FOOTNOTES:

Here Charon appears to conduct our bookseller to his future abode, but deeming him after all "too frivolous an animal to present to wise Minos", proposes to constitute himfriseurto Tisiphone, and make him "curl up her locks with satires and libels".

The above pieces derive their chief interest from the fact that they are among the very first instances of female satire of a kind which in being more pointed and more direct than that of the Spectator, and less bitter and exaggerated than that of Swift, written by a member of the sex who was herself a recognised leader of society, was more calculated than anything else to impress the female mind with the necessity of thorough reform.

Strange to say, Mrs. Montagu's claims for female instruction other than moral are very modest. It is a subject she seldom refers to, although there is a letter dated 1773 to her sister-in-law Mrs. Robinson, containing a reference to the education of her little niece, in which she certainly does not aim very high. A boarding-school is recommended in spite of the fact that what girls learn there is most trifling, "but they unlearn what would be of great disservice—a provincial dialect which is extremely ungenteel, and other tricks that they learn in the nursery." French lessons she deems unnecessary, "unless for persons in very high life", and she expects a great deal of benefit from a good air and a good dancing-master. Mrs. Montagu here presents that curious mixture of good sense and narrow conventionality which proves the extreme difficulty of getting away from influences and forming an independent judgment.

In the "Essay on Shakespeare" (1769) Mrs. Montagu appears as a literary critic. She felt offended at Voltaire's disparagement of the great English author and also at the Frenchman's haughty arrogance. The Essay was favourably criticised in theCritical Review, and Cowper praised it in a letter to Lady Hesketh in the following words: "I no longer wonder that Mrs. Montagu stands at the head of all that is called learned, and that every critic veils his bonnet to her superior judgment.... The learning, the good sense, the sound judgment, and the wit displayed in it fully justify not only my compliment, but all compliments that either have been already paid to her talents or shall be paid hereafter." But Johnson spoke scornfully of it. Hesaid he had "taken up the end of the web, and finding it packthread, had thought it useless to go further in search of embroidery," but had to grant afterwards that it was conclusive against Voltaire. It procured Mrs. Montagu a great many friends in France, where such wit as hers was sure to find full appreciation. When, seven years later, she visited Paris, Voltaire wrote another furious article against Shakespeare, which was read at the Académie in her presence. "I think Madam," said one of the members when the reading was over, "you must be rather sorry at what you have just heard." Mrs. Montagu shrugged her shoulders. "I, Sir! Not at all! I am not one of M. Voltaire's friends!"

Of quite a different cast of character was Mrs. Chapone, whose "Letters on the Improvement of the Mind" were dedicated to Mrs. Montagu. She was plain and uninteresting, and when the romance of her life had taken an untimely ending, it is to be feared her conversation became too much like sermonizing to suit vivacious young ladies like Fanny Burney, who thought her assemblies "very dull". But whatever she wrote bears the stamp of sincerity. She was evidently deeply concerned about the moral welfare of the niece she addressed in her Letters—the example set by Mme de Sévigné and imitated by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had found followers—and she honestly tried to reconcile what was noble and proper in her eyes with the demands of convention. Above all she tried to inculcate that sense of responsibility for our actions which she held to be the basis of true Christianity. All our strivings should have the same purpose; that of bringing us nearer to God. Her niece is told to render herself more useful and pleasing to her fellow-creatures (a concession to prevailing opinions), "and consequently more acceptable to God". This last addition completely subverts the meaning of what precedes. Without it, the sense would be: "Please others and you will please your own vanity," which now becomes: "Please others and try to make them happy, and you will please God."

Mrs. Chapone thought pride and vanity the worst vices. Men were particularly addicted to the former, since to be proud is to admire oneself; and women to the latter, for vain is she who desires to be admired by others. It is the vice of little minds, chiefly conversant with trifling subjects, and brings affectation in its train.

The vain woman turns exaggerated weakness to account to ensure her empire over the stronger sex. Thus arises that false sensibility which will weep for a fly and leads to a thousand excesses. A well-directed reason will keep the feelings under control and spur usto actions of Christian charity. Those who relieve the sufferer are of more benefit to him than those who lament over his misfortunes.

Sensibility is, indeed, one of the catchwords of the century. Originally a laudable compassion and sympathy with the sufferings of others and a reaction against "the faithless coldness of the times", Richardson's novels show how soon it began to degenerate into sickly sentimentality which, when indulging in the luxury of woe, forgot to relieve the suffering which called forth the tears of sentiment. One of the most serious charges brought against J. J. Rousseau was that in his "Nouvelle Héloise" and in his "Confessions" he makes his lovers wallow to a sickening extent in the ecstasy of grief, inducing others by the magic of his personality to imitate him. This false sensibility was as much the abomination of the Bluestocking ladies as a well-regulated fellow-feeling was thought commendable, and here at least Mary Wollstonecraft heartily agreed with them. The usual reproach that the revolutionary leaders, those "friends of humanity", in fighting for the interest of the human race neglected the immediate wants of the individual—of which argument especially the Anti-Jacobin made ample use—was, therefore, in her case at least, utterly undeserved.

Hannah More made "Sensibility" the subject of a poem dedicated to Mrs. Boscawen, and in her "Strictures" devoted an entire chapter to it. In both the conclusion runs that sensibility has received its true direction when it is supremely turned to the love of God: "But if religious bias rule the soul, then sensibility exalts the whole."

There is, of course, in Mrs. Chapone's letters the usual warning against the danger of fiction, especially of the sentimental kind, the chief nurse of false sensibility, and also an element arising from the wish to reconcile Christian charity with the "necessary inequality" among individuals: the question of the treatment of inferiors. Since the chief duties of woman are of a domestic nature, it follows that the management of servants will be her task, and the Christian in Mrs. Chapone would see them treated with kind civility, while the lady of quality in her warns against the danger of too close intimacy with people of low birth and education. The idea of raising them by slow degrees to a higher social level probably never suggested itself to her.

Her ideal of female instruction must be likewise described as in the main conventional, with a few useful hints to mark a partial advance. Dancing and French are "so universal that they cannot bedispensed with", but music and drawing she wanted to be taught only to those who were qualified by possessing talent. The study of history is recommended as giving a liberal and comprehensive view of human nature, and supplying materials for conversation, and the reading of poetry will improve the female imagination, which only wants regulating to be superior to that of men. Shakespeare, Milton, and Mrs. Montagu'sEssayought to be the object of diligent study, and even heathen mythology and Greek philosophy may be recommended as containing a strong moral element. The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake clearly did not appeal to Mrs. Chapone at all.

The most pronounced character among the Bluestockings, as well as the most privileged among them in literary gifts was beyond any doubt Mrs. Hannah More.[32]It will be interesting, in continuation of the more general appreciation of respective tendencies in the introduction to this chapter, to contrast her with Mary Wollstonecraft with a view to establishing the chief causes from which the difference in their ideas arose, and arriving at a vindication of the laudable intentions of both.

