Part 13

A lady who was left a widow, with a moderate fortune and a great reputation for wit, about 1750, and soon after gave up her hotel and retired to apartments in the Convent de St Joseph, where she continued to receive almost every evening whoever was most distinguished in Paris for rank, talent, or accomplishment. Having become almost blind in a few years, she found she required the attendance of some intelligent young woman who might read and write for her, and assist in doing the honours of her _conversazione_. For this purpose she cast her eyes on Mademoiselle Lespinasse, the illegitimate daughter of a man of rank who had been boarded in the same convent, and was for some time delighted with her selection. By-and-by, however, she found that her young companion began to engross more of the notice of her visitors than she thought suitable, and parted from her with violent, ungenerous, and implacable displeasure. Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, however, carried with her the admiration of the greater part of her patroness's circle; and having obtained a small pension from government, opened her own doors to a society no less brilliant than that into which she had been initiated by Madame du Deffand. The fatigue however, which she had undergone in reading the old marchioness asleep had irreparably injured her health, which was still more impaired by the agitations of her own inflammable and ambitious spirit; and she died before she had attained middle age, about 1776, leaving on the minds of all the most eminent men of France, an impression of talent, and of ardour of imagination, which seems to have been considered as without example. Madame du Deffand continued to preside in her circle till a period of extreme old age, and died in 1780, in full possession of her faculties.

Madame du Deffand was the wittiest, the most selfish, and the most _ennuye_ of the whole party. Her wit, to be sure, is very enviable and very entertaining; but it is really consolatory to common mortals to find how little it could amuse its possessor. This did not proceed in her, however, from the fastidiousness which is sometimes supposed to arise from a long familiarity with excellence, so much as from a long habit of selfishness, or rather from a radical want of heart or affection. La Harpe says of her, that it was "difficult for any one to have less sensibility and more egotism." With all this, she was greatly given to gallantry in her youth, though her attachments, it would seem, were of a kind not very likely to interfere with her peace of mind. The very evening her first lover died, after an intimacy of twenty years, La Harpe assures us "that she came to supper at a grand company at Madame de Marchius's, where I was; and that, speaking of the loss she had sustained, she said, 'Alas, he died at six o'clock, otherwise you would not have seen me here.'" She is also recorded to have frequently declared that she could never bring herself to love anything, though, in order to take every possible chance, she had several times attempted to become _devote_ with no great success. This, we have no doubt, is the secret of her _ennui_; and a fine example it is of the utter worthlessness of all talent, accomplishment, and glory, when disconnected with those feelings of kindness and generosity which are of themselves sufficient for happiness. Madame du Deffand, however, must have been delightful to those who sought only for amusement. Her tone is admirable, her wit flowing and natural; and though a little given to detraction, and not a little importunate and _exigeante_ towards those on whose complaisance she had claims, there is always an air of politeness in her raillery, and of knowledge of the world in her murmurs, that prevents them from being either wearisome or offensive.

PHOEBE BENTLEY.

[1700.]

CUMBERLAND.

The youngest daughter of the illustrious Dr Bentley was the Phoebe of Byron's Pastoral. She was a woman of extraordinary accomplishments, and was the mother of the well-known Richard Cumberland, the most valuable part of whose early education was due to the taste and intelligence of this excellent woman. "It was," according to his account, "in these intervals from school that she began to form both my taste and my ear for poetry, by employing me every evening to read to her, of which art she was a very able mistress. Our readings were, with very few exceptions, confined to the chosen plays of Shakespeare, whom she both admired and understood in the true spirit and sense of the author. With all her father's (Dr Bentley's) critical acumen, she could trace and teach me to unravel all the meanders of Shakespeare's metaphors, and point out where it illuminated or where it only loaded or obscured the meaning."

These were happy hours and interesting lectures to Richard Cumberland; and the effect was a sort of drama produced at twelve years, called "Shakespeare in the Shades," and composed almost entirely of passages from that great writer, strung together and assorted with no despicable ingenuity.

MARQUISE DU CHATELET.

[BORN 1706. DIED 1749.]

PROFESSOR CRAIK.

At the head of the list of scientific ladies stands Gabrielle Emilie le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Chatelet, the French translator of Newton's "Principia." She was the daughter of the Baron de Breteuil, was born in 1706, and was married to the Marquis de Chastelet, or Chatelet, when very young. Voltaire became acquainted with her in 1733, and he has described what he found her to be in the memoir which he has left us of a part of her life. Her father, he says, had caused her to be taught Latin, and she knew that language as well as Madame Dacier. She had by heart the finest passages of Horace, Virgil, and Lucretius; all the philosophical writings of Cicero were familiar to her. But her predominating taste was for the mathematics and metaphysics. There had rarely been united in any one more correctness of judgment, with more taste and ardour for the acquisition of knowledge; nor was she for all this the less attached to the world, and to all the amusements proper to her age and sex.

