Part 1

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Transcriber's note:

Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

The illustrations of Queens Elizabeth, Mary, and Anne were accompanied by a reproduction of the royal signature below the illustration and its caption. This has been denoted in the text version by the annotation: "(reproduction of signature of Queen ----)."

The following changes were made to repair apparently typographical errors:

p.41 "incantations to recal her spirit" recal changed to recall p.67 "seducing Althelwold into a" Althelwold changed to Athelwold p.195 "her, and did not like it." closing quotation mark added p.211 "discriminative in the extinct eulogies" extinct changed to extant p.227 "than two hundred Scotticisms." closing quotation mark added p.227 "compositions of Metastasio." closing quotation mark added p.233 "anyrate no common phenomenon" anyrate changed to any rate p.236 "BORN 1750. DIED 1728." 1728 changed to 1828 p.240 "BORN 1758. DIED 1848." 1758 changed to 1750 p.240 "ninty-seventh anniversary of her" ninty changed to ninety p.270 "in 1709, after a visit the poetess" 1709 changed to 1809 p.303 "what she eat during these last six weeks" eat changed to ate

The biography of Jane Shore refers to Edward the Fifth. This should probably be Edward the Fourth.

WOMEN OF HISTORY:

SELECTED FROM THE _WRITINGS OF STANDARD AUTHORS._

BY THE EDITOR OF "MEN OF HISTORY."

"_Biography is the most universally pleasant and universally profitable of all reading._"

EDINBURGH: W. P. NIMMO, HAY, & MITCHELL. 1890.

MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

PREFACE.

Women of History is a further development of the idea which suggested the companion volume, MEN OF HISTORY, viz.: "To exhibit views of the world's great men and women, as set forth in the best words of the best authors--to convey, as it were, at once impressions of History and Literature, and lessons in Biography and Style."

In the present case, it has not been considered necessary to attempt a classification of the subjects in the manner followed in the preceding volume, from the fact that the feelings and motives which generally influence the lives of celebrated women are of a nature different from those of the opposite sex, and from the consequent want of a standard sufficiently distinct to adhere to. A chronological arrangement, however, has been adopted, which, it is hoped, will to a considerable extent supply the want of classification.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