If Mary Wollstonecraft was turned into a social reformer chiefly through the influence of the outward circumstances which dominated her youth, Hannah More's career was largely the consequence of certain innate qualities, which predestined her to become a moralist. She may have inherited her preaching propensities from her father, who had himself been designed for the church before circumstances interfered to turn him into a schoolmaster. Her mother, a farmer's daughter, devoted herself entirely to the children's education. In her earliest youth, little Hannah's favourite pastime—as her biographer and admirer Mr. W. Roberts tells us in his memoirs—was the writing of long exhortative letters "to depraved characters", and when in later years she lived at Mrs. Garrick's we find her referred to as the latter's "domestic chaplain". And yet she could be witty enough when she chose and was not without a sense of humour. At the time of the writing of her "Bas Bleu" she sent her friend Mrs. Pepys a pair of stockings for one of her children, accompanied by a letter, "The Bas Blanc", in which she treats the subject as if it were an epic, "so far of a moral cast that its chief end is utility,"—hoping the child will be able "to run through it with pleasure". She goes on to say that "the exordium is the natural introduction by which you are led intothe whole work. The middle, I trust, is free from any unnatural humour or inflation, and the end from any disproportionate littleness. I have avoided bringing about the catastrophe too suddenly, as I know that would hurt him at whose feet I lay it", and so on in the same strain. Mary Wollstonecraft would have been utterly incapable of such playfulness. A further determining factor in the difference in the lives of both was the treatment received at the hands of the influential. Mary was first treated with indifference and coldness, and afterwards reviled for her opinions, whereas Hannah More was courted and flattered in a way which might have turned the head of any more volatile girl. To the struggle for life of which Mary bore the marks till her dying-day, Hannah was a total stranger, having had a comfortable annuity settled on her by a Mr. Turner, who once made her an offer of marriage. Thus secured against penury, that constant dread of rising authors, Hannah could go to London and give herself up to social amusements and to literature. Her meeting with Garrick ensured her a hearty welcome in Bluestocking circles, and his support smoothed her brief dramatic career and contributed to the warm reception of her first poetic attempts. They represent her contribution to romanticism, and gained the approval of no less a critic than Dr. Johnson himself.

Hannah More thus became a universal favourite, and her "vers de société" became very popular. However, her career as a dramatist came to an end with Garrick's death, and after the success of "Bas Bleu" and "Sensibility" she more and more directed her energies towards social and moral reform. The Bluestocking assemblies, much as they appealed to her love of witty conversation, afforded no outlet for that pent-up energy which made her long for some worthy object on which to concentrate herself for the benefit of society. It may be said that from the decade which saw the outbreak of the French Revolution dates the participation of English women in the discussion of the great social problems by which the times were stirred. It was as natural that Hannah More should openly declare herself in favour of a strict maintenance of the existing social order as that Mary Wollstonecraft should become the champion of radical social and political reform. Thus, each of the contending parties numbered among the warmest advocates of their cause a member of the female sex. And yet, previous to the great social upheaval in France, Hannah More at one time seemed likely to range herself among the partisans of moderate social reform. Her first social objectwas found in the struggle for the abolition of the slave-trade which in 1787 held the attention of Parliament. Mr. Wilberforce became her "Red Cross Knight", and Hannah wrote a poem entitled "The Black Slave Trade", in which her attitude towards the Revolution is foreshadowed. The lines:

Shall Britain,where the soul of freedom reigns,Forge chains for others she herself disdains?Forbid it, Heaven! O let the nation know,The liberty she tastes she will bestow;

Shall Britain,where the soul of freedom reigns,

Forge chains for others she herself disdains?

Forbid it, Heaven! O let the nation know,

The liberty she tastes she will bestow;

are sufficient to show that she consented to be the champion of liberty in other countries only while they regarded England as the natural home of Freedom. Burke had no more faithful follower among his conservative friends than the reformer Hannah More.

After the outbreak of the Revolution she soon altered her opinion that, although the capture of the Bastille had been undertaken by "lawless rabble" yet "some good" might be expected from it. Price's sermon filled her with horror, and Burke'sReflectionshad her undivided sympathy. While engaged upon religious tracts and plans for instructing the children of the poor came the news of Dupont's speech in the National Assembly, attacking all religion and calling Nature and Reason the gods of men. Indignation made Hannah take up her pen in reply, and refute the atheistic arguments in a pamphlet. The success of this effort caused her to be solicited from all sides to undertake the refutation of Thomas Paine'sRights of Man. Her humorous treatment of the subject in this second tract, entitled "Village Politics, by Will Chip", appealed to the class for whom it was chiefly intended and was a distinct success, as were her doggerel ballads on the subject, some of which were to popular tunes, preaching submission to the existing social order, for, as "Will Chip" puts it in his "true Rights of Man":

That some must be poorer, this truth will I sing,Is the law of my Maker, and not of my king;And the true Rights of Man, and the life of his cause,Is not equal possessions; but equal, just laws.

That some must be poorer, this truth will I sing,

Is the law of my Maker, and not of my king;

And the true Rights of Man, and the life of his cause,

Is not equal possessions; but equal, just laws.

Hannah's sympathy went out to patient Joe, the Newcastle collier, who held that "all things which happened were best", and to the ploughman who felt safe in his cottage with the British laws for his guard: "If the Squire should oppress, I get instant redress"; aview which the author ofCaleb Williamsemphatically did not share, and which makes the modern reader feel as if Hannah More were "laying it on a little too thick."

Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecraft—who, as will be seen in the next chapter, ranged herself among the opponents of Burke—thus took opposite sides in the great struggle, defending diametrically opposed principles, yet collaborating in gradually weaning the reading public from the conventional notion that the domain of literature was taboo to women and in accustoming them to the unwonted spectacle of women participating in a social struggle.

Mary Wollstonecraft's claims for a complete emancipation impressed Hannah More as directed straight against the divine authority. The state of inequality, we have seen, was looked upon by her as God's will, and to rebel against it was to oppose the decrees of the Almighty. The right way to benefit her sex seemed to her to insist on a better moral education. On this subject at least the two political adversaries were agreed. "In those countries in which fondness for the mere persons of women is carried to the highest excess, they are slaves; their moral and intellectual degradation increases in direct proportion to the adoration which is paid to their charms" is one of the many statements in Hannah More's "Strictures on Female Education"[33]which Mary Wollstonecraft might have written, and both saw in a liberal moral education the only remedy. At this point, however, the two paths become separated. To Mary Wollstonecraft female education was merely one of the milestones in the march towards perfection; to Hannah More it seemed that women might be made instrumental "to raise the depressed tone of public morals and to awaken the drowsy spirit of religious principle", and also that they might be called upon "to come forward and contribute their full and fair proportion towards the saving of their country." With Hannah More, high morality and patriotism necessarily went hand in hand. Her ideal was to see all English women join in a thorough reform of manners and morals, that her country might become not only the bulwark of tradition against the mania for innovation, but also that of the religion she held sacred against the onslaughts of atheism coming from across the Channel.

If she had a less fervent temperament than Mary, she compensated for this lack through her practical insight, which told her that suddenradical changes are apt to destroy the edifice of ages, without offering anything solid as a substitute. She felt the guardian of her sex against the attacks of infidelity which in her eyes were principally directed against the female heart. "Conscious of the influence of women in civil society,conscious of the effect which female infidelity produced in France, they attribute the ill success of their attempts in this country to their having been hitherto chiefly addressed to the male sex. They are now sedulously labouring to destroy the religious principles of women, and in too many instances have fatally succeeded. For this purpose not only novels and romances have been made the vehicles of vice and infidelity, but the same allurement has been held out to the women of our country which was employed in the Garden of Eden by the first philosophist to the first sinner,—knowledge"[34].