Yet she had given up everything to go and bury herself in an old dilapidated chateau, situated in a barren and wretched country, on the borders of Champagne and Lorraine. She had, however, made this country house at Cirey an agreeable retreat for study and philosophical intercourse. Pleasant gardens, with which the marchioness had embellished it, a good collection of philosophical instruments which Voltaire formed, and an extensive library, enabled Maupertius, John Bernouilli, and other distinguished literary and scientific visitors, who sometimes came to spend a few weeks or months, both to enjoy themselves and to pass their time not unprofitably. Voltaire resided here for about six years. He taught the marchioness English, and, he says, at the end of three months she knew the language as well as himself, and was equally able to read Locke, Newton, and Pope. Italian she acquired with the same facility; Voltaire and she read several of the Italian poets together; and when Francesco Algarotti came to Cirey to finish his work, entitled "Newtonianismo par le Dame"--"Newtonianism for the Ladies"--she was able to converse with him in his own tongue, and to give him many valuable suggestions.

"We sought for nothing," continues Voltaire, "in this delicious retreat, except to cultivate our understandings, without taking any trouble to inform ourselves about what was passing in the rest of the world. Our chief attention for a long time was given to Leibnitz and Newton. Madame du Chatelet at first attached herself to Leibnitz, and gave an explanation of a part of his system in a work written with great ability, which she called 'Institutions de Physique.' She did not seek to decorate this philosophy with ornaments foreign to its nature; no such affectation belonged to the character of her mind, which was masculine and true. Clearness, precision, and elegance were the constituents of her style. If it has ever been found possible to give any plausibility to the notions of Leibnitz, it is in that book that it has been done." The "Institutions de Physique" has received high commendation from the most competent authorities as well as from Voltaire. It is described as "a series of letters, in which the systems of Leibnitz and Newton are explained in a familiar style, and with a degree of knowledge of the history of the several opinions, and of sound language and ideas in their discussion, which we read with surprise, remembering that they were the production of a Frenchwoman, thirty years of age, written very few years after the introduction of the Newtonian philosophy into France. She takes that intermediate view between the refusal to admit the hypothesis of attraction and the assertion of it as a primary quality of matter, from which very few who consider the subject would now dissent. At the end of the work is an epistolary discussion with M. de Mairan, on the principle of _vis viva_--the vital energy, the metaphysical part of which then created much controversy." Her translation of Newton's "Principia" was published at Paris in 1759. It stands so high that it has been used by Delambre in his "History of Astronomy," whenever he has to make a quotation from Newton. Madame du Chatelet had been dead for ten years when the work appeared. Her life is supposed to have been shortened by her close application in preparing it, and she died at the age of forty-three.

LADY HUNTINGDON.

[BORN 1707. DIED 1791.]

ISAAC TAYLOR.

The broad facts of this noble lady's history afford ground enough for the repute she has enjoyed as a woman of much tact and ability, of great energy, and of a munificent temper; while the use she made of her influence and fortune for the promotion of the Methodistic movement, that is to say, of Christianity itself, sufficiently attests her piety and zeal. It must also be inferred, from the circumstance of her having retained the friendship and regard of many among the leading persons of her time through a long period of years, that she possessed qualities of mind and attractions of manner that were of no ordinary sort; for it is certain that those who ridiculed, or even hated her Methodism, still yielded themselves, in frequent instances, to her personal influence. So far, an idea of Lady Huntingdon may be gathered from facts that are beyond doubt. There is, however, so little that is discriminative in the extant eulogies of her friends and correspondents, or of her biographers, and there is so little that bears a clearly-marked individuality in her own letters, that a distinct image of her mind and temper is not easy to obtain.

As to the position assigned to her among the founders of Methodism, it is due to her rather on the ground of what she did for it as its patroness, which was almost immeasurable, than because she imprinted upon it any characteristics of her own mind. Calvinistic Methodism was not her creation. In the centre of the brilliant company of her pious relatives and noble friends, and with a numerous attendance of educated and Episcopally-ordained ministers, and, beyond this inner circle, a broad _penumbra_ of lay preachers chosen by herself, and educated, maintained, and employed at her cost, and acting under her immediate direction, she seems to sit as a queen. Something of the regal style, something of the air of the autocrat, was natural to one who, with the consciousness of rank, and with the habitude of one accustomed to the highest society, was gifted with a peculiar governing ability, and was actually wielding an extensive influence over men and things. It would have been wonderful indeed if nothing of the sort had been perceptible in her manner and style; yet, that her main intention was pure and beneficent, and that ambition was not her passion, will be felt and confessed by every candid reader of her letters.

