm and amorous disposition. In the midst of his fondness for Mariamne, he put her brother to death, as he did her father not many years after. The barbarity of the action was represented to Mark Anthony, who immediately summoned Herod into Egypt, to answer for the crime that was laid to his charge: Herod attributed the summons to Anthony's desire of Mariamne, whom therefore before his departure, he gave into the custody of his uncle Joseph, with private orders to put her to death, if any such violence was offered to himself. This Joseph was much delighted with Mariamne's conversation, and endeavoured with all his art and rhetoric to set out the excess of Herod's passion for her; but when he still found her cold and incredulous, he inconsiderately told her, as a certain instance of her lord's affection, the private orders he had left behind him, which plainly shewed, according to Joseph's interpretation, that he could neither live nor die without her. This barbarous instance of a wild unreasonable passion quite put out for a time those little remains of affection, she still had for her lord: Her thoughts were so wholly taken up with the cruelty of his orders, that she could not consider the kindness which produced them; and therefore represented him in her imagination, rather under the frightful idea of a murderer, than a lover.

'Herod was at length acquitted, and dismiss'd by Mark Anthony, when his soul was all in flames for his Mariamne; but before their meeting he was not a little alarmed at the report he had heard of his uncle's conversation and familiarity with her in his absence. This therefore was the first discourse he entertained her with, in which she found it no easy matter to quiet his suspicions. But at last he appeared so well satisfied of her innocence; that from reproaches, and wranglings, he fell to tears and embraces. Both of them wept very tenderly at their reconciliation and Herod pour'd out his whole soul to her in the warmest protestations of love and constancy; when, amidst all his sighs and languishings, she asked him, whether the private orders he left with his uncle Joseph were an instance of such an enflamed affection? The jealous king was immediately roused at so unexpected a question, and concluded his uncle must have been too familiar with her, before he would have discovered such a secret. In short he put his uncle to death, and very difficultly prevailed on himself to spare Mariamne.

'After this he was forced on a second journey into Egypt, when he committed his lady to the care of Sohemus, with the same private orders he had before given his uncle, if any mischief befel himself: In the meantime Mariamne had so won upon Sohemus, by her presents and obliging behaviour, that she drew all the secret from him, with which Herod had entrusted him; so that after his return, when he flew to her, with all the transports of joy and love, she received him coldly with sighs and tears, and all the marks of indifference and aversion. This reception so stirred up his indignation, that he had certainly slain her with his own hands, had not he feared he himself should become the greater sufferer by it. It was not long after this, when he had another violent return of love upon him; Mariamne was therefore sent for to him, whom he endeavoured to soften and reconcile with all possible conjugal caresses, and endearments; but she declined his embraces, and answered all his fondness, with bitter invectives for the death of her father and her brother.