The above lines determine Hannah More's attitude towards female learning, which she regarded as the devil's own bait. As an example of the corrupting tendencies of foreign literature she makes a few remarks on the much-admired German plays of "The Robbers" and "The Stranger", the second of which presents the character of an adulteress in the most pleasing and fascinating colours. "To make matters worse, the German example has found a follower in a woman, a professed admirer and imitator of the German suicide Werter. The female Werter, as she is styled by her biographer, asserts in a work entitled, "The Wrongs of Women" that adultery is justifiable, and that the restrictions placed on it by the laws of England, constitute one of the wrongs of women".[35]

To come to a correct understanding of this passage, it is necessary to remember that the "Strictures" were written in 1799, when the remembrance of Mary Wollstonecraft's attempt at suicide was still fresh, and when her unexpected death had drawn attention to Godwin's edition of her works, the only one containing "Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman".

In their ideas of marriage, as indeed in all their applications of religious precepts, the gulf between Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecraft becomes immeasurably wide. But wherever the sense of moral duty, unhampered by convention or by a rigid philosophical harness, was free to assert itself, it is curious to note the close affinity between the ideas of two women who occupied such widely differentpositions in the social life of their time, yet were both so extremely conscious of the moral responsibility of their sex. It remains for us to consider the interesting—if somewhat eccentric—personality of the woman who had brought down upon herself so many charges of gross immorality.

FOOTNOTES:[27]Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education, p. 10.[28]Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education, p. 245.[29]See W. Roberts,Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs. Hannah More, p. 62.[30]Walpole.[31]There seems to have been a good deal of uncertainty as to the authorship of the works of the famous brother and sister. Contemporary opinion unanimously assigns that of "Le Grand Cyrus" to Madeleine de Scudéry, and not to her brother George.[32]Like Mary Wollstonecraft, Hannah More took brevet-rank as a matron by virtue of her literary publications.[33]p. 2.[34]Strictures, p. 29.[35]Strictures, p. 32.

[27]Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education, p. 10.

[28]Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education, p. 245.

[29]See W. Roberts,Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs. Hannah More, p. 62.

[30]Walpole.

[31]There seems to have been a good deal of uncertainty as to the authorship of the works of the famous brother and sister. Contemporary opinion unanimously assigns that of "Le Grand Cyrus" to Madeleine de Scudéry, and not to her brother George.

[32]Like Mary Wollstonecraft, Hannah More took brevet-rank as a matron by virtue of her literary publications.

[33]p. 2.

[34]Strictures, p. 29.

[35]Strictures, p. 32.

Around the name of Mary Wollstonecraft a storm of adverse criticism raged for years after her death, prompting Godwin to the publication of his "Memoirs of the author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman", and calling forth the somewhat half-hearted defence of her actions and writings by an anonymous author in 1803. Both failed to attract any degree of notice. Shelley, whose meetings with young Mary Godwin over her mother's grave in St. Pancras cemetery are described in Mrs. Marshall's biography, offered her the sincere tribute of his verse in "The Revolt of Islam", where the heroine resembles her in her character.

The champion of the Cause of Woman was herself an essentially loveable, thoroughly feminine representative of her sex, whose many troubles arose from an extremely sensitive heart, a pure, refined sensibility, without any of the alloy which she was the first to regret in so many other women, and from the circumstance that, being born a century before her time, her striving was only moderately successful and brought her the ill-will of many who were unable to appreciate the sincerity of her motives. Nothing could be more undeserved, or bespeak a more glaring ignorance of the character it reviled than Horace Walpole's mention of Mary Wollstonecraft in his letter to Miss Hannah More—in her rigid respectability the direct opposite of the author of the "Vindication"—as "a hyena in petticoats, whose books were excommunicated from the pale of his library". Few books and their authors have been the object of such unsparing censure as theRights of Womenand Mary Wollstonecraft, and it may be added that seldom was the imputation of meddling spitefulness and even of gross immorality more utterly undeserved. There speaks from the entire work a spirit of absolute sincerity, of disinterestedeagerness for necessary reforms and of that fervent enthusiasm in the pursuit of aims which will not shrink at martyrdom, which endear the author to the unbiased reader, and which only the narrowest conservatism could overlook. Nor would it have met with the bitter antagonism it encountered had not the public mind, harassed by the constant menace of the French Revolution, been overmuch inclined to cry down all works of reform. As it was, Mary Wollstonecraft's reputation passed through three distinctly marked phases; in the first, the work and its author were violently attacked by the many, and enthusiastically defended by the few; in the second, they were consigned to temporary oblivion; in the third, Mr. Kegan Paul in 1876, and after him Miss Mathilde Blind in "The New Quarterly Review", Miss H. Zimmern in the "Deutsche Rundschau", and E. R. Pennell in the "Eminent Women Series" tried with a fair amount of success to awaken a new interest in both and to vindicate the author's memory by clearing her personal character from the monstrous imputations of immorality. The fact has now been definitely established that she was prompted by the noblest love of humanity, and is entitled to rank among those champions of the new faith who suffered martyrdom for the cause. She was one of those predestined by that innate character she was so fain to deny to a life of the bitterest anguish, brightened by spells of almost perfect happiness. Both the joys and the sorrows of humanity were abundantly hers. With her, character was indeed fate, and the outward circumstances of her life only emphasized the convictions to which a woman of her stamp was bound to come in the world of inequality and cruel injustice in which she moved. She combined in her person the rarest gifts of both head and heart; as a quick perception, enabling her to grasp a situation very rapidly; a never-flinching determination to use the divine gift of Reason in the pursuit of useful knowledge, and a boundless devotion to what she considered the obvious task of her life. Once she had discovered her vocation she flung herself into her work with indomitable zeal, trying to do herself violence in asserting the superiority of reason over sentiment, and to put a restraint on the passions that threatened to overpower her. In this attempt she did not always succeed, and while it makes her appear to us thoroughly human, yet her imperfect self-control was not without influence on her works of reform, leading her to exaggeration and wearisome reiterations. In the chapter of theVindicationwhich deals with national education she insists that only that man makes a good citizen, who has in hisyouth "exercised the affections of a son and a brother," for public affections grow out of private, and it is in youth that the fondest friendships are formed. This sounds like a confession, for if Mary Wollstonecraft had not been in earlier years such a devoted friend to her dear ones as to utterly disregard her own comfort in her desire to befriend them, she could never have loved humanity with such intensity. It is difficult to say what would have become of the Wollstonecraft household if Mary had not strained every faculty to assist them. When her drunken father beat his wife, the latter used to appeal to Mary for protection. When at last the poor soul felt death approach, it was again Mary who without a second's hesitation flung up her situation as a lady's companion at Bath to return to her mother's sickbed and to ease her last moments. Not only her sisters Everina and Eliza, but also her younger brothers Charles and James received from her both moral and financial support, to be able to give which she cramped herself to such an extent that the room in George Street in which she wrote was furnished only with the barest necessaries, and her gowns were so extremely shabby that Knowles in his "Life of Fuseli" describes her as "a philosophical sloven". In thus reducing her wants, however, she was merely acting in accordance with the view—held by all the friends of reform and derived from Rousseau—that only he can be happy whose desires are so few that he can afford to gratify them, an offshoot of the famous Nature-theory. Nevertheless, the description of Mary as a "sloven" seems exaggerated, judging from the two portraits by Opie which have been preserved, of which the one may be spurious, but the other, now in the National Portrait Gallery, is beyond any doubt genuine. It shows the face ("physiognomy" Mary Wollstonecraft herself would have preferred to call it) of a strikingly pretty, refined-looking woman, with a profusion of auburn hair, a clear complexion and a pleading look in her brown eyes which reminded Mr. Kegan Paul of Beatrice Cenci.