Her letters indicate much business-like ability, and they show always a pertinent adherence to the matter in hand. They are, therefore, more determinate by far than Whitefield's, and indeed are little less so than Wesley's, whose letters are eminent examples of succinct determinativeness; they bespeak an unvarying and genuine fervour, and a simple-hearted onward tendency toward the one purpose of her life--the spread of the gospel, and the honour of her Saviour. Lady Huntingdon's are, moreover, marked by often-repeated, but not to be questioned, professions of the deep sense she had of her own unworthiness and unprofitableness. Such are the ingredients, few and perpetually recurrent, of these compositions: a severe monotony--not severe in the sense of harshness--is their characteristic. Yet Lady Huntingdon was always the object of a warm personal affection with those who were nearest to her. With them it is always "Our dear Lady Huntingdon;" and putting out of view formal eulogies, it is unquestionable that, if she governed her connection as having a right to rule it, her style and behaviour, like Wesley's, indicated the purest motives and the most entire simplicity of purpose. This, in truth, may be said to have been the common characteristic of the founders of Methodism, especially of the two Wesleys--a devotedness to the service and glory of the Saviour Christ, which none who saw and conversed with them could question.

MARIA THERESA.

[BORN 1717. DIED 1780.]

CARLYLE.

Maria Theresa, in high spirits about her English subsidy and the bright aspects, left Vienna for Presburg, and is celebrating her coronation there as Queen of Hungary in a very sublime manner. Sunday, 25th June, 1741, that is the day of putting on your crown--iron crown of St Stephen, as readers know. The chivalry of Hungary, from Palfy and Esterhazy downward, and all the world, are there shining in loyalty and barbaric gold and pearl. A truly beautiful young woman, beautiful to soul and eye,--devout, too, and noble, though ill formed in political or other science,--is in the middle of it, and makes the scene still more noticeable to us. "See, at the finish of the ceremonies, she has mounted a high swift horse, sword girt to her side,--a great rider always this young queen,--and gallops, Hungary following like a comet's tail, to the Konigsberg, to the top of the Konigsberg; there draws sword, and cuts grandly, flourishing to the four quarters of the heavens: 'Let any mortal, from whatever quarter coming, meddle with Hungary if he dare!' Chivalrous Hungary bursts into passionate acclaim; old Palfy, I could fancy, into tears; and all the world murmurs to itself, with moist gleaming eyes, _Rex Noster_."

As for this brave young Queen of Hungary, my admiration goes with all the world--not in the language of flattery, but of evident fact: the royal qualities abound in that high young lady; had they left the world and grown to mere costume elsewhere, you might find certain of them again here. Most brave, high, and pious-minded; beautiful, too, as I have said, and radiant with good nature, though of temper that will easily catch fire; there is perhaps no nobler woman there living; and she fronts the roaring elements in a truly grand feminine manner, as if heaven itself, and the voice of duty, called her. "The inheritances which my father left me, we will not part with these. Death, if it so must be, but not dishonour; listen not to that thief in the night." Maria Theresa has not studied at all the history of the Silesian Duchies. She knows only that her father and grandfather peaceably held them; it was not she that sent out Seckendorf to ride two thousand five hundred miles, or broke the heart of Frederick-William and his household. Pity she had not complied with Frederick, and saved such rivers of bitterness to herself and mankind!

Her husband, the Grand Duke, an inert but good-tempered and well-conditioned duke after his sort, goes with her. Him we shall see trying various things, and at length take to banking and merchandise, and even meal-dealing on the great scale. "Our armies had most part of their meal circuitously from him," says Frederick of times long subsequent. Now, as always, he follows loyally his wife's lead, never she his. Wife being intrinsically, as well as extrinsically, the better man, what other can he do?

At one time she seriously thought of taking "the command of her armies," says a good witness. "Her husband has been with the armies once, twice, but never to much purpose; and this is about the last time, or last but one, this in winter 1742. She loves her husband thoroughly all along, but gives him no share in business, finding he understands nothing except banking. It is certain she chiefly was the reformer of her army" in years coming; "she athwart many impediments. An ardent rider, often on horseback at paces furiously swift, her beautiful face tanned by the weather. Honest to the bone, athwart all her prejudices. Since our own Elizabeth, no woman, and hardly one man, is worth being named beside her as a sovereign ruler. 'She is a living contradiction of the Salic law,' say her admirers."

META MOLLER.

[1750.]

LETTERS.