LUCRETIA, _Bayle_, 9

SAPPHO, _Mure_, 12

ASPASIA OF PERICLES, _Grote_, 16

XANTIPPE, _Brucker_, 20

ASPASIA OF CYRUS, _Bayle_, 22

CORNELIA, THE MOTHER OF THE GRACCHI, _Plutarch_, 25

PORTIA, _Plutarch_, 28

OCTAVIA, _Bayle_, 31

CLEOPATRA, _Merivale_, 34

MARIAMNE, _Merivale_, 39

JULIA DOMNA, _Gibbon_, 41

ZENOBIA, _Gibbon_, 43

VALERIA, _Gibbon_, 47

EUDOCIA, _Gibbon_, 50

HYPATIA, _Brucker_, 54

THE WIFE OF MAXIMUS, _Gibbon_, 57

THE LADY ROWENA, _Verstegan_, 60

OLGA, _Gibbon_, 62

THE LADY ELFRIDA, _Hume_, 65

THE COUNTESS OF TRIPOLI, _Sismondi_, 68

JANE, COUNTESS OF MOUNTFORT, _Hume_, 70

LAURA DE SADE, _Sismondi_, 74

THE COUNTESS OF RICHMOND, _Tytler_, 77

ELIZABETH WOODVILLE, _Hume_, 79

JOAN OF ARC, _De Quincey_, 81

JANE SHORE, _Hume_, 85

CATHARINE OF ARRAGON, _Tytler_, 88

ANNE BOLEYN, _Tytler_, 91

MARGARET ROPER, _Ballard_, 94

ELIZABETH LUCAS, _Ballard_, 97

GASPARA STAMPA, _Hallam_, 99

ANNE ASKEW, _Hume_, 102

QUEEN ELIZABETH, _Hume--Macaulay_, 105

LADY JANE GREY, _Hume_, 110

TARQUINIA MOLZA, _Hilarion de Coste_, 114

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, _Robertson_, 117

GABRIELLE D'ESTREES, _Davenport Adams_, 120

ANNE, DUCHESS OF PEMBROKE, _Bishop Rainbow_, 125

ESTHER INGLIS, _Ballard_, 128

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE, _Ballard_, 131

LADY PAKINGTON, _Ballard_, 133

NOOR MAHAL, _James Mill_, 136

POCAHONTAS, _Dr Hugh Murray_, 139

LUCY HUTCHINSON, _Jeffrey_, 143

LADY FANSHAWE, _Jeffrey_, 146

DOROTHY OSBORNE, _Macaulay_, 148

CATHERINE PHILIPS, _Ballard_, 151

MADAME DE MAINTENON, _St Simon_, 154

COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT, _Count A. Hamilton_, 157

MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE, _Davenport Adams_, 161

MADAME DACIER, _Hallam_, 164

LADY MASHAM, _Ballard_, 166

ANNE KILLIGREW, _Ballard_, 169

QUEEN ANNE, _Miss Strickland_, 172

ESTHER JOHNSON, _Jeffrey_, 177

ESTHER VANHOMRIGH, _Sir Walter Scott_, 181

MARY ASTELL, _Ballard_, 185

MADAME DES URSINS, _St Simon_, 188

LADY GRIZEL JERVISWOODE, _Anderson_, 192

MADAME DE PONTCHARTRAIN, _St Simon_, 196

ELIZABETH HALKETT, _Conolly_, 198

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU, _Jeffrey_, 200

MADAME DU DEFFAND, _Jeffrey_, 204

PHOEBE BENTLEY, _Cumberland_, 207

MARQUISE DU CHATELET, _Professor Craik_, 208

LADY HUNTINGDON, _Isaac Taylor_, 211

MARIA THERESA, _Carlyle_, 214

META MOLLER, _Letters_, 217

ELIZABETH BLACKWELL, _James Bruce_, 221

LAETITIA BARBAULD, _Johnstone_, 224

HANNAH MORE, _Professor Craik_, 226

ANNA SEWARD, _Sir Walter Scott_, 229

CATHERINE COCKBURN, _Professor Craik_, 232

ELIZABETH BERKELEIGH, _Temple Bar_, 236

CAROLINE HERSCHEL, _Professor Craik_, 240

MADAME D'ARBLAY, _Macaulay_, 242

MADAME ROLAND, _Carlyle_, 245

MARIE ANTOINETTE, _Carlyle_, 248

SARAH SIDDONS, _Cunningham_, 252

MRS GRANT, _Professor Craik_, 256

ELIZABETH INCHBALD, _Cunningham_, 260

ELIZABETH HAMILTON, _Professor Craik_, 263

COUNTESS DE VEMIEIRO, _Sismondi_, 267

JOANNA BAILLIE, _Professor Spalding_ 269

JOSEPHINE, _Alison_, 271

ANNE RADCLIFFE, _Edinburgh Review_, 273

MISS EDGEWORTH, _Jeffrey_, 276

CHARLOTTE CORDAY, _Carlyle_, 279

MADAME DE STAEL, _Jeffrey_, 283

MADAME DE LA ROCHEJAQUELEIN, _Jeffrey_, 286

MADAME RECAMIER, _Davenport Adams_, 290

MARY BRUNTON, _Dr Brunton_, 293

FELICIA HEMANS, _Jeffrey_, 297

AUGUSTINA SARAGOZA, _Alison_, 299

CHARLOTTE BRONTE, _Mrs Gaskell_, 301

WOMEN OF HISTORY.

LUCRETIA.

[B.C. 500.]

BAYLE.