The grim realities of Mary's youth left little space for the development of any sense of humour, but they bred in her a fighting spirit which afterwards stood her in good stead. Her next championship was that of Fanny Blood, whom she shielded from domestic misery very much like that she had herself experienced, and whose brother George, who became involved in a nasty scandal[36], also experiencedMary's all-embracing kindness of heart. From her correspondence with him in the years of his forced absence from England it indeed appears that she was not by any means a "fair-weather friend".

The extremely serious cast of her character—which circumstances afterwards developed into melancholy—also found expression in a strong sense of duty. Unlike those champions of humanity who clamour for the rights of Man without reference to the corresponding obligations, Mary Wollstonecraft in later years always insisted not only that every right of necessity involves a duty, but also that we should insist upon those rights chiefly to be enabled to perform the moral duties which life imposes. Add to this an absolute "incapability of disguise", as her friend and publisher Johnson expressed it, and a frankness which made her "fling whate'er she felt, not fearing, into words"—often uncovering the worst sores of society in all their hideousness with a determination bordering upon indelicacy—and the portrait of Mary's character, as far as elementary traits go, is complete.

The strong natural bent of her character was further emphasized by incidents which presented to her mind the problem of the subjugation of women urgently demanding a champion. On three different occasions did she see the lives of women ruined by cruel, dissipated husbands. The third of these was by far the worst. It concerned the marriage of her sister Eliza ("Poor Bess", as Mary calls her in her correspondence with Everina and Fanny), to a Mr. Bishop, who, although he was probably a clergyman, appears to have been a most hypocritically sensual brute. No doubt the wife also was to blame; indeed, all the Wollstonecraft girls were inclined to be suspicious, irritable, and over-ready to take offence. Shortly after the birth of a child matters came to a crisis, and Mary, having come over to nurse her sister, who after her confinement had had an attack of insanity, proposed that they should leave Mr. Bishop's house together, a plan actually carried into execution, after which Mary, Eliza and Fanny Blood started teaching as a profession. The daily bickerings of the Bishop household impressed upon Mary's mind the state of utter defencelessness and abject slavery in which many women were kept. It afterwards made her decide to supplement her "Rights of Women" with a novel, dealing with the Wrongs of Women, in which some of the incidents she had witnessed found a place. The work was unfortunately interrupted by her unexpected death, and in its unfinished state was included by Godwin in the posthumous editionof some of Mary Wollstonecraft's works in 1798. Thus death claimed her while making a last effort to succour the oppressed.

With the sisters' flight from Mr. Bishop's house began the long struggle against adverse circumstances in which Mary did most of the fighting. One wonders what would have become of Eliza and the boys—who had soon left their father's home—but for Mary's resourcefulness. Everina found a home with Edward, the eldest brother, who obviously thought that in sheltering her he had done all that could be expected of him. The girls met with little or no sympathy from friends, the general opinion finding fault with Eliza's conduct and judging that "women should accept without a murmur whatever it suits their husbands to give them, whether it be kindness or blows". This represents the general belief of those days with regard to the position of married women. The possibility of girls of the better middle class having at any time of their lives to earn their own living had never been seriously considered, and the sisters were indeed in great distress. Again Mary had the utter incapacity of even the bravest of her sex to support themselves brought home to her in a way that left no doubt. And yet the two or three years of the little boarding-school at Newington Green were not wholly devoid of enjoyment. Mary made the acquaintance of the famous Dr. Price, the dissenting preacher who was soon to rouse the fire of Burke's indignation, and who strongly influenced her religious views.

It seems the right place here to say something of Mary's attitude towards religion. In a life like hers, bringing her face to face with the evils of existing society, and with her degree of sensitiveness it is but natural that religious feelings should have played a prominent part. Her mother had bred her in the principles of the Church of England, but Mary was far too independent to allow her mother any real influence. But at least the circumstances of her youth saved her from sophistic teachings, which may form hypocrites or awaken an altogether disproportionate hatred of whatever smacks of Christianity, under the impression that Christianity and the dogmatism of narrow-minded orthodoxy are at bottom one and the same thing. Such was Godwin's case, and it proved a deathblow to his faith. Mary, however, was a great deal left to herself and, as Godwin informs us in theMemoirs, her religion was mostly of her own creation, and little allied to any system of forms. The many Biblical quotations in her works suggest diligent reading of the Bible and point to a state of mind very far removed from indifference or antipathy. She rather felt anatural leaning towards religion, a craving for mental peace to be satisfied only by firm religious convictions. As Godwin puts it, the tenets of her system were the growth of her own moral taste, and her religion therefore was always a gratification, never a terror to her. The same almost feminine yearning for the moral support of a religion that warms the heart, distinguished Rousseau from the robust and self-reliant philosophers of the rational school, and possibly caused Mary Wollstonecraft to feel attracted towards him and at the same time to pity him, when first reading his "Emile"[37]. Up to the time of her first meeting with Dr. Price her attitude had been that of simple faith, with constant appeals to the Divine interference. She had been a regular church-goer, and it is quite possible that the public and regular routine of sermons and prayers and the implicit subjection it demands, had already begun to pall upon her, and predisposed her for the adoption of the less dogmatic views of Deism. It may also be safely assumed that her experiences in Ireland as a governess and the subsequent period of close intimacy with some of the leading revolutionists lessened her interest in religion, which points to the future, and proportionately increased that in Man, who is the present. As the years advanced, the rapid growth of her considerable intellectual powers, the tendencies of the times in which she lived, and the society which she frequented made her drift unconsciously towards rationalism. Then it was that a conflict arose between Sentiment and Intellect. She set about "repressing her natural ardour and granting a more considerable influence to the dictates of Reason", or, as Professor Dowden puts it, "she set her brain as a sentinel over her heart, trying to put a curb on her natural impulsiveness"[38].