Klopstock first beheld Meta Moeller in passing through Hamburg in April 1751. In a letter to one of his friends, written soon after this, he describes her as mistress of the French, English, and Italian languages, and even conversant with Greek and Latin literature. She was then in her twenty-fourth year, he in his twenty-seventh. Their marriage took place about three years afterwards. Here is Meta's own narrative of the rise and course of their true love, given in one of her letters to Richardson, a narrative which will bear a hundred readings, and a hundred more after that, and still be as fresh and as touching as ever:--

"You will know all what concerns me. Love, dear sir, is all what me concerns. And love shall be all what I will tell you in this letter. In one happy night I read my husband's poem, 'The Messiah.' I was extremely touched with it. The next day I asked one of his friends who was the author of this poem, and this was the first time I heard Klopstock's name. I believe I fell immediately in love with him. At the least, my thoughts were ever with him filled, especially because his friend told me very much of his character. But I had no hopes ever to see him, when quite unexpectedly I heard that he should pass through Hamburg. I wrote immediately to the same friend, for procuring, by his means, that I might see the author of the 'Messiah' when in Hamburg. He told him that a certain girl in Hamburg wished to see him, and for all recommendation showed him some letters in which I made bold to criticise Klopstock's verses. Klopstock came, and came to me. I must confess that, though greatly prepossessed of his qualities, I never thought him the amiable youth whom I found him. This made its effect. After having seen him for two hours I was obliged to pass the evening in a company which never had been so wearisome to me. I could not speak. I could not play. I thought I saw nothing but Klopstock.

"I saw him the next day, and the following, and we were very seriously friends. But the fourth day he departed! He wrote soon after, and from that time our correspondence began to be a very diligent one. I sincerely believed my love to be friendship. I spoke to my friends of nothing but Klopstock, and showed his letters. They rallied me, and said I was in love. I rallied them again, and said that they must have a very friendshipless heart if they had no idea of friendship to a man as well as to a woman. Thus it continued eight months, in which time my friends found as much love in Klopstock's letters as in mine. I perceived it likewise, but I would not believe it. At the last, Klopstock said plainly that he loved; and I startled as for a wrong thing. I answered that it was no love, but friendship, as it was what I felt for him; we had not seen one another enough to love (as if love must have more time than friendship). This was sincerely my meaning, and I had this meaning till Klopstock came again to Hamburg. This he did a year after we had seen one another for the first time. We saw; we were friends; we loved; and we believed that we loved; and a short time after I could even tell Klopstock that I loved. But we were obliged to part again, and wait two years for our wedding. My mother would not let marry me a stranger. I could marry then without her consentment, as by the death of my father my fortune depended not upon her; but this was an horrible idea for me, and thank heaven I have prevailed by prayers. At this time, knowing Klopstock, she loves him as her lifely son, and thanks God that she has not persisted. We married, and I am the happiest wife in the world."

This was written in March 1758, after they had been about four years married. Writing again in the beginning of May, she thus sketches the life they led together: "It will be a delightful occupation for me to make you more acquainted with my husband's poem. Nobody can do it better than I, being the person who knows the most of that which is not yet published, being always present at the birth of the young verses, which begin always by fragments here and there of a subject of which his soul is just then filled. He has many great fragments of the whole work ready. You may think that persons who love as we do have no need of two chambers; we are always in the same. I, with my little work, still only regarding sometimes my husband's sweet face, which is so venerable at that time with tears of devotion and all the sublimity of the subject, my husband reading me the young verses and suffering my criticism."

With this we may compare what Klopstock says, writing of her: "How perfect was her taste! how exquisitely fine her feelings! she observed everything even to the slightest turn of the thought. I had only to look at her, and could see in her face when even a syllable pleased or displeased her; and when I led her to explain the reason of her remarks, no demonstration could be more true, more accurate, or more appropriate to the subject. But, in general, this gave us very little trouble, for we understood each other when we had scarcely began to explain our ideas."

But all this happiness, too bright for earth, or for long endurance, was about to be suddenly extinguished. There is another letter from Meta to Richardson, dated 26th August, in which she informs him that she has a prospect of being a mother in the month of November, and of thus attaining what has been her only wish ungratified for these four years. She writes from Hamburg, where she was on a visit to her family, while her husband had been obliged to make a journey to Copenhagen. It was the first time that they had been separated. It is remarkable that she seems to have had more than a mere apprehension, almost an assured foreboding, of what awaited her. Klopstock rejoined her at last about the end of September; her last lines, written to him before his return, are dated the 26th of that month. The two following months they spent together at Hamburg. From that place poor Meta was never to return. There, where she had first drawn breath, she died in childbed on the 28th of November. [Klopstock lived till 1803, and was then buried under a lime tree in the churchyard of Ottenson, near Altona, by the side of his Meta and the child that slept in her arms.]

ELIZABETH BLACKWELL.

[1720.]

JAMES BRUCE.