A Roman dame, illustrious for her beauty and the nobleness of her birth, and more for her virtue. She was married to one Collatinus, a relative of Tarquin, king of Rome. Her tragic story runs thus: Tarquin, not having been able to render himself master of the town of Ardea so promptly as he had calculated, besieged it in form, and the languidness of the operation comported very well with the inclination of the princes to amuse themselves in the way princes are in the habit of doing. At one of the suppers given by Sextus to his two brothers, and to Collatinus their kinsman, a question was raised, not as to the beauty of their mistresses, as is the custom in our day, but as to that of their respective wives. Each maintained that his wife was fairer than those of his companions; and the dispute rising high, Collatinus suggested a means of terminating it. "What is the use of so many words," said he, "we can in a very short time have the proof of the superiority of my Lucretia. Let us mount our horses; let us surprise our wives; and the decision of our question will be the more easy that they are not prepared for us." Inflamed by wine, the princes accepted the proposal, and they rode to Rome at the top of their horses' speed. They there found sitting at table the fair daughters of Tarquin, who were engaged in pleasure with companions of their own age. They next went to Collatium; and though it was now late at night, they found Lucretia in the midst of her servants, engaged in needlework. They all agreed that she carried off the palm, and thereupon returned to the camp; but Sextus, without uttering a word of his purpose, found his way secretly back to Collatium, and was received by Lucretia with that attention and civility that was due to the eldest son of the king, and without the slightest suspicion that he entertained any purpose other than what was honest and good.

After he had supped, he was conducted to the chamber intended for him--not to sleep, for he had other intentions. As soon as he thought that all had repaired to their beds, he stept, sword in hand, into the private chamber of the unsuspecting Lucretia, and after having threatened to kill her if she made any noise, he told her his passion--bringing to serve his purpose prayers the most tender, and menaces the most terrible; in short, employing all the arts by which an impassioned man might attack the heart of a woman. All was in vain: Lucretia was firm, and persisted in her firmness, altogether undismayed by the fear of death; but she trembled at the threat which he made to expose her to the last infamy of woman. He declared that, after despatching her, he would kill a slave, put his dead body on her bed, and make it be believed that the double murder had been the punishment of the adultery in which they had been surprised. Having accomplished his purpose, he retired, as pleased with himself and as proud of his triumph as if it had been a feat of honest war, and all conformable to the rules of gallantry.

Plunged in the deepest grief, Lucretia sent a message to her father, who was at Rome, and her husband, who was at the siege, praying that they might come to her immediately. They obeyed the message; she straightway informed them of all the circumstances of her dishonour, and entreated them to revenge her wrong. They promised that they would comply with her request, and set about endeavouring to console her by what means that were within their power; but she resisted all their efforts of consolation, and, drawing forth a dagger which she had concealed in her clothes, she plunged it into her heart. Brutus, who was present at this spectacle, found in it an occasion for which he had longed to deliver Rome from the tyranny of Tarquin, and he made such excellent use of it, that the royalty was abolished.

SAPPHO.

[B.C. 568.]

MURE.

According to established data, the more brilliant portion of Sappho's career may be placed in the first half of the sixth century before Christ, while her childhood and early youth belong to the close of the seventh. Her birthplace, according to the more trustworthy authorities, was Mitylene, the metropolis of the isle of Lesbos. Others make her a native of the neighbouring town of Eresus. Whether Sappho was ever married is doubtful; but the balance of evidence is strongly on the negative side of the question. She is familiarly alluded to by Horace as the "Lesbian maiden;" nor is there any notice of a husband, but on a single recent and very questionable authority, where the broadly indecent etymology of the names, both of the man on whom the honour is conferred, and of his birthplace, sufficiently proves them to be fictitious. How far the circumstance of her having had a daughter can be considered as admissible evidence of her having been married, is a point the settlement of which must depend on a closer inquiry into her moral habits. That such was the fact, however, is stated on respectable authority. The name assigned to the maiden is Cleis, the same as that of Sappho's reputed mother.

Sappho is described, by the only authors who have transmitted any distinct notices on the subject, as not distinguished for personal beauty, but as short of stature, and of dark, it may be understood swarthy, complexion. The laudatory commonplace of kale, or "fair," which Plato and others incidentally connect with her name, no way militates against this account, as implying nothing more, perhaps less, than does the English phrase by which the Greek epithet has above been rendered, and which is as frequently bestowed in familiar usage on plain as on handsome women. Alcaeus describes her simply as "dark haired" and "sweetly smiling." No notice is taken of her actual beauty, which an admiring lover would hardly have passed over in silence had it offered matter for warmer eulogy.