This change in her views of life, dating from her intimacy with Price, was hastened by circumstances. The death of her friend Fanny—who died in her arms at Lisbon,—and the want of success of her first educational efforts—due chiefly to Mrs. Bishop's mismanagement of the school in Mary's absence—had made her feel low-spirited and ill. It was only the sale of the manuscript of the "Thoughts onthe Education of Daughters" to Mr. Johnson, the publisher of Fleet Street, for ten guineas—part of which sum she sent to the Bloods whose straits were worse than her own—that staved off utter ruin. She relinquished her work as a schoolmistress, and through her friend Mr. Prior, assistant master at Eton, obtained the situation of governess to the children of Lord Kingsborough at a salary of forty pounds a year. Before leaving for Mitchelstown in Ireland, she spent some time with the Priors at Eton, where she had an opportunity to study the life in an English public-school. It did not impress her favourably and gave rise to some severe criticism in theRights of Womenon the subject of false religion and undue attachment to outward things. "I could not live the life they lead at Eton", she says in a letter to her sister Everina, "nothing but dress and ridicule going forward, and I really believe their fondness for ridicule tends to make them affected, the women in their manners, and the men in their conversation, for witlings abound and puns fly about like crackers, though you would scarcely guess they had any meaning in them, if you did not hear the noise they create". This was her first glimpse of society. In the same letter she finds comfort in the reflection that the time will come when "the God of love will wipe away all tears from our eyes, and neither death nor accidents of any kind will interpose to separate us from those we love". No wonder she was horrified at the boy who only consented to receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper to avoid forfeiting half a guinea!

She was now, indeed, entering upon a new phase of her life. She had witnessed the horrors of a domestic life in which drunkenness and other moral vices reigned supreme; she was now to behold the utter worthlessness of the pleasure-seeking, irresponsible upper classes, whose religion was all sham, and who tried to make up in dogmatic narrowness what they lacked in true piety. It was the conduct of her own sex that most of all disgusted her. It taught her that the absurd distinctions of rank corrupted not merely the oppressed dependents, but also their tyrants, whose only claim to respectability was in the titles they held. In short, it turned her from a mere educator into a social reformer, and from a devout Christian into a Deist.

What struck her most forcibly about the women of the Kingsborough household was their unfitness for their chief task in life: that of educating their own children. They represented a varied catalogue of female errors. Lady Kingsborough was too much occupied with her dogs to care for her children, whom she left to the care oftheir governess. When afterwards that governess came to stand first in the children's affections, she promptly dismissed her. Mary Wollstonecraft's revilers have tried to substantiate the charge of irreligiousness against her by pointing out that her favourite pupil Margaret—afterwards Lady Mount Cashel—was not wholly without blame in her later life; thus ignoring the degrading influence of a mother like Lady Kingsborough, and overlooking the fact that Mary's stay in Ireland lasted only one year. In her correspondence with Mrs. Bishop there is a description of Lady Kingsborough's stepmother and her three daughters, "fine girls, just going to market, as their brother says". This short sentence shows the state of revolt she was in against the frivolity of women in making a wealthy marriage the sole aim of life. If, therefore, her religious principles were of a sternness hardly suited to the practice of those days, it need not necessarily be the former that were at fault. The imputation of insincerity, however, merits absolute contempt. Here, indeed, "to doubt her goodness were to want a heart". It is impossible to read any portion of her works without being struck by the earnest tone of sincere piety which pervades them all. It was a great pity that what she saw of Christianity prevented her from going to the source of that religion, which might have given her that peace "which passeth understanding" for which her heart yearned and which the vagueness of her deistic views, although better suited to satisfy her Reason, could not supply.

While at Bristol Hot Wells in the summer of 1788 she wrote a little book entitled "Mary, A Fiction", relating the incidents of her friendship with Fanny Blood. But it is not the incidents that make the charm of this composition. Godwin, who could admire in another those qualities which he knew he himself lacked, says that in it "the feelings are of the truest and most exquisite class; every circumstance is adorned with that species of imagination which enlists itself under the banners of delicacy and sentiment"[39].

Mary's dismissal as a governess fortunately did not leave her unprovided for. The generous Mr. Johnson found her lodgings in George Street, near Blackfriar's Bridge, and made her his reader. She criticised the manuscripts sent to him, and the kindness and sincerity of her criticisms brought her a few real friends, among whom was Miss Hayes, who afterwards became the means of bringing her and Godwin together. Mr. Johnson had just started theAnalytical Review, inwhich Mary took a considerable share. The many translations she did at this period were suggested by Johnson, and as such throw no light on her personal taste, but in the case of Salzmann's "Moralisches Elementarbuch" he certainly gave her a congenial subject. She had by this time read Rousseau'sEmile, with the main tendencies of which she agreed as far as the boy Emile was concerned, but whose ideal of womanhood, embodied in Sophie, was very far removed from her own, and also Thomas Day's "Sandford and Merton," in which the influence of Rousseau is very marked. The ideas expressed by Day, corroborated and added to by her own experience and by Salzmann's theories, form the basis of her "Original Stories from Real Life, with Conversations calculated to regulate the Affections and form the Mind to Truth and Goodness". (1788). The idea of a private tutor (or preceptor) had been Rousseau's, and Day makes a kind-hearted clergyman, Mr. Barlow, who had attained excellent results in the training of young Harry Sandford, a farmer's son, undertake the instruction of Tommy Merton, the son of a rich planter of Jamaica. Day obviously cannot refrain from introducing the theme of class-distinctions, making the farmer's child appear to great advantage by the side of the gentleman's son, who has been utterly spoiled by an over-indulgent mother and has had the whole catalogue of prejudices of birth and station inculcated into him. The story consists of a string of incidents, partly arising from natural causes and partly due to Mr. Barlow's "coups de théâtre pédagogiques", in which Rousseau also was fond of indulging. They all contribute towards the formation of Tommy's mind and heart, in conjunction with a number of stories, told at the psychological moment by their preceptor, which it appears do not fail to produce their effect, for Tommy is promptly changed from an insufferable little despot into a paragon of virtue. Nor is he slow himself to adopt the oracular tone of self-sufficiency which Harry exhibits from the first. Where Day's book differs from Rousseau,—which is only in two respects,—the deviation is due to the fact that Rousseau was essentially a theorist, whose aim was to provide an educational scheme, whilst Day in combination with Mr. Edgeworth meant to, and did carry his theories into practice, in doing which he had to make a good many concessions to outward circumstances. Rousseau seldom indulges in story-telling, in his scheme the work of instructing the child under twelve (Tommy and Harry are only six) is left to Nature, and the preceptor keeps his precepts to himself and merely mounts the most jealous guard over his pupil to ward off undesirableinfluences and to leave Nature undisturbed in accomplishing her task. Thus Rousseau advises the negative education for young children. In Day, however, the preceptor takes a decidedly active part, and both by precept and example directs his pupils' thoughts towards certain conclusions they are meant to draw. A natural consequence of Rousseau's radical Nature-scheme is that the pleasure of reading books—beyond a few of great practical value to the Man of Nature, such as Defoe's Robinson Crusoe—is withheld from the young pupil, who is only taught to read at his own request, and at a much later age. Instead, he should be content to read the book of Nature, which is in a language every human creature can understand. Here again the more practical Day disagrees, and inSandford and Mertonbooks play a prominent part. Again, Rousseau wants to separate his pupil not only from the family to which he belongs, but from all other children, thus overlooking the important factor of inter-education. Day educates the two boys together and occasionally brings them in contact with other children also, mostly of the peasant-class.

For the rest, however, there is a close parallelism between the two systems. Stress is laid on simplicity being the mother of all virtues, the boys are taught to regard manual labour as an honest occupation of which no so-called "gentleman" need be ashamed, and which may stand him in good stead should circumstances make it necessary for him to earn his own living. They have their physical strength developed by manly exercise, and the advantages accruing from a life in accordance with the dictates of Nature are pointed out to them in a most suggestive way. They learn to regard class-privileges with scorn; to them a "man" is a being superior to a "gentleman"; are taught that the only property a man is entitled to is the result of his own labour; and acquire some knowledge of botany, zoology, cosmography, geography and in general of such subjects as may render the child more fit for a life in accordance with Nature such as Day himself practised.

It need hardly be said that Mary Wollstonecraft's educational ideas did not go the entire length of Day's somewhat eccentric radicalism. She sympathised with Rousseau's Nature-scheme only inasmuch as it asserted the advantages of country-life and did away with conventionality. Although accustomed to the most rigid simplicity, she never approached the utter disregard of appearances which Day professed to feel. She utterly disagreed with Rousseau where he asserted the necessity of giving girls an education "relative to men", itbeing one of the chief aims of her later works to show that there should be no difference of principles in the education of the two sexes; but she applied a great many of Rousseau's suggestions, which he intended for boys, to her own sex. Far from wishing to furnish a complete scheme for the education of young girls upon a basis of abstract reasoning, she follows Day in attacking the defects most common to childhood and in trying to establish a standard of virtue which may be attained by following Reason. She entirely relies upon the force of a moral lesson contained in a well-told story, or, better still, illustrated by personal example. In one point of difference the contrast in character between her and Rousseau becomes most obvious. The latter's lack of moral firmness makes him, while shielding his pupil from the evil influence of his surroundings, rather unaccountably overlook the necessity of inculcating a sense of duty. His scheme has no ethical background. In Mary Wollstonecraft, however, this ethical background is the essential thing. Her parting advice to her pupils (voiced by Mrs. Mason) is: "Recollect, that from religion your chief comfort must spring, and never neglect the duty of prayer. Learn from experience the comfort that arises from making known your wants and sorrows to the wisest and best of Beings not only of this life, but of that which is to come." Rousseau's pupil was not likely to become a "striver", Mary Wollstonecraft's had had high ethical principles instilled into her.

The lack of incentives to virtue which characterises Rousseau's scheme may be the consequence of his theory of original innocence. He does not believe in the existence of evil in connection with the Divine Will, but holds that evil is merely the consequence of wrong opinions. Here he was Godwin's teacher. A radical change in individual opinion will cause evil to disappear. How original sin and evil could find their way into the world, mankind being in a state of perfect innocence, he does not explain. Godwin, and with him Mary Wollstonecraft, were of opinion that there is in mankind no natural bias towards either good or evil, and that everything depends on the forming of the mind, hence the all-importance of education.

Religion, therefore, is an essential part of Mary Wollstonecraft's educational plan. It is true that the child cannot grasp the fundamental truths, its power of reasoning being as yet limited, and should not for this reason be permitted to read the Bible. But her girls are taught from the first that "religion ought to be the active director of our affections" and that "happiness can only arise from imitating God in alife guided by considerations of virtue. Virtue, according to her mouth-piece Mrs. Mason, is "the exercise of benevolent affections to please God and bring comfort and happiness here, and become angels hereafter."

In the "Original Stories" we have some of the theories of theRights of Womenpresented to us in a nutshell. They claim for girls equality of education with boys, and indirectly deny the sexual character theory, based on that of innate principles, which Mary Wollstonecraft agreed with Godwin did not exist. Rousseau held that Reason was the prerogative of Man, and that Woman's substitute for it was Sensibility. Man was made to think, and Woman to feel. "Whatever is in Nature is right", was the axiom he applied to the case of Woman. Nature meant her to be kept in a state of subjection to Man, and to give her an education without regarding the limitations of her sex would have seemed to him flying in the face of providence.

Mary Wollstonecraft's views of society were sufficiently pessimistic to consider the average parent utterly unfit to educate a child. She therefore adhered to Rousseau's idea of a preceptor. Her two girls, Mary and Caroline, aged 14 and 12, far from having been kept in ignorance, and further handicapped by the death of their mother, had already imbibed some false notions and prejudices. Mary's judgment was not sufficiently cool to make her realise that appearances are often deceptive, and that bodily defects may be found together with excellent moral qualities. She had an unfortunate turn for ridicule. Her sister Caroline, by being vain of her person, proved that she did not understand the source of true merit. It was, therefore, the task of their monitress to carefully eradicate these prejudices and to substitute for them correct notions of true virtue. In Mrs. Mason, Mary Wollstonecraft enriched English literature with the portrait of the typical British matron with "no nonsense about her", but in making this woman her mouth-piece she scarcely did justice to the qualities of her own heart. It was the struggle of her life to make her heart yield to the dictates of Reason, and Mrs. Mason certainly does not impress the reader as struggling very hard. She is the embodiment of pure, undiluted Reason in all its unyielding sternness. Any show of tenderness towards her charges would have seemed to her a confession of weakness. When after a long spell of life together she returns them to their father, they have advanced just far enough in her affection to be termed "candidates for her friendship"; which, bythe way, is meant to imply that they have made satisfactory progress in the faculty of Reason.

Mary Wollstonecraft for the moment does not seem to realise that the essential quality in an educator should be to make her pupils not only respect, but also love her, and Mrs. Mason is a most unloveable person. Her haughty arrogance and insufferable self-sufficiency were not likely to escape her eldest pupil's sense of humour and could not but seriously affect her influence over the girls. Thus the children of Mary Wollstonecraft's fancy are brought up in the midst of reasoning logic, unwarmed by the sunshine of parental love.

To make matters worse, this champion of liberty, who found fault with Rousseau for failing to see that his schemes of freedom applied with equal justice to women; who was soon herself to protest against the abuse of parental authority, who held with Locke that "if the mind be curbed and humbled too much in children, if the spirit be abased and broken much by too strict a hand over them, they lose all their vigour and industry",[40]herself made the fatal mistake of aiding and abetting the thraldom of the young girl. The education which Mary and Caroline receive is nothing but a dreary course of constant admonition, in which the word liberty would be utterly misplaced. She has entirely failed to catch the spirit of Rousseau'sEmile, in which the instructor only prevents the pupil from hurting himself overmuch through his ignorance, leaving him otherwise free to draw the conclusions of awakening Reason, and above all allowing him to live out his life. Harry Sandford and Tommy Merton go together for long walks in the woods, get lost and owe their rescue to the lucky accident of meeting a boy who takes them to his home. When Mr. Barlow is informed that the boys have turned up, he goes to meet them on their way home and merely tells them to be more careful in future, availing himself of the incident to instil certain lessons in geography which smack of Rousseau. But their liberty is in no way cramped. With Mary Wollstonecraft, however, the case is entirely different. One wonders what sort of paragons Mrs. Mason was going to turn out. The chances would seem pretty even between prim old maids and confirmed young hypocrites, depending on those very innate tendencies she was fain to deny! She held that children should not be left too much freedom, because, the faculty of Reason being as yet insufficiently developed in them, they might make the wrong use ofit. But the restrictions on their liberty should be such as to remain almost unnoticed by them. They should not have a variety of prohibitions imposed upon them, as was the case with Lady Kingsborough's children, whom she immediately restored to some degree of liberty. One cannot help thinking that theory and practice often clash, owing to the perpetual conflict between reason and the feelings. Granting, however, that Mrs. Mason had the best and most disinterested intentions, what, we may ask, can be left of liberty to children whom their monitress "never suffers out of her sight?"