Of the extent to which Sappho was brought under the sway of the tender passion which, in one shape or other, formed the theme, with little exception, of her collective works, sufficient evidence exists in her only remaining entire composition, the first ode in the published collections. She there describes herself, in the most touching and impassioned strains, as the victim of an unrequited love, and implores the aid of Venus to ease her pangs by melting the heart of the obdurate or inconstant object of her affection. The person to whom this ode is supposed to refer, or who at least obtained, in the popular tradition, the chief and longest sway over the affections of Sappho, was a Lesbian youth called Phaon, distinguished for his personal attractions and irresistible power over the female heart. For a time he is described as having corresponded to her ardour; but, after cohabiting with her during some years, he deserted her, leaving her in a state of despair, for which the only remedy that suggested itself was that habitually resorted to in such cases--a leap from the summit of the Leucadian promontory into the sea. That she actually carried this purpose into effect was the popular opinion of antiquity, from the age, at least, of Menander downwards, and seems to have passed current as an authentic fact, even with the more intelligent authorities.

Both these points in the history of the poetess, her love for Phaon, and her leap from the Leucadian cliff, have been questioned with more or less plausibility by distinguished critics of the present age. In respect to the first, it has been denied not only that Phaon was the name of the hero of this tragical drama, but that such a person ever existed. The Leucadian leap of Sappho, though ranked by various modern commentators, like the name of her lover, among the mythical elements of her biography, will not perhaps be found, on a critical estimate of the circumstances connected with it, to offer any serious ground of scepticism.

Sappho, in the portrait of her character jointly exhibited in her own works and in the notices of her more candid and intelligent countrymen, appears as a woman of a generous disposition, affectionate heart, and independent spirit, unless when brought under the sway of those tender passions, which lorded over every other influence in her bosom. Of a naturally ardent and excitable temperament, she seems from her earliest years to have been habituated to the enjoyments rather than to the duties, much less the restraints, of Greek female life. Her chief or early occupations were the exercise and display of her brilliant poetical talents and elegant accomplishments; and her voluptuous habits are testified by almost every extant fragment of her poems. Her susceptibility to the passion of love formed, above all, the dominant feature of her life, her character, and her muse. Her indulgence, however, of this, as of every other appetite, sensual or intellectual, while setting at nought all moral restraints, was marked by her own peculiar refinement of taste, exclusive of every approach to low excess or profligacy.

In the portrait presented to us by the popular authorities of the present day, all the less favourable features of the above sketch are effaced; while the colouring of the remainder has been heightened to a dazzling extreme of beauty and brilliancy, exhibiting a model of perfection, physical and moral, such as was never probably exemplified in woman, and least of all in the prioress of an association of votaries of Venus and the Muses, in one of the most voluptuous states of Greece. The following is the summary of her various excellences, given by one of the popular organs of this amiable but fallacious theory: "In Sappho, a warm and profound sensibility, virgin purity, feminine softness, and delicacy of sentiment and feeling, were combined with the native probity and simplicity of the AEolian character; and, although endued with a fine perception of the beautiful and brilliant, she preferred genuine conscious rectitude to every other source of human enjoyment."

ASPASIA OF PERICLES.

[B.C. 470.]

GROTE.

Aspasia, daughter of Axiochus, was a native of Miletus, beautiful, well-educated, and ambitious. She resided at Athens, and is affirmed, though upon very doubtful evidence, to have kept slave-girls to be let out as courtesans. Whatever may be the case with this report, which is probably one of the scandals engendered by political animosity against Pericles, it is certain that, so remarkable were her own fascinations, her accomplishments, and her powers, not merely of conversation, but even of oratory and criticism, that the most distinguished Athenians of all ages and characters--Socrates among the number--visited her, and several of them took their wives along with them to hear her also. The free citizen-women of Athens lived in strict and almost Oriental recluseness, as well after being married as when single: everything which concerned their lives, their happiness, or their rights, was determined or managed for them by male relatives; and they seem to have been destitute of all mental culture and accomplishments. Their society presented no charm nor interest, which men accordingly sought for in the company of the class of women called Hetaerae, or courtesans, literally female companions who lived a free life, managed their own affairs, and supported themselves by their powers of pleasing. These women were numerous, and were doubtless of every variety of personal character; but the most distinguished and superior among them, such as Aspasia and Theodote, appear to have been the only women in Greece, except the Spartan, who either inspired strong passion or exercised mental ascendancy.