In her catalogue of living creatures Mary puts animals at the bottom on account of their being incapable of Reason. They are guided exclusively by instinct, which is a faculty of a coarser growth than Reason. The love of their young, for instance, though sweet to behold, and worthy of imitation, is not in their case dictated by Reason. Next upon the list come children; in them the latent faculty ought to be developed by older and wiser people bringing what Godwin would call "the artillery of Reason" to bear upon the infant mind. Mary Wollstonecraft protests against the arrogance of those philosophers who, while granting their own sex the privilege of an education, wilfully exclude the other half of humanity from the blessings of Reason, which is the only guide to virtue and moral perfection.

When Mary wrote the "Original Stories" she was not more than twenty-nine herself, and had known neither the passion of love nor motherhood. Her all-embracing love of humanity made the subject of interest to her, but there is upon the whole too much of Reason and too little of the heart in the little volume. Circumstances over which she had no control were soon to teach her for good and all that the affections will not be suppressed and peremptorily demand their share. When next she touched upon the subject she was a mother and confronted with the task of educating her own child in the long and frequent absences of a faithless and undeserving father. The "First Lessons for an Infant" in Volume II of the posthumous edition of her works are the result of the joint teachings of maternal love and bitter experience. Here she is herself, an essentially human, loving woman, overflowing with tenderness and bound up closely with her child not merely by the ties of duty, but by those of an all-absorbing affection. Having thus tried to do justice to the author by accounting for what seems contradictory, we may frankly say that Mrs. Mason is an insufferable pedant. The Mr. Barlow ofSandford and Merton, while constantly moralising,—in doing which he drawsfar more sweeping conclusions than even Mrs. Mason—and arranging incidents to illustrate and anticipate his moral lessons like the best of stage-managers[41], at least does not obtrude her own personality. But the impeccable Mrs. Mason in her boundless self-confidence never loses an opportunity to introduce her own personality. Her benevolence is unlimited, and she is utterly incapable of doing wrong. If she inflicts bodily pain, it is that Reason has whispered to her that in doing so she avoids a greater evil. She puts her foot deliberately on a wounded bird's head, "turning her own the other way". She teaches by example rather than precept, and the example somehow seems to be always herself. Never for a moment are the girls allowed a rest from the moral deluge. The first eight chapters of the little book contain the moral food for one single day, carefully divided into a morning, an afternoon and an evening of incessant moralising. Yet she is "naive" enough to imagine that she teaches imperceptibly, by rendering the subject amusing! If Mary Wollstonecraft had possessed the slightest indication of a possible sense of humour, the absurdity of the Mrs. Mason portrait would have struck her. But she had not, and while relating the most ludicrous incidents, she always remains terribly in earnest!

There is something distinctly oppressive, too, about Mrs. Mason's benevolence. She relieves the distress of the poor, but while doing so her coldly critical eye wanders about the humble cottage and makes the poor wretch feel uncomfortably conscious of its generally unfinished appearance. With her, Reason is always enthroned. The passions are not to be mentioned in her presence. And yet, her cupboard, too, has its skeleton. Early attachments, we are informed, have been broken, her own husband has died, followed by her only child, "in whom her husband died again". Her afflictions have taught her to pin her faith on the hope of eternity, in doing which she has unfortunately forgotten to learn the lesson of earthly suffering and to realise her own imperfections. The virtue of modesty, which she recommends to the girls in contrasting the sweet and graceful rose to the bold and flaunting tulip (!) was not among her many accomplishments.

The little book prepares the reader's mind for the "Vindication of the Rights of Women," which was soon to follow, in that it contains along plea for the glorious faculty of Reason, leading to virtue. The heart should be carefully regulated by the understanding to prevent its running amuck. All errors are due to a relegation of Reason to an inferior position; a systematical application, however, cannot fail to conduct towards perfection.

One seems too be listening to the sweeping assertions ofPolitical Justice, which was to appear a few years later and in which the general philosophical tendencies of the revolutionary movement were gathered up and stated with bold radicalism. The main line of thought which Godwin followed, and the tendency to resort to "first principles" is everywhere manifest. To call girls "rational creatures" for doing what their monitress expects of them is to give them the most unstinted praise. The absolute subjection of the poor children to their governess is the necessary outcome of the infallibility of the latter's superior Reason, which renders implicit obedience the interest of the former. In her discussion of the filial duties in connection with the parental affections in theVindication, Mary Wollstonecraft insists on just such a degree of obedience as is compatible with the child's obvious interest. Nor is the respect due to superior Reason lost sight of when she opines with respect to marriage that, although after one and twenty a parent has no right to withhold his consent on any account, yet the son ought to promise not to marry for two or three years, should the object of his choice not meet with the approbation of his "first friend". Thus the principles of liberty and obedience are made to fit each other.

The infallibility of Reason is enforced by some "glaring" examples, which bring fresh proof of the author's fatal insensibility to the ludicrous and absurd. The story of the girl who, like Caroline, was vain of her good looks, until she had smallpox, when, having to pass many days in a darkened room, she learned to reflect and afterwards took to reading as a means of enlarging the mind, may pass; but the history of Charles Townley is utterly absurd and distinctly inferior to Day's stories, some of which afford pleasant reading and must have amused the boys. Its hero is the "man of feeling" so prominent in the sentimental school, who allows his conduct to be governed solely by sentiment. Having chosen the wrong guide, he is made miserable for life, and his sorrows culminate when he beholds the daughter of his benefactor, a maniac, "the wreck of a human understanding", merely because he has too long put off assisting her and relieving her distress, as he intended to do.

The principal vices against which the book inveighs and which are for the most part illustrated by means of fitting stories, or warned against by means of toward incidents, are: anger and peevishness, by which Reason is temporarily dethroned (story of Jane Fretful), lying, immoderate indulgence of the appetite, procrastination, pride, arrogance to servants[42], sensitiveness to pain and an excessive regard for the vanities of dress and for the opinions of the world (story of the schoolmistress). Thus the ideas which found an outlet in theVindicationwere anticipated, and the little book marks the first step in the transition from pedagogical to social and political authorship.

Next to the careful eradication of vices, the cultivation of virtues is attended to. The children are taught to love all living creatures, the love of animals being characteristic of the new movement as a natural offshoot of the greater but more difficult love of mankind. They are instructed in the practice of charity, economy, self-denial, modesty and simplicity. The last-named virtue constitutes the link between the educational and the social instruction. The stories of "the Welsh Harper" and of "Lady Sly and Mrs. Trueman" are intended to convey the great truth that class-distinctions are not by any means dependent on moral character and that often "the lower is the higher." Nor can Mary Wollstonecraft refrain from making herself the advocate of the greater love towards mankind. The sad fate of Crazy Robin, who languishes in a debtor's prison, after losing his wife and children through death, is described in a little story which has true touches of pathos, and the horrors of the Bastille are incidentally thrown in to heighten the impression produced. In the naval story told by "Honest Jack"—in which, by the way, absurdity reaches its climax when the hero, losing an eye in a storm, thanks God for leaving him the other—we hear that even the French are not so bad as they are often painted, and are capable of mercy, for while Jack was pining away in a French prison, some women brought him broth and wine, and one gave him rags to wrap round his wounded leg. The whole story is rather a poor attempt at a sailor's yarn, in which the author visibly though vainly exerts herself to catch the right tone, with a rather too obtrusive moral background. We feel that Jack is Mrs. Mason's ideal of manhood and the excellent ladyforgets herself and her constant companion Reason to such an extent that tears of benevolence are seen "stealing down her cheeks"!

The girls' trials come to an end when at last their father writes for them to return to London. They are described as visibly improved, "an air of intelligence" beginning to animate Caroline's fine features. Mrs. Mason accompanies them to London, and there takes her leave of the two girls, probably to inflict her personality on a pair of fresh victims.

In the next few years the problem of the education of children, although remaining a subject of constant speculation, receded before that of the Cause of Woman. But when Mary was herself a happy mother, the old problems presented themselves in a more tangible form. Godwin informs us in the "Memoirs" that shortly before her death she projected a work upon the management of the infant years, "which she had carefully considered, and well understood".

It was about the time of the publication of the "Original Stories" that Mary made up her mind to definitely adopt writing as a profession. She realised that in doing so she was flying in the face of prejudice. But she had seen enough of the world, and the result of her long and bitter wrestlings with adversity had been a sufficient increase of moral strength to render her independent of the opinion of others. Henceforth it was to be her task to form the opinions of her sex, and in doing so she totally disregarded the opinion of others concerning herself. Her voluntary martyrdom had begun.

At the same time her scope of observation became considerably widened. Mr. Johnson's house was the resort of a great many of the leading philosophical minds of the day, all of whom had strong revolutionary tendencies, and whose works he brought out with an utter contempt of consequences very much to his credit. Nothing could be more natural than that the constant intercourse with people like Thomas Paine, Fuseli the Swiss painter, Mr. Bonnycastle the pedagogue, Dr. Priestley, Dr. Geddes, Dr. George Fordyce, Lavater and Talleyrand (who in those days paid a visit to England)—to whom was added afterwards the enigmatical personality of William Godwin—should tend to inspire her with strong revolutionary ideas. It had the effect of widening her horizon and of causing her to transfer her energies from the work of education to that of social reform. Mr. Johnson's circle consisted almost entirely of men, the only women, besides Mary, being the more easy-going, and less energetic Mrs. Inchbald and the far less gifted Miss Hayes and Mrs. Trimmer. Wherethe men had the Rights of Men for their watchword, Mary Wollstonecraft as a natural consequence found her attention directed towards the position of her own sex, a subject which these hot-headed champions were too apt to overlook.

It was in those days (Nov. 1, 1790) that Burke made his violent onslaught upon what he termed the "seditious" theories concerning the rights of man voiced by her dear friend Dr. Price in his epoch-making sermon at the Old Jewry to his congregation of sympathisers with the Revolution. This direct attack had the effect of making Mary Wollstonecraft seize her pen in defence of her old friend and in support of those principles which had slowly and gradually come to mean a great deal to her. Already the correspondence of the Kingsborough period is distinctly suggestive of awakening social interests, stress being laid on the prejudices connected with rank and station. (Letters to Everina, 1787 and 1788, and to Mrs. Bishop, 1787). In Ireland her eyes had been opened to the moral inferiority of men and women of quality and to the distress of those who, like herself, were dependent on them. The picture of eternity receded before that of earthly injustice to be repaired.

At Mr. Johnson's she frequently took part in the discussion of the possibility of reestablishing the governments of Europe on primary principles, and the new ideas sounded in her ears like a new Gospel of Man. The reflections of Jean-Jacques—she must have read and discussed theContrat Socialin those days, although there is no correspondence to prove the assumption—couched in prose "made lyrical by faith" could not fail to impress a mind like that of Mary, than whom they never made an easier proselyte. Add to this the direct stimulus of the revolution, and the prospect of immediate application of the new theories which electrified all revolutionary minds, and it will not be difficult to account for her enthusiasm, which placed her among the first to use her pen in defence of the new creed. When she had almost finished her pamphlet and was about to have it printed, she felt less sanguine about her powers of persuasion, but the work as she wrote it bears the unmistakable evidence of having been struck at a heat, which, together with its obvious sincerity, may account for some of its success.

Dr. Price, in his sermon of 1789, "in commemoration of the Revolution of 1688", had given vent to the feelings of approbation with which he had greeted the outbreak of the French Revolution, and among others expressed the view that the king owes his crown to thechoice of his people and "may be cashiered for misconduct", thus openly declaring himself a follower of the theories of the Social Contract, which are based upon the sovereignty of the people.

Burke in his "Reflections on the Revolution in France", takes his stand upon the British constitution—once the object of the admiration of a Montesquieu—to oppose what he regards as nothing less than a direct attempt at sowing the seeds of revolution in Great Britain. His pamphlet called forth no fewer than thirty-eight replies, of which that written by Thomas Paine was the most successful amongst the partisans of the new movement in consequence of its radical tendencies. Mary Wollstonecraft was in the van of the revolutionary army, and shared with Dr. Priestley the honour of being the first to enter the field. To account for her indignation it should be remembered that Burke had until then been regarded as one of the principal Whig advocates of reform, in connection with his attitude towards the American problem. No one had anticipated this sudden change of tactics, so welcome, though unlooked-for, to King George and to Pitt, and it fairly maddened the champions of reform.

Buckle, in his "History of Civilisation in England", deeply regrets Burke's conduct, which he calls the consequence of an unfortunate hallucination, due to his feelings having temporarily got the better of his Reason. The vehemence of the controversy in question between opponents who were equally sincere and convinced of the soundness of their views, is due to an essential difference in standpoint, leading to opinions which in either case, though containing an element of truth, must be termed one-sided. The thoroughly practical Burke, whose political ideas were the fruit of an experience of nearly half a century, placed himself upon the purely empirical standpoint, resting his arguments upon a basis of sound historical experience, and asserting that the legislator's first aim should be expediency, taught by experience, and not abstract, speculative truth. He points to the difference between political and social principles, which are the outcome of reason; and political practice, which is the product of human nature, and of which reason is but a part. The reformers of the opposing camp took their stand upon a basis of abstract, geometrical reasoning, and persistently refused to consider the argument of expediency. They only regarded the theoretical aspect of the social problem. Both parties recognised the doctrines of human rights and of the popular sovereignty, which were of British growth, having been put forward long before Rousseau by John Locke; but theydiffer in their application of them. With Burke, rights are of an hereditary nature. To him, the constitution is the embodiment both of the rights of the free British citizen, and of the duties of the British subject, an inheritance they derived from their ancestors of 1688, together with the duty of keeping the legacy intact in its general tendencies. It was Burke's firm conviction that a statesman should steer clear of philosophical principles, which an absolute want of adaptability to the exigencies of a special case renders unfit for practice.

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